JUST three days but the sun shone down like honey. That big yellow sun came home in the bowl I brought from Mallorca.
It travelled in a back pack, all done up in bubble wrap from a ceramic shop at the bottom of the Calvary way. You climb up hundreds of steps to reach the little church at the top of the hillside.
Early morning is best. You get the altar and the shady sanctuary and the glorious view from the open door to yourself.
There’s a man who plays a mean theme from the Godfather on his guitar at the top of the steps. You can visit the little church and light a candle for everyone you love.
Then go next door for an ice cream and sit outside, wondering at the runners racing each other up and up and up those hundreds of steps.
“I must get fit and lose a stone,” I say, crunching a large slice of chocolate off my Magnum ice cream.
Ah, manana.
And down again through ancient Spanish streets so narrow a cat could never be swung.
Careful, squeeze yourself up tight against a wall, as yet another car bombs past.
On down to the Roman Bridge – worth seeing; not worth going to see. There’s a hostel nearby and the young people of the world perch on the walls and chat in tongues – it’s a bridge of Babel... Japanese, Irish, German... straight out of an old Benetton ad.
Then back to where the locals sit in the sensible shade, nursing a sherry at an old wooden table outside a bar, and on to the square where waiters wearing T-shirts advertising the Calvary Cafe dart from table to table.
Calvary and cafe do not really go together but neither do day-glo lycra and middle-aged men. Whole armies of them, clad in shocking pink and purple, hobble about in hi-tech cycling shoes.
You can hear Limavady accents meandering out from under those flashy cycle helmets and mirrored sunglasses. The island belongs to them – or at least the Calvary cafe does for a brief time – before each swings a leg over a racing bike and they set off like a squadron of geese, leaving the square eerily still in their wake.
It was a first visit for me. It won’t be a last, I hope.
You can walk for miles along the Spanish shoreline, leaving the souvenir shops with their Kiss me Quick T-shirts behind.
There are pine trees and cacti and the first flowers of spring spilling pink and purple and rose from the balconies of old Spanish villas, shutters set tight against the noonday sun.
In a garden, a dog lies sleeping in a warm corner. There’s an old-fashioned swing – like a tiny swingboat for a toddler. On the walk, the trees dip down low into the water and there’s a little stone jetty on every corner. Walk to the end and gaze into crystal clear water.
Cats meander about like they own the place. One boyo likes nothing better than to snooze in the sun curled up in a flower pot.
If there’s reincarnation, I’m coming back as a cat on Mallorca who shall chase small birds but never catch them and who shall curl up in a flowerpot for a siesta when the fancy takes me.
Just three days, but three days are good for the soul. It’s worth the weary queues at the airport, the coffee that costs an arm and a leg, the shrieking babies on the plane, the tinny music and cheery voices over the tannoy urging you to buy that perfume cheap... going, going, gone!
It’s worth all that for a few hours of peace on a balcony.
The sunshine bowl came from a small ceramics shop in the town.
“Possibly the best ceramics maker in all of the island,” says our guide book.
It’s for making bread with wholemeal flour and sunflower seeds. Tear open the brown paper and the yellow sun beams out.
You know why Robert Graves headed here after the Somme, fell in love with its tranquillity and made it his home? It’s the shimmer of light on early morning water. It’s the fresh sea air, the pine trees on the walkway and the little boats moored on the harbour.
It is an impressionist painting of water and hills and boats. It is Argenteuil by Monet.
Life is to be lived and loved. And you come home and make bread in a big yellow bowl.
