Bartomeu and Santa Tecia

Sitges wouldn't be Sitges if it wasn't for the Church of Saint Bartomeu and Santa Tecia.
I had a walk around it this morning and it's cool Baroque interior was a relief from the 32 degree heat outside.
It's been nice to amble. I've bought some books from a stall near the beach and some sort of chickpea dip,  bread and grapes for lunch.
I was given a cruising friendly nod and smile  by a big Scandinavian bear at breakfast
These are nice things to experience when sitting alone.

I am very mindful that a year ago, I was in Sitges but in a very different frame of mind.
It was a hard slog of a holiday where I was trying so hard to keep the grief of a broken relationship
under some sort of control and just walking around a place I knew so well as a couple was painfully melancholic .

Now I feel lighter.
Not whole again ( that will come when I start work and sort out the logistics of sorting a home out)
But certainly lighter.
It's been a tough year.
A crappy job, George and William, ill health, financial shocks, an emotional jacuzzi the size of one of Elton John's. strops , all have battered me down just as I pulled up one bra strap after another but with friends, family, bloggers, a touch of my grandmother's fortitude and a sense of humour which has slowly returned to its sarcastic best,
I do feel hopeful
Hopeful that the shit is, for the most part behind me

I am thinking all this as I sit in Church
Do gays have a patron Saint?
I wonder....anyhow I can hear the screams of the swifts as they circle us overhead and I remembered what I wrote about them last year when I visited

" ......it was sort of  nice to sit by the Church in the setting sun and watch a thousand swifts soar around it's bell towers like a giant swarm of friendly bees."

I still like the analogy