A quiet day as I stayed at home only going out to check the time of the C of E service at the multi-faith church in La Siesta for tomorrow morning. It is at 11.15. They hold services at various times for Church of England, Catholics and Evangelical Church all in English and a German service in which denomination I do not know.
At the same time I wondered up to La Siesta shops and took a coffee and some sort of liqueur. La Siesta has a number of shops, bars, restaurants and a petrol station. I went into the smaller of the bars, called San Remo I think, one elder Spanish man in there. One Spanish man came in there for a drink, otherwise empty.
I passed the Chinese restaurant that my father frequents. It was packed with people. I don’t know if they were English or not but they were all pale skinned, many looked English and the room, itself clean and ordered, had that particular colouring that I associate with a group of English people of a certain age. It is cream, pale, no vibrant colours anywhere, neutral but aggressively so. I thought as I looked in that the English are here with the other, the foreigner, the Chinese, the neighbour who asks nothing, who creates no fear, who is neutral like them. No danger. No difference.
We’ll eat there tomorrow evening or Monday.