Out and about!

A friend told me that today Vigo was forecast to be one of the hottest places in Spain, 35 degrees. Only Andalucía was supposed to be hotter, 36 degrees. I could well believe it. The billboard at the end of the road read 23 degrees at 9.15 this morning. 

That's a good time to be out and about. If you need to be somewhere in a hurry, it's still relatively cool. I occasionally see runners in the street at 5 or 6 in the afternoon. Much too hot. This morning, for the first time, I crossed someone running on my route in the opposite direction. Maybe I have started a trend. 

Late morning, I went down to the pool for a quick swim before going out for lunch. Once again my timing was right. I had swum and got out before the little boys arrived to play splashily. They seem to have two favourite games. 

One is "Penalty" involving one of them standing at the shallow end, near the steps and acting as a goal keeper while the other's throw a ball at him. If he saves the goal, he gets to change places with one of the others. If they score goals, there are cries of, "¡Gol! ¡Gol! ¡Gol!" or even "¡Qué golazo!" They obviously watch too much football commentary on TV. 

(I resist the temptation to correct their pronunciation of "penalty", which they say with the stress on the second syllable instead of the first. I'm getting quite good at forgetting that I am, or was, a languages teacher. When someone stopped us on the street the other day and asked us, "¿Tenéis fuego?" (Have you got a light?) and then, noticing that we had been speaking English, went on, "Fire? Fire?" I did not ask him where the fire was but simply told him, in Spanish, that we don't smoke. Such restraint on my part is quite admirable.) 

The other pool game is "mi primer amigo", also called "mi peor enemigo", and seems to consist of one person choosing another to throw the ball at, declaring, "Mi peor enemigo es ....". If he hits him he scores points. Who says children can't invent games? Mind you! I suppose it's quite hard to play with electronic games in the pool. 

After my swim we went out to meet friends for lunch, at the Pygmalion Restaurant, on Castelar, down near Vigo harbour. Very nice. Slightly more pricey than our usual menú but not extortionate and the food was good. 

 This is the second new (to us) restaurant we have visited in a week. The other was El Punto on Rua do Canceleiro, off Rosalía de Castro, where we went last Friday when El Puerto restaurant was closed. Definitely worth a visit. 

It's always good to try new places.