Praia da Falésia – Travel stories

(Early morning pilgrim on Praia da Falésia)

When I wasn’t watching the waves down at the beach I was watching where I walked for interesting treasure. The sea provides plenty of gifts if you keep your eyes open for them.

(Sanded piece of shell)

I love broken shells not the sharp edged ones, I like the one that have been in the sea awhile. The ones that have been sanded… by the sand. There are plenty here. Their rough edges are smooth and each one is a different shape.

(Can you see the sea glass?)

There are also little pieces of sea glass on this beach. They are harder to spot in the beginning but soon they are very hard to miss. It’s like anything you are interested in. If you like a particular make of car you will see it wherever you go. We notice every motorhome or camper van on the road. I see storks and now I notice sea glass.

(Close up)

I wonder could I use this for contentment? We humans have a tendency to notice what is going badly for us, what we’re not good at, what we should be doing. This is not contentment. Even if we can see the good in others we find it difficult to see the good in ourselves. We tend to notice what we didn’t do on our to do list or if we get 80% in a test we are disappointed about the 20%. Or we wonder why only 6 people liked our photo, instead of being amazed that 6 people took the trouble to tell us they liked our photo. This behaviour does not produce contentment.

(Footprints of contentment)

How about if we looked for only the good in ourselves? Like looking for sea glass. My sea glass looks like an hour of photography or a thousand words of writing or or a nap when I’m tired or time in nature or a tidy kitchen or a 6am start. When I look at my day with eyes only for my sea glass I don’t notice the things I didn’t do. What if contentment was more than enough?

What does your sea glass look like? Mairead.

(The sandy path to the beach…)

I thought when we were in that sea view spot at the Municipal campsite of Setúbal that there was only one paradise in Portugal. We found another one. In the Algarve and it’s called Praia da Falésia. I want to stay here for ever… or three days. One or the other.

(…and the steps down to the beach)

It’s way down on the coast just a short sandy walk to the beach. It is very hot, top temperatures 43 degrees but I am not roasting to death because they have great breeze here too. Also, I have a new routine, I chase the shade around the van. It does mean I sometimes have to sit with the neighbours (or very, very close to them) but we are making it work. By we I mean the neighbours and I. Denis on the other hand has acclimatized and he’s happy to work away inside drinking cold coffee.

(There might be danger)

I’ve had no problem getting out of bed at 6am while we are here to trot down to the beach and wait for the sun to come over the cliff. There’s very few people on the beach at this time and I’m already recognising the regulars. The walkers and joggers who prefer their exercise with some shade. My pattern is to just sit on the sand and listen to the waves. They come in and go out as I watch. I take pictures and little videos to remind me later when I’m not here.

(It’s a sign)

This waves in and waves out makes me think of a theater. Not an actual theatre but the virtual one I’m sitting in behind my eyes. Every day there’s a new show or maybe the same show has a long run. Eventually every show ends and another one starts. The show in front of my eyes now is the water moving in and moving out. The music is the roar of the sea.

(See the little sun umbrellas?)

Some shows are great fun, some are hard work and others are just confusing. Some shows I should just get up and leave. Can I leave a show that’s really bad? Would that be rude? Some shows end too soon, others at just the right time.

(Remember when making sun castles was something you did?)

Every day a show comes to my theatre… I can either enjoy it or hate it. It doesn’t matter there’ll be another show along later. People walk into my show and walk out of my show and there’ll be more walking later. Nothing lasts, everything changes and it’s all for me. Just me. My show is just for me.

Yours is just for you, Mairead.