Memories of things past, improving the future, teachers!

Walking into town yesterday, we followed a route that took us past the block of flats where we lived some seven or eight years ago. This is a route we have not walked for some time and we noticed places where the project commonly known as "mellorando o futuro", Gallego for "making the future better", had been going on: improved pavements, parks tidied up and the like. Covered walkways leading to bridge over the motorway was still covered in graffiti, although as it was fresh graffiti, I suppose you could say that some renovation had taken place.

When we first visited that flat, the landlady, a lady of Basque extraction with the (to us anyway) odd name of Garbiñe, walked us through an approach to the area which she assured us was scheduled for improvement. A one track road, barely made up, with holes in the tarmac all over the place, it had a rough brick wall on one side beyond which was a wilderness of bracken and convolvulus, mostly the purple kind that abounds here. The wall, she told us, was due to be pulled down, the road widened and resurfaced, and what remained of the wilderness after that was to be tamed and civilised.

Nothing had changed! If there ever were such plans either someone ran out of development money or someone ran off with the development money. Both are plausible explanations!

We tutted and went on our way. As we strolled along Arenal, a wild woman stopped and stared at me. Well, I suspect we all looked a little wild as the wind was tugging our hair in all directions. She looked extra wild perhaps because of her long hair and her weatherbeaten look. "¡Tanto tiempo sin verte!" she cried. The standard expression when you haven't seen someone for ages. Who was this woman who claimed to know me?

And then light dawned. This was Loli, who ran yoga classes at one of the Asociaciones de Vecinos, the Community Groups that work so well here. For two years, while we lived in Vigo, I had gone along to her classes twice a week. Very good value; €8 for a year's membership of the Asociación de Vecinos, and then €20 a month for which you got a two hour session of yoga twice a week. And the membership fee for the Asociación entitled you to sign up for other activities. Far better value than community education in the UK.

In the yoga classes, when we reached the point where we all did a final relaxation, stretched out on mats on the floor, I used to overhear the English class going on in the room next door. What I heard explained the awful pronunciation of some supposed English speakers here. The teacher was clearly not a native speaker of English. Well, I am not a native speaker of Spanish and I taught Spanish in the UK, so I should not criticise on that score. However, I like to flatter myself that my Spanish pronunciation is better than that teacher's English pronunciation. Much of the time it was just plain wrong!

And one day I heard someone ask her, in Spanish, in which part of England they speak the best English. After all, Salamanca is held up as a model of good speaking here I believe. The teacher barely hesitated before declaring London to be undoubtedly the best! Really? I don't think so! So for the most part, I would follow yoga practice and shut my ears to external noise and concentrate on my inner calm!

On the subject of teachers, I hear that George Osborne has a new job: honorary professor of economics at the University of Manchester. Rather than a new job, I should say another job. That makes six jobs, apparently. How many jobs does one man need? And how much does an honorary professor get paid? How much actual teaching must an honorary professor do? Will he commute daily between his newspaper editing job in London and his teaching job in Manchester?

And one more important question springs to mind: if he really needs so many jobs to to earn so much money, does he really have a grasp of economic reality?

Bread and boats and Brexit stuff!

This morning I woke to the sound of car tyres swishing on wet roads. The clouds were already clearing by the time I went out for bread for breakfast and for the rest of the day the clouds have come and gone but the rain has not returned much. 17 degrees was the temperature registered on the billboard down by the roundabout: a cool morning with a bit of a chilly edge to the wind. The bread shop lady complained that it was cold, which struck me as a bit of an exaggeration.

This is not my weather witch bread lady. She was always too busy involved in the baking to notice the cold. But between our being here in March and returning in June the old lady who owned the bread shop has sold up and retired. The weather witch is her daughter. Goodness knows what she is doing now. The new sales assistant only sells bread and sweeps up. No baking and no weather forecasts or commentaries on the state of the world from her so far.

From about 9.30 I watched a fine, elegant sailboat, a three-master yacht I suppose it is, make its way up and down the ría, accompanied by a little orange tug boat. It must have been running on motor as no sails were visible. It sailed up towards A Guía and proceeded to go around in circles for most of the morning. Was it waiting for a berth at one of the shipyards? This is one of life's little mysteries that I don't expect to see solved as at some point in the late afternoon it disappeared.

Checking messages briefly on my phone this morning, I found a lot of comments about goings-on in parliament. The Tories have defeated a Labour motion regarding increasing pay for those who work in public services such as nursing, the police and the fire brigade. (The money must have been spent on something else!). By all accounts, the Tory MPs cheered. Yes, they cheered! I can understand some satisfaction at defeating the party whose views oppose yours but to cheer at defeating a motion like this smacks of a callous lack of humanity. They have only just got over praising our public services for their work at the Grenfell fire!

What a strange world we live in! Somehow you imagine Parliament to be quite austere, with serious debate going on, measured tones and balanced arguments. The televising of Parliament proves it to be a kind of circus where supposedly grown up politicians behave like rowdy year nine schoolchildren! 

Brexit negotiations are underway and I come across newspaper articles in which we are once more being asked for our opinion about it, not that OUR opinion is going to change matters. Some are still convinced that we could reverse the decision of a year ago but somehow I doubt it.

In the meanwhile British citizens settled in Europe have expressed concern that Theresa May is willing to sacrifice some of their rights post-Brexit to cement immigration limits on EU citizens coming to the UK. And EU citizens already in the UK are still uncertain about their future rights.

 The world is indeed a difficult place!

Being back in Vigo, weather, and maternal modesty or aggression!

Here we are back in Vigo after a week in Sanxenxo, where Phil became the superveterano in the chess tournament and won yet another ceramic boat. Pretty soon he will have a whole flotilla, and a couple of days in Pontevedra, where we made up for drinking very little in Sanxenxo by having some very nice wine with just about every meal. Well, not breakfast - we are not quite that bad! As usual I walked down from Poio, where our friend lives, almost into town to buy bread for breakfast. I had been assured there was a shop halfway down the hill but failed to find it ... until I discovered that it didn't open until after 10.00 in the morning. Not a lot of use?

The Sanxenxo tournament was a week earlier than usual this year, which is just as well as the weather has turned blustery and intermittently rainy today. We had a splendid week in Sanxenxo, mostly not too hot but just right. One lady I spoke too on one of the hotter (28 degrees) days told me how nice and cool it was compared to her home town, which turned out to be Toledo, where temperatures were up to 40. Excessive!

Also excessive, in my opinion anyway, is the modern obsession some famous women seem to have with showing off their pregnant bellies. Beyoncé did it and the latest is Serena Williams whose naked photo appears on the cover of Vanity Fair. It's quite tasteful, nothing too garish and with a carefully placed hand over her breasts. But why does she feel a need to show off her naked bump at all? She also tweeted it, inviting people to guess whether she was having a boy or girl. “I’m waiting to find out but would love to hear your thoughts,” she said.

On the same day that her photo appeared John McEnroe, never renowned for holding his tongue, apparently refused to apologise for saying Williams would be ranked around No 700 in the world if she played in the men’s game. A rather mean comment, in my opinion! In response to this Serena Williams told McEnroe to “respect me and my privacy as I’m trying to have a baby”. Where does privacy come into it when you are prepared to bare your body to the world?

I hope I am not turning into a prude!

Other creatures are much less prepared to show off their young. I read today that bears are attacking people in Alaska. I found the headline quite alarming until it became clear that this was in wild woodland areas. On four occasions recently people running and cycling have been attacked, two of them fatally, probably because they went, probably unwittingly, too close to where the bears had their cubs. I have heard of people in Cornwall having to avoid certain roads and paths which go too close to where seagulls are nesting so surely it makes sense to avoid paths near places where bears make their dens. Both species are known to be very protective of their young but the bears are probably more dangerous.

Mind you, I wouldn't tangle with a seagull!

Seats on plains, buses and potties!

Here are a couple of odd stories about seats on planes and buses. First of all this article on who "owns" the space a seat on an airplane can recline into. Some people get very territorial about it. Personally I am inclined to ask people on buses not to recline their seats as the space left for me and my legs and my book is usually very inadequate. I only do short haul flights so it's not usually a problem on planes.

 More seriously, an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor and a former lawyer, Renee Rabinowitz, has recently successfully sued Israels national airline, El Al, for gender discrimination. Flight stewards can no longer request female passengers to move seats to accommodate ultra-orthodox men who do not want to sit next to them. It seems to me that if ultra-orthodox Jewish men don't want sit next to women on planes then they should not get on planes. If you want to live according to rules from a previous age, you should not expect to use the trappings of modern living!

We should congratulate Renee Rabinowitz for her successful action. "Chapeau", as the French would say. We take our hat off to her. Oddly enough, the other day I was reading a Spanish novel in which a character congratulated another on something by saying "chapo", clearly a Spanish version of the French word. Not an uncommon event, after all "croissant" has been gradually changing into "curasán".

I hear that there are plans afoot to dig up Salvador Dalí. 58 year old Pilar Abel claims that she is the daughter of the artist, the outcome of an affair her mother had with Salvador Dalí back in the 1950s. A court has decreed that the artist can be exhumed so that DNA tests can be carried put. Such are the wonders of modern technology.

Among the other odd things I have read recently is an article about potty training. Opinions abound about bringing children and how to look after your tiny baby. This one reckons that you should start potty training from birth, learning from day one to recognise the signs that your tiny one is about to pee or poo and holding the minuscule bottom over a little potty. Enthusiasts say that babies learn quickly and thus you can be environmentally friendly by not using disposable nappies or even having to use detergents on terry nappies. “Also, it’s fun,” adds Amber Hatch, author of a book on the subject. “It’s really confidence-boosting to hold a squirming baby over a potty and see them do a wee or poo. You get this instant feedback. And cleaning them is much easier: just one quick wipe and you’re done. It’s not a big operation on a changing table using hundreds of wipes. It’s quite a pleasant way of dealing with your baby’s wee and poo.”

It strikes me that Ms Hatch is perhaps a little too obsessed with these bodily functions! Surely other aspects of child development are more fulfilling. Our daughter delights in all sorts of things that her tiny daughter achieves but somehow she has missed the boat on potty training as the child is now almost ten months old!

So it goes!  

Coincidence and likely stories in the Southwest of Spain.

My sister, who lives in the Southwest of Spain posted something on Facebook today about coincidences.

Years ago, when I was still working as an A-Level Spanish teacher, students could choose a Spain-related topic to research and then write a piece of coursework in Spanish on that topic. A good choice of topic was always something related to El Coto Doñana, the nature reserve down in the Southwest corner of the peninsula with lots of environmental questions to answer, gaining good marks for students.

An area of natural wetlands, Doñana was always under threat from agricultural projects that wanted to make use of the water supply. Intensive polytunnel developments, growing those all-year-round strawberries and other soft fruit sold in supermarkets in the UK, were amongst the most guilty. The WWF and other environmental organisations have long fought to protect it but it's hard work. There is a National Park there with research facilities in the middle of what they refer to as the natural park. 

On the 26th of June this year fire broke out in the woodland areas of the natural park, near a development of polytunnel greenhouses. As the fires in Portugal have shown, fires of this kind are devastating. Fire fighters managed, I think, to prevent the fire from spreading to the National Park area. Some people, like my almost Andalusian sister, have been pointing out a series of coincidences: 

In 2014, a law was passed, the Ley de Montes, which says that woodland areas can be reclassified after a fire provided the government agrees that project requiring that reclassification can be declare to be "of public usefulness". (A fair number of forest fires have been suspected of being deliberately started as a result.)

In 2015 Gas Natural Fenosa came up with a project for gas storage tanks in the Doñana area.

In 2016 the government declared this project to be "de utilidad pública".

And in 2017 there is a forest fire in the Doñana natural park.

 It's rather a shame I no longer have students looking for interesting topics for coursework projects.

Hasta la vista, Sanxenxo.

And so we say goodbye to Sanxenxo for another year. And another tournament comes to an end. The final result later today.

We shall not be indulging in the latest insurance scam. I read this morning that the latest thing for the ambulance chasing insurance companies in the UK is to approach people on all-inclusive holidays in Spain, Greece, Turkey or wherever and persuade them to sue the hotel for food-poisoning!! They have no need of a medical certificate and the hotels end up paying. But the greedy tourists may be shooting themselves in the foot as some hoteliers on the Costa del Sol are talking of withdrawing the all-inclusive deals for British tourists. Whatever will they do when they can no longer eat and drink as much as they like?

But not us. We don't do that.

And so ...

goodbye to the fine views over the ria..

goodbye to La Madama de Silgar ...

and goodbye to sand dragons on the beach ...

See you next year!

Food stories.

Beware of electronic kitchen itensils. "A popular French fitness blogger has died after a whipped cream dispenser exploded into her chest. Rebecca Burger, 33, who wrote about fitness and travel on social media, where she had 55,000 Facebook and 154,000 Instagram followers, died last weekend in what her family described as a “domestic accident” at her home at Mulhouse, eastern France." I read about this and, while sorry that she had died, found myself with a couple of questions. What was a fitness blogger doing using whipped cream? And what's wrong with just whipping it with a fork or a hand whisk? Far less dangerous!

Belgium is famous for chips. The French used to make jokes about it, rather like people used to make jokes about the Irish being potato eaters. I doubt if any of those jokes are acceptable these days. Whatever the truth of that might be, Belgian chips have been in the news because the European Commission is trying to tell the Belgians how to cook them. Apparently local politicians say this amounts to an attempt to ban the national dish, the frite – or frieten, as they say in the Flemish-speaking north of the country. "Whether eaten with mayonnaise or taken au naturel, the Belgian chip is up there with chocolate, beer and the national football team in the nation’s psyche." Or so they say.

"No public square is complete without a frietkot, or chip stand, where sellers swear by double frying bintje potatoes in beef or horse fat to achieve the ideal combination of a succulent centre and crispy exterior. In a move that appears to demonstrate a dazzling lack of common touch on the part of EU officials in Brussels – which is both the capital of Belgium and the home of the union – the commission is proposing that the potatoes should be blanched first to prevent the formation of acrylamide, an allegedly hazardous compound that can form in the frying process when certain foods are heated to a temperature above 120C."

There I was, prepared to be full of sympathy, until I read the bit about frying the chips in beef or horse fat. Quite gross! I know of a fish and chip shop near our home in Greater Manchester, a fish and chip shop of some renown, where they fry the chips in dripping. It's the same principle: animal fat! I am sure both lots of chips, Belgian and English, taste fine but the animal fat thing is rather off-putting to someone like me who rarely eats red meat!

Here's another quite gross food item, from Wednesday:

 "Police in Canada have launched an investigation after a patron at a Yukon bar allegedly stole the famed ingredient of their signature drink: a mummified human toe. For more than 40 years the Downtown hotel in Dawson City has served up the sourtoe cocktail, a shot of whisky with a blackened toe – nail and all – bobbing inside. Those who manage to touch the gnarled, severed toe to their lips earn a certificate.

On Saturday a customer took it one step further, allegedly making off with the wrinkled digit after swallowing his drink. “We are furious,” said Terry Lee of the hotel. “Toes are very hard to come by.”

The man had apparently boasted of his plans to steal the toe earlier in the evening. He later convinced a staff member to let him try the drink outside of the designated two-hour window known at the bar as toe time. “And this is how he pays her back,” Lee said in a news release. “What a lowlife.”

The  tradition claims to trace its roots to the 1920s, when a rum runner preserved his frostbitten, amputated big toe in a jar of alcohol in his cabin. Fifty years later, the pickled toe was discovered by a Yukon native who brought it to the Downtown, where it became a celebrated ingredient in its drinks. After Saturday’s theft, the hotel contacted the police and began offering a reward to anyone with information. “We fortunately have a couple of back-up toes, but we really need this one back,” said Lee. It was the newest addition to their collection, donated by a man who had had to have his toe surgically removed. After curing it for six months in salt, the staff had only begun adding it to drinks this week."

"Toes are hard to come by"!!! "Back-up toes"!!! Some things are just too disgusting to think about. Worms in drinks are quite enough, without human body parts.

 On a more cheerful note, this is part of what we had for our evening meal quite late yesterday.

Since it was "la noche de San Juan", there was a smell of bonfires on the air, and the delicious aroma of sardines grilling. We got a free sardine with our first drink but we did not leap over any bonfires.