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/Galicia

Changing Spain . . . Concerts in the Bernabeu stadium in Madrid will now have to end by 11.30 , ‘So that the residents can get some sleep’. It might have been 1am before . . . 

Different worlds . . . The head of the US Secret Service has resigned, while here in Spain the head of the Women’s Institute has been sacked for corruption.

This is unlikely to go down well in Spain . . .

Something here from The Corner on the ever-increasing cost of renting in Spain. Here in Pv city, an 80m2 flat will now cost you almost 800 euros a month or 9.63/m2 – but there are far more expensive places cited in the article.

I discovered an even more tall story about Santiago[St James] this evening. Not only did he allegedly wander throughout Spain but even came to Pv city and performed a miracle in an orchard in the barrio of O Burgo. There’s been a (noisy)fiesta there all this week – involving — in a quieter moment – a procession to the orchard and a re-creation of the miracle. And a fairground, of course.

The Camino de Santiago . . . Below, there’s some advice for pilgrims leaving Pv city across O Burgo bridge.

Venezuela

This is an article on that benighted country. It mention the exodus of millions of people, many of whom will have come to Spain and, as I’ve said, used their saving to invest in property, raising prices.

The UK

Boris has a book out, entitled ‘Unleashed’. Private Eye suggests some alternatives . . .

The USA

If you thought yesterday’s articles on Kemala Harris were strong, think again.

The USA seems to have the most powerful position in the world but an abominable way of putting someone in it. Not a new thought, of course. I heard an American say 40 years ago that the world couldn’t afford it, never mind just the USA. As I recently said, not a great democratic model to try to bestow on or sell to non-democratic world.

Quotes of the Day

• [North]Americans need to learn what much of the rest of the world knows, that the gender of a leader should be no big deal. . . For the next 3 months Harris will hear adulation for her womanhood from one side and sexist vilification from the other, neither of which is going to help [US] voters decide whether she’s fit to be commander-in-chief and leader of the free world. . . . What really matters is whether Harris is a Lyndon Johnson or Harry Truman, a vice-president who has what it takes to step up when given the top slot. To find that out, [North]Americans are going to have get over the fact that Harris is a woman.
• JD Vance calling Kamala Harris a ‘childless cat lady’ is sexism he’d only get away with in the USA. In Britain, that sort of crassness is both shocking and unacceptable. Such attacks might prove significant miscalculations

English

The word ‘felching’ is used in the above article by Lionel Shriver. It’s said to be ‘coarse slang’. As, indeed, it is. So coarse, in fact, that you’ll have to do what I did and look it up for yourself. As it happens, I’m currently about 15% into a novel by Ms Shriver and, as yet, the word ‘felching’ hasn’t occurred. I’m rather hoping it doesn’t . . .

Spanish

Oido: This can mean not only ‘hearing’ but also ‘ear’, which can be a tad confusing. [I had wax removed from an ear this morning. I could have done this myself with warm olive oil but, given the price of this, I decided it’d be cheaper to go to an ENT specialist. Albeit, rather more painful.]

Did you know?

I learned here of Leonhard Euler, who was unknown to me but is held, says Wiki, to be one of the greatest, most prolific mathematicians in history and the greatest of the 18th century. And now he’s a tiny bit more famous than he was yesterday . . .

Finally . .

Bloody local fiestas! Thanks to the one I cited above, this evening I couldn’t get to my usual supermarket but had to waste a lot of time in a hypermarket looking for things for my visitors I don’t usually buy/know, in a place where I didn’t know where anything was. Decidedly not fun. But, being British, mustn’t complain.

Advice for pilgrims leaving Pv city via O Burgo bridge.

At the moment, the main route up through the barrio of Lérez is closed and you’re advised to turn left and take the first right, just after the petrol/gas station. My advice is not to do this but to keep walking a minute or two until you arrive at a zebra crossing, where you’ll see a path to your right, alongside a tributary of the main river. This is flat and far more shaded. After a few hundred metres, you’ll arrive at a tarmac road, with a small, narrow bridge to your left. Here you can either carry straight on across the road or turn right onto the road and then join the main route after 200m. If you take the first option – my recommendation – you’ll follow a path as it bends to the right and comes out on the main route, further along than with the 2nd option.

Note: Yesterday, I met 2 ‘pilgrims’ on O Burgo bridge and more or less forced them to take the alternative I recommend. Success at last!

• You can get my posts by email as soon as they’re published. With the added bonus that they’ll contain the typos I’ll discover later. I believe there’s a box for this at the bottom of each post. I guess it’s logical that this doesn’t appear on the version given to me . . .
• 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.
• 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. And this is something on the so-called Beckham Rule, which is beneficial – tax-wise – for folk who want to work here. Finally, some advice on getting a mortgage. And this article ‘debunks claims re wealth and residency taxes’. Probably only relevant if you’re a HNWI. In which case, you’ll surely know what that stands for.