Yield to crossing trees

Friday dawned, and having slept with curtains drawn, the warmth of the sun had not been able to permeate the bedroom. It was, in other words, freezing.
 
I’d gone to bed after midnight, having read and written until I could keep my eyes open no more. I’d struggled to sleep – no doubt the Second Night Syndrome I always associate with jet lag. Consequently, I was only a little surprised to find out it was almost noon.
 
I wandered down to the front and ordered a café con leche, planning to update my blips and answer a few emails. Apparently, however, the gods had other ideas: the whole Internet system was down. “You might have more luck in the centre,” said my waiter, with more than a touch of apology.
 
So, again, off I went. Into El Zoco, and a beautiful little courtyard I found outside The Almond Tree. I thought to ask whether they had Internet this time before buying the coffee, they didn’t. But the poor woman looked so forlorn, I bought one anyway. I considered lingering in the square, but the sound of hee-hawing from the “Pal’s” pub on a lower level reminded me that here, even in the most idyllic places, I was never too far from the few remaining Gammonista, drinking heartily in the noon hour sun. Besides, I wasn’t here for that. I was here to write. So off I walked, balancing my steaming coffee in one hand and my camera in the other.
 
It has to be said that much of the architecture in this area varies from the ugly to the twee (with a few notable exceptions in the older Spanish areas – and the aforementioned courtyard). The area was built in the 70s, I believe, a consequence of Franco’s opening up of Spain to tourism, the advent of Thomas Cook package holidays, and the understandable English urge for warmth, a commodity in rare supply on the home island.
 
Standing alone, ugly it may be, but the sun softens the brutalist edges and the whitewash makes it all bright and cheerful. Above all, the tourists have the warmth and the sun and the cheap alcohol, so architecture on the Costa del Sol is not the priority. That is, I suppose, fair enough.
 
But what the Spanish have understood – and what saves a good many areas – is the importance of trees. The Moors planted orange groves and almond trees and imported ways of cooling down residences that didn’t involve air conditioning or electricity. The Spanish have lived too long with these lessons to forget them. Planting trees in liveable spaces provides shade and shelter. It also prevents flooding in the sudden rainstorms and in winter. If only we could apply this consistently on a wider scale in Canada and Canadian cities. In Ottawa, for example, despite paying lip service to the urban forest – as we pay lip service to many other things, it has to be said, like transit, recycling, inclusivity – trees are seen as a bargaining chip or a luxury. We need 100 units of housing? Take down those trees, no problem. My neighbour’s tree is straddling my property line? You’ve guessed it.
 
I was extremely happy, therefore, on coming back from El Zoco, to climb a set of stairs and find a tree in the middle of the road. Now either the Spanish were more environmentally friendly than I imagined and had built a crossing zone for ambulatory trees (they’re not – they are, among other things, the kings and queens of plastic consumption) or they had refused to cut down this tree when designing the road and had built the road around it. I was most impressed. Either way.
 
So, I wandered back to the apartment with a spring in my step and got down to revising Chapters 1-3 of the novel, the chapters I had written previously to such great little no acclaim. Sometimes I find it harder to review what I have written than to completely rewrite. But looking back on this stuff, I found I had little to change – just reanimating a dead character (and then killing her off again an hour later – she’s worth more to me dead than alive) – and inserting a neighbour into the mix.
 
I had, at one stage of this lengthy birthing process, written around 60,000 words. Then, I deleted it all, convinced that what I had written was worthless. It may have been worthless – or maybe not. In future, I simply have to trust my own voice when I am writing. If there is a market for it, then so be it. If not, then at least there is a legacy of what I have done. I now regret enormously those 60,000 words. That is a frig of a lot to invest in a novel, both mentally and physically.
 
But the gods of writing are not, at least at this moment in time, holding grudges.
 
As darkness fell, I went for a walk along the beach to the Torre de Calahonda, cutting up to go through the restaurant patch on the other side, and down under the highway back towards El Zoco. It was awfully quiet, even for a Friday night. Again, not sure if this is coronavirus quiet or Brexit quiet or whether the tourists have simply not yet arrived.
 
Wandered back, made myself some pasta tossed in olive oil and garlic and got down to some reading. It is surprisingly lonely already; I like my own company, but being this far away from family with no other distractions is tough!