Seen and heard.

Walking back from the bar last night we went past a huge sign in a window: VENTA DE HIELO. Ice for sale?! Really? In the 21st century? Who buys ice these days. There have always been those signs here, as long as I have been visiting Spain, but this was a brand-new-looking sign. Not one of those old, dusty ones that nobody has ever taken down in fifty odd years. So someone is still buying ice. Conceivably you might need ice in greater quantities than your home freezer can come up with. But it smacks of the time before every home had a fridge - and the electricity to make it work - and those who could afford it would buy a huge chunk of ice. In our house we used to store bottles of stuff that needed keeping cool in the rainwater tank outside the back door. And my mother would have bottles of milk in a bucket of cold water with a wet cloth over them, the cold water renewed at intervals during the day. Those were the days! 

Spain has other "throw-backs" of course. In the UK in recent years, indeed in the last thirty years or so, I have not seen a shop offering to do alterations to clothing. Or repairs to clothing for that matter. My brother used to take new trousers to my mother and later to my sister to ask them to shorten them for him. Here in Spain, most haberdasheries have a sign in their window offering such sewing services. But then, it is very hard to find a haberdashery in the UK these days. The same goes for wool shops, fabric shops and hardware shops. Does no-one have those skills any longer in the UK? In Spain, well, in Galicia, they clearly do as the shops are still here catering to their needs. 

This morning at around nine thirty there was the mournful sound of a ship's hooter. The estuary was full of sea mist which still hadn't been cleared by the sun, even though the temperature was already near 20 degrees on the advertising hoarding down at the roundabout. Was a boat lost in the mist? Was disaster imminent? It turned out to be another huge holiday cruise boat coming into port and, obviously, complaining about the poor visibility on the estuary. A bit of drama for the holidaymakers! At least they have had a nice day to visit the city of the olives. Like everywhere else, Vigo looks much better in the sunshine. 

On Monday evening we called in at the chess club, where Pepe told us, among other things, that he had recently travelled on the AVE, the high speed train. We had noticed that people were going in and out of the huge new station that they have been building on Calle Urzáiz for what seems like ages but didn't know that the AVE was actually running. This was where Pepe's train came in. I have since been told that Pepe's train was not the actual AVE. That is still a thing of the future, by all accounts. But he certainly travelled on something faster than the usual "media distancia" and did the journey from Pontevedra in just under 15 minutes. He was impressed. 

 As we quite often go to Pontevedra, I thought I had better find out what the travel situation really is. The station on Calle Arenal, Vigo Guixar, which we had been told two years ago was temporary, still appeared to be operational. So I went walkabout and discovered that trains do indeed still run from Guixar to and from Pontevedra but some also run to and from Vigo Urzáiz. Some fast (even if not AVE) trains do run from Urzáiz but some, indeed most, are still the old, boring ones. So, in the absence of paper timetables, I took a photo of the one posted on the wall in the station. (The joys of modern phone technology!) A new factor is now added to our travel planning. Our choice of train is now influenced by which station we find most convenient at the time we want to travel. 

If these are the only complications of life, I will not complain.