Out and about.

There I was, just quietly getting on with reading some books and doing the odd Sudoku puzzle when my life became very busy. 

After my trip to Santiago de Compostela on Wednesday, the following day I made my way to Alcabre, just before Samil, to visit a French friend of mine. I arrived to find her busily scanning a book onto the computer for me so that I could take it away and read it before Monday. We had a small argument about whether my memory stick, a very tiny thing, could possible hold all the book. I won. My friend was amazed at how much memory so small a gadget could hold. Gone are the days when computers filled a whole room. If it had been photocopied I would have had a bag full of paper. As it was I had a little bit of plastic full of computer magic. 
 
 So I spent part of the weekend reading French. Not all of it however, for Phil and I had a walk up to the Castro on Friday as it was such an excellent day. Blue sky and sunshine. So warm we had to take our jackets off. The Castro is one of our favourite parks around here but the rain and wind appears to have brought at least one tree down. 

Then on Saturday my young friend Sarah came from Santiago and we had a good walk around Vigo, showing her all the landmarks. She stopped to examine they eyes of Jules Verne (also known as Julio Verne or Xulio Verne depending on which language you choose to speak) sitting atop his octopus, a strange four-legged octopus, down by the harbour. The Galicians are fond of Mr Verne as the Nautilus sailed around here in “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea”. If you go to the aquarium in La Coruña you can even sit in a reconstruction of the control room of the Nautilus. 

As Saturday evening wore on Sarah and I realised that she was about to miss her train. The last train from Vigo to Santiago on Saturday leaves ridiculously early, just before nine o’clock. So we abandoned it and went and ate chipirones and sip glasses of wine at La Porchaba instead and then Sarah slept in our spare room. 

I finished the French book on Sunday and then spent Monday having lunch with another friend, braving the hairdressers to get rid of the roots which were showing once again and finally going off to the Alliance Française to spend the evening discussing life in Afghanistan. Clearly there is no rest for the wicked. 

Continuing with my busy, busy life, today we set off to walk up A Guía, another of our favourite parks. We explored a new way down, coming across another fallen tree on our way. I seem fated to come across fallen trees at the moment. 

On our way home I noticed a poster, advertising some natural product. I have no idea what it is but its slogan is “As cosas boas sempre estarán ahí” – “The good things will always be here”. The poster had just been renewed – I saw them doing it yesterday morning – and now has a mobile phone in the middle of the image, stating “O mundo necesita desconecting”, presumably meaning “the world needs disconnecting” perhaps so that we can appreciate the good things that will always be here. I was interested by this Spanglish word “desconecting”, a word that really has no meaning whatsoever although someone in an advertising agency must have thought it up. Strange! 

In other places around the city I am seeing posters or odds and ends on TV about “Gran Hermano 14”. This is the 14th edition of Big Brother in Spain. Now, I remember going to visit my sister in the south of Spain 14 years ago when everyone was talking about a TV series, a newly termed “reality show”, that had just come to an end: the very first Gran Hermano. My then small Spanish nephew was pestering for a Gran Hermano hat as worn by the winner of the show. I commented to my daughter that such rubbish would never be seen on TV in the UK. She smiled pityingly at me and said, “Mum, it’s just started!” And so it had!

 Now, that it something that really needs “desconecting”, in my opinion at least.