Habits.

For a while I thought the Galicians only knew how to serve fish with boiled potatoes – “a la gallega” – but last night we went to a restaurant in Pontevedra where I ate “lubina al horno”, sea bass baked in the oven. That sounds simple; it turned up in a bed of slice potatoes, onion, garlic, tomato and red pepper, all baked to perfection. Delicious!! I shall have to try to re-invent the recipe at home. 

Also in Pontevedra, we noticed a group of people wandering around the evening before last, all either wearing or carrying yellow neckerchiefs. We could find no obvious reason for this until, sometime later in the evening, we came upon them again, standing in a group outside a building of note. With them were a couple of people in fancy dress and a strange hand cart that we had also seen earlier. It all turned out to be “Visitas Teatralizadas”- guided visits with an added touch of performing arts. Very nice! But what struck me most was the language use. In Vigo we have a “castro musealizado” – a pre-Roman settlement made into a museum (“musealised” is how they oddly translate it into English) and now we have visits turned into theatre. How will they translate “teatralizado”? Theatre-ised? Theatrified? Isn’t language fun? 

My friend Colin often comments on Spanish driving and parking habits. I was driving, or rather being driven, the other evening by a Spanish friend who has lived in England. She went on at some length about the bad driving habits of the Spanish and how much better the English are and so on. Two minutes later she double-parked, turned off her engine and proceeded to telephone the friend we were due to pick up. Priceless!! 

I took this photo from our balcony one day last week. I thought at first that there had been an accident. Then I realised that it was just some people who had stopped to drop off or pick up members of the family and stayed for a family chat in the middle of the main road. 

And then there’s bureaucracy. It seems – how shocking!!! – that people who do not live in our blocks of flats have been getting in and using our pool. How do they get in? Do they climb fences? Tunnel? Abseil? Parachute in? Anyway, steps have been taken. We have all had to collect “pool cards” which we will need to show at peak times when we use the pool. I suggested that there might be a prize for those who use the pool most frequently. This raised a small smile from the earnest chap giving out cards. 

Mind you, as there are 2 blocks of flats of 11 floors with 4 flats on each floor, if one person from each flat came down to the pool at the same time you could have 88 people in or around the pool. If they each brought 2 guests, imagine the games of sardines you could have in the pool!!!