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!!
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