Awake! For, Morning, in the Bowl of Night, has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight
And, Lo, has caught the Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light
Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable
– Christopher Howse: ‘A Pilgrim in Spain’
Life in Spain
Here was I wondering what to do with my Sunday afternoon, and then I discovered I had a problem with my water pump. After an hour or so, the cause was found to be yet another leak but this time not from a pipe in the garden but from one behind my kitchen wall. Resulting in water leaking not only through that but also through the staircase wall – including from the light switch. Cue a call to my ex-neighbour/agent for my insurance company.
My house is now c. 35 years old and this incident has left me wondering whether the reason the Spanish favour – and pay a premium for – new houses is that they don’t trust the construction standards of earlier times. Possibly wisely.
Talking of Sunday . . . It’s still, of course, a special day here in Spain, rather different from the other 6. But yesterday it (very) belatedly dawned on me what makes it particularly unique for me – I don’t have to contend with the legion of learner drivers being wrongly taught how to negotiate the 3 roundabouts on my short drive to the edge of Pv city. Now to check on Saturday . . .
I moan about the suckers which sprout from my lovely bougainvillea but it’s because this is what happens if you turn for back for only a couple of days:-
Cosas de España/Galiza
As of yesterday Spain was struggling with 33 fires, 18 of which were ‘out of control’. Which rather puts Britain’s problems with its ‘terrifying’ 40 degree heatwave in context.
A leading columnist in the Voz de Galicia says that Spanish judges must remain independent even though: In Spain there are judges who competent and incompetent, hard-working and lazy, ambitious and content, honest and roguish, serene and hysterical, exemplary and corrupt. Perhaps he should have included politically neutral or very biased. Though I guess this is covered by ‘corrupt’.
Talking of judges . . . A court has ruled that the only things the egregiously greedy Franco family can take from a mansion belatedly returned to the Galician public are the rugs. Presumably because they used their own money to buy these. It might be hard to trace the things already removed from the place.
This is the new mascot/logo/symbol for Pv city:-
The mermaid is referred to as Riquiña – Gallego for very good/pretty/rich/tasty. Often said of babies, whether pretty or ugly. As the DdP put it: Riquiña – The slogan to make the whole of Spain fall in love with the city. So, why a mermaid? Well, it’s said that one persuaded a Greek warrior, Teucro, to found the city of Pontevedra on the banks of the river she dwelt in. It’s nonsense, of course, but I’ll write more on it tomorrow.
Spanish
Robust discourse: A headline you probably wouldn’t ever see in a UK newspaper: “I was fucked off when we lost to Germany”. (Me jodió perder contra Alemania).
Less robust: Corza: Roe deer. As in La leyenda de la corza blanca, another of Galicia’s many myths. Or perhaps Asturia’s in this case
Finally . . .
Isn’t evolution wonderful. There’s a baby bird which – during its first 20 days – looks and even moves like like a poisonous caterpillar.
Which reminds me . . . The UK already has a cake called Colin the Caterpillar. And now the BBC has accepted the people’s choice of Colin for a cockerel which crows during Sounds of the 60s on Saturday mornings. Why, I ask!
For new readers: If you’ve landed here looking for info on Galicia or Pontevedra, try here. If you’re passing through Pontevedra on the Camino, you’ll find a guide to the city there
P. S. Facebook didn’t ban me for sneaking Lenox’s cartoon into a post of mine. But, then, I’m not in their bad books, whereas he certainly is.
Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain 
I have two houses that stand cheek by jowl and live in the older, the one my parents built in the 1950’s. The other they started in 1978 and was finished by 1982. Ours was redone, with new plumbing inside, in the early 1990’s, with the attic converted to a living space just before 2000.
The newer house, where my parents lived their latter years, has had plumbing problems galore. Luckily, the pipes are relatively easy to get at in the basement. My husband says there was a serious problem with batches of copper pipes back in the 1980’s. Yup.
Ours hasn’t had that many problems, just one serious one in the kitchen wall where the pipe comes in, but it was a section of old pipe that hadn’t been renewed, so completely expected after almost seventy years of service.
In my opinion, the shoddiness came into being in the 1980’s, during the years of the “pelotazo”, where everyone was making money from everything. EU regulations helped a bit afterwards, though there will always be some structures where inspectors inspected over a cup of coffee and an envelope.
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Many thanks, Maria. I hadn’t known about the 1980s pelotazo, only the one between 2002 and 2007!
C.
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