Montserrat

We woke up to another day of clear blue skies, which was a kind of torture in a way, denied access to the trails we came here to walk. But I told myself that I was behaving like a spoiled kid. We were in an astonishingly beautiful location, even if we did have to share it with thousands of tourists from all over the world. We arrived at the museum and art gallery just as it opened and had the place to ourselves for ten minutes or so. It wasn't on our itinerary so we didn't know what to expect. I had no idea we were going to have such an intimate sight of works from the likes of Monet, Renoir, Caravaggio, Pissarro, Picasso, Dali, to name just a few. Looking at some of these paintings evoked incredibly powerful memories for me. I'm not sure I've ever experienced that with such intensity before. It might be because art and painting - as well as photography - is central to the novel I'm writing.

Not being able to go anywhere, I spent most of the day storyboarding the end of my novel. I wasn't sure how it was going to end, but I've been sitting with it for a few years now and this last week I've been trying to think about it more carefully. It all flowed out today while sitting in with numerous coffees in very pleasant sunshine.

At the very end of the afternoon the tourists returned to their coaches or took the rack railway and the cable car back down to the valley. We went to the Basilica and gatecrashed a rehearsal for a Rossini choral piece. The sound was ethereally beautiful. Walking back to our apartment, I noticed that the guards had left their posts at the trailhead. Despite it being a productive and actually rather wonderful day, I still felt trapped and needed to end on a high. I'd been feeling the tug of the mountains for over twenty-four hours and I snapped. I quickly got changed, climbed over the tapes keeping people away from the paths, and went for a run. I took nothing with me so I couldn't possibly be accused of being irresponsible. The days when sparks flew off my trainers on the descents have long gone. 

I was soon granted a sight I almost certainly wouldn't have been if it wasn't for there being nobody about. I turned a corner on a rough path and came face to face with a mature ibex with the most magnificent set of horns. I stopped. It stared at me intensely for a few seconds and then leapt off the path and scampered away across what looked like near vertical cliffs. It was a precious moment. A day which promised to offer nothing but frustration ended up giving me many unexpected rewards.