Saying it correctly.

Yesterday it rained, briefly it’s true, but still it did rain. My panadera was thus proved correct once again. The other day she told me that we were due for some rain. She knew this because her wonky hip was playing up. Throughout the hot, dry weather she has had no problems but whenever some damp weather is due she has problems apparently. Funnily enough we had seen her the previous evening and assumed that she was hobbling a little because she was wearing cripplingly high heels. Clearly this was not the reason. Mind you, I do wonder why someone whose hip was giving her gyp would choose to wear ridiculously high heels. Maybe I am too sensible. 

Be that as it may, I have decided that my panadera is a little like those “rain detectors” they used to give away in children’s comics back in the 1950s. Usually they were a cardboard American Indian’s head, given a silly name like “Big Chief Rain in the Face”. You were supposed to hang it in the porch and, because it was treated with some chemical or other, it would change colour if rain was on the way. Maybe my panadera’s hip serves a similar purpose. Or maybe she is some kind of witch, a “meiga”, the good kind of Galician witch. 

Whatever the reason, it was strange to get up to grey skies yesterday after weeks of blue skies. The sun didn’t manage to break through until early evening when we set off for the station to go to Pontevedra. More rain, proper rain, is forecast for the weekend, but today the sky is blue once again, at least in Pontevedra, although there is a little haze around. We shall see what happens with the rest of the day. 

Over in the UK fog caused a huge pile-up in Kent yesterday morning, more than 100 cars and lorries crashing into each other. Perhaps the fog was a more extreme version of the cloud cover we had here. Amazingly no-one was killed. People who became aware of what was happening and pulled off the road report hearing one clunk after another as cars collided. If they were able to realise that something was wrong, why did so many continue to plough into the foggy mess? 

Anyway, we came to Pontevedra to go to the Pitillo restaurant, one of our favourite tapas places in the area. You sit outside at tables in the street and see people queuing up to take your place as soon as you finish. The owners are about to go on holiday and close the place for a month so this was one of our last chances to eat there this summer. Their seafood was excellent as usual and we were plied with “chupitos”, local liqueurs, at the end of our meal. 

We were also amused by a Spanish friend correcting our friend Colin’s pronunciation of the name of the restaurant. I could hear little difference between his pronunciation and mine but our Spanish friend clearly did. It’s a native speaker thing. Anyway, it entertained us for a while and a good time was had by all. 

Later at Colin’s house, as we watched a late night TV show, we suddenly became aware that a small bat was circling around the back of the room, much to my discomfort as I really do not like things flying around indoors. Fortunately, it disappeared, probably through a door into the garage but it could be hanging around somewhere for all we know. How strange! How did it get in? And has the poor lost creature managed to escape? 

Today we head back to Vigo where I am helping a chess-playing friend of Phil’s prepare for the re-sit of his English speaking exam. He passed reading, writing and listening but messed up the spoken test. I can’t say I am surprised at this. First of all because he has some problems with English pronunciation but also because of the nature of the test. One task is something that I, when I worked a teacher of French and Spanish, would call a “role play” but which the Escuela de Idiomas calls an “interaction”. This involves a discussion about something such what kind of summer job the candidate would like to choose. Now, in my experience the examiner usually plays the other part in such a role play and thus can introduce a “surprise element” to which the candidate must react. But no, in this case, the other role is played by another candidate and the examiner simply listens and marks. I’m sure this works fine if both candidates are good and confident. But if one candidate is not so good, surely he must prevent his “partner” from showing off to the best of his ability? 

But who am I to criticise the Escuela de Idiomas?