Wednesday, September 22, 2010

millionaires, explosions, distances

Feathers beneath the wisteria which climbs above our front door, betray the pigeons which visit the old nest hidden among the leaves. They come there sometimes, " says Heidi who keeps an eye on them from her desk by the window, "They are like millionaires with lots of houses."

Ten explosions follow ten flashes in the blue sky above the church in the centre of Sitges. It is 2 pm and they announce the fiesta of Santa Tecla, which will conclude tomorrow evening with fireworks. People, who unlike us are not used to this practice, start up in alarm, and shade their eyes as they look up into the sky.

As usual this morning, I enjoy looking down from the balcony of our hotel, on the half moon shaped beach. I watch people walking up a down along the sea´s edge and try to work  out the extent of this gentle excercise. How to guess distances? A hundred metres is one guage. And the other is 22 yards, the length of a cricket pitch.

1 comment:

Roderick Robinson said...

The distance from the top of the pitcher's mound to home-plate in baseball is a remarkably similar 60 ft 6 in. though you'd be forgiven for not instinctively applying that theoretical yardstick.