Wild and wooly weather - with a sunny interlude - and some linguistic oddities.

So the whole blog-posting this went a bit haywire over the last couple of days.

(Linguistic aside: why do we say that things go haywire? I looked it up. Hay wire, as I suspected is the thin wire used to fasten up bales of hay - before bales of hay were wrapped in plastic in a range of lurid colours! Early in the 20th century apparently they began talking about “haywire companies” in the USA, describing companies not properly set up and referring back flimsy repairs done with haywire.
But the page I found this on went on to say that it is more likely to refer to the fact that hay wire, being thin and a bit bouncy, has a tendency to get into a tangle. That seems more like it to me!)

Anyway, on Thursday morning I looked out and saw dry(ish) pavements and people walking along without umbrellas. Consequently I decided it was fit weather for running and off I went. In the time it took to don my running gear and get down from the seventh floor to ground level the rain had started. And with a vengeance! Too late! I was out in it! I got soaked. The rain was set in for the day, we did not leave the flat all day. As we have no internet in the flat, that was that. ny essential emailing was done by iPhone.

Then yesterday we just travelled. And the weather was foul once more. Our plane was buffeted all the way and when we arrived at Liverpool we were all warned, more than usual, to hold on to the rails as we descended from the aircraft - howling gale in Liverpool!

No doubt Ryanair gave extra warning to avoid possible lawsuits.

In contrast, last Wednesday was beautiful. Blue sky and sunshine. Positively balmy! Which was nice because on Wednesday we went to Pontevedra to meet a young friend, one of Phil’s chess-playing protegés, for lunch. He is coming to the end of stay in Pontevedra, part of the year abroad requirement on the Modern Languages course he is doing at university. As he is off to Jordon soon for the second stage of his year abroad, we decided to catch up with him while we were in Galicia. 

We thought we might eat at Estrella, a restaurant run and owned by another acquaintance - no, a friend by now - of ours but he was closed. I got the impression he always closes on a Wednesday but he said he had a lot of work to do clearing up after Tuesday’s stormy weather. By the sounds of it, Pontevedra had more wind and heavier rain than Vigo. And Vigo was bad enough! So we went off to Ruas, usually reliably good.

As we decided what to eat, and Phil was considering “un revuelto de setas con jamón”, a scrambled egg dish, our young friend asked how we would translate “setas”. Well, “mushrooms”, of course. So what about “champiñones”? Also mushrooms. He has been staying with a Spanish family, where the parents speak good English, and so he has been able to practise his Spanish and also have difficulties explained. He had suggested to his hostess that “setas” and “champiñones” were just two words for the same thing. Not at all, she had told him, quite different things! But no further elucidation had been available. I told him that I understood that “champiñones” are what we call “button mushrooms” while “setas” are a more wild variety, longer, less “pretty”.

At that point the owner / chief cook and bottle-washer of the restaurant came out, all apologetic, to say that they had run out of “setas”. Would Phil mind having “champiñones” in his scrambled eggs instead. We laughed and explained that we had just been talking about that very topic. She confirmed that I was correct. And we assured our young friend that “setas” are just as edible as “champiñones”. Nothing odd about them. Mushrooms are mushrooms as far as I am concerned.

However, I am not surprised to find different names for different varieties. After all, you get eating oranges, “naranjas de mesa” and juicing oranges, “naranjas de zumo”. And then there are all the fish that are available in Spain that we never come across in the UK. Varieties of apples abound, after all: “las golden”, “las pink (lady)”, “las Granny Smith” but no baking apples!

What surprises me in that potatoes are just potatoes. Our local Tesco, in Saddleworth, has a whole range of different spuds, my preferred variety being “Charlotte”. In the Mercadona supermarket, next door to,our block of flats, there are just ”patatas”. Maybe it’s because Galician potatoes are simply the best in the world and there is no call for any other kind!

Anyway, we had a fine lunch. I had yet another salad, this time a good Spanish “ensalada mixta” with all the necessary ingredients. Huge, with a large dollop of tuna fish. Final comment on the weather: late last night I saw a weather report on the television. A view of Europe showed a huge bank of cloud from earlier in the day swirling up the west side of the Iberian peninsula, across the Bay of Biscay and most of France and then on onto the UK. That is what our bus had driven through from Vigo to Porto. That is what had buffeted our plane. That is what had almost blown us off the plane steps as we got off. And that is what we drove home through with our daughter who kindly collected us from Liverpool airport.

Wild and wooly weather!