Life in our new bijou residence – one bedroom, one bathroom, living/dining room, kitchen with MINIMUM cat-swinging room – is interesting to say the least. Even to make breakfast we had to buy a coffee maker and a small pan. If I am to cook lunch I need to buy more pans, more dishes. Even to serve a salad I need to buy a salad bowl. These are the matters of great importance which occupy my time at present.
More dramatically we almost locked ourselves out. Well, not quite. Phil went out to check something to do with the post box and couldn’t get back in; his key would not turn in the lock. Fortunately I was still inside so I opened the door and we swapped places. My key wouldn’t do it either. After about 15 to 30 minutes of messing about I had a vague memory of Blanca from the estate agent’s having some difficulty and pulling the door towards her from outside before the key would turn. Magic! However, each time we leave now it is with some trepidation. Will we get back in? Do we need to take enough money with us to pay for a hotel room, just in case?
I went out early yesterday morning and discovered that the same bad violinist was “playing” on Príncipe, his appearance enhanced by the addition of a Leonard Cohen style trilby. His music was not enhanced at all, despite all the practice he gets. Down by the port in the strange concrete monstrosity that has no recognisable purpose that I know of, down and outs were sleeping in late. I am quite surprised that their makeshift shelters are allowed to remain there, so close to where the cruise liners come in. What the German tourists I saw there yesterday made of them I hesitate to think.
Maybe they were too busy taking photos of themselves posting letters to notice. Yes, that’s right: taking photos of themselves posting letters. I know Spanish post boxes are a nice bright yellow but really!!! A photo next to the swimmer sculpture is understandable, but surely not next to a post box.
Spontaneous stopping continues in interesting ways here. The latest example I saw was two obviously old friends in the middle of a pedestrian crossing. They managed to restrain the greater part of the hugging and kissing until they got closer to the pavement but they did stop first right in the middle of the road to exclaim and express their delight. They have clearly not read the reports of the numbers of people killed or injured in Galicia on pedestrian crossings. (Those statistics could, of course, be reduced by the fairly simple measure of not putting parking places right next to the crossings, but that would be too logical. After all, people have such difficulty parking!!!)
Later in the day I too came across an old friend and had to stop, exclaim, express delight and hug and kiss but not, I hasten to say, in a dangerous place. It was Maribel from the French “Club de lecture” at the library. So now I am booked to go and visit the group next Monday and almost certainly to go on the group outing somewhere interesting to speak French all day and eat nice food.
What else should you do when you come to Spain?
No comments:
Post a Comment