Cádiz

‘A merry heart does good like medicine: but a bitter attitude dries the bones.’ Proverbs 17:22 (23 is interesting too says Sandy)

From the Rock of Gibraltar to Càdiz is 76 miles, and we travelled these…
Càdiz was founded by the Phoenicians as a trading post in the 7th Century BC and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in western Europe.
A narrow peninsula connected by an isthmus, with the city almost surrounded by sea: the Atlantic Ocean and the Strait of Gibraltar to the southwest and the Mediterranean Sea to the southeast.
During our night there, the Laventers, a characteristic Easterly wind, blew so hard that I thought we were rocking out at sea. The next morning, a little calmer, the ocean still had breaking waves far out to sea!
Ideally, the night before the squares of Càdiz were filled with calm and golden Christmas lights flashing to the rhythm of Christmas music such as: ‘ Last year I gave you my heart but this year I will give it to someone better.’ I think I preferred the less understood Spanish traditional jolly music!
Zero complaints except for the shaking of the wind, but that is part of the time and place parked at the end of an island where all the containers ready for shipping are!

Five paragraphs from Càdiz!

Long walkways by the sea.

Cadiz, almost an island!

The Cathedral and the tree. Christmas market stalls and the gentle, tall palms.

A congenial space with palms and golden arches. Christmas cheer in Cadiz with so much more in most streets.

The unsettled sea. Unsettled by the wind.

Some thoughts with wind:

‘Anger is a wind that blows out the lamp of the mind’.

Robert Green Ingersoll

‘Kites rise higher against the wind not with it.’

Winston Churchill

‘ The fragrance of flowers spread only in the direction of the wind. But the goodness of a person spreads in all directions.’

Chanakya