Things we do!

We seem to have become accidentally responsible for a child at the chess tournament. The child’s father accompanies him to Pontevedra on the train, sees him onto the tournament bus and goes off to wander around Pontevedra. Quite how many days you can spend walking around the centre of Pontevedra without going crazy is questionable, even during Semana Grande with processions and mad music bands going around.

But the father says there is nothing up at the tournament venue and so he doesn’t go. I wonder if he has thought of purchasing a newspaper or even a book!

And therefore he casually gave me his number and asked me to call him when we were on our way back to the station at the end of each day’s play. Not that I mind, not a great deal anyway, but it is just possible I too might decide to spend a day in Ponters. Or even remain in Vigo. Or go to the beach, something that someone yesterday asked, in tones of total amazement, why I was not doing. As if the only thing any woman wants to do when the temperature is 25+ degrees is go to the beach!

Now, I quite like beaches when I have kids with me who want to explore rock pools and make sandcastles. I love a stroll on the beach in good company in the late afternoon or early evening. But I get bored sunbathing, or would if I spent any time doing it, which I don’t as I burn easily. It’s really hard to read and sunbathe at the same time. And swimming in the sea is lovely but I get a little paranoid about not being able to find where I left my stuff. And besides, if I am on my own I don’t really want to leave my stuff abandoned with nobody to keep an eye on it. So that’s that!

Anyway, yesterday Phil finished his game early. Our first instinct in such a case is to set off walking down the hill towards Pontevedra town. We’ve done it before. It’s a fair walk - about half an hour - along a road but the road is not busy and by early evening it’s all in shade. It beats waiting a couple of hours in a hot sports hall, or even in the cool, breezy area outside the hot sports hall, for the tournament bus down to town. But then, yesterday there was the question of the child.

Well, he too had finished his game early. He’s a fairly tall eleven year old and has legs and so we took him along with us, much to his surprise! Maybe he’s never done a walk like that before. We had to remind him several times over not to walk in the middle of the road! And not to just randomly cross over to look at something on the other side; the road isn’t busy but when cars come, they come fast! And we had to explain at every turn-off that we were not going to take a left turn and go back on our tracks. And we had to explain that we were not going to stop at the Carrefour to buy snacks. We had already phoned his father and arranged to drop him off somewhere near the Peregrina church in the town centre. His father could then provide snacks!

Eventually we got into the old quarter, which was fairly busy, this being Semana Grande. We located a friend to have a drink with and Phil battled through the crowds to deliver the child to his father, inconveniently waiting on the wrong side of the Peregrina church!

But finally we had a pleasant drink and a chat before heading for the station and the train back to Vigo. Not a bad evening in the end: a stroll, a drink, a chat!

What better for a warm summer evening?