Theories of relativity!

Ay! Qué frío! One after another people came into María’s cafe in Vigo last night exclaiming about bow cold it was. Well, okay, it wasn’t baking hot but the temperature charts were still saying 12 degrees, which is fairly mild. Hardly the kind of temperature that has you reaching for your biggest jumper, your wooly hat and scarf and mittens. Even María was at it, expressing surprise that we ordered beer, “in spite of the cold weather”. Although that might have been because on the two previous evenings, albeit rather earlier in the evening than last night, we had ordered coffee or fruit tea infusions. Everything is relative!

This morning we walked to the bus station in the crisp, bright sunshine. One of the signs read 16 degrees. Good grief! That’s almost a balmy English summer’s day! I ended up carrying my jacket; it’s warm work pulling your suitcase through the streets of the city.

We arrived at the bus station in plenty of time for the 12.00 bus to Porto but the bus was already there and already quite full. A bit of a change from the days when it might turn up at 12.15!

We have often commented on the ability of Spanish women to talk the hind leg off a donkey but now I think the award should go to German speaking women. There were three of them, young women in their twenties, possibly German, possibly Austrian who kept up a running chat show for the hour and three quarters that the journey to the airport lasted. To be fair, one of them slept a good deal of the time and most of the talking was done by one of the other two, the third just chipping in her twopenn’orth whenever she got half a chance.

As we were waiting to board the bus a young woman arrived in a bit of a fluster, clearly on the last minute. She asked if anyone knew which side of the bus you needed to put luggage if you were going to the airport. So we put her wise. When we arrived at Porto airport, I saw this same young lady alight from the bus and stride off confidently and nonchalantly towards the entrance, only to rush back a minute or so later to scuttle round to the other side of the bus to collect her suitcase. Maybe she travels a lot on Galician trains where the PA system reminds you as you approach each station in turn not to forget your personal belongings! Imagine the consequences or realing this after the bus had set off to continue its journey to Porto city centre.

In the queue to board the plane, we were marshalling our arguments to prevent the check-in staff insisting on our hand luggage going into the hold. Just ahead of us were a couple from Liverpool, brother and sister as it turned out. They went one each side of the check-in desk. He was invited to check his hand luggage into the hold for free, and accepted, but she was not. Phil and I had the same experience but Phil turned down the offer; the big advantage of travelling hand luggage only is making a quick get-away on arrival without waiting for the suitcase from the carrousel.

Anyway, the gentlemen just ahead of us commented to his sister that his little suitcase was going in the hold for free. He was very pleased; now he did not need to hoist it up into the locker on the plane. A little miffed, his companion said she would like her bag to go in the hold as well if they were going to have to wait anyway. “Go back to the desk,” the gentleman said, “and tell them that your brother is going in the hold and that you would like to as well.” A little bit of dialogue worthy of comedy script writers. Well, we thought so anyway!

So eventually we flew back to the UK, arriving at a rather damp and distinctly cooler Liverpool. Cries of “Ay! Qué frío!” were heard from the Spanish and Portuguese descending the steps from the plane! About 5 degrees! All is relative!

Post script: the latest update on my iPad seems to have eliminated the possibility of typing upside-down question marks and exclamation marks, an essential bit of punctuation if you want to include something Spanish. It used to be so easy: simply hold your finger on the ? or ! And you got the option of an inverted version. Simply gone! I am mystified!