One year down the line

This blog is a year old today. Happy Birthday Blog!!

And here we are, one year on, still in Vigo, although looking out on a different view as we moved house in mid-September. Otherwise, we are still doing our usual round of activities: yoga, chess, long walks, book clubs, lunch with friends and so on.

Although the sun is shining nicely out of a blue sky today, I do believe we have had more rain than is strictly necessary in the last few weeks. There is evidence of this up in the Castro Park where at least on set of steps from a higher to a lower level has had to be cordoned off because of a minor landslide. Even so, my geeks incorporated weather chart still shows enough sunny days to keep the blues away.

And Galicia still has surprises up its sleeve. Carnaval doesn’t start here until the beginning of Lent: mardi gras and all that sort of thing. Already there are notices all over the place about concursos de disfraces – competitions for the best costumes - and, more surprisingly, concursos de postres de carnaval – competitions to see who can make the best Carnival desserts!

This morning, however, I read about a place called Xinzo, in Ourense, where they make carnaval, or Entroido, to give it the gallego name, last five weeks, starting yesterday with Domingo Faraleiro. The name almost certainly has something to do with flour – harina in castellano, fariña in gallego – because it involved the throwing around of 2000 kilos of flour and bran, provided by the concello. Some people just don’t leave the house between 5.00 pm and 10.00 pm on that Sunday as they say you can’t cross the road without turning white.

Thank heavens it was a nice day yesterday. Imagine all that flour mixed with a good bit of gallego drizzle!! And i

It gets better as next Sunday is, I am informed, Domingo Oleiro, when 700 ceramic pots made in a place called Niñodaguía will be thrown around. Apparently they form circles in the plaza mayor and throw these pots around the circle. Whoever lets one fall to the ground has to buy a jug of wine. Undoubtedly, as each jug of wine is drunk everyone’s ability to catch the containers must deteriorate somewhat, leading to more jugs of wine being bought and so on and on. A communal drinking game, it would seem! Other activities continue over the next few weeks.

Other aspects of life here remain the same. Car parking is still an especially creative activity. There really should be prizes for the most original choice of parking spot. Recently, though, on one of those digital traffic warning signs at a road junction near our block of flats a notice has appeared reminding people to improve the flow of traffic by NOT parking in illegal places. How much effect it will have remains to be seen but it is a start.

However, some people have problems even when they park in perfectly legal places. I read a sad little tale in El Faro de Vigo about a lady who left her car parked on Travesía de Vigo for five months. OK, you might say she was asking for trouble but she declared it was legally parked, in good condition and everything was in order. The only problem was that it was a bit dusty. Because of financial problems she wasn’t using it, just checked on it regularly and then one day it disappeared.

She made enquiries, thinking it might have been towed away to the car pound for some reason. But, no, it wasn’t there. When she finally located it, her poor car, a Seat Ibiza, only 4 years old, 35000 kilometres on the clock, had been scrapped; all that remained were bits and pieces.

It transpired that the police had noticed the car and thought it had been abandoned and began an investigation. The Dirección General Tráfico apparently notified her that she should move the car but she never received the notification as she had moved house without telling anyone. Ooooops! Bad move that!

So they towed it away and scrapped it. Normal procedure should have been to leave it in the car pound for a couple of months after towing it away but in this case it was scrapped within four days!!!

Fortunately, in this case one not so careful lady owner is going to receive compensation from the Concello but it just goes to show: you can’t take anything for granted!