More odds and ends.

A few posts ago I talked about the possibility of Cataluña becoming n independent state. Now it seems that there have been demonstrations in Barcelona in favour of remaining Spanish. 

Under the banner “España somos todos” (We are all Spain) around 7000 people marched through the city and eventually spread out a giant flag of Spain in Plaza de Sant Jaume in front of the Palau de la Generalitat. Maybe Spain can remain one country after all and maybe come out of the economic hole it has sunk into. 

Princesses have been in news both in Spain and in the UK. In the Spanish press I found an article saying that, contrary to rumours, no-one is putting pressure on the Infanta Cristina to stop being an Infanta (I always thought that just meant she was daughter of the King of Spain and so I wonder if it’s possible to stop being one.) and/or to divorce her husband, Iñaki Urdangarín. He has been in the news for economic shenanigans but, despite the seriousness of that, it may not be grounds for divorce. 

The other princess is our Kate (Catalina to the Spanish) who is now safely out of hospital. Apparently they announced the pregnancy so early because they wanted to be the ones who made it public instead of having it leak out through tweets and twitters. Living in the public eye must be hard. 

Here in the semi-frozen North of England the cold and damp continue but I notice that inland parts of Galicia have already been having snow. White Christmas is clearly on its way. 

Having avoided the switching on of the Christmas lights in our village centre last weekend, I have now found photos of that same ceremony going on in Pontevedra. We are fast approaching the day when Christmas is the same everywhere. One aspect of this is the way people from all sorts of places, including other parts of Europe, flock to Manchester to visit the Christmas markets – that is the GERMAN Christmas markets! So it goes. 

 Looking further south, I understand that the Fiesta de los Patios de Córdoba has been declared “patrimonio inmaterial de la humanidad”. This translates more or less as “intangible heritage”. So it’s not the patios themselves, pretty as they are, but the fiesta. It’s not the buildings that matter so much as what people do to celebrate them. 

I think that’s rather a fine idea.