Striking stuff!

So here we are, last day of the Pontevedra chess event. Most rounds begin at a very civilised 5.00 pm but, because this is the last round and there has to be a closing ceremony and prize-giving, today play started at 10.00 am. Therefore, much against his will, Phil had to get up early this morning. And we couldn’t have our usual breakfast of fresh bread as the cafetería/panadería where I usually buy fresh bread in the morning does not take delivery of its bread until after 8.00. We couldn’t even supplement our breakfast with a coffee at the Entre Sartenes cafe in the bus station as there really was not time when we arrived at Pontevedra.

And then the bus from town to the tournament venue, arranged by the tournament organisers, was running very late. This turned out to be because of heavy traffic but as there were transport organisational problems on the final day last year the waiting chess players were all a little stressed. But all was well in the end and everyone arrived in time to start playing! Phew, what a relief!

We should really consider ourselves lucky to have been able to travel by train in the first place as we discovered yesterday that there is another rail strike planned for today. Fortunately it turned out to be between mid-day and 4.00 pm and so the 8.50 am train we planned to catch was not affected.

I found a leaflet about the strike, all in Galician, of course. FOLGA NO FERROCARRIL. The vocabulary interested me. Years ago, when first we came to Galica, I used to see notices around calling for a “greve geral” - a general strike. Now, “greve” was clearly borrowed from the French “grève”, nothing like the Castilian Spanish “huelga”. But it seems that, perhaps with the passing of time, someone has decided that there has to be a good Galician word for it.

It is very common for words that begin with “h” in Castilian Spanish turn into words beginning with “f” in Galician or Portuguese. Accordingly “stove/oven” is “horno” or “forno”, depending on the language. The “ue” diphthong also often reverts to the vowel “o”. So it is logical the “huelga” should become “folga”. There seems to be no separate word for “railway” - “ferrocarril”.

Anyway, there it is. Strikers are calling for “menos xestores e mais traballadores” - fewer managers and more workers.

Here come some statistics:-

• In 2018 more than 100 trains in the region were replaced by buses because there were no drivers available for the trains. This is beginning to sound like Northern Rail in the Northwest of England, except that there trains are simply cancelled. No replacement buses! 
•  More than 5,200 trains ran without conducters. Another Northern Rail problem, but in Galicia it has led to a serious loss of income as the smaller stations are often unmanned and so people have been able to travel for free, 
•  Not enough ticket sellers in the manned stations, resulting in long queues of exasperated people. We know that one! 

 Oh, boy!

And Phil won the veterans’ prize, despite feeling full of a cold and generally out of sorts all week.

Sometimes you can win, if not it all, then at least something.