View from my window this morning. The Sisters have hung washing to dry on the agapanthus plants in the garden.

This reading arrived in my inbox this morning courtesy of Richard Rohr:

“The ego seems to find its energy precisely by having something to oppose... When the mind can judge something to be inferior, we feel superior. We must recognise our constant tendency toward negating reality, resisting it, opposing it, and attacking it in our minds. This is the universal addiction....

Mmm... that rang a bell.

The procession starts from the front door of the convent complete with fireworks and bagpipes.

There’s a procession of the Virgin this morning leaving from the front gate of the Convent de San Palayo. Having followed so many processions in Valencia I’ve become a fan.

We walk for an hour through the streets accompanied by loud fireworks, drums, bagpipes and tall beeswax candles. I leave them at a roundabout in the suburb of Santa Clara.

After a coffee break, I head to the Museum of the Galician People. Stunning…

A untouched Romanesque church with one or two later extravagances.

Housed in an old monastery it has a fantastic triple spiral staircase, a beautiful Romanesque church and a remarkable collection of artefacts documenting traditional Galician life, which seems to have been intact until the early C20th.

The remarkable triple spiral staircase- each stair lands at a different gallery of the museum.

Just as the developed West has to transition to a more sustainable, low carbon economy here it is.

Basketmakers, clog makers, potters, farmers, weavers, stonemasons; manufacturing for society without a scrap of plastic or a drop of crude oil being combusted. It’s truly humbling. The skill levels are astounding.

But it was a hard life without frills or surplus and thousand emigrated to find an easier life.