Life in Spain  

Here’s Lenox Napier on one of the local fiestas he and his horses have attended.

Cosas de Spain/Galiza 

How to go truly viral . . . I’d almost forgotten this incident, the fotos of which always make me laugh out loud:-

Mac75 here tells us here about a rather more successful preservation/restoration achievement – Ávila’s famous walls. With 3 local recipes thrown in for good measure.

Here are a few of the books on display in the local Columbus(Colón) museum which prove he was born here in Poio:

And here’s one of the 2 bottles of wine on display in the museum. Quite why, I don’t know but I suspect this one honours the chap – Pedro Madruga – who’s seen as the main candidate for the real CC:-

Talking of wine . . .The spring/summer drought has brought forward Galicia’s grape harvest(la vendimia) by at least a week, making it hard, it seems, to get enough temporary workers.

BTW . . . I went back there yesterday morning to retrieve the Panama hat I’d left there, to find that – contrary to the timetable on the door – it was closed. Possibly because the receptionist had gone for his/her statutory 11am coffee break. I was more successful in the evening, when the young man at the desk looked delighted to see me but crestfallen when he realised I wasn’t going to be one of the day’s few visitors.

In Caldas de Reis earlier this week a fiesta was cancelled when, during the religious element of it, a statue fell on a child. Which seems an odd thing for the Cosmic Joker to arrange. Or at least permit. But perhaps it was El Diablo.

Even odder to me was to see kids sitting in front of Pv city’s main stage yesterday morning, a full 12 hours before the 22.30 show by a some (doubtless) famous rapper.

The UK  

Richard North here goes to town on several members of what he calls Britain’s ‘gilded elite’. Possibly good examples of how today’s model of capitalism is eating itself.

Water: the monstruous regiment

If interested, this is a link to a critical article for you on ‘Entitlement Britain’ that should work. Tasters: We need to acknowledge that we are now increasingly poor by international standards, especially when our overvalued housing stock and second-rate health service are added into the equation. And: We need to be honest about the new British disease: our staggering lack of competitiveness, poor levels of investment, the low quality of so many of our schools, the weakness of our skills, the disaster that is our infrastructure, our sky-high taxes, and our deadly bureaucracy. Phew! That’s telling ‘em!

Finally

To amuse . . .

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.

Welcome to new subscriber Xavier. At one a week, readership is really rocketing up now . . .