Day 13 - Lazy days

25 December 2021

Breakfast at the Hotel. Nothing open Christmas Day. Quite the spread. Very fine. Take our time. Read. Eat huge quantities.

We chat with family. As the day starts for us, it is finishing for them. I wonder at the day. Some people I know endure this time of year with misery. Running here. There. Trying to make other people happy. Making themselves miserable.

Do what makes you happy. If stress is a choice. Why choose it?

Head out mid-morning for a walk around the beaches. Expected it to be deserted. Busy. Take in the sunshine and mild weather. No plans. No time restrictions. Nowhere to go or be. Just amble around for hours. San Sebastian beautiful.

"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in." - John Muir

I watch the dogs run on the beach. A Dachshund. Trying to run with the other dogs. Twice the effort for half the distance. It tries and keep up. Tries and fails. Why would we selectively breed a dog for centuries with the end result something so ridiculous it cannot run?

‘Dogs are the world’s longest self-serving, ecologically reckless genetic experiment, perpetrated by the world’s first genetically engineering species: us.’ - William Saletan

Keep walking. The end of the promenade.

I look out over the Ocean. I say -

‘This is the Bay of Biscay. Out there is the North Atlantic Ocean. I have never seen the North Atlantic Ocean'

‘Is it? It’s all ocean. All connected isn’t it? It is no different from other ocean, is it? We just give it a name’

‘True’

‘Such a human thing to do. Give a huge body of water a name’ she finishes as we walk on.

We spend the afternoon laying around. The sun coming through the window. Half dozing.

Tonight's wine-

2020 Bodegas Bhilar Blanco Villages (finish the bottle)

2019 Aseginolaza & Leunda Cuvée Las Santas

The food is same as the previous night.

Shell falls asleep early.

I finish the le Carré novel.