Under a cloud no longer

The cloud that dispersed at some point in the afternoon yesterday and then came back down with a vengeance for the evening did not dampen the spirits at the A Guía festivities. Despite the fact that they could probably not see beyond the end of their noses, the singers continued into the small hours. We could not see the flashing lights however; the low cloud blanked all that out.

By this morning the wind had got up and blown the cloud back out to sea. That wind whistles round the flats. It's a good job my washing-dryer gadget is tied down or I suspect that all my washing would be half way to Samil by now.

As I set off for my run this morning I spotted our latest supermarket beggar walking along the street ready to set himself up in the Mercadona entrance. Laden with a folding chair, his "sin recursos" sign and a blanket to cover his legs, he trudged along. I wonder if he sat with the blanket over his legs yesterday when it was so stickily hot. Our previous beggar girl, "Soy-Muy-Pobre" has disappeared without trace and we now have this older man, in reality probably not a good deal older than we are, with his mournful greeting of "¡Hooooooolaaaa!" He says less than "Soy-Muy-Pobre" but is more lugubrious.

On reflection, I see more older beggars around these days than I used to. Clearly these older man, and it is usually men, don't have younger, wealthier relatives they can take to court to oblige them to maintain them. Maybe it's indicative of the population of the city, 30% of whom are of pensionable age apparently. I have no statistics about how many of them actually receive a pension. I did read, however, that only one in ten of the foreigners living in Vigo are of pensionable age. 40% of them are under 40. Most of them are Rumanian or Portuguese. I am certainly hearing more Portuguese spoken in the cafes we frequent.

And so Saturday has come round again, with sunshine and blue sky, wind trying to blow us all way, and a host of small boats pottering about on the impossibly blue bay. What do I do on such a Saturday morning? Go out on a hunt for ginseng and/or gingko biloba for my chessplaying husband, who is firmly convinced that they boost his brain activity. Back in the UK it's Boots the Chemist or Holland and Herbalist who are our principal source. Both of these would be a welcome addition to the shops of Galicia!

I remembered seeing a shop that called itself a herbalist, in the Calvario district and so I set myself the task of investigating it. What a let-down! It turned put to be a shop that sold fancy flours, interestingly shaped dried pasta, a limited range of dried fruit and expensively price water bottles and plastic boxes. All very tastefully laid put but not what I would call a herbalist.

Walking on, intending to investigate a parafamacia, I came across a little shop that boasted a range of 'natural remedies'. Turning down offers of royal jelly and other concoctions, I came away with a rather highly-priced box of ginseng capsules. No sign of gingko biloba.

Moderate success!