The donkeys are coming into their last month on the field at “Elca Seriu” (the mis-named El Caseriu). They don’t know it yet, but I am already beginning to miss our home as we prepare to move on.
In September 2010 when I arrived here to begin a teaching job, I found a place in the country to rent, with a field on which I could put some donkeys. Then I bought my donkeys who gave birth to foals. Those foals have only ever known life on that field.
The corner of the field in which Morris and Aitana were born in October 2011 will always be a special place for me. They won’t see it again, but in the future I can imagine that I will want to return and see this little corner and remember that magical time when the foals arrived.
We now look forward to a new and more permanent life on a ten hectare property. A three day week for me from September onwards makes the new project even more exciting: Friday to Monday weekends every week, and just teaching Tuesday to Thursday. At last, life is for living, in a place where I have the opportunity to stop and reflect and live at a sensible pace.
The house is called “El Parral” at the moment. It needs renaming and I am trying to think of something suitable: it needs a Franciscan hermitage name. “Carceri” doesn’t work because carceri is plural. “La Verna” is no good because that’s a mountain hermitage and this is a valley. “Porciuncola” is possible but technically that is a church not a hermitage. “San Damiano” possible because I am more influenced by St Clare than St Francis now. Working on it.
I will meet the present owners here on Sunday for a traditional Valenciano meal, as they say goodbye to their summer / weekend home. They have said they will give me the keys next week when the deposit is paid. I will return the hospitality and invite them to come back in a year and see what I have done: they will find a thoroughly developed and flourishing project, with happy donkeys and well tended trees and terraces.
Watch this space…
