Bits of daftness!

Today I looked out of the window and noticed that there was a cruise liner down in the port. I went out for a run and bought bread. When I returned, the cruise liner, a moderately sized boat, was completely dwarfed by another, one of those huge ones, almost as tall as a ten storey block of flats.This is what happens when you look away.

Consequently, when I went into town later in the morning, the place was full of pink cruise people (pink from the sun, I suppose) speaking English in a range of accents: Liverpudlian, Cockney, American, Scots. No Welsh! Maybe they're all at home speaking the oldest language in Europe. 

An amazing number of the tourists from the boat were weighted down with numerous bags of shopping. Do they shop in every place the boat docks in? Maybe the boat's motto is "We stop, you shop!" Do the companies advertise them as shopping holidays? Do the tourists come with empty suitcases with shopping in mind? 

And often they buy in shops that exist back in the UK. I watched an English woman spend €87 in H&M today. I know it's slightly cheaper to buy the stuff in euros rather than pounds but surely if you can afford to go on a cruise, you don't worry about saving a few pounds. Unless of course, that is how you save the money for your next cruise. I remain mystified! 

Yesterday I went to have my hair done. I got the colour refreshed (I wonder if that's hairdresser speak.) and got my eyebrows tidied up into the bargain. And all for a third of the price I pay in the UK. They offered to dye my eyebrows to match my hair but I declined. I have never had ginger eyebrows and I don't plan to start at my venerable age. They also wanted to massage my hands - all par of the same price - but I turned that down as well. 

 Today I ventured to the library, in search of reading matter. None of the books or writers I had on my list were on their computer system. Which was a pity because I then had to wander the shelves waiting for something interesting to catch my eye. Their system is as chaotic as ever. I saw at least four copies of Don Quijote de La Mancha, not all together, as one might expect, but scattered around the library. In the end the heat got to me and I settled for a historical novel about Catalina de Aragón (that's Katherine or Kathryn or Catherine, however the British choose to spell it) and a novel by an lady journalist, a favourite of mine, Alamudena Grandes. 

During my wandering about over the last couple of days I have seen quite a few examples of people talking on their mobile phones while driving, even in one case taking both hands off the wheel so he could gesticulate. Crazy! 

And I have spotted a number of men walking along with very new-looking babies precariously held in their arms, while their wives push the empty pram. In one case the very new person was being exposed to quite fierce sun!!! Why risk someone bumping into you and knocking the infant to the ground when you have a perfectly safe pram to put it in? If you really want to have constant contact with your new child, why not us a sling? More crazy stuff! 

Finally, overheard in the chess club the other day: 

Phil: Bieito, did you play for the chess club's team last season? 
Bieito: No. 
Phil: Why not? 
Bieito: I wasn't here. I was in Pontevedra. 

Quite likely he was studying at the university. Now, Pontevedra is half an hour away by train!!! Not exactly the other side of the world. I wonder what he'd say to the idea of travelling for an hour or more to work every morning - and back again at the end of the day. Different ways of looking at things. 

The world is full of strangeness!