The circus has come to town

Festiclown is here again. It’s that time of year in Vigo when people run round the centre dressed in strange clothes and frightening children – oops, sorry! That should be “entertaining children”. One consequence earlier this week was that you couldn’t get out of the Puerta del Sol end of Príncipe without making a detour because the clowns had a weird structure set up. Two of them see-sawed up and down, ringing bells and making music of sorts. It has to be said that, although some of the results might be a bit tacky, the Spanish do make an effort to liven up the summer. Of course, a bit of sunshine helps. Festiclown in a rainy British seaside place would be rather different.

Over in Paris (where they make their own beaches, importing piles of sand to put on the banks of the River Seine) they are having a circus of a different kind. Woody Allen, who likes filming in Paris, is busy making his latest film, Midnight in Paris. The media circus is even greater because Carla Bruni, aka Mrs Sarkozy, has a cameo role. The newspapers insist that she is driving him bonkers – Carla Bruni saca de quicio a Woody Allen – partly because she comes with a platoon of security guards but also because it has apparently taken him 25 takes to film one of her sequences. Oh dear, maybe having a sister who is a decent actress, having a career as a model and singer behind you and even being the wife of the president of France don’t make you an actress after all. Gone are the days when the wife (and occasionally the mistress) of the president of France kept a low profile.

Here the heat wave continues. Vigo may not have had the hottest daytime temperatures of southern Galicia but it seems that our minimum temperatures beat everyone else’s - 23° does not make for a good night’s sleep. The forecasters tell us the hot weather here in our part of Galicia is set to continue but maximum temperatures may drop a little, probably giving us around 29° in Vigo. Personally I find that I don’t notice a great deal of difference between 29° and 31° but that’s probably my northern genes speaking.

Thank heavens we have the pool to fall into at intervals during the day. If we were to make our way to the beach at Samil this is what we would find according to El Faro de Vigo:-

Yesterday I overheard a little conversation in the pool. The two speakers began by talking about the weather, how hot it is, how unusual it is to have so many days of hot, sunny weather and how we should all take advantage of it while it’s here. Now that sounds like a very British conversation to me! Just as in Britain, the summer here is actually unreliable enough to merit comment when it arrives and hangs around for a while. And just as in Britain, the sunshine brings out all the convertibles; everyone’s driving around with their car roof pushed back, if they can. Maybe that’s one of the reasons we have felt so much at home here.

They went on to discuss the temperature of the water – in the pool and in the sea. One of them recounted his experience of going on holiday in Mallorca in October and how warm the sea was there compared with here, hotter in October in the Med than in July and August in the Atlantic. He moaned a little about the shortness of the days in October; the sun sets so much earlier. And then he went on to say that, of course, you can benefit from the beaches being fairly empty from about 5 o’clock onwards as los turistas all leave the beach and head back to their hotel for an early cena. Interesting, I thought, that by los turistas he meant the English and Germans, maybe the French as well. He and his family, being Spanish, were not turistas then? I wonder how he categorised them. Holidaymakers? Visitors? When is a tourist not a tourist? When he’s Spanish, naturally!

What’s new?

After much discussion over months and months and with protest demonstrations from pressure groups both for and against, Cataluña has finally voted to ban bullfighting by 68 votes to 55. They can still carry on killing bulls until 1st of January 2012 when the new law comes into effect. I wonder if any other regions will follow suit. It will be quite hard to ban the so-called national sport when even members of the royal family and the president of the Madrid region go along to bullfights. We shall see!

Meanwhile some people are interpreting the new law as another step by Cataluña (should that be Catalunya?) to distance itself from the rest of Spain, declaring themselves to be a more modern, cultured, civilised “nation” in this way. Others have responded by asking who the British government were trying to disassociate from when they banned fox-hunting. Interesting point?

Back here in Vigo we appear to be having a heat wave. I’m not sure if it’s official since they say you have to have several nights on the run where temperatures don’t fall below 20°. Apparently last night it didn’t go below 24° so I think we probably can call it a heat wave, especially as we have had maximum temperatures of 35+°. Even the vigueses say it’s too hot. I’m waiting for them to turn round and say we haven’t had a summer!!!

In the midst of all this we are frantically trying to stuff almost two years’ worth of acquired belongings into suitcases and boxes in order to move out. We leave this flat in a couple of weeks and we just have too many things. When we decided, reluctantly it has to be said, not to renew our contract, our landlady said she would put the flat on the market but that we would not be pestered by anyone wanting to view it. All that could be done after we had vacated the premises. Yes, indeed, until, that is, they had a request from el entrenador de Celta. Well, when someone from the glamorous world of football is involved you have to make exceptions. And so we had a request, just this once and it certainly won’t happen again, please, please, please to allow the estate agents to bring him round. No skin off our nose, we thought, so we gave the place a quick flick with a duster and waited for the visit.

Not quite David and Victoria Beckham but a little bit world of football glamour, as it turned out. He was youngish, tanned and toned looking. She was rather Wives and Girlfriends: tall, slim, well turned out, heels too high to walk in – you get the idea – but without a conspicuous WAG handbag the size of a small car. They had a couple neatly presented small girls in tow, bows in hair, matching outfits and so on. They had a quick look round and that was it.

In connection with our moving out, I took a visit to the bank to arrange for the next rent payment and the next monthly payment for our wonderful mobile internet connection to be the final ones. Sorry, said the helpful bank employee, but it can’t be done. In 21st century Spain the banks cannot put into their computers that the next standing order will be the final one as it messes up their system for sending out notification of payment. Doh!!

The next problem was changing our bank contact details from the one here in Spain to our address in the UK. (We are unsure how long we will be in the UK so for a while we will have no contact details here in Spain.) Oh, that was hard. The template for addresses just doesn’t match the UK style. We managed to enter most of the details reasonably correctly but the system just would not accept our UK post code. It’s the combination of letters and numbers that freaked it out. One day, at some distant point in the future, all things will be compatible!!!! Well, maybe!!

Finally, here is the proof that it’s always possible to find new things to see, new places to go. One of our beat-the-heat activities has been to go out for a stroll late in the evening, as the sun is going down and the temperature starts to drop … a little, anyway. A couple of evenings ago we strolled into Teis and, instead of going up to La Guía, went to the end of the bus route and followed the path down towards the beach on the other side.

There we discovered a newly paved promenade which takes you around the little peninsula. Provided with drinking fountains along the way and with steps down to the water’s edge, it’s a very pleasant walk, away from any traffic pollution and with some fine views, including a small harbour for those fortunate (read, wealthy) enough to own a small boat. At the end it peters out into the semi-industrial wasteland of boatyards and that was where we found the notice which told us that a whole lot of money had been spent on this project.

Where had the money come from? Why the EU of course but specific thanks were given to Iceland, Finland and Norway for their participation in (and funding of) this rather nice walkway. Well, that’s good isn’t it? Credit where credit’s due. How do they decide, however, that those countries in particular will pay for this specific bit of tourist development in Galicia?

Albert and the Lion

So, Alberto Contador managed it. As expected he won his third Tour de France. After yesterday’s time trial it was a done deal really. Unless he fell of his bike, he was bound to win. Various Spanish sports personalities – Rafa Nadal, Alonso, etc – sent him congratulatory telegrams YESTERDAY; that’s how unsurprising it was.

He and Andy Schleck indulged in a little media fun and games at an early point in today’s stage. They did a little bit of a breakaway so that they were the leaders – what those of us in the know call the tête de course – and then played around overtaking each other in turn, shaking hands and riding along with their hands on each other’s shoulders. What good friends these rivals are!!

Eventually they rejoined the main bunch – that’s the peloton to the cognoscenti – which gradually made its way into Paris itself, Contador’s Astana team being given pride of place for the grand entrance. Then the competition of the day began in earnest. As we knew already who was going to be the overall winner, it was more important to see who could win today’s stage. Would it be Petacchi who won the opening time trial and was the first to wear the yellow jersey in 2010? As it turned out, no. In the end UK honour was vindicated and our boy Mark Cavendish made it across the finish line in first place. His fifth stage win in this Tour! Oh, what joy! What pride! (Oh dear, can you see my tongue in my cheek so clearly?)

Anyway, Alberto got to go up on the podium and get his new yellow jersey and yet another Tour de France lion. On the Spanish TV coverage of the Tour they have offered viewers the chance to put questions to the presenter and to Pedro Delgado, former Tour winner and now sports commentator. One optimistic viewer really fancied getting hold of a Tour de France lion and asked how he could do so. Oh, it’s easy, said Pedro Delgado, all you have to do is become the leader in the Tour de France. What a joker he turned out to be! It seems he was correct though; the only way to get one is to be the wearer of the yellow jersey. Now, I wonder what they do with them. Do they add to their winnings by selling them on E-Bay? After all, there are only so many yellow lions you can sit on shelves in your bedroom.

So Alberto went up onto the podium, all smiles, and took his cap off as the Spanish national anthem was played. Apparently the royal family sent him a congratulatory telegram. Well, personally I think that’s a bit of a let down. When la selección was playing in the final of the World Cup the queen was there. So were Prince Felipe and Letizia. South Africa is alot further away than France. It won’t do.

If I were a Spanish cyclist I would feel rather like a second class sports citizen. If I were Alberto I would feel that a measly lion really wasn’t enough. I know that the King and Queen were busy this morning but they could easily have caught a plane from Santiago to Paris in time for the finish. There must be budget flights that cover that route, even on a Sunday. And besides, what were the rest of the royal family up to? Not good enough!!!

The king and queen were busy in Santiago this morning. Today is the 25th of July, feast of Saint James, a special day for all those pilgrims who have trudged to Santiago de Compostela, especially this year which is, as I have commented before, a special year, an año santo, a holy year when the feast falls on a Sunday. Last night at midnight the façade of the cathedral exploded into an amazing fireworks display. This morning there were special services inside the cathedral. Security must have been up to the maximum with Juan Carlos and Sofía attending.

In his address, the king is reported to have asked for Santiago to help to resolver las dificultades which are affecting daily life in Spain and to resolver cuanto antes la grave crisis ecomómica.

Well, that’s all right then. We can expect the general situation in Spain to start improving at once!

Competitive Spirit.

Well, this week they have queued in their thousands to be the first customers in the new Ikea store just opened in La Coruña. I hope they all managed to find some satisfactory introductory offers. I’m afraid it seems to me to be a form of globalised madness to spend hours or in some cases all night camped outside a big store waiting for it to open. I remember the long queues of traffic when they opened a store not too far from our home in the UK. Is any bargain really worth it? Now, don’t get me wrong, I quite like Ikea but I much prefer to be able to walk through the store at my leisure without being pushed around by huge crowds of bargain seekers. And, yes, I feel the same way about the sales!!!

In other places, the competition for the “transfer” of Paul, el pulpo adivino is hotting up. Even as I write this blogpost Carlos Alberto Montes, the mayor of O Carballiño in Orense province, is visiting Oberhausen in Germany to present a plaque of some kind naming Paul as Amigo Predilecto (more or less best or favourite friend) of O Carballiño. At the same time he is trying to start negotiations to buy the clever octopus or at the very least borrow him for the Festa do Pulpo which will take place in his town on the 8th of August. What is more, a representative of the Federación Española de Fútbol will be there as well. Hmmm, maybe there is something crazier than queuing up for a bargain after all: queuing up to gaze reverentially at an octopus in a tank!! Oh, yes, and then going and eating his mates!

While we are considering food based festivals I did say recently that Spain can organise them at the drop of a hat. Well, Whitstable in the UK is getting in on the act. From the 24th to the 31st of July they have the Whitstable Oyster Festival. Tony Naylor, writing about it in the Guardian, sounds as enthusiastic as I am. Describing oysters as “a mouthful of seawater with a lump of mucus in the middle”, he declares that he really can’t see the point. Neither can I. Oyster Festival or Festa do Pulpo? Give me the octopus every time!

Over in France one of my ciclistas predilectos (this is a test to see of you can remember that predilecto means favourite) has been getting some stick. Madrileño Alberto Contador and Luxembourger Andy Schleck are going neck and neck for the Tour de France winner’s podium in Paris on Sunday. Now the other day, on the way up some mountain or other in France, just as our Alberto took off to overtake his rival, Andy’s chain came off his bike and he had to spend a minute putting it back on. Manfully he made his way back into the race but he lost his pole position and went from being 31 seconds ahead of our Alberto to being 8 seconds behind him. Bang went his yellow jersey. He had to make do with his other prize jersey, the white one for best young rider.

When the Spaniard stepped onto the podium to accept the leader’s yellow jersey, some of the crowd whistled and hissed and booed him. There was a lot of polémica about whether or not Alberto Contador should have stopped and waited while Andy Schleck sorted out his mechanical problem. Was this going to break up a beautiful cycling friendship? Was Contador NOT a good sport? Had he broken an unwritten code of ethics? Was this a breach of el fairplay? Column inches were filled with the pros and cons. This was probably because the next day was a rest day and they had no exciting race developments of dramatic falls to comment on.

Anyway, yesterday it was all put right, apparently. The two riders slogged up the Col du Tourmalet, one of the steepest rides possible, in the mist and occasional rain, together but not obviously competing until the last few minutes when both put on a spurt, alternately overtaking each other and finally approaching the finish line almost side by side. Then our Spanish hero “gave” the glory to the Luxembourger. Everyone seemed to accept that he could have gone over the line first but, no, he let Andy Schleck have the stage win, knowing that he still kept the yellow jersey.

Such drama, such “fairplay”! The papers are full of pictures of them having a cyclists’ hug at the top of the mountain.

Amazingly they both managed to talk to reporters at the finish line, both commenting on the climb, Andy Schleck saying thank you to Contador and both declaring themselves good friends. Astounding! Almost anyone else would have needed to spend several hours at least just getting their breath back.

Then just as Teledeporte’s reporter was congratulating Alberto Contador on keeping the yellow jersey for another day, along came President Sarkozy of France to congratulate him as well. The Spanish TV sports commentator was over the moon.

And now, at the end of today’s rather quiet stage riding to Bordeaux, Contador was congratulated by Tom Cruise. Even the stars go celebrity hunting.

So we have a rather short cyclist who has now been congratulated by a rather short president and by a rather short actor. What more can we ask for?

Fiestas half seen or altogether missed.

According to the newspapers, the beaches of Galicia this weekend were, as they say, “a tope”. Photos show people packed into every possible space on the sand. It rather takes the edge of a day on the beach when you can’t move for fear of treading on somebody’s child. Well, it does for me anyway. And then you don’t have room to organise a game of beach cricket (more likely beach volleyball here) or to build an enormous sandcastle and wait for the sea to destroy it.

Somewhere in my collection of photos I have one of the beach at San Sebastián with all the towels and mats and umbrellas in neat rows, parallel lines even. Well, they do say the basques are a very orderly nation. Oops, did I say nation? That’s rather sensitive term to use these days. We really a word that means belonging to a particular region, something like “regionalidad” perhaps. If “nación” can give you “nacionalidad” then “regionalidad” from "región” seems quite logical.

Be that as it may, the overcrowding at the beaches probably explains the absolute peace and quiet around here over the weekend. Normally you can hear the sound of children playing, football games going on and such like. Throughout most of Saturday and all of Sunday there was barely a murmur. I don’t think there were ever more that four people in or around the pool at a time. It was rather like belonging to an exclusive club.

I said it was quiet and peaceful and this was true until late evening when pops and bangs and crashes started, very loud ones at that. Looking out of the window we could see a truly spectacular fireworks display, looking as though it might be over towards Samil. As there had been an airshow there this weekend with planes drawing hearts in the sky with their vapour trails, it seemed like a reasonable supposition. It really was very impressive and went on and on and on. And then, not long after the smoke had cleared from that end of town it started again across the bay in Cangas. So we had two rather fine displays in one night.

This morning my panadera, an excellent source of information about all kinds of things, commented on how crowded the beaches had been and went on to say that it had been a busy day all round. There was Princess Elena in Vigo, the airshow over Samil and, of course, there were then the fireworks at Bouzas. So that explained the first lot of fireworks we saw. She went on to say that, of course it was the Fiesta del Carmen and that the Virgen del Carmen is, as everyone knows, the patron saint of fishermen. Now, I already knew the second “of course”, the bit that everyone knows. They revere the Virgen del Carmen in the south of Spain as well for the same reason and organise romerías in her honour. I just didn’t know the timing of the feast day. So I went and did a little investigating.

It turns out that the actual date of the Fiesta del Carmen is the 16th of July but they usually celebrate it on the Sunday closest to that date. Many places organise processions through the fishing port with the statue of the Virgen del Carmen paraded through the streets. There is usually a “naval” parade or kind of pilgrimage of fishing boats on the water as well, which may explain why there were so many boats out and about late on Friday evening, which was the 16th. Often the Fiesta del Carmen coincides with the third Sunday in July which just happens to be the Fiesta de Bouzas. And this latter fiesta culminates in a huge firework display, visible form almost all over Vigo and which we were able to watch from our window, certainly seeing all the biggest explosions of light up above all the buildings.

Apparently the Fiesta de Mejillones ( the Spanish do love food related fiestas) also takes place on the third Sunday in July up in Castrelos park. As I am rather fond of eating a nice plate of mussels, it’s rather a pity I missed that one.

Fiestas half seen or altogether missed.

According to the newspapers, the beaches of Galicia this weekend were, as they say, “a tope”. Photos show people packed into every possible space on the sand. It rather takes the edge of a day on the beach when you can’t move for fear of treading on somebody’s child. Well, it does for me anyway. And then you don’t have room to organise a game of beach cricket (more likely beach volleyball here) or to build an enormous sandcastle and wait for the sea to destroy it.

Somewhere in my collection of photos I have one of the beach at San Sebastián with all the towels and mats and umbrellas in neat rows, parallel lines even. Well, they do say the basques are a very orderly nation. Oops, did I say nation? That’s rather sensitive term to use these days. We really a word that means belonging to a particular region, something like “regionalidad” perhaps. If “nación” can give you “nacionalidad” then “regionalidad” from “región” seems quite logical.

Be that as it may, the overcrowding at the beaches probably explains the absolute peace and quiet around here over the weekend. Normally you can hear the sound of children playing, football games going on and such like. Throughout most of Saturday and all of Sunday there was barely a murmur. I don’t think there were ever more that four people in or around the pool at a time. It was rather like belonging to an exclusive club.

I said it was quiet and peaceful and this was true until late evening when pops and bangs and crashes started, very loud ones at that. Looking out of the window we could see a truly spectacular fireworks display, looking as though it might be over towards Samil. As there had been an airshow there this weekend with planes drawing hearts in the sky with their vapour trails, it seemed like a reasonable supposition. It really was very impressive and went on and on and on. And then, not long after the smoke had cleared from that end of town it started again across the bay in Cangas. So we had two rather fine displays in one night.

This morning my panadera, an excellent source of information about all kinds of things, commented on how crowded the beaches had been and went on to say that it had been a busy day all round. There was Princess Elena in Vigo, the airshow over Samil and, of course, there were then the fireworks at Bouzas. So that explained the first lot of fireworks we saw. She went on to say that, of course it was the Fiesta del Carmen and that the Virgen del Carmen is, as everyone knows, the patron saint of fishermen. Now, I already knew the second “of course”, the bit that everyone knows. They revere the Virgen del Carmen in the south of Spain as well for the same reason and organise romerías in her honour. I just didn’t know the timing of the feast day. So I went and did a little investigating.

It turns out that the actual date of the Fiesta del Carmen in the 16th of July but they usually celebrate it on the Sunday closest to that date. Many places organise processions through the fishing port with the statue of the Virgen del Carmen paraded through the streets. There is usually a “naval” parade or kind of pilgrimage of fishing boats on the water as well, which may explain why there were so many boats out and about late on Friday evening, which was the 16th. Often the Fiesta del Carmen coincides with the third Sunday in July which just happens to be the Fiesta de Bouzas. And this latter fiesta culminates in a huge firework display, visible form almost all over Vigo and which we were able to watch from our window, certainly seeing all the biggest explosions of light up above all the buildings.

Apparently the Fiesta de Mejillones ( the Spanish do love food related fiestas) also takes place on the third Sunday in July up in Castrelos park. As I am rather partial to a nice plate of mussels, it’s rather a pity I missed that one.

Important people (and shellfish) in Galicia.

This morning we got up late. We’d had quite a busy week with visitors to entertain and lots of running around to do and so we felt we deserved it. As a result, by the time we were up and about Su Alteza la Infanta Elena was already down at the harbour meeting the mayor, Abel Caballero, and the president of the Xunta, Alberto Núñez Feijoo, and handing flags over to the captain of the frigate Méndez Núñez. All we saw were a couple of military helicopters hanging around as I went to the bread shop and some imposing looking fighter planes zooming around. Mind you there were probably so many people down at the harbour looking at the boat and hoping for a glimpse of royalty, maybe even a photo opportunity, that you probably couldn’t move. And it’s far too hot a day to be milling about in a crowd. Far better to stay in the cool and then head for the pool later.

Her highness described Vigo as a city which is «dinámica, emprendedora y vigorosa de la que todos los españoles nos sentimos orgullosos». Maybe she could do something about the library in that case, if the place is so dynamic and vigorous and everyone is so proud of it. On Thursday I received a phone call from the library telling me that the book I had reserved was back in the library. They further informed me that I had until Monday to collect it.

As we had a variety of things planned I decided not to collect the book until Saturday morning after seeing our friend Steve off at the bus station. Mistake!!! The library is closed on Saturday in the summer. Not only that but it is only open from 10.00 am to 2.00 pm Monday to Friday!! Does no-one in Vigo do summer reading? Have they not heard of flopping in a chair in the shade with a good book? Truly, the municipal library me saca de quicio – the closest you can get to “does my head in”, literally “takes me off my hinges”!!

Meanwhile in other parts of Galicia they have been having fiestas; it’s part of what you do in summer. In a place called Corme they have just had the Festa do Percebe, the goose barnacle fiesta. Something like a ton of these shellfish was consumed in the space of a couple of hours. A ton of percebes is worth an awesome amount of money. Because they are so difficult to acquire, involving more or less abseiling down steep cliffs and hacking them off the rocks with huge waves crashing around you, they are probably the most expensive shellfish you can eat. And personally I don’t really see why you would want to.

I had never eaten them until the other day when we went out to lunch with our visitor Steve and some Galician friends. In the parrillada de mariscos that we shared there were percebes. Steve described them as looking like the devil’s hooves, which is really quite an apt description. Anyway, we tried them, decided they were all right but nothing really to write home about. Frankly I would rather eat mussels any day. My palate is obviously not sophisticated enough!

On the subject of shellfish, it would seem that Madrid zoo is negotiating for the transfer of Paul, el pulpo adivino from Oberhausen Sea Life Centre in Germany to their aquarium. As with all football-related transfers there is a lot of haggling going on. Will it be a question of handing over some money? Or possibly some money and an animal? Madrid Zoo waits with bated breath to see if the transfer will take place, rather like Barça waiting to see if they get Cesc Fabregas or not.

The Galicia connection with the world cup continues. New items pop up from time to time. The latest I have found is that Doctor José García Cota, resident in Pontevedra and official doctor of the Celta de Vigo football club was the traumatólogo on the medical team for the selección and so accompanied them to Soccer City, the only gallego to vivir el Mundial en directo!!

Watch this space for more exciting developments!!

All at Sea

Yesterday began unpromisingly enough with what sounded for all the world like heavy gunfire. I suppose it could have been some of the notorious fishermen who use explosives to blow the fish out of the water but it did sound strangely like cannon fire. And this before we had even got up!! We wondered if the ghost of Sir Francis Drake had been spotted in Vigo bay and someone was firing at him, trying to prevent him from getting away with more treasure.

In addition to gunfire we had clouds, rather thick clouds. Now, this was a disappointment as we had made plans to take our friend Steve to spend the last full day of his visit on the Islas Cíes. We put off the decision until after breakfast which was just as well as it did begin to clear up. By the time we set off for the port you could see that the sun was shining on the islands, even if it had not quite made it all the way to Vigo itself yet. Down at the harbour we had a choice of ferries to the islands: three different companies competing for our custom. We opted for the one that left earliest; there seemed to be no point in hanging around for three quarters of an hour if you can set off in ten minutes time.

We did wonder if we were going to make it as the two charming assistants seemed unable to deal with a customer apiece but had to deal jointly with each request for tickets. Then they asked for my DNI. (Why? I noticed that the Irish family who were behind us in the queue were not asked for passport numbers when their turn eventually came. I never fathomed that one out.) Then it took them forever to enter data on the computer and then write by hand on our tickets the departure times for our outgoing and return journeys. We finally made it onto the boat, no thanks to the VERY garbled instructions from the aforementioned charming assistants, and sat there for well over ten minutes after departure time before we weighed anchor and were off for the islands.

The sun had come out properly by now so Steve and I slathered ourselves with sun cream while Phil chose to sit in the shade. And off we went, admiring the small boats on the water, oohing and aahing at the sights and generally enjoying the journey.

The harbour on the main island has been much improved since we last visited and there is now an excellent boardwalk going from the harbour café up to the path through the trees leading to the campsite. Last year we watched poor campers struggling to pull their gear over sand dunes in small handcarts. Life must be much easier for them now. More importantly as far as we are concerned is the fact that the harbour café is now equipped with proper machinery for making espresso coffee, producing excellent café solo, cortado or café con leche instead of pouring coffee coloured sludge from huge thermos flasks as they did last year.

Like the Grand Old Duke of York, we walked Steve up to the top of the hill – to see the lighthouse – and we walked him down again – to have lunch at the Café del Lago restaurant on the campsite. I didn’t realise it had a name until this visit. En route we saw numerous seagulls (but only ONE pigeon all day) and a reasonable selection of lizards.

We also saw an antisocial creature who clearly could not walk up to the lighthouse without taking his music with him. Now, I find it hard to see WHY anyone needs to be plugged into their MP3 player as they walk through the peace and quiet of a nature reserve but as long as they keep it to themselves, that’s their business. This happy chap must have broken his earphones, however, or maybe he thought he just had excellent taste in music, because he had his music playing at full volume for all to share. We exercised restraint and did not tell him what an idiot we thought he was. Instead we just overtook him as quickly as possible and crossed out fingers that he was not planning to eat in the same place as we were. Fortunately this turned out to be the case and we were well pleased.

After lunch and a couple of cold beers we went for a paddle and a stroll on the beach and then watched with interest to see how long it would take for our boat to decide to come to the quayside. It had arrived some two hours earlier, discharged its passengers and moored itself in the bay. As departure time came and went and people started to queue in the sunshine – we sat on the terrace of the café finishing our newly available good coffee – the boat eventually got going, pulled up at the quayside and we all embarked.

Now all day long, on the outward journey, while we were clambering up the winding path to the lighthouse we had seen a different kind of boat circling around.


A bit ominous! Was something going on that we didn’t know about? Did this explain the sound of apparent cannon fire earlier in the day? We had no idea. When we got back to Vigo there were a couple more of them tied up alongside the Estación Marítima. Curiouser and curiouser!!!

No explanation being immediately available, we made our way homewards, stopping of at La Porchaba bar, one of our favourite watering holes in Vigo, for a couple more beers in the evening sunshine and finally home for a light supper and the end of a splendid day.

Now, this morning in El Faro de Vigo I read that the Infanta Elena, eldest daughter of King Juan Carlos, is coming to this fair city tomorrow to take part in a flag-presenting ceremony involving the imposing grey vessel we saw in the bay. As one of various acts accompanying the Festival Aéreo Internacional, the frigate 'Méndez Núñez' is going to be officially presented with a flag and Princess Elena has the job of handing it over. The other two boats in the harbour are apparently the 'Galicia' and the 'Juan Sebastián Elcano'. There will also be lots of planes and parachutists getting up to high jinks.

It’s a good job someone has been decorating the Plaza de Compostela then, isn’t it?

A Roundabout Way of Doing Things.

A few years ago in the Northwest of England, and presumably in other parts of the country as well, mini-roundabouts started popping up all over the place. Wherever there was even the smallest of road junctions, suddenly it was “regulated” by a little roundabout. You would be driving along a quiet country road that you thought you knew well and then you would find your route interrupted by a series of these small roundabouts. I suppose it goes some way towards calming the traffic flow but mostly they are just a bit of a nuisance.

I comment on this bit of British road history because I fear it may be repeating itself here. We were out walking the other evening when we came upon this:-


Now, that is clearly a roundabout, a mini-roundabout, in the making. Or maybe they just want a place to plant some flowers – they do decorate their roundabouts very nicely here in Vigo – but I doubt it. At the moment the road is hardly busy enough to really merit a roundabout to regulate the traffic flow. A little further up the road, however, an old people’s residence is under construction. Are they perhaps expecting that to lead to a sudden increase in the number of cars on the road? Who knows? I intend to keep an eye on the situation. I shall also be on the lookout for a sudden outbreak of mini roundabouts ion other places.

Meanwhile, I recently mentioned the lack of a real gallego connection with the World Cup. Since then I have read about la langosta Paula, a rival to el pulpo Paul in the prediction business. She lives in an aquarium at O Grove and since predicting that Spain would defeat Holland in the final she has become their star attraction. I wonder if she has any predictions about the Tour de France where Alberto Contador is currently in second place, about 15 seconds behind Andy Schleck.

The other gallego connection is that three of the selección, Fernando Torres, Sergio Busquets y Andrés Iniesta made a promise to do the Camino de Santiago if Spain won the World Cup. Now that seems a bit of a backwards way to do things. Usually you’d expect to do the camino first and then get your reward but obviously not in this case. Others promised to do things like shave their heads or dye their hair in the Spanish colours but these three went for what is seen as the more mystical option.

Now we just need to see if they actually do it!

Points of view.

Spain managed it. At the end of a match which was unimpressive, to say the least, and which ran into half an hour of extra time, the Spanish team finally managed to score a goal and win the World Cup. Phew, what a relief! I didn’t think I could take much more of seeing Dutchmen knocking Spaniards over and hearing the plaintive tones of the Spanish TV commentators, obviously suffering each time a Spanish shot went wide of the goal. I’ve not even mentioned the anguished cries of, “¡Hay peligro! ¡Hay peligro!” whenever the Dutch players got the ball anywhere near the goal posts. But at last they made it and all of Spain could celebrate – as did the Spanish community in Manchester, according to a friend who saw the game on a big screen in Castlefield!

As it was quite late when the game finished and possibly because the weather was rather dull compared to the evening of Spain’s triumph over Germany, action at the poolside here was somewhat subdued. I did see two girls (the same cynics? who knows?) leap in with a cry of “¡Por España!” but that was about it, apart from vast amounts of fireworks all over the place.

At the breadshop this morning the panadero (husband of the panadera and only seen if your visit to the shop coincides with his delivery from their bakery up at Calvario) was harrumphing about the win. “¡Ganó España!” he grumbled, “pero ¿qué ganó España? ¡¡Nada!!” As far as he was concerned, Spain had gained/won absolutely nothing. He went on to tell me how much money had been spent/wasted, money that the tax-payers would have to find. The only “winners” he could see were the Chinese and African sellers of flags and banners. Reading between the lines, it was clear he thought they certainly did not pay taxes. Well, that might be so, but at least everyone had fun.

Hmm, that idea set him off again. The trouble with Spain, according to the panadero, is that everyone just wants to have fun, party and fiesta all the time and no-one really wants to work. And those who do want to work can’t get to sleep at night because they are kept awake by the noisy botellón going on behind their building. You can’t phone in sick because all-night partiers kept you awake. Of course, he went on, that problem doesn’t exist in England. Low unemployment means everyone is hardworking and sensible, there is no botellón and everyone is tucked up in bed by 10 o’clock.

Oh, yes??? There may not be botellón as such but the drunken crowds on the city streets are close to the same thing. It’s just that fewer people actually live in the city centres to be kept awake by them. It’s just a different kind of binge-drinking.

I am often rather amused by some, not all by any means, Spaniards’ rather idealised view of England. It’s not quite cute, rosy-cheeked girls selling apples from baskets but it’s almost in the same league. ALL pubs (or should I say pavs or paffs? Take your pick!) are quaint, oldie-worldie places, usually with a roaring fire. Everyone is super-polite. The policemen are probably still “bobbies” and all wear those funny helmets!

The universities are the best, however. British universities have a campus and all students live on campus or very close by. Teaching groups are small. Tutors have groups of four or five students each. As the students have no need to work to pay for their studies they can indulge in long philosophical discussions. Oh, Brideshead Revisited, you have a lot to answer for!! One of the people describing this idyllic scene to me had been on a study visit to … wait for it … Cambridge! Enough said!!

I suppose we all, to a greater or lesser extent, have a false image of what a country is like. How many English people imagine all of Spain to be blessed with wall-to-wall sunshine all day, every day, all year round? It goes along with that special nostalgia most of us share for a golden age, often not too long ago, which was SO much better than today.

My panadero obviously has this nostalgia. He told me that most people have no idea what a Euro is worth. In what sense? It finally became clear he meant the Euro’s worth in pesetas. Ah, that old thing! Everyone knows that you could buy a lot more with pesetas than you can with Euros. Hmmmmmm!

I pointed out that if Spain still had pesetas they might find that those pesetas also bought less now than they used to do back in the day. It’s certainly true that you could buy a lot more with a 2000 £1 than with a 2010 £1. Goodness, if you go back another 10 or 20 years you would be amazed at what a £1 coin could buy for you.

I don’t think I convinced him though!

The streets are alive with the sound of car horns!!!

At various intervals throughout the day we have been treated to a prolonged session of hooting and pipping, often answered with the lugubrious sound of fog horns from the container ships down at the port which we can see from our window. Everyone seems to be playing the football supporters’ game: if you see a Spanish flag as you drive down the road, pip your horn as loud as you can for as long as you can. The others respond to you and general cacophony ensues. What fun!

Meanwhile, there is apparently some controversy about the origins of Paul, el pulpo adivino. One theory is that he came originally from Weymouth, England, a couple of years ago and moved from there to the SeaLife Aquarium at Oberhausen where he now resides. However, the trainer of this fine specimen of mariscos says that she caught him herself about a year ago in the Mediterranean, off the Island of Elba. If only Paul could speak, as well as make predictions about football matches!

Here in Galicia, other people are claiming to have octopuses (octopi?) who can also make predictions. I wonder of they live in gipsy communities. Whatever the situation, there is a movement to make Paul a pregonero in the Fiesta de San Froilán. This is a festival that takes place in Lugo on the 4th and 5th of October. Like so many folk festivals it had religious overtones originally, involving romerías, mini pilgrimages to shrines up in the hills as a rule, but most of the religious aspect has been lost in the general fiesta atmosphere. There are musical acts, theatre groups, puppet shows, sporting competitions and, of course, lots of pulpo to eat. I have not been able to ascertain what a pregonero does: some kind of announcer, town crier or prayer-reader. Whatever it is, some people think such a role would be a good reward for Paul. Whatever happens, the general feeling is that he should not end up on a wooden platter!

According to Giles Tremlett, writing in The Guardian, and rather to his surprise, national pride has even spread to Catalonia, where Spanish flags have been waved on the streets of Barcelona, a most unusual occurence. They have been having huge demonstrations there because of the criticism of their new statute and the rejection of the idea that they are actually a separate nation. (Personally I find this insistence on separatism rather strange. I tend to think of myself as European and have difficulty understanding why we would want to split countries up into smaller chunks than already exist!) Organisers of the demonstration have been more than a little miffed to see so many Spanish flags!

It’s not really surprising that the Catalans are supporting the selección española, however. Almost half the team play for El Barça, after all. Amazingly, given that Galicia is the centre of the universe, there doesn’t seem to be a gallego footballer in the selección but that’s not stopping everyone here from being very excited about tonight’s match.

In France in the Tour, Alberto Contador (that’s Albeeeeeerrrrtooo Contadoooooo, to the commentators) has just reached third place, gradually creeping up the classification. Yesterday another young Spaniard, Rafa Valls from Valencia, came second in a stage, a tremendous victory for a young man on his first Tour in a team made up entirely of first time Tour participators. And today, yet another, Samuel Sanchez, has also achieved second place in the stage. The Spanish commentators are over the moon.

Spain is clearly on the way to more and more sporting triumph!!! But let’s not count our chickens before they’re hatched. La Roja still has to deliver the goods this evening!!

Victory - well, almost there!!!!

Well now, Paul the octopus, el Pulpo Paul, was correct. So was Queen Sofía. La selección española managed to see off the German team last night.

When Spain finally managed to score, I swear the resounding cheers made our building shake. For the remaining ten minutes of the match you could almost feel the tension in the air and you could certainly hear the resounding groan of frustration as Spain came close to scoring again and again and again. Then there were the squeals and screams as the German team got hold of the ball and looked as though they might score, followed by a collective sigh of relief as they missed!

Eventually the whistle blew and it was all over bar the shouting… and the cheering, the pipping of horns as and the fireworks. I looked out of our window and saw a young man, clad in Spain t-shirt and shorts, run cheering round the gardens and finally fling himself fully clothed into the pool. This was a signal for loads of others to appear, children and adults, some in swimming suits but many in their Spain t-shirts, and leap into the pool to join him. Two girls with flags (the two sceptics I had seen in the lift yesterday?) stood together at the poolside, yelled, “!Gerónimo!” and leapt in, flags waving as they went.

How else do you celebrate your team’s victory? Leaping into water, of course! Thousands leapt into the fountains at Plaza de España, I read in today’s paper, and then went on to party in Castrelos Park. Experience had told them that Plaza de Compostela was too small to hold all the fans. Besides, Castrelos Park is closer to the Plaza de España!

In La Coruña they celebrated in the Plaza de María Pita and in towns and cities all over Spain the Plaza Mayor was full of happy people dressed in red and draped with red and yellow flags. The sports reporters on the TV told us that San Fermín had obviously brought them luck – the Fiesta de San Fermín continues from the 7th to the 14th of July – and they were all sporting red bandannas to show their allegiance. What a happy coincidence that San Fermín bandannas are also red!

Now that is a “sporting” event of a very different kind - bull running in the streets of Pamplona. In our Italian conversation group the other day, Angelo expressed his amazement that bullfighting gets reported on television. This is the 21st century, after all! How much more surprising that a lot of people still have to prove their macho credentials by running through the streets with huge and dangerous animals? And that that activity also hits the national news? It was reported in today’s Faro de Vigo that a young man from Vigo is one of those injured in the fun and games. This "brave" vigués is in a serious condition in hospital. He probably missed the match as well!

Still, I don’t want to put a damper on Spain’s triumph. La selección has beaten the Germans. Now bring on the Dutch. World domination is within reach!

Rojo y Amarillo.

Every time there has been a football match in this World Cup the news channel has told us about el pulpo adivino. It would seem that an octopus in a tank is “asked” to choose between two boxes which contain food for him. The boxes are labelled with the names of the football teams concerned. The octopus opens one box and eats the contents. In this way a prediction is made about who will win that match. And the octopus has been right every time. Now he has chosen Spain to win in the match against Germany. We will see; the match is due to start in about 10 minutes as I write this.

However, some Germans in Mallorca have been filmed eating octopus and claim to be eating el pulpo adivino. That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?

Other Germans on holiday on various parts of Spain have been waving German flags around a lot today. One news report talked about them using the flag as a sunshade or even a towel. (I bet that would be treason if it were the American Star - Spangled Banner, but that’s another story!) What I really like are the German flag sun-glasses, absolutely impressive!

Queen Sofía is in South Africa for tonight’s match. Interviewed very briefly on TV, she declared herself to be very optimistic. ¡Vamos a ganar! ¡Claro! So that’s the octopus AND the queen of Spain who believe Spain can win. So did the supermarket checkout girl wearing her Spain shirt like her fellow employees. On the other hand, the bookies in England don’t seem so sure. And two giggling teenage girls I met in our lift earlier were equally pessimistic, despite having their Spain flags at the ready. The flag sellers must have done really well in recent weeks: every taxi flies a flag, every restaurant has one adorning its menu board and loads of red and yellow banners hang from upper floor windows all over the place.

Earlier today we ate lunch at one of those restaurants with its menu board so nicely decorated. The main course choices were roti de pollo and pez espada. Those of us who did not fancy sword fish opted, naturally enough for chicken. Imagine our surprise then when the waitress arrived at the table with a couple of plates and asked us, “¿Jamón?” We were confused. No-one had chosen ham. It wasn’t there in the menu del día. What was going on? The equally confused waitress went back inside and we could see a discussion taken place. A couple of moments later she was back, this time asking, “¿Roti?” Same plates, same food, different label. We asked if this was chicken. "Roti", she told us. It looked all right and we decided it was too hot for an argument and went along with it. But it definitely wasn’t chicken. Neither was it strictly speaking ham but it was something in the pork spectrum and tasty enough. It was only a €7.90 menú del día but you would think they would have got their act together to serve up what it said on the board.

As we ate we were assailed by an accordion player but we didn’t appreciate his rendering of Y Viva España, an overfed looking woman who wanted us to give her money for food and a guitarist who could just about strum a couple of chords. The last of these, perhaps because he had seen us give short shrift to the previous two, didn’t even bother to ask us for money. This got us talking about the begging situation, getting worse by the day it seems, and we commented in a new version which occurred in our flats just yesterday.

There was a ring at the doorbell. When we opened the door there was a fairly crestfallen chap there, reasonably respectable looking, who explained to us that he lived in the block next door, had been out of work for 6 months, owed three months rent and was asking the neighbours to contribute to his collection. Really? A bit unlikely. No chance! He carried a clipboard, a five euro note and a handful of change to give the impression that others had already contributed. 10/10 for initiative but that’s all.

I have a horrid feeling, however, that I may have let him into the building myself as our intercom had rung earlier and someone who identified himself as "Agente R" asked to be allowed in. So I opened to door and when the flat doorbell rang later I expected to be rejecting some kind of telephone, TV and computer deal, not shutting the door on a beggar.

Later we saw the overfed lady having a shouted argument with one of those beggars who drag their belongings around in a shopping trolley. She was accusing him of being a thief. Maybe he had stolen the Spain shirt he was wearing!

Which reminds me, the match has started and I need to concentrate a little. ¡Que gane la selección! ¡Vamos!

When is a heatwave not a heatwave … what’s in a name?

Although cyclists in Belgium in the Tour de France (yes, I know it’s the Tour de FRANCE but they always like to pop across the border at some point) were slithering about and falling off their bikes in the rain yesterday, we continue to have bright blue skies, sunshine and temperatures in the top 20s and lower 30s here. On balance, if I were taking part in the cycle race I would rather have the sunshine than the rain. There are always plenty of bottles of water on offer and those narrow racing tyres are extremely dangerous in the wet.

Pontevedra province is on yellow alert for extremely hot weather – predicted 35° for Pontevedra city – but apparently it is not yet possible to call it a heat wave. One of the newspapers explained this morning that the minimum temperatures are still too low for that. They say we have been having night time temperatures of 17° to 18° but until we have a consistent 20° over several nights it doesn’t count as a heat wave, no matter what the daytime temperature. I suppose there has to be some kind of cut-off point but it certainly feels rather like a heatwave to me.

Since we are now in July the weekend just gone saw what is referred to as la primera operación salida del verano, in other words, the first major departure for holiday of this summer. It always amuses me that they make it sound like a military operation but then, just like any other military operation it has its casualty reports. Over the weekend, apparently, there were 78 traffic accidents in Galicia, 42 if which were in Pontevedra province. Ourense province is the safest place to drive in by all accounts with only 3 accidents over the weekend. Maybe as well as working on the safe driving campaigns, someone should start encouraging staggering the departure dates for holidays. It must be something to do with actually having a real summer season. The French do departure en masse as well, all setting off on holiday at the start of August.

In the UK, where summer is often not a great deal warmer than winter and where the major difference is just that it stays light longer, people go on holiday all year round. But then, of course, a large percentage of the French and the Spanish still take their holidays in their own country and travel by car. This enables them to take lots of equipment with them: TV sets and huge paella pans or pots big enough to boil lobsters if you are going camping, surf boards, bikes and inflatable dinghies, everything except the kitchen sink in fact. I sometimes think they would take that if they could as the aim is to make your holiday "home" as similar to home as possible, just removed to the seaside or the mountains!

For those who remain in Vigo there is La Feria del Libro down on Plaza de Compostela. Booksellers from all over the city set up stalls on the alameda hoping to encourage a lot of summer reading, if anyone can stand to walk about there in the present heat. There is also a large marquee down by the harbour where a folk festival of sorts is taking place with lots of gaita bands. And the latest addition to the street musicians on Príncipe is a mini-marquee with life-size skeleton puppets playing jazz. Summer entertainment!

Meanwhile a small group of us Vigo-stay-at-homes has been trying to keep our Italian conversation going, meeting Angelo, co-ordinator of the Italian book club at the library, at a café down in the Plaza de la Constitución for a drink and a chat once a week. Last night we got to talking about food; none of us like tripe, some of us can’t cope with oysters, some are semi-vegetarian and others are all right eating any kind of animal provided they don’t have to be reminded that it once was a living animal. Then we got onto some specifics of Italian food, making pasta and so on and Angelo told us about the fiesta de fin de curso which the yoga group he teaches insisted on organising. They had asked him if he could prepare a pasta dish for them, something typically Italian. So he made ravioli.

His dish was much appreciated. Everyone enjoyed it greatly but he was a little upset because most people at the party (gallegos all) particularly praised his skill at making …. empanadas!!

Sporting times.

Great excitement yesterday evening. I could still hear fireworks at 1 in the morning.

Earlier in the day yesterday we had speculated on the quietness around our block of flats. Not a soul was around apart from the English speakers. We had the pool entirely to ourselves. As the Spain-Paraguay match was not until the evening we decided that everyone must have headed for the beach. I had seen a couple of families getting organised when I was setting off for the supermarket in the late morning.

In the relative cool of the evening Phil and I ventured out for a walk and returned in time to catch the tail-end of the news and then the second half of the football match. We already knew that Germany had sent a sad and possibly even tearful Maradona and his football team home to Argentina. The news reports showed desolate fans with tears streaming down their blue and white painted faces.

Before that the news showed reports of El Día de Orgullo Gay in Madrid. Lots of people all dressed up danced through the streets of Madrid in the sunshine. Kylie Minogue was there apparently: the icing on the cake for some. One elderly lady was telling the reporter it was the first time she had seen a Gay Pride March, how lovely it all was and that she had brought her grandchildren along to watch. Now, that would not have happened in the not too distant past in Spain! Back to the football.

We tuned in just in time to see the Spanish penalty with the goal that wasn’t. It’s a good job they scored again later or there might have been mighty cries of “¡Nos lo robaron!” (We were robbed!) as the ball went into the net the first time but then the penalty had to be repeated because Cesc Fabregas and a couple of other players had been a little too quick off the mark and set off over the line before the penalty had actually been taken. On the repeat the Argentinian goalie was ready and stopped the ball going in!! Shock horror!! Still they managed to get the ball past him later and we were left with a tense 5 minutes + 3 minutes extra time during which Spain had to keep possession of the ball and just prevent Argentina from scoring. Phew, they managed it!

There was an immediate outburst of pipping of horns, blowing of all kinds of trumpets and setting off of fireworks around here. Even the sunset decided to wave Spain’s colours across the sky.

The sports commentators in the Telecinco were extremely emotional. One of them told us, “Es el día más feliz de mi vida professional.” You would almost have thought that they had actually won the cup. One of the papers this morning has a delightful cartoon about laying to rest the ghost of quarter finals. Everyone is so pleased to get through to the semi-finals that it might almost be enough to have got that far.

And now they have to face Germany on Wednesday and just possibly either Uruguay or Holland, depending on the results of those countries’ confrontation on Tuesday.

What exciting sporting times we do live in. Rafa Nadal's just beaten Berdych at Wimbledon. And then Alberto Contador in the Tour de France is currently in something like 6th place, 5 seconds behind Lance Armstrong, and about 11 seconds behind the leader Cancellara, but they have only had the initial time trial stage so it’s early days yet!

We just need him to get his legs going nicely and Spain’s happiness might be complete.

Striking items!

Yesterday in our local supermarket I ran into a friend from one of the book clubs at the library who told me that she had tried to go shopping in the centre of Vigo but had found it impossible. The sales had started, creeping up on me once again, finding me completely unawares. It’s no wonder I rarely find real bargains. However, it wasn’t just the sales that had made life difficult for my friend. The start of the sales coincided with a strike by textile workers and chaos ensued.

Pickets for the striking textile workers did not just stand around shouting and handing out leaflets. Oh, no, not at all. They went into shops, pulled clothes off rails and threw them on the floor. They threw eggs into shop doorways and caused general mayhem. Many shops on Príncipe and Urzáiz were forced to close for a while and in some cases just closed for the day. Meanwhile outside there were pickets and shoppers, some of the latter waiting for shops to re-open so they could try to take advantage of the promised up to 70% reductions. And then, to cap it all, there was a cruise ship in port meaning that there were several thousand extra people in town, no doubt wondering if such chaos was normal for Vigo.

Such fun and games! I’m quite glad I only made it to the supermarket. Perhaps I’ll get to the sales some time later today.

Later yesterday we strolled out in the early evening sunshine and had a drink in the Cafetería Monaco just round the corner from my husband’s chess club. I can recommend that cafetería for the generosity of its tapas. We ordered a clara and a Kas naranja which arrived accompanied by the usual olives and crisps. Some 15 minutes later, as we sat with the same clara and Kas naranja a plate of assorted odds and ends on bread arrived – spicy mussels, ham, cheese – and more olives. So for less than the price of one drink in the UK we had a drink each and a fairly substantial snack. And, I hasten to add, this is not the first time this has happened in that cafeteria.

Reading the Correo de Galicia newspaper while I sat there, I came across one or two interesting snippets of news. Here is a selection:-

The Centro de Investigaciones Agrarias of a place called Mabegondo has developed a strain of pimientos de Padrón que no pican – Padrón peppers that are guaranteed not to be hot and spicy. Surely part of the fun of eating pimientos de Padrón is the Russian roulette aspect; you’re never quite sure when you’re going to come across a hot one!!

The Escuela de Idiomas in Vigo has decided to limit enrolments to two languages per student. It seems that people have been enrolling for three or even four foreign language courses at a time and then fail to turn up for lessons. The Escuela de Idiomas stresses that learning a foreign language takes dedicated hard work and consistent attendance at lessons. They take language learning seriously and won’t accept this dilettante approach. This restriction makes a good deal more sense to me than the municipal library’s decision this year to allow people to be members of only one book club.

Mind you some people might say it shows a lack of business acumen. Provided students have paid their fees, such business orientated folk might say, does it matter if they fail to turn up to classes? Well, apparently the Ecuela de Idiomas believes it does. I remain impressed that such a thing as an official language school exists at all. It demonstrates a belief in the importance of language learning that seems not to be presenting the UK.

Then there’s the news that in Indonesia they are showing a film about President Obama’s childhood. Here in Spain there is a series about the romance, engagement and eventual marriage of Prince Felipe and Letizia. Same genre, it seems to me. At one time you had to be dead before they started telling your life story all over the place. No longer. We want it NOW! Or at any rate the media have decided that we do.

In the sports news at the moment we have the forthcoming confrontation between Nadal and Murray at Wimbledon. If Nadal wins and if there is a representative of the Spanish Royal family present, I wonder if the Spanish tenista will once again climb over the stands to reach the royal box and hug the king as he did once before!

From a little item I found in the Guardian online this morning I think it’s probably a good job that the England football team is out of the world cup. One of the big pet shop chains has been selling cute little England t-shirts for dogs. On balance I’m surprised there haven’t been Spain doggie-coats around too, given the propensity they have around here for putting raincoats and winter warmers on their canine friends. Perhaps it’s just as well that they’re not here; the poor dogs would suffer in the warm weather we’ve been having.

The Tour de France starts tomorrow. How did that come around so quickly? The Madrid cyclist Carlos Sastre, winner of the race a couple of years ago, says he is preparing himself sin grandes esperanzas (not very optimistically) since he did not have a great time in the Spanish race La Vuelta a España. Local boy, Óscar Pereiro, from Mos is disappointed not to have been selected for the Astana team and plans to retire from cycling now.

It’s a good job we still have Alberto Contador to root for then!! That is, unless I decide to support our own home-grown English Bradley Wiggins.

Children!!

Today began rather sluggishly. First of all there was the heavy cloud and mist which hid Cangas and Moaña on the other side of the estuary. That was a bit of a surprise after the bright mornings we have had lately. I put it down to the fact that my Phil had promised/threatened to go for a swim today; now, that was bound to put a hex on the weather. Then I went out for bread only to find that my favourite panadería was closed. Not only that but the next nearest, a rather inferior establishment, was also shut so that I had to go farther afield to buy bread for breakfast. I know it’s the 1st of the month but I wasn’t aware that the 1st of July was any kind of special holiday. Maybe the flour grinders are on strike.

As we progressed towards midday the weather picked up. Just as the weather report in El País suggested, however, there is still cloud over Galicia. Other parts of Spain, central and southern for the most part, are on yellow alert for extreme heat. Somehow I think they are aware that it is very hot where they are. Do we really need reminding that when it’s hot we should drink lots of water, walk on the shady side of the street, wear sunhats and use lots of high factor suntan lotion?

By 1.30 the pool was full of children as usual. I think we must be going for the record between our two blocks of flats for the largest number of children in a pool at any one time. Strangely enough, however, I read in the paper the other day that Galicia is still going through a crisis de natalidad. The birth rate, in other words, is still too low.

Apparently Spain has the fifth lowest birth-rate in the world and Galicia, along with Asturias and Castilla-León, has the lowest in Spain. You certainly wouldn’t think so from the number of prams and buggies that are pushed around the centre of Vigo and from the number of baby-bumps you see around, including one that sunbathes regularly by our pool. Well, your skin tans better when you are pregnant, so they say, and I expect she’s just taking advantage of that fact.

The problem it seems, is not really one of fertility. Neither is it all explained by la crisis, although that does explain why some people put off having children until later. Statistics show that having more money does not necessarily make you have more children; high income families also have few children. If you compare Galicia with the north of Portugal you discover that there they have bigger families despite having similar or more likely lower average incomes.

One thing that skews the statistics is longevity: gallegas live longer and so the birth-rate appears lower. Another factor is that in some cases immigrants, who usually have a higher birth-rate apparently, have returned home because of la crisis, taking their children with them, of course.

However, a very important factor seems to be that mysterious thing: quality of life. Couples want to have children AND maintain their previous standard of living, providing a good life for their children and still having fun themselves. There is also some feeling that the state does not help enough. It’s all very well to offer €2,500 for each child born but people feel the need for more ongoing assistance, more tax relief, child benefits and so on. There are even those who feel that parents are discriminated against in Spain. It’s not just money either; time to be with the family comes into it. Although many grandparents do look after their children’s children, increasing numbers of couples feel that there is no point in having children if you are going to ask someone else to do the bulk of the childcare. So they put off starting a family until they feel they can do things their way. It’s a point of view I can fully understand.

Meanwhile, we still have plenty of children around here. However, it’s approaching the time when they are all going in for lunch. Time for a swim in an almost empty pool, I think.