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?