Not everything is what it looks like!

You look out of the window in the morning and summer seems to be continuing in a normal way. Blue sky and sunshine. And then you go out for a run and realise that there is a pleasant, but by now unfamiliar, crispness to the air. It’s quite refreshing to run at 17 or 18 degrees in the morning instead of already at 24. I don’t think the early morning freshness quite merits the wearing of a jacket buttoned up to the throat, in the manner of the dog-walking lady with whom I have a nodding acquaintance, but there it is. I have mentioned before that I have only once seen her in summer clothes and that was when the heatwave was at its height!

As well as the morning freshness, there are increasing piles of fallen leaves for the street sweeper, another nodding acquaintance, to clear up. Some of the trees are turning interesting colours. And the sun, which until recently set, dazzlingly, blindingly, directly opposite the flat, has now moved it’s setting position further south, as well as going to bed earlier than it used to.

 Signs of autumn are around, even though it’s quite possible that, like last year, a summer of sorts will continue until mid-October. We will be long gone, heading back for the UK tomorrow, but something of an Indian summer is forecast there as well. Fingers crossed! Ideally, pleasantly warm but not too hot. The kind of English summer my Spanish sister gets nostalgic about.

 Yesterday we decided to go for a walk before it grew too hot. So mid-morning we set off to walk to the top of the promontory of A Guía. On the side of the chapel there was a huge poster, giving some information but mainly asking people to contribute. It turns out that the chapel, which we had thought to be quite ancient, was not built until the 1950s. Part of the original plan had been to put a huge statue on the top of the building. This was to be the Sacred Heart of Jesus, or rather the figure of Jesus holding his Sacred Heart. Plans are afoot to continue with the project. A six metre tall statue will be placed on top of the tower.

It will be visible from all around the area, rather like the huge statue on the outskirts of Baiona.

Pontevedra regional government and Vigo city council are working together and appealing to people to collaborate. Which I assume means contribute money, not actually get involved in sculpting and erecting. We have seen the results of local people getting involved in renovating works of art in churches in Spain and it has not been good!

But we were surprised at how relatively recent the construction of the chapel was. I suppose that having been built in a traditional style it can seem much older.

It just goes to show that not everything is as it seems.

Rather like hearing once again the Pop! Pop! Popopop!! POP! (Or KRUMP! as Phil likes to describe it, reverting the vocabulary of the comics of his childhood) of fireworks late last night and thinking it came from a certain direction but being unable to spot anything. Then I went into the bedroom, looking out of a window in another direction, and there, in Cangas across the bay, invisible from the living room window, was the firework display! The usual display but not where we expected it to be! 

And then I went down to the pool this morning. There were very few people there, despite the sunshine and the increasing temperature - the early morning crispness had long since disappeared. A Spanish-Italian couple I have got to know were there as usual but that was almost all there was. Instead of a host of people toasting themselves to a crisp, there was alone man doing yoga on his yoga mat in the shade.

He was following instructions from something on his iPad but he was clearly an advanced yoga man. Not just a salute to the sun but the complicated yoga where you balance on your hands while your feet are tucked up behind your ears! Rocking back and forth with your feet crossed behind your head. Tying your arms in knots behind your back, almost at the level of your shoulders. He had clearly done this before.

I reckon it takes a special kind of confidence and a zen-like ability to shut out all that surrounds you to put on a display like that in the communal gardens of two blocks of flats.

Always expect the unexpected!