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’

Cosas de España

The disgraced, self-exiled ex king is still causing problems for his son.

And the current PM is still trying to cling onto power and is making enemies in the process.

Our trip through the magnificent Pyrenean villages east of Jaca has reminded me of something I read more than 20 years ago, in a book called All Roads to Santiago. a Dutch chap wrote something like: If the many wonders of northern Spain were in France, they’d get a million visitors a year. But, because they’re where they are, they don’t. Well, things certainly seem to have changed,

Our trip yesterday included a visit to a bird sanctuary dedicated to a vulture called el quebrantahuesos – or bonebreaker – in Spanish. I suspect this will rank as the highlight of the 10 day trip for my-bird-watcher friend. He was even more excited than when he’d seen griffon vultures earlier in week.

This is an article on a magical place in southern Galicia, another place where a visit is not quite what it was 20 years ago. By and large, it’s better to have visited 20 years ago today’s popular places. At least in Western Europe.

Talking of travelling . . . The car company, Stellatis, says it’ll be running a twice-weekly ferry from Vigo to Merseyside as of next month. I now need to find out if it’ll taking paying passengers.

The UK

Another dose of economic reality? Boris Johnson’s vainglorious plan to make the UK the Saudi Arabia of wind power by 2030 has run into a spot of bother. Against the background of rising costs, the companies don’t want to play ball. One factor in the mess is the multi-billion losses of the turbine manufacturing division of Germany’s Siemens Gamesa. On top of that, the company is facing multi-million/billion warranty costs in respect of manufacturing defect

Russia

Previous autocratic rulers had different challenges from those of today. In 1913, at a Berlin hotel had to move people around because the Russian Tsar wasn’t able to use a lift. Russian court protocol governed every step the tsar took and nowhere did it mention an elevator. Thus there were no instructions for how the tsar and his retinue were to behave in such a situation. Should he enter the cab first? Was he permitted to keep his hat on? Who should operate the elevator’s crank? and God knows what else. The protocol had survived unchanged from the days of Catherine the Great. Catherine, of course, had never ridden an elevator that’s why the protocol contained not one word about this means of vertical transportation.

(A)GW/Energy/Net Zero

Never one to mince his words, Richard North – surveying the windturnbine challenges cited above – ends today’s column with: Even at this distance, it is painfully obvious that the net-zero energy targets are unattainable. . . The trouble is that governments seem to have taken a flight from reality so that, even though their self-imposed targets are plainly unachievable, they are intent on wrecking the economy in a vain attempt to meet them. This way lies the road to madness. More here.

The Way of the World

From cooking for friends, I know that vegetarian dishes – especially from India – can be a delicious. But this write fears that band-waggon-jumping by food companies has led to a situation where: New highly processed “plant-based” eating is destroying people’s normal relationships with real food. It’s also, yes, racist. An insult to the many delicious and ancient vegetarian and vegan cuisines of the world, particularly in Asia and Africa. It seems, she adds, that we are back in the days of “We can do you an omelette”. From doing the camino with a veggie friend, I suspect Spain has yet to move on from that, never mind return to it. At least outside major cities.

English

A nacelle: A cover housing that houses all of the generating components in a wind turbine, including the generator, gearbox, drive train and brake assembly.

Spanish

On a qwerty keyboard, V is next to B. Both letters are pronounced the same in Spanish. Which means that, if you type Bigo instead of Vigo, it will at least sound the same . . I wondered what I’d get in voice-to-text, if I said ‘Bigo’. Answer: beagle, be go and beago. Never Vigo.

You surely know . . .

This is something you really don’t want to see as you come round a blind bend on a narrow mountain road:-

We were forced to (slowly) backtrack 25km and to modify our itinerary for the day. But, though irritating at the time, it turned out for the best.

Finally . . .

I asked for – and got – a significant reduction in the price of the room in Jaca which had no internet. My room number there was 101, which my old friend described as very Orwellian. It took me a second or two to understand why.

Well, Google Maps outdid itself last evening. It persistently told me that our hotel was 9km further on from village in which we could see signs to it. Perhaps the owner had known something when he’d sent me a map of the location earlier in the day.

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 – updated a bit in early July 2023.

For those thinking of moving to Spain:- This is an extremely comprehensive and accurate guide to the challenge, written by a Brit who lives in both the North and the South and who’s very involved in helping Camino walkers. Which is possibly why, I’ve just belatedly realised, his nom-de-plume is Johnnie Walker . . . And I’d thought he was a big whisky fan.