Peregrino Blog
The Peregrino Blog is as Peregrino itself, exploring as it grows.
April 2012 - Easter and New Life
It has been a really busy 6 months. We have put up the first paddocks for the mares, together with a solid shelter against the mountain weather.
When the weather is beautiful, it is beautiful, but when the wind blows - oh my! There is a reason why our wind-energy companies chose this area for a very large eolic park.
The ladies surprised us. Coming from warm Andalucia, they survived what was a particularly cold winter - we even had a few days of snow - with calm and aplomb. They were not bothered by the rain, and I am persuaded they positively enjoyed the mud.
And the best Easter news is the birth of Serranilla’s new foal. Serranilla, the mother of Bravio, is an absolute darling with a lovely temperament, and just the best as far as being a mother goes.
We name our foals according to the alphabetical custom. Last year was the B’s with Bravio, Bodega and - late in the year - Bendicion. This year’s first Peregrino arrival is Peregino Cristiano. He has a page of his own. Cristiano.
March 2012 - Change is Constant
Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit; Man proposes, but God disposes.
Proverbs 16:9 A man’s heart devises his way but the Lord directs his steps.
January 2012 - Looking Out
Right now I am sitting at my desk, on the second floor of an old-but-nicely-renovated house, which stands on the outskirts of the pueblo. Through the window I can see the chapel/hermitage which is said to stand on the site of an ancient watchtower.
The watchtower is said to have been the origin of the pueblo’s name, coming from the Arabic word Fatorella, meaning a tower. The town is on record as far back as 1228 - it was a walled city, built for defence. I saw a sign on a wall the other day that said ’This wall is part of the wall that stood around the town in 1726.’
It is rural here, with the main crops being almonds and olives. Almost all the people do as we are doing at present - have a farm on the outskirts which is worked during the day, and a place to live in the pueblo.
I do love it here. It is small enough so that I can walk to wherever I want to be - the bank, the chemist, the little farmer’s store, the weekly market. This gives me such a feeling of liberty.
The streets are full of arches which were part of the original town defence walls, and there are houses built over them on streets that twist and turn, down little areas of steps and odd corners. I am still finding my way :.
So lots to do, lots to discover - and a winter to meet before long.
Dec 2011 - Christmas Thoughts
It is Christmas, and somewhere in the press and on the internet, someone will inevitably raise the old ’Why should we celebrate Christmas?’ debates.
Christians and non-Christians alike seem to be intent on beating more drums than the Little Drummer Boy. One that is loudly beaten is the contention that ’Christ wasn’t born on Dec 25th, this is nothing more than a midwinter solstice, sanitised for the church’ .
Historically, yes, it probably did start off as a pagan festival.
But then again, the church has not given Christmas an easy time either: banned by the Catholics in the Middle Ages; banned by the Anti-Catholics in the time of the Puritans in England. Even politics climbed in and it was banned in America because they said it was too English!
And frankly I think 90% of what we see masquerading as Christmas today - with all the HoHoHos and Santa Clauses and politically correct Seasons Greetings - is even more pagan than the original.
There is a philosophy-in-two-lines snippet that says:
’Two men look out through prison bars
One sees darkness, the other, stars.’
I choose to look past the darkness of men’s quibbles, and see the the stars:
The wonder of Jesus Christ’s birth, the reason He came, the gifts He brought.
Wishing you a Christ-Filled Christmas
Sept 2011 - Quieter Reflections
In the past few months there have been so many things happening here, one after right another - with no respite. We have been busy packing and finally the move is really happening.
And I have had an increase in that ’itchiness’ you feel when you know God has something in process.
While undergoing the itchiness, I cannot claim to have been the perfect example of saintly patience. I was like a horse stamping at a horsefly - unable to dislodge the itch, unable to discover the root cause of it, carrying on with everyday life and doing what had to be done, without being fully at ease.
I did take it to Him - long nights asking ’What am I doing and Why?’ ’Is what I am doing having any value?’ and above all asking to have purpose, and to have that purpose revealed.
I have been talking for some time of writing again, and the websites have equipped me with strong HTML and CSS skills, as well as the understanding of SEO and the web. They have kept me up to date with writing, and encouraged me to venture into art.
Today is the 20th anniversary of the web. Hard to imagine a world without web, isn’t it, yet in only 20 years it has transformed all our lives - and is another indicator of how pertinent and prophetic is Bible Word.
And in typical and delightful God-fashion the answer didn’t come in flashes of lightning and writing on the clouds. It came in a soft flow in those same long nights and the equally long days, as I kept on keeping on.
I would move ahead as I thought He was guiding for that day - though I did not always feel any itch-relief at day’s end. Then one night, just a short while ago, in one of those late reflection times, there was a serenity - and no itch - and I was quietly persuaded that I had arrived. Not at the end, but at the beginning of the next Phase.
Next day I found -by the God-guided serendipity that does these sort of things - something I wrote almost exactly a year ago to the day. ’Peregrino is the centre point of our focus.’ It is still the centre of our focus. It is to be farming as God intended. A place of peace. A place for children. A place of joy.
All things do work together for those who love the Lord and are led according to His purpose, and I think-hope-pray that we are seeing that purpose getting clearer and closer.
August 2011 - Good Morning from Camp-Getting-There
A ramble against bureaucracy
The long-awaited and equally long-strung-out move of Canovites plus horses to one modest patch of Catalunian mountain has been unbelievably retarded by paperwork from an even more retarded system of paper pushing.
The caricatured fictional nightmare of totalitarian government by grey-suited, grey-minded pen-pushers, dictating permission for every stop, comma, dot, has become reality.
But why did it have to materialise in my space?
I cannot believe that a society that has for centuries been strongly agricultural and rooted in family and small enterprise, can be so utterly disempowered in the course of one generation. Franco had a lot to answer for, but he did not do this to us: it was the post-Francoites who bogged us down in pettiness, and magnified that by giving jobs-in-government to every potential voter and his uncle, whether they be capable or not.
Under the excuse of an ideology, blinkered urbanites who have never so much as seen a fresh egg became the mini-dictators of an inefficient and incompetent socialism, ruling paper kingdoms, and choking the essentials of rural existence.
I sit with the results of this in front of me.
- We are a self-sufficient family.
- Every member has paid their dues and their taxes.
- We sow back into society what and where we can.
- We own our property.
- We are not asking one cent or or one subvention from Spanish or European bureaucracy.
In order to move our own horses onto our own piece of property, in the age of electronic communication, and after filling in countless pieces of paper and paying exorbitant charges, we now have to provide physical pieces of paper, presented in person to the abstract office rats 1 000km away.