Over the ría and into Moaña.

I am writing this in Moaña, across the river from Vigo. The last time I was here was in August on a hot, hot day. When I arrived with my friend Heidy it was low tide and there were women collecting shellfish down at the tide line, backbreaking work. We had to walk what seemed like miles to the water.

I was also here almost exactly a year ago on a surprisingly warm day for mid-November. On that occasion I came across a man setting up to fly his motorised hang-glider up into the blue sky over the ría. Today, by contrast, it is windy and cool, not cold but with an edge to the wind and promise of rain to come later.

It is, of course, the Moaña chess tournament where my Phil won the grand sum of €20 last year. The venue is a local school: Colegio Público Reibón, proudly announcing its gallego heritage in the entrance hall where even the meiga (the witch in the picture) declares that she speaks gallego. There is lots of evidence of small people around: a small gym which doubles as a classroom to judge by the chairs and tables set up in it, the remains of a display for Hallowe’en, toilet facilities of very small size, coat pegs at an adult’s waist height and even the table I sit at is very low with a diminutive chair to sit on.

Fortunately the adult chess players do have adult size tables and chairs. The event was due to start at 4.00 pm. By 4.40 everyone was still milling around, waiting for pairings to be announced and organisers were running around changing numbers on tables and combining the under-12s with the under-14s. Organised chaos to all appearances, further confused for us by announcements made in gallego over a public address system which did not work too well.

By 4.50 the under-10s and under-14s competitions were underway after some confusion about youngsters whose names were on the list but who had not actually acknowledged their arrival or paid their entry fee. The adults were then still waiting for pairings. Finally at around 5.00 pm they all got started and I popped outside to switch on the Netbook - outside to ensure that the sound was muted; no way did I want my Phil to be disqualified because I let the computer sing its little start-up song.

A few hours, a long talk with a friend and several cups of coffee later it was just coming to a close. But in the end my hero, Phil, of course, walked away with a prize of €40, twice what he won last year. Progress indeed!!