Beyond The Veil - The sad art of turning a blind eye

*Bloggers Note: Please consult the useful glossary by scrolling down to the bottom.


Veils, curtains and frontiers, divisions and barriers of different kinds; many of them have something in common. While some are physical and can be touched or at least seen from a distance, others exist purely in the thoughts of the creator, but few are really what you might term impenetrable.

The word "veil" inspires a mental picture of diaphanous cloth, silk or damask, a delicate fabric of one or many colours wafting in a perfume-scented dusk. A veil can be used to separate the mundane reality of life from the desirable yet unobtainable - just think of all those clichéd movies from the fifties and sixties with their swashbuckling mariners lusting after exotic Oriental veil-clad dancers. A veil can give a glimpse into another, forbidden world, but weave it from a coarser thread and it can also create an illusion of separation, of distance between us and what we want to see and something on the other side that is not quite as desirable.

Maybe by now you're wandering where I am going with this rather obvious metaphor. So to raise the veil a little, let's take a brief trip through two starkly contrasting aspects of Spanish society. Had Marx been alive today, he might be saying that celebrity gossip, not religion, is the opium of the people. Gossip magazines and programmes are not of course unique to Spain, but they are up there, loud and brash, in-your-face, as blatant and unavoidable a part of modern Spain as bullfighting and corruption.

I often ask my students if they watch programmes like the excruciating "Corazon*" and inevitably they throw up their hands in horror: "No way!" "Really...?" I probe further with a vaguely cynical smile. "Well, maybe, if there's nothing else on..." These juicy tidbits are like the proverbial forbidden fruit; you just can't resist nibbling away at the buffed and plasticised lives of the pijos*, the elite and the famous-for-being-famous with their flippant affairs and tedious separations, their time on the beach or the yacht, the first day at school for their children... even though after you've stuffed yourself to the gills with such sickly fare you are often left with that feeling you get when you have eaten something vividly coloured that is full of refined sugar and an arm-long list of additives with names that sound like industrial waste.

Worse still are those fly-on-the-wall series that follow the day-to-day lives of people like "Alaska and Mario"* or "The Kardashians"*. I personally find it hard to believe that anybody would - willingly and in their right minds - indulge in such visual equivalents to what I imagine the experience of drinking bilge water to be like. But then, there is seldom any accounting for taste.

Enough said about celebrity gossip for the moment. Tragically, but as in too many countries around the world, Spain is not protected from the evils of child abuse and child murder. In the last few years, a number of shocking cases have occupied the headlines. One of these is that of José Breton, a father from the Andalucian city of Cordoba who murdered his two young children and incinerated their bodies. Closer to home there is the little boy who was thrown to his death from the window of a high-rise flat in Granada, the victim of a feud between families.

I am not a parent and there are times when I get more than a little annoyed at having to endure the over-indulged misbehaviour of children while trying to enjoy a civilised meal in a local restaurant. My middle-aged grumpiness aside, Spanish families dote on their youngsters to an extent that I was not accustomed to seeing in the UK. It is, therefore, an uncomfortable eye-opener when a child is physically chastised by its parent in a public place. This, of course, is a purely hypothetical situation. Of course.

But before the accusatory finger is raised and the words, "Why didn´t you say something?" are hurled, consider this. How many of us turn a blind eye to what is going on around us, in plain view if we choose to see it? We don't want to get involved: our lives are too hectic, it's not our business, we might become victims of persecution ourselves. Our justifications are as numerous as they are ultimately unjustifiable. Yet who hasn´t done it? Who hasn´t pulled the veil over their eyes, leant on their hands, averted their gaze? And how many warning signs go "unnoticed", and how many more José Bretons has the world spawned because we so often choose to immerse ourselves in the trivia on our side of the veil, rather than confront the issues that will not go away simply because we collectively pull a curtain between them and ourselves?

After all, it's far easier to watch Kim Kardashian getting a $7,000 hairdo than it is to save a life. But it would be grossly unfair to point individual fingers of accusation. This sadness is the collective responsibility of society, a media that deals up tasteless, nutrient-free pap, and the modern mantra of "Pass the Buck."




Glossary of Terms: 

Corazon:  A televised celebrity gossip magazine.
Alaska and Mario: A celebrity couple; Alaska came to prominence as a singer and part of the new-wave 1980s "Movimiento Madrileño".
The Kardashians: A wealthy celebrity family, primarily famous for being famous.
Pijo/pija: Spanish pejorative meaning posh, snobby, rich and/or spoilt.

Alfacar Autumn

A week or two back my neighbour, a Master Baker, came to my door with a gift. We'd chatted in the town square a few days before, he asking me as usual when I was going to give him some English lessons before the topic turned to torta de La Virgen, a sweet pastry that is traditional in these parts and especially at this time of year. In fact, I have lived in Spain for long enough that the association between torta and Autumn has become pretty well established.

What he presented me with was a vast oval pastry, apparently several yards across, topped with crunchy sugar and filled with a rich and sticky concoction made of walnuts, spices, raisins and the key ingredient, cabello de angel. This latter is a conserve made by boiling down the flesh of a particular variety of squash with sugar to make a substantially textured clear jam. When all of these components come together in the hands of a true maestro like Pepe the baker, the result is heavenly.

Given the altitude here, not to mention the fact that the year is hurtling towards its termination, one might be forgiven for wondering exactly where Autumn is hiding itself. Even the imminent Autumn fair in the centre of Granada, where torta de La Virgen by the hundreds go on sale (none, I'm sure, as good as the one I was recently gifted!) does not seem to be enticing Autumn to show its full colours.

I live at an altitude that falls just short of that of the highest mountain in England and from my home I have a fine view of the Sierra Nevada, the loftiest peaks in Spain if you don't include Teide in the Canary Islands. Forget the proximity of the Costa Tropical, Torremolinos and Marbella - this is real upland country. Granada boasts a ski centre (the most southerly in Europe) and a unique alpine fauna and flora with species of plant and butterfly that are found nowhere else in the world.

But try telling that to the thermometer. The nights are a little fresher and it is possible to use bedding again after a long summer of enforced nudity, but during the day the heat builds up to an uncomfortable something in the high 20s or low 30s. And it is a pernicious heat pervades ground, air, everything. Come the early hours of the evening it has created an oppressive mantle that wraps itself around you until the dark hours are well advanced. You are listless, yet restless. You can´t settle to much, you find yourself wondering from room to terrace and dreaming wistfully of frosty mornings and torrential downpours.

This is not the complete story, because in reality the season is getting on with its work regardless of the heat. I have never seen so many pomegranates on the tree just down the lane from home, and there is a bumper crop of huge, fragrant quinces (membrillos) while the persimmons (kakis in Spanish) are still green but likewise are set to break records when they turn that unique translucent golden orange and are briefly edible before turning to mush. Walnuts, too, and since I discovered just how good this super-food is for you I have been filling bags with them and spreading them out on the terrace to dry. Hopefully, they and all their wonderful oils, vitamins, minerals, proteins and antioxidants will see me through the winter.

The birds too are abiding by their age old imperative and finally it seems that the last of the swallows and house martins have departed. Parties of starlings feed in the valley below the terrace in the afternoon, flocks of dazzling bee eaters flash their colours briefly as they pass through, and now and then a pair of booted eagles revolves in casual, lazy circles overhead as the great raptors head south for a winter vacation in Africa. As for the smaller creatures, the influx of several species of mantis (welcome, fascinating guests to the living room!) is over and I am sure that the rather dozy gecko I saw attached to the wall just outside the patio doors a few nights back will soon be tucking itself away, deep in a crevice until next May is well advanced.

Soon, I have no doubt, the fogs will rise each morning from the Granada Vega, then the clouds will come down from the mountains to meet it and Alfacar will be trapped in the middle, the soggy and unappetising filling of some vast meteorological torta de La Virgen.

So perhaps I should try a little harder to enjoy this Verano de Membrillo (quince summer - the Andalucian verson of an Indian summer) while it lasts.    

Ferrari Versus Ferraria

I am one of those exceptionally fortunate people who owns a Ferraria.

I keep my Ferraria on my east-facing terrace here in Andalucia. Rather, I have a whole collection of Ferrarias, much to my extreme joy. They remain largely under cover during the chilly and unpredictable Granada winter but come Spring - wow and gosh and yippee! They're a thrill a minute.

Oh... apologies if you are scratching your head and wondering about the glaring spelling mistake. Did you think I meant Ferrari? If so, then perhaps I had better clarify something.

A Ferrari is a very expensive and luxurious Italian sports car, typically available in red and not much else besides - or so I believe because I don't really know a lot about such matters.  A Ferraria, on the other hand, is a plant. To be precise, a curious South African relation of the globally familiar irises.

We´ve established some basic differences between the two, then. Is it really necessary, therefore, to labour the point? Well... yes. I think so, at least.

Plant first, car second. A Ferraria sleeps under the soil all summer, safely tucked away from the baking heat in the shape of a curious stack of storage organs known as corms. But come the Autumn rains, an incredibly complex series of biochemical and other processes (happenings that we still barely understand), creates a miracle. The miracle of growth. Of life. And, depending on the species, the waking Ferraria produces a set of linear or strap-shaped leaves that stack one-upon-the-other throughout the winter, burgeoning, expanding, forever changing if you have an eye to observe and a spirit to wonder at this fascinating process.

Then the flowers. Extraordinary. As dark and as lustrous as a moonless night or pale as silk shot through with the first light of dawn, and a host of exquisite colours and combinations of colours at all points in-between. Petals that flounce and crisp and curl so outrageously that a flamenco dress looks like a crumpled rag in comparison.

The Ferrari (that's the car, in case you'd forgotten), either goes or doesn´t go. And that's all that it does (or, for a great deal of the time, all that it doesn´t).

The Ferraria,  depending on the species, can be picked up for a couple of euros/dollars/pounds on eBay.

The Ferrari - apparently (I don´t have the details to hand) - will probably cost you anything along a steeply ascending scale that rockets upwards from a mere $140,000.

The Ferraria is, I would imagine, completely unknown to the vast majority of the world´s inhabitants.

The Ferrari, thanks to the all-pervasive and insidious entity that is Western culture, is undoubtedly an iconic representation of uber-wealth, style and exclusivity familiar to billions across the globe - just possibly with the exception of the residents of North Sentinel Island and a few as-yet unviolated scraps of Amazonia and New Guinea.

The wild Ferraria, depending on species, is under serious threat along with its astonishingly bio-diverse and breathtakingly beautiful southern African habitat. Once gone, it is gone for eternity.

The Ferrari can be recreated at any moment according to whim and wealth.

What to buy your loved one, then, as a token of your undying love, a representation of love that will outlast this brief mortal sojourn? Ferrari versus Ferraria? The car, or maybe  (in your loved one´s name) an acre of the most exquisite flower-rich land on earth, to be cherished and protected in-situ and in perpetuity?

Dilemmas, dilemmas. I'll leave you to ponder on what we truly value, and why, as I potter around my humble terrace and spend a few minutes of pure joy as I contemplate the emerging shoots of my little collection of Ferraria plants and think of the priceless floral extravaganza to come.

The Long Hard Slope

In Spain it's known as La Cuesta de Enero - The January Slope. After the Christmas lights come down and the wrapping paper has been stuffed into bin bags and tossed into the nearest rubbish skip along with the congealed remnants of whatever unfortunate beast has been sacrificed to grace the festive feast, January awaits us with her icy embrace and whispers frostily in our ear; "Check your bank balance, darling - it's time for a reality check."

The true nature of this reality check is that, for many of us, The January Slope is something of a myth. It would be closer to the mark to call it a February, March, April, May and Etcetera Slope. If you have ever gone through a period of reduced income with no clear light at the end of the tunnel, you'll know of what I am speaking. As a teacher of English as a foreign language I may be fulfilling a vital role in aiding the future economic security of my students, but I am also a member of a notoriously underpaid and undervalued profession. Times are tough; reduced hours make for personal austerity measures that leave little to spend on the small day-to-day luxuries and none whatsoever for the more substantial ones, those day trips and holidays that even now after years of La Crisis, many take for granted. Getting from one end of the month to the other is like vaulting across a chasm with a pole that barely spans the gap.

Personal woes aside, this part of Spain has been hit especially hard by the economic downturn and there are countless families and individuals for whom each new month is a painful hike to the top of a stony slope, only to find that another awaits them over the horizon, then another and another. Among young men in the Province of Granada, the unemployment rate stands at around a third, and many of this generation have no prospects of ever finding a way out of the shadows. They are the Ni-Nis, with no education and no job, and although we must take personal responsibility for our life choices, what realistic, viable and long-term futures are there for these young men to whom local councils can at best offer a temporary contract cleaning the streets so that they can pay a little national insurance and claim their unemployment benefit?

Over the heads of many homeowners hangs another doom, that of desahucios or evictions. Although many banks have been criticised for their draconian approach to families who cannot afford to pay the mortgage, the evictions continue. And it is not only in Greece that the threat of eviction has led desperate individuals to go that final desperate step and take their own lives.

There is money in Alfacar and in Granada. I have visited some truly palatial residences which have taken my breath away; huge edifices with lounges the size of aircraft hangars, sweeping driveways and electronic security, Olympic-sized pools and acres of patio. They seem to belong to a different world and, behind their high rails and dense cypress hedges, they do indeed have an air of being insulated from the grind that is normal daily life for so many.

A stone's throw away in spatial terms from such material security, but a world away in every other sense are the people I see on the streets of Granada everyday, sitting in doorways wrapped up as best they can against the intense winter cold, with a few carrier bags of possessions or a small case, a plastic cup on the pavement in front of them and a plea written on a piece of cardboard that might read something like this:

"I am from Asturias. I have lost my job and my house, and I have two children to feed. Please help me."

While there are undoubtedly organised begging rings at work in the city and it can be difficult to decide who are the real victims of hardship and who, the scammers, there are without any doubt many genuine cases. So, what options are there for those who have lost out in the economic struggle? There is the self employment route - but when you are earning perhaps 700 euros a month and the State astonishingly demands 300 euros in national security from autonomous workers, where is the incentive to venture down this risky road? How can you pay the rent and the bills and buy food and clothes on the ridiculous residue that the State leaves you with?

If trying to earn an honest living is simply not viable there is another route, and that is to earn what one can in the so-called black economy. While I obviously draw a very firm line between the provision of legitimate goods and services and anything totally unacceptable involving theft, drugs and forced prostitution, this is something I neither condone nor condemn because, regardless of the illegalities, earning in this way makes the difference between sink or swim for countless thousands of people on the breadline.

And however the Tax Office might huff and puff about loss of earnings for the Government coffers, there are far greater evils in society than gleaning a dishonest buck or two. For all the endless political one-upmanship and all the jazzy music with which this or that politician is welcomed on stage at the latest party rally to regurgitate the usual tired old sound bites relating to growth and collective responsibility, there are still far too many people for whom survival in the here and now is literally a matter of counting every cent. 





   

Universiade Granada 2015 ...... What Universiade?

Of course, I hardly need to mention this. All of you winter sports fans around the world will be riveted to the thrilling winter sports action from the globally renowned event that is currently being transmitted live from Granada to every corner of the globe.

I beg your pardon? What did you say? You have never heard of the Universiade? But, but, but... (splutter of indignation)... it is (quote) "one of the great international sports events" and (quote) "second only to the Olympic Games" in terms of prestige.

You're absolutely certain that you've never heard of it? Somewhat incredulous though I am, I guess I will have to fill you in. In its various manifestations, the Universiade is an international sports competition for students, one of which is the Winter Students World Championships. The 27th Winter Universiade is currently taking place in - yes, you've guessed it, Granada. Starting on February 4th, the event lasts eleven days and has drawn more than 2,500 participants from no less than fifty countries to compete in a variety disciplines including artistic ice skating, snowboarding, Alpine skiing, ice hockey and curling.

Fifty participating countries! Surely, then, there cannot be a single person in Granada who is unaware of its existence? Think again. As a teacher of English as a second language, many of my students are studying, or have studied, at the University of Granada, a seat of learning with a prestigious faculty of sports science and one that is closely involved with the Universiade. More than this, the majority of my students are born and bred here. Yet when I recently asked them what they knew about it, roughly two thirds had never even heard of the Universiade.

Okay. Winter sports are not everybody's cup of tea. Surely, though, such a major event must be attracting enormous national and international media coverage?

Think again. The hour-long afternoon news programme on Spanish national television devotes what is, to my way of thinking, an excessive 20 minutes or more to sports. The vast majority of this time is taken up by the unhealthy obsession with every last trivial syllable uttered by every key football manager/trainer in the country. Yesterday - Saturday - was no exception. And I'm sure you have already guessed what comes next. Not a mention of the Universiade.

Sadly, it seems that the Granada Universiade of 2015 was doomed to oblivion long ago, and a great part of the responsibility for this lamentable indifference has to rest in the hands of the local administration. Even though I am not a great fan of sports in general, I recognise the enormous role that sport plays in promoting health, team values and international cooperation - this latter at a time in our history when jihadists and frightening dictatorships such as that of North Korea are striving to achieve exactly the opposite.

It figures, then, that the City Council has been presented with a marvellous opportunity to focus the world's attention on a part of Spain with a fascinating history, a priceless cultural heritage and a venerable university tradition. In addition, at a time when the city is desperate to drag itself out of an economic quagmire and promote itself as a major tourist destination, this event would seem like the publicity equivalent of manna from heaven.

But Granada has got it wrong again. A Metro system that the city doesn't need, is years behind schedule and millions of euros over budget... an inability to protect the historic Albaycin neighbourhood from graffiti and decay (thus threatening its World Heritage Site status), the inexorable erosion of the fertile farmlands of the Vega as it is swallowed up by ugly suburban and industrial sprawl... perhaps the failure to capitalise on the Universiade is not surprising when viewed in the broader context.

Well done, Granada. The proverbial gift horse must be shaking his head in despair... 
  

Devious Pete and The Great Leaf Robbery

Agatha Christie, eat your heart out...

Sunrise does not come early at this time of year and being shielded by mountains to the east, it arrives even later in Alfacar. Even so, those welcome morning rays flooded in through my bedroom window just before the church bell struck nine o'clock today, a welcome sign that Spring is preparing to stir all those tightly wrapped buds and dormant shoots into action.

Realistically speaking, the first clear signs that the season is turning don't appear until later in the month when the almonds begin to blossom. That is a marvellous sight which I'm sure I'll be sharing with you when it happens. But the high levels of winter sunshine here do mean that it is possible to keep some outside windowsill plants in flower all year round. The mainstay are the Pelargoniums which - if they don't succumb to the dreaded alien geranium butterfly which has become such a nuisance here - can happily survive and flower in sub-zero temperatures as long as they get plenty of sun.

Cyclamen, both big and small, are equally resilient and keep showing off their colours all through the colder months, whether they are in pots or troughs or planted out in gardens. But it is another winter bloomer that captured my heart shortly after I came to live in Spain and has become a permanent fixture with me, not to mention a source of great cheer when life is at its lowest post-festive ebb. For gardeners and especially for bulb fanatics, it is one of those "must have" plants. In fact, this flower was to be responsible for my temporary but shameful descent into the murky world of criminal activity!

Lachenalia bulbifera.

This is Lachenalia bulbifera, one of the Cape Hyacinths from South Africa. As the name suggests, it is distantly related to the hyacinths and bluebells but the plants in this relatively small genus produce flowers in an astonishing variety of colours and forms from golden yellow to an almost surreal turquoise. And of course, our flaming beauty with its masses of waxy tubular flowers tipped with green and blue and a dash of yellow pollen. As soon as I saw this lovely plant, flowering in profusion on windowsills and in patio pots all around the town, I knew that I had to have some too.

But how to achieve this? I had never seen them for sale in shops or garden centres, so I was going to have to resort to more drastic measures.

Yes, I am afraid that I resorted to a little petty thievery! This is not quite so despicable as it sounds, as I had previously read that it was possible to reproduce this plant from leaf cuttings, a rather unusual method of propagation for a bulb. So, one dark and drizzly evening, hooded to conceal his identity, Devious Pete the infamous leaf thief set out to pilfer said greenery, armed with a plastic bag marked "Loot" and a whole load of audacity.

Never fear, oh law abiding citizens - I was very discrete and only removed a few leaves which on my return home, were duly potted up with nobody the wiser about my brief sorty into the criminal underworld. And sure enough, when they died down later that year, I emptied the pot to discover a host of fat little white bulbs. These were planted up again in the Autumn and the following January, they flowered for the first time.

Now, five years on, I have eight pots filled with these gorgeous brilliant red beauties. They multiply each season and bloom for weeks on end, happily surviving the cold as long as they are in a bright and sheltered position - indeed, they actively dislike high temperatures and will repay you for such well intentioned pampering by wasting away.  

So, who says that crime doesn't pay..!

(PS: In stereotypical Cockney accent: I am now a completely reformed character - erm, yeah, honestly...).         

The Rise and Fall of the Arco de Somera

This blog post is dedicated to our lost heritage, great and small, wherever it may be.

Sometime towards the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth, a stone archway was constructed across a narrow alleyway in the Andalucian town of Alfacar, and above it, a store room with a narrow balcony off to one side, a tall shuttered window, and a tiled roof to protect it from the elements. Nobody knows the names of those who constructed it, nor whether they went about their work cheerfully and stood back to look at the results with pride, or if they grudgingly hauled the stones and timbers into place while dreaming of a better life elsewhere.

 

Arco de Somera, Alfacar.

However it came into being, it endured. Over the years and the decades the plaster cracked and the timbers weathered. The searing heat of midsummer rippled in the alleyway, the fogs of Autumn made of the arch a forbidding dark maw, and winter snows muffled the sounds of doors and windows being closed tight to seal out the cold. Repairs were undertaken, fallen tiles replaced, owners came and went. And still it endured.

A multitude of voices were heard beneath its span and from the windows and gallery that overlooked the narrow street. Voices of infants bawling in their cots and mothers scolding their children, voices of merchants and tradesmen, voices speaking in Arabic, Hebrew, Castillian. Kisses were shared between lovers sheltering from the rain, whispered secrets never to be known beyond this narrow private place, harsh words of unforgiveness and a thousand other human dramas left their echo in the air and their imprint on the stone. Homecoming adventurers passed through the arch, made rich by plundered Aztec treasures from the Americas during Spain's magnificent Golden Century. The weary tread of soldiers returning from war in the Low Countries echoed in its confines. A hundred newly wedded couples made merry as they passed under the arch and into a new and unknown adventure of life, and a hundred sombre funeral corteges left behind them a hushed solemnity of doffed hats.

Into the 20th century and times of fear and dread came to the town. Civil War, neighbour set against neighbour in the madness of political strife. Night after night, gunshots reverberated through the alleyway from the nearby hills as the Nationalists executed their prisoners and threw the corpses into mass graves. There were years of repression, arrests, assassinations, and tears of pain and loss were shed in the gloom of the arch.

Then came modernisation. Electrical cables crisscrossed the alleyway, and the first television sets brought tantalising visions of other worlds to the town. Democracy came, and with it, new hopes and new challenges. At some point, the arch and its ancient storeroom were designated as worthy of preservation; a marker on a metal post was erected at the mouth of the narrow street. This was something precious, something that the authorities deemed worthy of protecting against the onslaught of the construction boom that was devouring the heart of old Alfacar.

But the centuries had not keen kind to the Arco de Somera. Mortared walls cannot endure forever without attention, timbers crack and sag then give way under the slip and slump of crumbling masonry. Yet nothing was done. It is true that in times of economic crisis, the protection of ancient buildings is not a priority when you have to put food on the table. Yet it seems that those same authorities that had once recognised the arch as noteworthy, were now turning their backs on its increasingly deeperate plight.

 

The Arco de Somera today.

And so to 2013. Finally, the storeroom that had survived the centuries was unable to hold up any longer against the persecution of age, nature and neglect and it began to collapse into the alleyway, a dangerous situation that put everybody passing below at risk of injury. Who knows if even then what remained could have been conserved by a rapid intervention. Whether the owners approached the relevant bodies and requested their help to preserve one of the last, iconic fragments of the town´s fascinating history, I do not know. Bot one day, the alleyway was closed to the public and the storeroom was pulled down. The rubble was carried away in a skip, to be dumped who knows where. Five hundred years of passion and joy and sorrow and life and death, thrown onto a rubbish heap and forgotten.

The bare skeleton of the archway survives, capped off with ugly grey cement. The marker remains too, but who now would go out of their way to visit these sad remnants that today speak eloquently of our disregard for the past? And lest I be accused of singling out Spain in this respect, this is a scenario that is repeated a thousand times every day across the world, where the little treasures of vernacular architecture are being lost because they are supposedly too expensive to maintain, while at the same time, multi-billion pound/euro/dollar excrescences of metal and concrete are being frenetically thrown up in a wild crusade to rid our towns and cities of character and atmosphere.

Rest in peace, Arco de Somera. You live on only in paintings and drawings and memories, and your loss should be a reminder that the loss of our historical, architectural and natural heritage diminishes us all.