Bread and boats and Brexit stuff!

This morning I woke to the sound of car tyres swishing on wet roads. The clouds were already clearing by the time I went out for bread for breakfast and for the rest of the day the clouds have come and gone but the rain has not returned much. 17 degrees was the temperature registered on the billboard down by the roundabout: a cool morning with a bit of a chilly edge to the wind. The bread shop lady complained that it was cold, which struck me as a bit of an exaggeration.

This is not my weather witch bread lady. She was always too busy involved in the baking to notice the cold. But between our being here in March and returning in June the old lady who owned the bread shop has sold up and retired. The weather witch is her daughter. Goodness knows what she is doing now. The new sales assistant only sells bread and sweeps up. No baking and no weather forecasts or commentaries on the state of the world from her so far.

From about 9.30 I watched a fine, elegant sailboat, a three-master yacht I suppose it is, make its way up and down the ría, accompanied by a little orange tug boat. It must have been running on motor as no sails were visible. It sailed up towards A Guía and proceeded to go around in circles for most of the morning. Was it waiting for a berth at one of the shipyards? This is one of life's little mysteries that I don't expect to see solved as at some point in the late afternoon it disappeared.

Checking messages briefly on my phone this morning, I found a lot of comments about goings-on in parliament. The Tories have defeated a Labour motion regarding increasing pay for those who work in public services such as nursing, the police and the fire brigade. (The money must have been spent on something else!). By all accounts, the Tory MPs cheered. Yes, they cheered! I can understand some satisfaction at defeating the party whose views oppose yours but to cheer at defeating a motion like this smacks of a callous lack of humanity. They have only just got over praising our public services for their work at the Grenfell fire!

What a strange world we live in! Somehow you imagine Parliament to be quite austere, with serious debate going on, measured tones and balanced arguments. The televising of Parliament proves it to be a kind of circus where supposedly grown up politicians behave like rowdy year nine schoolchildren! 

Brexit negotiations are underway and I come across newspaper articles in which we are once more being asked for our opinion about it, not that OUR opinion is going to change matters. Some are still convinced that we could reverse the decision of a year ago but somehow I doubt it.

In the meanwhile British citizens settled in Europe have expressed concern that Theresa May is willing to sacrifice some of their rights post-Brexit to cement immigration limits on EU citizens coming to the UK. And EU citizens already in the UK are still uncertain about their future rights.

 The world is indeed a difficult place!