The cutting edge

Today I got on my bike and rode to the local swimming baths. I have been missing the delights of having a pool in the garden to fall into at every opportunity and decided that it was time to remedy the situation at least to some extent. So off I went and was delighted to see a notice in the entrance which said that over-sixties could swim without charge. On enquiry, I discovered that this is no longer the case. One of the cuts instituted by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition got rid of free swimming for older people. Since July of this year, if we want to keep fit we have to pay for it.

I decided not to make a fuss about the legality of having a notice offering a service which no longer exists and asked about other options. The upshot of it is that I am now the proud holder of an Oldham Leisure Card which for the sum of £3 gets me reduced rate swimming, yoga classes, pilates classes, use of the gym and a variety of other activities. Not bad at all.

The dreaded cuts seem to be affecting everyone. I read that the budget airline Vueling is suspending flights from Galician airports, all three of them, for lack of financial support from the Xunta. No more flights from Vigo’s Peinador airport to Brussels from November of this year, among other lost journeys. It was already impossible to fly to any of the Galician airports from the north of England. I wonder exactly where you can fly to from Peinador. It’s not really going to be worth the money they’ve spent on extending the carparking facilities if you can’t actually go anywhere.

On the other hand, I read in today’s El Faro de Vigo that Sá Caneiro airport in Oporto is doing really well. In August more than 600,000 passengers used the airport. This was more in one month than used Peinador airport in Vigo from January to July. If you put all three Galician airport users together for July apparently it still only came to 438,877. Even the increased number of visitors to Santiago de Compostela this year hasn’t made a significant difference. Oporto, across the border in Portugal beats them hands down. There’s even a regular bus service from Oporto’s Sá Caneiro to Vigo and beyond: the Galizabus. I have to confess to our having been regular users of both the airport and the bus service. It’s not that we have anything against Peinador airport but it’s quicker and cheaper to fly Liverpool to Oporto and catch the bus than to fly Manchester or Liverpool to Barcelona, for example, and then Barcelona to Vigo.

It rather smacks of lack of forward planning on Galicia’s part. I wouldn’t like Galicia to turn into the Costa del Sol with drunken British tourists all over the place. I appreciate the exclusivity of that beautiful area too much to wish that on them. However, if they want to attract some discerning tourists it’s time to make the place a bit more accessible. In the meantime, I suspect I’ll be using Oporto next time I fly into the North-western bit of the Iberian Peninsula.