9th July - 13th July 2009

A Chaplain’s Diary

 

Early July

 

Thursday 9^th July

 

“Where there’s muck there’s money” goes the Yorkshire saying.  It’s certainly true.  Getting rid of rubbish costs money.  I know that Emaya are very efficient at collecting smaller household items, but they won’t move non-domestic stuff or anything larger than three metres by three metres.  Under that size it’s simply a case of phoning 971 764 141, and if our experience is anything to go by, they are usually here within 24 hours.  The problem is that if you put stuff out for disposal, the fairies whisk it away - either under the cover of darkness or when you’re not looking, and then you have to explain to the Emaya men why they’ve come out on a wild goose chase. 

 

Our church hall has accumulated ten years’ of unwanted scrap from the amateur dramatic group that rents our church hall.  As we are having the hall renovated, it was time for a clear out.  It took four men and two lorries to cart the stuff away.  I just couldn’t believe the amount which had been gathering dust over the years, but it’s a lovely feeling when it’s all gone and you can see clear open spaces once more.

 

Friday 10^th July

 

So the producers of the Channel 4 programme A Place in the Sun are looking at making a new series on Majorca which would involve British people moving to the island to set up a business. “Are you and your family planning to leave the UK and start a brand new life abroad?” they ask. Well excuse me, let me inject a note of caution here. I quite regularly get asked a similar question along the lines of, “We’re thinking of moving to Majorca, what do you think?” If I had a euro for every time I’ve been asked that question I would be a very rich priest indeed. I never make any encouraging noises. I tell them to think again and having done that, to think yet again. The problem is people come out here on holiday, they’ve saved up all year and therefore can spend freely, they’re not having to work, have no cares in the world and think that life out here is like that all the time. I say whatever you do don’t burn your bridges behind you and sell up in the UK if you can possibly afford not to. The figures show that 3 out of 4 people who move out here return within 4 years. You still have to get up in the morning, you still have to get the kids off to school and you still have to earn a crust – which is not easy when you see the unemployment figures. Despite the fact that I can’t speak Spanish, for most people it’s absolutely essential if you want to make a go of a business out here. Life is not one long siesta on the beach clutching a gin and tonic in one hand and a blonde in the other. Setting up a business is complicated, tedious and an administrative nightmare. Over the last 8 years I have watched a bar in Cala Mayor change hands five times. New owners arrive, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and full of enthusiasm, hope and expectation. And before you know it they’re heading home on the next plane, broke and disillusioned. Yes some do make it after a lot of hard work and luck but rose-tinted spectacles should certainly be left at home in the UK. I’m sure some will want to disagree with me strongly and it hasn’t been my experience but there again given the nature of my job I’ve been extremely lucky. Our furnished accommodation was sitting there ready for us to move into, there was a car on the drive, a guaranteed salary and a system that was prepared to speed up my residencia and NIF number. Add to that a ready made social circle with regular home leave and I was in clover. I am one of the lucky ones. For everyone else it is sheer damned hard work. A Place in the Sun certainly but come with your eyes wide open and plenty of money in your wallet, ready to work all hours and you just might make a go of it.

 

 

 

Saturday 11^th July

 

My excuse is that I’m linguistically dyslexic.  Well that’s my excuse anyway!  And I rather fear that I shall never master Spanish and certainly not Catalan.  It’s not easy when most of my work and contacts are with English speaking people.  Even when I’m in a restaurant where I’m reasonably proficient in getting to grips with the language, the waiters invariably answer back in English – so why bother?  What I do find mildly amusing however,  is how I’m injecting some Spanish phrases into everyday language.  I’ve heard it happen with other people.  They gabble along in English and then suddenly insert a bit of Spanish without drawing breath or blink of the eyes.  It could be that the bits of Spanish express the intention far better than the English can.  ‘Mas o menos’ somehow has a lovely feel about it.  A sort of vague “more or less” and ‘aqui’ says something that the English word “here” could never express.  And then of course there’s that lovely word ‘maňana’ of which there is no English equivalent whatsoever, swinging as it does between meaning tomorrow or sometime in the distant future, which will probably never arrive!   I’ve always claimed that as long as you have the crucial Spanish words of ‘vino’, ‘tinto’, ‘blanco’ and ‘rosado’ backed up by the word ‘mas’ then there’s nothing at all to fear about living in Spain. 

 

Sunday 12^th July

 

Two years ago our church installed two huge air-conditioning units.  Before that members of the congregation would sit fanning themselves madly as I stoically ploughed my way through the sermon.  When I first arrived I used to think that the faster they fanned, the more they agreed with my erudite exaltations - in the same way that the Nigerian members encourage the preacher as he builds up to a crescendo by shouts of encouraging ‘amen’s at regular intervals.  However I soon came to realise that the top gear wrist action of the fan had nothing to do with the approval of the sermon, but was a polite way of saying, “hurry up”, to the preacher, “we want to go home as it’s so hot in here”. 

 

At the beginning of the summer, our air-conditioning seemed less than efficient and I was blamed for not switching it on either low enough or long enough.  The exterior units to the system are high up on the church roof reached by a complicated route through the chaplain’s house.  Whilst on the roof the other day, I noticed that one extractor fan was blowing out hot air while the other was blowing cold.  One had a long stream of condensation, whilst the other had none.  The penny dropped.  We had obviously got a problem.  Now don’t ask me the technical reason, but it was something to do with gas in the units and half an hour’s work by a specialist engineer solved the problem.  And, as we were still just eight days within the guarantee period, there was no bill.  As I said to the congregation this morning, “after all your moaning for the last few weeks I just hope you all freeze to death now!”

 

Monday 13^th July

 

The General Synod of the Church of England is meeting at York University this weekend.  Yesterday, according to the BBC News, the Synod was debating whether they need to cut back on the number of Bishops.  Basically the argument runs like this.  Over the last forty years the number of parish clergy has been reduced by nearly forty percent but the number of bishops has, if anything, increased, resulting in less Indians but more Chiefs.  It’s the same accusation levelled against both the BBC and the NHS.  Some of the bishops are claiming that, as they are meant to be shepherds and pastors to the clergy and their responsibilities have increased enormously over the years, their role is vital.  For my part, I’m much more cynical.  After all, who needs a shepherd?  At the best they steal your coat and at the worst they eat you.  Or, as one old priest wisely advised me, “always work a full day’s horse ride away from the bishop.”  That’s advice I’ve always taken very seriously and although our bishop lives near Gatwick airport and it’s only two hours’ flight away, it is 1343 kilometres so that seems quite a nice distance between the two of us.

 

 

 

 

 

Fr Robert Ellis is the Anglican Chaplain of Majorca

St Philip and St James Church

Nunez de Balboa 6,

Son Armadans, Palma 07014

Tel: 971 737279

E mail: anglicanpalma@gmail.com

www.anglican-mallorca.org