• Bramley cooking apples – the essential ingredient for the perfect apple pie. I have looked for them in Galicia without success. When I have asked specifically, I have been greeted with looks of blank incomprehension and then been offered an inferior rather fluffy dessert apple instead. I’m afraid you really need the tartness of a good Bramley (green, misshapen and not at all pretty to look at) to make good English apple pies or baked apples!
• Houmous available every day of the week in any supermarket, even the little co-op in our village. This is a delight compared with waiting until the chef in El Nuehz restaurant DECIDES to make some. No amount of ¡Ay, qué rico cuando lo hace! makes up for it. He clearly doesn’t make it often enough, no matter how rico it is. Mind you, it’s probably a matter of supply and demand. Most gallegos have no idea what houmous is and when I describe it to them they seem to regard it as a very odd thing to do with chickpeas!
• Cadbury’s chocolate. Now, I know some people declare it to be inferior to some continental brands. Others go so far as to say it should not even be called “chocolate” but “chocolate flavoured sweet” because of some anomaly in the production process. I, however, prefer it to other brands. And I’m not alone. I recently overheard a Spaniard complaining that he could not find it on the shelves of El Corte Inglés where it does make very occasional appearance.
• Car drivers who signal their intentions, even maintaining reasonable lane discipline on roundabouts. Ok, so not all of them do so but far more here than in Spain as far as I can see.
• No excessive honking of horns if you fail to zoom away the very second the lights change at a road junction.
• The lack of parked cars on zebra crossings, on the approach to zebra crossings, on street corners (and I mean on the corner itself) or alongside another vehicle which is already parked, thus blocking it in. (I have to admit that the last of these, a major pain in Spain, does occur in the car park at my grandchildren’s school but as everyone is dropping off or collecting at the same time it doesn’t really constitute double parking. At least that’s what my daughter says each time I moan about it!)
• Drivers who stop for you when they see you waiting at a zebra crossing rather than you having to take your life in your hands by stepping out into the traffic. Yes, I know UK zebra crossings operate differently but even so .....
• Clog dancers in the middle of the shopping area, reminding me that Lancashire can be as folksy as Galicia when it chooses.
• Bright, crisp, cold mornings (when it chooses not to rain and it does happen sometimes) when it’s good to get up and walk round the reservoir.
• And, of course, last but by no means least, my old familiar hairdresser!!
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