We were almost blown away but we made it.
I felt almost guilty at having turned down the idea of a Chippy Hike but it really didn’t look as thought the day was going to fit for a long walk.
Today began with sleety rain on the skylights. Rather hesitantly I decided to go out for a run anyway and was pleasantly surprised to be able to do the circuit of the village without being rained on. Not long after I returned home, however, there was a monster sleety hailstorm. And that has been the pattern of the day so far. March Winds are here with a vengeance, blowing the clouds around and bringing little bits of all the seasons in one day. I’m still hoping we might have an afternoon like yesterday’s and manage a walk in sporadic sunshine, catching that vitamin D on the go!
In the evenings for the past week we have been watching a police drama in Galician, “O Sabor das Margaridas”. I have been quite pleased to find that I can still understand a lot of Gallego. When we went out to live in Galicia for a while I was determined to learn some of the local language - I have been instructed by many Galician friends and acquaintances that I must refer to it as a language, definitely not a dialect. I am still not totally convinced. Anyway, having discovered I could understand quite a lot of Gallego on a visit to A Coruña with my A-Level students the previous year, I thought I would have a go at learning it. Hopeless! The only “class” I found, at a community centre, was full of Gallego speakers who wanted to argue about “as normas”, the rules. Not really a language class at all. I could have paid an arm and a leg and gone to the Escuela de Idiomas in Vigo but it all seemed too formal. So I am still at the point of “entendo muito pero falo poco” - I understand a lot but can’t say much.
The series itself was interesting, quite gripping, occasionally predictable but ultimately very sad. It centred on the disappearance of a young girl and the gradual revelation of a ring of men abusing young women. There were some telling scenes in a “club”, really one of the brothels that I am told exist in abundance on the edge of towns in the region. And of course, there was police, or in his case Guardia Civil, corruption. Probably the most depressing thing was the final scene. The abuse ring had been broken, the missing girl found, the perpetrators brought to justice but a new boss was in charge of Club Pétalos and the girls who worked there, many illegal immigrants, were still in serious danger. A vicious cycle if ever there was one!
It was undoubtedly appropriate watching for a week when violence against women has been so much in the news. Especially so as the man accused of murder in the latest case is a policeman, as was one of the members of the abuse ring in the series we watched. The statistics for actual violence and rape are quite horrifying. I still, however, remain a little sceptical about the numbers of women who declare that they suffer sexual harassment on a daily basis and who express their fear of walking alone. Are things really as bad as the reports claim them to be? It’s not been my experience. Or have I led too sheltered a life? And maybe things have grown worse in recent years. The freedom to say what you like on social media may have given some men the belief that they can do so out on the streets as well. And even without Coronavirus restrictions I’ve rarely been walking home alone through city streets in recent years.
So I’m on the side of those who say our sons and grandsons need educating to respect girls and women, in fact to respect everyone’s right to be out and about unharassed. And maybe relationships in films and TV series should show more tenderness and less unbridled passion on work desks and kitchen tables and whatever uncomfortable place can be found. Just a thought about what kind of expectations we should be encouraging!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.
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