Last Saturday, on the dot of midnight our mobile internet gadget ran out of credit. Just as poor Cinderella's fine frock turned into rags as the clock chimed twelve, so our dongle turned into a useless bit of plastic.
So on Monday we went along to the Vodafone shop to see what splendid offers they had for us. This being summertime they had a special summer offer for 1.5 giga for €15 with a three month period to use it in. Not enough to download films and music but enough to keep us going for a while checking our email and such. The shop didn't have the correct pack for the offer so we sat around while a helpful young man spent three quarters of an hour on the phone getting a mobile phone sim converted into a data only sim and then getting the right amount of credit on it. It seemed to work. Sorted!
At some point on Tuesday night we found that our internet connection was dropping after just a couple of minutes. Not sorted after all. So on Wednesday, after a pleasant lunch with friends, we went back to the shop, armed with the dongle, the relevant bits of information and the computer. A very helpful young lady called Ana had a go at sorting it for us. The conversion from mobile phone sim to data only sim had not been done correctly. That should have been easy to sort out. Then it transpired that the sim now had no credit. We needed to pay another €15 to get our data allowance. It's amazing what a bit of indignation can do for your Spanish. Phil was suddenly all indignation, quiet, calm indignation but indignation none the less. And in beautiful Spanish.
So the very helpful Ana got back on the phone and spent a good hour going round in circles, explaining the problem, being passed on to someone else, explaining again, arguing our cause in fact. At one point she thought she had it sorted. Verbally the central organisation had guaranteed that all was well but she wanted to wait a few minutes and then request further confirmation. Just as well she did, for the cycle began again! Eventually she achieved the near impossible and got us the €15 credit, guaranteed data only!!!! What a heroine?
Earlier, while we waited for the shop to open (we had 4.30 in mind but the notice in the door said 5.00) I found myself being perhaps a little rude to a novel kind of beggar. A young man with a clipboard saw us standing in the street and sauntered over, asking for a few minutes of our time. He commented on our apparent admiration of the clothes in the posh frock shop. I put him wise and told him we were waiting for Vodafone to open.
Then he went into his spiel.
Would I like to give him a euro for the sheet of paper on his clipboard? Well, no, not really, but what was it? Something poetic! Something interesting! Okay, what was it for? To inform, to educate, to help me understand life and death! It seemed to be a photocopy of a handwritten sheet and in the absence of further explanation I was not prepared to hand over even a small amount of money. Did I not want to read it? No! Well, did I not want to give him a euro to find out what it was all about? No! That, I am afraid, was all I said.
Harrumphing about Vodafone, he walked away.
I was not really rude but I suppose I was abrupt. Had he explained what it was all about without all the nonsense about reading a life-enhancing piece of paper, I might have given him some more attention, time and even money. It is entirely possible that he was not a beggar but working for some organisation, I suppose. But I was not in the mood for airy fairy nonsense and gave him short shrift!
Something rather different: at the barber's shop the other day, the barber showed me some old photos of Vigo. Very interesting they were too. I love old photos of places I know. One of the photos showed the Castro without trees. All you could see was a huge rocky outcropping with a fortress on the top. Of course, when the fortification was an actual military establishment they would not want trees around it. They would require a clear line of sight for firing their cannons and no chance of anyone sneaking up on them through the trees and underbrush.
So when, I wonder, were the trees planted. For now they look as though they have always been there. The Castro Park is one of the green lungs of the city. At some point the decision must have been taken to plant trees and flowers, to make pathways up to the top and to make the fortification into a park: to parkalise it!
Does such a word exist? Probably not. However, up at the top of the Castro there is a notice about the "musealisation" of the Roman and pre-Roman settlement remains up there. I have my doubts about the Spanish verb "musealizar" and even more serious doubts about the cavalier translations of that into the English(?) "musealise". So I feel justified in creating the verb "to parkalise".
Friday, 17 July 2015
Wednesday, 15 July 2015
It beggars belief!
Strolling out yesterday evening to meet Phil after his "training" session at the chess club, I was just getting into the Calvario district of Vigo when a cheerful voice greeted me, someone clearly pleased to see me. I looked round. "!Hola, señora! Me alegro de verle." The little beggar girl from the supermarket. I say little, meaning physically small. She is old enough to have an almost seven year old son, even though she looks about 15 and is not much more than a head taller than her offspring.
She chatted to me quite pleasantly, in perfectly normal Spanish, introducing me to her rather podgy offspring. Then suddenly, as if she had just remembered her role as "Soy-muy-pobre", her voice changed into the begging whine and she told me how she has no money to feed her child. Not even enough to keep him properly clean. "Mire su pelo, Ni tengo para lavarlo," she told me - look at his hair, I can't even wash it for him! I had to give her some small change just to get rid of her. No wonder she is pleased to see me!
As I already mentioned, her son did not appear to be underfed. Perhaps he has succumbed to the obesity problems caused by poor diet. What happened to the romantically skinny and big-eyed gipsy children I saw begging when I first came out Spain in the late sixties?
Then there are the parking beggars, the men who direct drivers to parking spaces they can we perfectly well and which they have to pay for anyway. These men ask for payment for this is invaluable service. Several time recently we have seen a group of then string together having a chat. Maybe there is a parking beggars union!
Seriously though, there is something wrong when people in a first world country in the 21st century are still begging on the streets. Today we woke up to fog. Someone had clearly stolen the whole city, the estuary, everything. By lunchtime the sun had burnt most of it off, although there was still a roll of low mist on the water as we walked into town to meet friends for lunch. At lunch we came upon the linguistic problem of "patatas fritas" once more.
On the menu at the restaurant was "merluza a la gallega" - hake Galician style, in other words with boiled potatoes. So we asked if we could have chips instead of boiled potatoes. No problem. Except that the fish, very fresh and very tasty, came with freshly cooked, home-made crisps. This is because "patatas fritas" serves for both these items.
Among other linguistic oddities spotted today is a tendency to run words together. There is a shop near the Carrefour supermarket which calls itself "yoloreparo.com". This should be "yo lo reparo" - I mend it. The shop offered to fix a range of electrical items. And then I saw an advert for a cheap tent on sale at Decathlon. The advert offered "todolopocoquenecesitas" or "todo lo poco que necesitas" - the very small amount that you need. In this case, it was a two man tent for less than €10. A bargain, I should think.
Language is odd! But interesting!
She chatted to me quite pleasantly, in perfectly normal Spanish, introducing me to her rather podgy offspring. Then suddenly, as if she had just remembered her role as "Soy-muy-pobre", her voice changed into the begging whine and she told me how she has no money to feed her child. Not even enough to keep him properly clean. "Mire su pelo, Ni tengo para lavarlo," she told me - look at his hair, I can't even wash it for him! I had to give her some small change just to get rid of her. No wonder she is pleased to see me!
As I already mentioned, her son did not appear to be underfed. Perhaps he has succumbed to the obesity problems caused by poor diet. What happened to the romantically skinny and big-eyed gipsy children I saw begging when I first came out Spain in the late sixties?
Then there are the parking beggars, the men who direct drivers to parking spaces they can we perfectly well and which they have to pay for anyway. These men ask for payment for this is invaluable service. Several time recently we have seen a group of then string together having a chat. Maybe there is a parking beggars union!
Seriously though, there is something wrong when people in a first world country in the 21st century are still begging on the streets. Today we woke up to fog. Someone had clearly stolen the whole city, the estuary, everything. By lunchtime the sun had burnt most of it off, although there was still a roll of low mist on the water as we walked into town to meet friends for lunch. At lunch we came upon the linguistic problem of "patatas fritas" once more.
On the menu at the restaurant was "merluza a la gallega" - hake Galician style, in other words with boiled potatoes. So we asked if we could have chips instead of boiled potatoes. No problem. Except that the fish, very fresh and very tasty, came with freshly cooked, home-made crisps. This is because "patatas fritas" serves for both these items.
Among other linguistic oddities spotted today is a tendency to run words together. There is a shop near the Carrefour supermarket which calls itself "yoloreparo.com". This should be "yo lo reparo" - I mend it. The shop offered to fix a range of electrical items. And then I saw an advert for a cheap tent on sale at Decathlon. The advert offered "todolopocoquenecesitas" or "todo lo poco que necesitas" - the very small amount that you need. In this case, it was a two man tent for less than €10. A bargain, I should think.
Language is odd! But interesting!
Tuesday, 14 July 2015
Life's little mysteries!
When we were in Sanxenxo I would get up in the morning and run down the promenade, past the marina, along to the lighthouse and back. On my way back I would go down the steps onto Silgar beach, take off my running shoes and socks and walk back along the beach. Some of the time I walked in the sea. You have to do these things.
Coming off the beach I would put my bare and rather sandy feet into my running shoes and walk the short distance back up to the hotel where I would shower the beach off my feet. I also tipped the sand out of my shoes. I emptied them again when we came back to Vigo, just to be on the safe side. I can see no trace of the beach in my running shoes.
So how is it that when I come back from running up the hill, around the back and down to the breadshop, here in Vigo where I am quite a distance from the beach, when I take off my running shoes and socks I find I have sand between my toes? The invisible remaining bit of sand in my running shoes makes its way through my socks and deposits itself between my toes. The ghost of Silgar beach! How long will this go on before the supply of sand runs out? This is one of life's little mysteries.
Down at the pool, in the late morning, I regularly see an elderly couple (a good few years older than I am anyway), she on a folding recliner chair, he on a towel on the ground. She has her earphones in and listens to music, I presume, on an early version iPod. He just sleeps in the sun. As a rule they are both on their backs (I don't suppose there is another position for the lady in the recliner chair) with their arms out to the side and bent upwards. It's that classic relaxed sleeping baby position. Their hands are open, loosely open in relaxation. The symmetry is perfect. Now, I find myself wondering, are they trying to extend their suntan onto the underside of their arms and their armpits? (Both are as brown as berries - presumably from years of coming down to the pool and stretching out in the sun.) Or is this a form of third age yoga relaxation that I have not heard about?
Yesterday I went down to the pool in the evening instead of the morning. We were busy recharging the mobile internet device and putting money on our bus cards and other sundry town-centre-based activities during the morning. By the time we got back it was decidedly too hot to be outside in the sun. I could have swum, I suppose, or simply stood in the pool to keep cool. As it was, I went down much later for a swim.
The evening clientele is quite different. Late mornings at the pool are quieter, some dedicated sun worshippers and a few swimmers. The occasional young girls practising their synchronised swimming routines. In the early evening there are children learning to swim, small boys who jump in on top of everyone regardless and young people throwing balls around and playing a kind of water based piggy in the middle. One young man was intent on showing off how many different swimming strokes he knows. It really is not worth doing the butterfly in our little pool - a couple of strokes and you are at the far end.
This is what life is reduced to when the weather is hot!
Coming off the beach I would put my bare and rather sandy feet into my running shoes and walk the short distance back up to the hotel where I would shower the beach off my feet. I also tipped the sand out of my shoes. I emptied them again when we came back to Vigo, just to be on the safe side. I can see no trace of the beach in my running shoes.
So how is it that when I come back from running up the hill, around the back and down to the breadshop, here in Vigo where I am quite a distance from the beach, when I take off my running shoes and socks I find I have sand between my toes? The invisible remaining bit of sand in my running shoes makes its way through my socks and deposits itself between my toes. The ghost of Silgar beach! How long will this go on before the supply of sand runs out? This is one of life's little mysteries.
Down at the pool, in the late morning, I regularly see an elderly couple (a good few years older than I am anyway), she on a folding recliner chair, he on a towel on the ground. She has her earphones in and listens to music, I presume, on an early version iPod. He just sleeps in the sun. As a rule they are both on their backs (I don't suppose there is another position for the lady in the recliner chair) with their arms out to the side and bent upwards. It's that classic relaxed sleeping baby position. Their hands are open, loosely open in relaxation. The symmetry is perfect. Now, I find myself wondering, are they trying to extend their suntan onto the underside of their arms and their armpits? (Both are as brown as berries - presumably from years of coming down to the pool and stretching out in the sun.) Or is this a form of third age yoga relaxation that I have not heard about?
Yesterday I went down to the pool in the evening instead of the morning. We were busy recharging the mobile internet device and putting money on our bus cards and other sundry town-centre-based activities during the morning. By the time we got back it was decidedly too hot to be outside in the sun. I could have swum, I suppose, or simply stood in the pool to keep cool. As it was, I went down much later for a swim.
The evening clientele is quite different. Late mornings at the pool are quieter, some dedicated sun worshippers and a few swimmers. The occasional young girls practising their synchronised swimming routines. In the early evening there are children learning to swim, small boys who jump in on top of everyone regardless and young people throwing balls around and playing a kind of water based piggy in the middle. One young man was intent on showing off how many different swimming strokes he knows. It really is not worth doing the butterfly in our little pool - a couple of strokes and you are at the far end.
This is what life is reduced to when the weather is hot!
Monday, 13 July 2015
Running. Water. Height. Modern life.
This morning I ran again, for the first time in about two weeks. Ever since we left Sanxenxo, in fact.
At our friend Colin's in Poio, I did not run but walked down the hill to buy bread for breakfast and back up again, hoping against hope that the door to the garden remained open so that I did not have to take the longer route round by the road. On both occasions I was lucky. The gardener did tell me something about a code to open the gate but as I could see no kind of keypad into which to put a code I remained mystified. Perhaps he was making some kind of Spanish joke.
Back in England for babysitting duties, somehow I did not organise myself for running. It might have involved running with the small dog. A run too far for me. And then I returned from England with a cold. I cannot actually blame England because my throat was already prickling when I stayed overnight in Porto a Spanish summer cold then! But running while coughing and sneezing is not to be recommended.
Anyway, this morning I finally felt ready to run once more: down the road, up the hill, round the back, down to the breadshop, for a weather consultation, and home. Home, this time, to a cold shower. This was not from any crazy Spartan philosophy of good health. One result of the water pipes investigation at the end of last week was the discovery that our water heating boiler is faulty. The pressure is too high and, if left switched on, it wastes up to a litre of water per day. Water which we pay for. Looking at the water bills, this seems to be a very recent problem, fortunately. However, the immediate solution, while our landlady decides whether it is more economical to do a rather costly repair or replace the boiler, has been to switch it off and show us how to operate the switch mechanism. This involves clambering up and reaching behind the fridge-freezer, which is one of the things - along with reaching stuff from high cupboards, getting out and putting away stuff on the top shelf of the wardrobe - for which I am just a little too short.
I have often thought that it would be useful to be an inch or two taller. It is not that I am excessively short but a little extra height could be useful. While I worked in Salford I was, unusually, regarded as very tall. I decided that everyone there must see the world differently from the rest of us. Possibly as a result of having a low average height!
That, then, is how I came to have a Spartan cold shower this morning. I
It has nothing to do with austerity measures either. On the other hand the man I saw toting his shoe-shine kit around the port area the other day may well have been motivated by such things. At one time the "limpiabotas" was such a regular feature of the Spanish street scene that school text books for teaching the language in England did not fail to include one. Gentlemen standing at the bar would be approached by a chap with a wooden box containing the shoe cleaning kit and could have their shoes polished while they drank their coffee. Mostly those who offer the service have disappeared. Perhaps people clean their shoes less than they used to. Shoe shop assistants are certainly less assiduous in selling you polish than they used to be. But there he was the other day, the "limpiabotas" with the standard traditional box. Hard times lead to desperate measures.
And finally pedestrian crossings. You really need to catch the driver's eye to be sure it is safe to cross. This does not always work, however. Sometimes they look you straight in the eye, smile, give a cheerful wave and continue. The wave presumably to thank you for letting them go. Modern life!
At our friend Colin's in Poio, I did not run but walked down the hill to buy bread for breakfast and back up again, hoping against hope that the door to the garden remained open so that I did not have to take the longer route round by the road. On both occasions I was lucky. The gardener did tell me something about a code to open the gate but as I could see no kind of keypad into which to put a code I remained mystified. Perhaps he was making some kind of Spanish joke.
Back in England for babysitting duties, somehow I did not organise myself for running. It might have involved running with the small dog. A run too far for me. And then I returned from England with a cold. I cannot actually blame England because my throat was already prickling when I stayed overnight in Porto a Spanish summer cold then! But running while coughing and sneezing is not to be recommended.
Anyway, this morning I finally felt ready to run once more: down the road, up the hill, round the back, down to the breadshop, for a weather consultation, and home. Home, this time, to a cold shower. This was not from any crazy Spartan philosophy of good health. One result of the water pipes investigation at the end of last week was the discovery that our water heating boiler is faulty. The pressure is too high and, if left switched on, it wastes up to a litre of water per day. Water which we pay for. Looking at the water bills, this seems to be a very recent problem, fortunately. However, the immediate solution, while our landlady decides whether it is more economical to do a rather costly repair or replace the boiler, has been to switch it off and show us how to operate the switch mechanism. This involves clambering up and reaching behind the fridge-freezer, which is one of the things - along with reaching stuff from high cupboards, getting out and putting away stuff on the top shelf of the wardrobe - for which I am just a little too short.
I have often thought that it would be useful to be an inch or two taller. It is not that I am excessively short but a little extra height could be useful. While I worked in Salford I was, unusually, regarded as very tall. I decided that everyone there must see the world differently from the rest of us. Possibly as a result of having a low average height!
That, then, is how I came to have a Spartan cold shower this morning. I
It has nothing to do with austerity measures either. On the other hand the man I saw toting his shoe-shine kit around the port area the other day may well have been motivated by such things. At one time the "limpiabotas" was such a regular feature of the Spanish street scene that school text books for teaching the language in England did not fail to include one. Gentlemen standing at the bar would be approached by a chap with a wooden box containing the shoe cleaning kit and could have their shoes polished while they drank their coffee. Mostly those who offer the service have disappeared. Perhaps people clean their shoes less than they used to. Shoe shop assistants are certainly less assiduous in selling you polish than they used to be. But there he was the other day, the "limpiabotas" with the standard traditional box. Hard times lead to desperate measures.
And finally pedestrian crossings. You really need to catch the driver's eye to be sure it is safe to cross. This does not always work, however. Sometimes they look you straight in the eye, smile, give a cheerful wave and continue. The wave presumably to thank you for letting them go. Modern life!
Sunday, 12 July 2015
Hairdressers.
The other day we went to the hairdresser's, both of us. I went out in the morning, had my hair done and caught up on the scandal magazines. These are full of cute photos of the christening of the UK's Princess Charlotte. Amazingly the Duchess of Cambridge, her sister and her mother all managed to coordinate their outfits, tasteful retro pale cream affairs! If I were Kate, I might feel that my female relatives were trying to upstage me.
There were also pictures of the king and queen of Spain visiting Mexico. The wife of the president of Mexico, I now know, is exactly the same height at Queen Letizia. (Do we really need to know such random facts?) Queen Letizia is one of the president's wife's role models in fashion matters, as is our very own Kate Middleton, in fact. The article declared that she is very much influenced by "los royals y los celebs". There you go, the ubiquitous use of English!!! The pale cream outfit that Kate Middleton wore was described as "un coat dress". Surely the Spanish and French and Italians have their own terms for such things. So it goes.
Something odd is happening to the Spanish press in its way of referring to the UK royal family. Usually all the names are hispanified but this is slowly altering. Prince William remains Guillermo but Kate, who is usually Catalina, is now Kate, just like that. And the children are not Jorge and Carlota, as tradition would demand but very Englishly George and Charlotte. Do you think someone has complained?
After the hairdresser's I went to the library, looking for something in Spanish for Phil to read. I have not been there since last summer, or maybe the summer before. No problem. My card still works. The library is as frustrating as ever. The computer system, the only way of locating books because of their crazy filing system, seemed to have no way of returning to the previous page looked at. You had to go back to the start whereupon the screen went blank and then you followed the instructions in Gallego on a piece of card in front of the computer. Then you had to hunt the shelves to find the number of the book you seek. Browsing the shelves is impossible as all the authors are jumbled up. How reassuring that some things do not change!
Phil and I met for lunch - chipirones encebollados at the Rosalia Castro down near the port - and then coffee at the Maracaibo on the alameda. Since we were last here the Maracaibo has acquired wifi but the ladies loo still does not have a functioning lock on the door!
And after lunch Phil went for haircut. Two visits to hairdressing emporia in one day: is this a record?
There were also pictures of the king and queen of Spain visiting Mexico. The wife of the president of Mexico, I now know, is exactly the same height at Queen Letizia. (Do we really need to know such random facts?) Queen Letizia is one of the president's wife's role models in fashion matters, as is our very own Kate Middleton, in fact. The article declared that she is very much influenced by "los royals y los celebs". There you go, the ubiquitous use of English!!! The pale cream outfit that Kate Middleton wore was described as "un coat dress". Surely the Spanish and French and Italians have their own terms for such things. So it goes.
Something odd is happening to the Spanish press in its way of referring to the UK royal family. Usually all the names are hispanified but this is slowly altering. Prince William remains Guillermo but Kate, who is usually Catalina, is now Kate, just like that. And the children are not Jorge and Carlota, as tradition would demand but very Englishly George and Charlotte. Do you think someone has complained?
After the hairdresser's I went to the library, looking for something in Spanish for Phil to read. I have not been there since last summer, or maybe the summer before. No problem. My card still works. The library is as frustrating as ever. The computer system, the only way of locating books because of their crazy filing system, seemed to have no way of returning to the previous page looked at. You had to go back to the start whereupon the screen went blank and then you followed the instructions in Gallego on a piece of card in front of the computer. Then you had to hunt the shelves to find the number of the book you seek. Browsing the shelves is impossible as all the authors are jumbled up. How reassuring that some things do not change!
Phil and I met for lunch - chipirones encebollados at the Rosalia Castro down near the port - and then coffee at the Maracaibo on the alameda. Since we were last here the Maracaibo has acquired wifi but the ladies loo still does not have a functioning lock on the door!
And after lunch Phil went for haircut. Two visits to hairdressing emporia in one day: is this a record?
Thursday, 9 July 2015
High rise living!
Yesterday was noisy at times. There is a special quality to the sound of "obras y reformas" in Spanish blocks of flats. It has a tendency to reverberate through the building. Often there is the high pitched squeal of tile cutters. Yesterday it was mostly a lot of banging, outside our door!!!
Earlier this year, while we were in England, our landlady's daughter, Marisela, who does all the communicating between us, got in touch to say that the "comunidad", the residents' association, wanted access to our flat. Lower flats were suffering from damp and they were trying to find out where it came from. We assured her that it was unlikely to be from our flat as we always turned off the water at the mains when we left the place empty for a longish period. But we gave her permission to go in with the plumbers and check. This she did and, as expected, nothing untoward was found. She refused permission for the plumbers to investigate further by making holes in the bathroom wall!!!
On Friday, while I was in England babysitting, Phil had a visit from the plumbers. They wanted to look under the sink as there was a problem with a drainage pipe for the whole building that takes waste water away from the flats. After examination, they asked him to contact Marisela and ask her to get in touch with them. This we duly did and it was arranged that yesterday Marisela would meet here with the plumbers of the "comunidad" and with one from her insurance company.
The "comunidad" plumbers made a fair-sized hole in the wall outside our flat. Hence all the banging. It seems that there has been a leak in the drainpipe inside that wall. For some reason, in order to complete that repair they needed to replace the outlet pipe that went from our kitchen. It was quite interesting to watch the negotiations going on between Marisela and the plumber: she just about managing to hold her temper in check and remain calm and polite, he blandly denying any knowledge of previous things that had gone on regarding plumbing in the building.
At one point, Marisela and I went down to the flat below to see the damage caused. The young woman who lives there with her husband and small baby is at her wits' end. Her kitchen cupboard doors are swollen from all the wastewater from higher floors leaking into her kitchen. That is not the only problem. One of her bathrooms, the main bathroom, is out of use because her landlord gave permission for a hole to be made in the wall during the earlier investigation and, several months on, the hole is still there. She was in the process of packing up, ready to give notice if her landlord did not get it sorted pronto quick. Marisela's denial of permission to make holes in our bathroom wall during the original investigations was clearly justified!
Such are the joys of flat living.
Another joy is the junk mail. By the entrance is a notice, "¡NO ACEPTAMOS PUBLICIDAD!". It's all very well saying you don't accept junk mail but if you leave open the outer door, the one allowing access to the letter boxes, then junk mail you will get.
When we first viewed this flat, that door was always locked but for at least two years the lock has been broken and many residents just leave it propped open. Clearly they do not regard it as a problem; the inner door, giving proper access to the building itself, remains locked so all is well, apparently. And so the letter boxes are stuffed with advertising for pizza delivery services, furniture sales, supermarket promotions and almost anything under the sun. We rarely receive any other mail but we duly remove the illegal, unwanted, unasked-for "PUBLICIDAD" and put it all in the paper recycling bin. Not so all residents. There are some who simply drop it on the floor for others to pick up. We do so and I have seen other good citizens do the same.
Among the junk yesterday we found a small paper rectangle offering the services of MAESTRO OUSSOU. This "great astrologer, scientist, spiritualist and trustworthy African healer" will solve just about every problem imaginable. Getting your lost love back. Attracting the person you love. Impotence. Doing well in your business, your job, your exams. (Presumably a bit of magic is better than working and studying hard!) Keeping your job. Removing the evil eye and other curses. The list goes on and on. Maestro Oussou promises to resolve desperate cases quickly; in fact he guarantees to do so within seven days.
And to think that I have been throwing such amazing stuff into the paper recycling bin!
I wonder if he deals with the noise of "obras y reformas".
Earlier this year, while we were in England, our landlady's daughter, Marisela, who does all the communicating between us, got in touch to say that the "comunidad", the residents' association, wanted access to our flat. Lower flats were suffering from damp and they were trying to find out where it came from. We assured her that it was unlikely to be from our flat as we always turned off the water at the mains when we left the place empty for a longish period. But we gave her permission to go in with the plumbers and check. This she did and, as expected, nothing untoward was found. She refused permission for the plumbers to investigate further by making holes in the bathroom wall!!!
On Friday, while I was in England babysitting, Phil had a visit from the plumbers. They wanted to look under the sink as there was a problem with a drainage pipe for the whole building that takes waste water away from the flats. After examination, they asked him to contact Marisela and ask her to get in touch with them. This we duly did and it was arranged that yesterday Marisela would meet here with the plumbers of the "comunidad" and with one from her insurance company.
The "comunidad" plumbers made a fair-sized hole in the wall outside our flat. Hence all the banging. It seems that there has been a leak in the drainpipe inside that wall. For some reason, in order to complete that repair they needed to replace the outlet pipe that went from our kitchen. It was quite interesting to watch the negotiations going on between Marisela and the plumber: she just about managing to hold her temper in check and remain calm and polite, he blandly denying any knowledge of previous things that had gone on regarding plumbing in the building.
At one point, Marisela and I went down to the flat below to see the damage caused. The young woman who lives there with her husband and small baby is at her wits' end. Her kitchen cupboard doors are swollen from all the wastewater from higher floors leaking into her kitchen. That is not the only problem. One of her bathrooms, the main bathroom, is out of use because her landlord gave permission for a hole to be made in the wall during the earlier investigation and, several months on, the hole is still there. She was in the process of packing up, ready to give notice if her landlord did not get it sorted pronto quick. Marisela's denial of permission to make holes in our bathroom wall during the original investigations was clearly justified!
Such are the joys of flat living.
Another joy is the junk mail. By the entrance is a notice, "¡NO ACEPTAMOS PUBLICIDAD!". It's all very well saying you don't accept junk mail but if you leave open the outer door, the one allowing access to the letter boxes, then junk mail you will get.
When we first viewed this flat, that door was always locked but for at least two years the lock has been broken and many residents just leave it propped open. Clearly they do not regard it as a problem; the inner door, giving proper access to the building itself, remains locked so all is well, apparently. And so the letter boxes are stuffed with advertising for pizza delivery services, furniture sales, supermarket promotions and almost anything under the sun. We rarely receive any other mail but we duly remove the illegal, unwanted, unasked-for "PUBLICIDAD" and put it all in the paper recycling bin. Not so all residents. There are some who simply drop it on the floor for others to pick up. We do so and I have seen other good citizens do the same.
Among the junk yesterday we found a small paper rectangle offering the services of MAESTRO OUSSOU. This "great astrologer, scientist, spiritualist and trustworthy African healer" will solve just about every problem imaginable. Getting your lost love back. Attracting the person you love. Impotence. Doing well in your business, your job, your exams. (Presumably a bit of magic is better than working and studying hard!) Keeping your job. Removing the evil eye and other curses. The list goes on and on. Maestro Oussou promises to resolve desperate cases quickly; in fact he guarantees to do so within seven days.
And to think that I have been throwing such amazing stuff into the paper recycling bin!
I wonder if he deals with the noise of "obras y reformas".
Wednesday, 8 July 2015
Delays and more delays!
Yesterday I arrived back in Vigo after a long weekend of non-stop activity back in the UK, some of it self inflicted, I must confess. Well, you can't go back to the UK to help out your daughter without doing a bit of socialising yourself. This is why there have been no posts for the last week.
What I wrote on our return from Pontevedra, around a week ago never got posted, for one reason or another, and will be recycled for another occasion.
Here is what led to my brief return to Blighty. Shortly before we set off to spend the summer in Galicia - and I really mean shortly - a matter of a few days notice - our daughter put in a request for some babysitting presence. It turned out that on the first weekend of July she was invited to go on a friend's hen party weekend. Now, I am not entirely convinced of the need for stag and hen parties. The Spanish call them "fiestas de despedida de soltero/a" - a party to say farewell to your bachelor/spinsterhood. Don't get me wrong. I am not opposed to people going out for a drink with their mates before they get married. There is a long tradition of the groom being taken out by his friends on the night before the wedding and being made to drink copious amounts of alcohol. In this age of equality the friends of the bride feel they have a perfect right to do the same. Nowadays the bride and groom usually have the best man and the chief bridesmaid organise it. And it is understandable that the happy couple might want to do this a good few days before the wedding in order to avoid wedding day hangover problems. Consequently it usually occurs some weeks before the wedding day.
No, my objection is that the whole thing has got out of hand. The "party" has morphed into a mini holiday, a weekend, or longer, away somewhere. Many a historic city has been ruined for other tourists, cultural travellers, by gangs of drunken (usually British) young men playing tricks on the groom and young women dressed in pink with t-shirts declaring who they all are. The pink t-shirt brigades often include the mother or even the grandmother of the bride and possibly the mother-in-law to be. And then there's the question of "saying farewell to bachelor- or spinster-hood". Often the happy couple have been living together for years already while they saved up for the expensive wedding. Surely they have already said goodbye to their single status long ago? Ah, well! So it goes!
My daughter assured me that she and her friends had no intention of wearing pink tutus or bunny ears or anything of the sort. They had an evening of learning to make cocktails .... and then drinking them. The next day they put on their posh frocks and fascinators and went off for a day at the races. An apparently sophisticated couple of nights away. But still .....
Anyway, as her partner is away on holiday somewhere else, she needed someone to care for her children and dog: yours truly! At a pinch the oldest grandchild could have done it but whether the house would still be standing and the younger children and the dog still safely around was a different matter.
So I arranged to fly home to Manchester on Thursday of last week. This involved an overnight stop in Porto as the flight was due to leave at 10.20 am and the first bus from Vigo to Porto left Vigo at 9.00 am Spanish time and arrived at Porto at 9.45 Portuguese time, just a little too late to ensure getting through security and to the gate in time to board the plane. After sleeping in a room with a view of the airport, I arrived in plenty of time to have breakfast at the airport cafe and get through security without problems. So far so good! The gate for my flight was on the board, as was an ominous "more information" notice.
More information was not forthcoming until we had gone through the final security check and into the holding area for budget-flight passengers. Then they told us, at around the time we should have been boarding, that the flight had little or no chance of departing until 12.30. After some time we all received a kind of credit card with €4.50 on it so that we could purchase refreshments at the airline's expense. We were advised to hang onto the card in case they needed to re-charge it later. (Some budget airlines are more considerate than others.) However, no re-charge was needed; we finally set off at around 1.00 pm. It was only when we were on the plane that the pilot explained that there had been a huge electrical storm over Manchester on the night of Wednesday to Thursday. Friends have since told me horror stories about hail stones the size of golf balls! The plane which should have left Manchester at 7.20 am on Thursday morning had not been able to land there and had been diverted to Birmingham. A replacement plane had been flown in later but had had to wait in a queue to land at Manchester which was still in state of chaos.
So there was some small consolation, we told each other. Imagine having arrived at Manchester at 6.00 am for the flight to Porto and having to wait around for hours in a state of semi-somnolence for a delayed departure! (More about this kind of thing later.)
I had a pleasant weekend with the grandchildren, who all behaved perfectly, in some instances charming friends of mine. The smaller ones kept a friend's even smaller granddaughter entertained while she and I caught up with the gossip. And after my daughter returned the older one accompanied me to Manchester centre for a shopping trip (mostly clothes for her) and was good company at lunch with another old friend of mine, who had not seen said granddaughter since she was about eight years old. So, not at all bad!
They say lightning does not strike the same place twice. Is that true? I don't think so!
On Tuesday morning, yesterday in fact, my daughter drove me to the airport for the 7.20 am flight to Porto. Yes, THAT 7.20 am flight. All went well. To begin with! We boarded the plane on time. Then the captain said there were problems with air traffic controllers on a go slow over French air space. Or it might have been something entirely different. What it meant, though, was that our plane taxied out away from the boarding point and sat on the runway for best part of an hour before taking off. Brilliant!
We landed in Porto at 10.30 am. My mini-marathon began. The bus to Vigo was due to leave at 10.45. Fortunately I was able to get off the plane quite speedily. I scurried through the airport to get to passport control. Fortunately, again, there was no queue and I was through as fast as possible. It was now past 10.40! No time for a toilet stop! I ran out of the arrivals hall, amazingly managing not to knock anyone over en route, and reached the Galiza bus stop at 10.45 on the dot.
Of course, the bus arrived some ten minutes later, as you might expect!
What I wrote on our return from Pontevedra, around a week ago never got posted, for one reason or another, and will be recycled for another occasion.
Here is what led to my brief return to Blighty. Shortly before we set off to spend the summer in Galicia - and I really mean shortly - a matter of a few days notice - our daughter put in a request for some babysitting presence. It turned out that on the first weekend of July she was invited to go on a friend's hen party weekend. Now, I am not entirely convinced of the need for stag and hen parties. The Spanish call them "fiestas de despedida de soltero/a" - a party to say farewell to your bachelor/spinsterhood. Don't get me wrong. I am not opposed to people going out for a drink with their mates before they get married. There is a long tradition of the groom being taken out by his friends on the night before the wedding and being made to drink copious amounts of alcohol. In this age of equality the friends of the bride feel they have a perfect right to do the same. Nowadays the bride and groom usually have the best man and the chief bridesmaid organise it. And it is understandable that the happy couple might want to do this a good few days before the wedding in order to avoid wedding day hangover problems. Consequently it usually occurs some weeks before the wedding day.
No, my objection is that the whole thing has got out of hand. The "party" has morphed into a mini holiday, a weekend, or longer, away somewhere. Many a historic city has been ruined for other tourists, cultural travellers, by gangs of drunken (usually British) young men playing tricks on the groom and young women dressed in pink with t-shirts declaring who they all are. The pink t-shirt brigades often include the mother or even the grandmother of the bride and possibly the mother-in-law to be. And then there's the question of "saying farewell to bachelor- or spinster-hood". Often the happy couple have been living together for years already while they saved up for the expensive wedding. Surely they have already said goodbye to their single status long ago? Ah, well! So it goes!
My daughter assured me that she and her friends had no intention of wearing pink tutus or bunny ears or anything of the sort. They had an evening of learning to make cocktails .... and then drinking them. The next day they put on their posh frocks and fascinators and went off for a day at the races. An apparently sophisticated couple of nights away. But still .....
Anyway, as her partner is away on holiday somewhere else, she needed someone to care for her children and dog: yours truly! At a pinch the oldest grandchild could have done it but whether the house would still be standing and the younger children and the dog still safely around was a different matter.
So I arranged to fly home to Manchester on Thursday of last week. This involved an overnight stop in Porto as the flight was due to leave at 10.20 am and the first bus from Vigo to Porto left Vigo at 9.00 am Spanish time and arrived at Porto at 9.45 Portuguese time, just a little too late to ensure getting through security and to the gate in time to board the plane. After sleeping in a room with a view of the airport, I arrived in plenty of time to have breakfast at the airport cafe and get through security without problems. So far so good! The gate for my flight was on the board, as was an ominous "more information" notice.
More information was not forthcoming until we had gone through the final security check and into the holding area for budget-flight passengers. Then they told us, at around the time we should have been boarding, that the flight had little or no chance of departing until 12.30. After some time we all received a kind of credit card with €4.50 on it so that we could purchase refreshments at the airline's expense. We were advised to hang onto the card in case they needed to re-charge it later. (Some budget airlines are more considerate than others.) However, no re-charge was needed; we finally set off at around 1.00 pm. It was only when we were on the plane that the pilot explained that there had been a huge electrical storm over Manchester on the night of Wednesday to Thursday. Friends have since told me horror stories about hail stones the size of golf balls! The plane which should have left Manchester at 7.20 am on Thursday morning had not been able to land there and had been diverted to Birmingham. A replacement plane had been flown in later but had had to wait in a queue to land at Manchester which was still in state of chaos.
So there was some small consolation, we told each other. Imagine having arrived at Manchester at 6.00 am for the flight to Porto and having to wait around for hours in a state of semi-somnolence for a delayed departure! (More about this kind of thing later.)
I had a pleasant weekend with the grandchildren, who all behaved perfectly, in some instances charming friends of mine. The smaller ones kept a friend's even smaller granddaughter entertained while she and I caught up with the gossip. And after my daughter returned the older one accompanied me to Manchester centre for a shopping trip (mostly clothes for her) and was good company at lunch with another old friend of mine, who had not seen said granddaughter since she was about eight years old. So, not at all bad!
They say lightning does not strike the same place twice. Is that true? I don't think so!
On Tuesday morning, yesterday in fact, my daughter drove me to the airport for the 7.20 am flight to Porto. Yes, THAT 7.20 am flight. All went well. To begin with! We boarded the plane on time. Then the captain said there were problems with air traffic controllers on a go slow over French air space. Or it might have been something entirely different. What it meant, though, was that our plane taxied out away from the boarding point and sat on the runway for best part of an hour before taking off. Brilliant!
We landed in Porto at 10.30 am. My mini-marathon began. The bus to Vigo was due to leave at 10.45. Fortunately I was able to get off the plane quite speedily. I scurried through the airport to get to passport control. Fortunately, again, there was no queue and I was through as fast as possible. It was now past 10.40! No time for a toilet stop! I ran out of the arrivals hall, amazingly managing not to knock anyone over en route, and reached the Galiza bus stop at 10.45 on the dot.
Of course, the bus arrived some ten minutes later, as you might expect!
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