Thursday 9 November 2017

Festive times are coming!

Well, everyone here seems to have agreed that summer is finally over. I swear I saw in a television news broadcast yesterday something about snow up in San Sebastián. A cold front was sweeping down, the weatherman said.

It’s funny that in English we have heat waves but cold fronts whereas in Spanish they have heat and cold waves: you can have an ola de calor and an ola de frío. Well, I find in interesting anyway.

Whatever the linguistic niceties, the colder weather - and it is all relative - temperatures are still in the low teens rather than down to 4 or 5 degrees - only the hardiest of smokers are sitting outside on the terrazas of the cafes in the evening. And the bread shop lady asked if I was not cold when I popped into the shop in my running gear this morning.

Christmas is coming on apace as well. Christmas decorations are going up in all the streets and the supermarkets are filling up with displays of turrón and polvorones and, oddly enough, boxes of Cadbury’s chocolates! It must be a dieter’s nightmare season! Temptation wherever you look!



Back in the UK, mince pies have been on sale since September and in Manchester they switched on the Christmas lights last weekend. The elegant town hall is rather tastelessly adorned once more with a huge inflatable Santa. But I suppose that if you are going to have Christmas Markets, which cover a bigger and bigger area of the city centre every year, then you need them to operate for a fair few weeks to make the effort worthwhile.

But the sun has still been shining here today and so we took a stroll along the coastal path this afternoon.


We travel back to the UK tomorrow. Time to buy a Christmas tree and start making plans

No comments:

Post a Comment