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

Here’s The Guardian on that Mexican snub to the Spanish king.

Yesterday’s article about Spain not being worth a visit made reference to a bocadillo de calamares, of a squid baguette. It reminded me of one of these that I had in Madrid a couple of years ago – the worst thing I can recall having in Spain. Apart, that is, from some very tough lamb 20 years ago. What made things worse is that this was on a gourmet food tour and in a place celebrated for this item. I didn’t finish it, of course. As with the lamb. Which I really should have sent back, as I would these days. Now that I am less British.

Hat tips to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for these 2 items:-

• How to avoid falling foul of the Schengen 90/180 rule when visiting Spain.
• Those Spaniards with a surname ending in –ez are probably descended from the Visigoths – a Germanic people who arrived in the Iberian Peninsula at the beginning of the 5th century while fleeing from the Huns, have left a deep mark on Spanish culture.

And here’s the VdG on a key issue for parents of schoolkids in (changing)Spain. La eterna cuestión: Continua o  partida?: La vuelta al cole llega también el eterno debate sobre si es mejor (y a quién beneficia) la jornada partida o la continua. En Galicia son mayoría los centros públicos que optan por la continuada. El catedrático de Pedagoxía José Antonio Caride lo tiene claro: «Os nenos teñen que estar máis tempo na escola do que pasan hoxe». Y argumenta, en una entrevista muy interesante realizada por Sara Carreira, que la jornada solo de mañana reduce las oportunidades formativas de  los alumnos más vulnerables. Mucho que aprender.

I left Pv city station for Madrid at 7.01 this morning, not 7.00. Am I the only person to think this official departure time is odd? Like that of the old night-train – not 21.30 but 21.28. Does Renfe have a sense of humour? Well, their web page is a joke, of course. Albeit a very bad one.

The train, as ever, was clean and comfortable but without plug sockets. So, no charging en route. Possibly a train older than those used on the Pv-Vigo route. Disappointing. More so was the fact that we sat in Ourense station for 25 minutes, without any reason being given for delayed departure. Just one of the 90% plus trains that are late on the Galicia-Madrid route. I was reminded of British Rail back in the 70s. We eventually arrived in Madrid a mere 10 minutes late.

I am now child-minding . . .

Finally . .

MY YEAR IN THE SEYCHELLES

• Part 1: 12 September 2024: Why VSO?
• Part 2: 13 September 2024: The Leaving of Liverpool
• Part 3: 14 September 2024: An interlude: The Seychelles back then
• Part 4: 14 September 2024: Departure, Nairobi and Arrival
• Part 5: 15 September 2024: Arriving in Mombasa
• Part 6: 16 September 2024: The YCWA in Mombasa
• Part 7: 17 September 2024: The flight to Mahé
• Part 8: 18 September 2024: Our Arrival
• Part 9: 19 September 2024: Early Days
• Part 10: 20 September 2024: My Colleagues and Some Early Adventures
• Part 11: 21 September 2024: Mr Warren and Me
• Part 12: 22 September 2024: Chris Green
• Part 13: 23 September 2024 The Hotel des Seychelles
• Part 14: 24 September 2024: A Night to Remember
• Part 15: 25 September 2024: Visitors
• Part 16: 26 September 2024: Dr McGregor and Me 1

Part 17: Dr McGregor and Me 2

In the early months, one of the main problems we 3 VSO volunteers had was getting from one side of the island – Beau Vallon Bay – to the other – Victoria – so that we could do what we’d been sent to do.

In theory, there should have been 3 mopeds waiting for us but there weren’t. Every time a boat came in, we’d dash over to Victoria to see if the phantom mopeds were on it, only to be disappointed. In contrast, John Edgely had been given a motorbike soon after his arrival. Which rather heightened our feelings of disappointment and frustration.

For a while, we had to beg lifts into and out of Victoria. In lieu of the mopeds, the Department of Works eventually provided us with the old A35 I’ve mentioned – the one with a Bakelite bell-push attached to the top of the gear stick, which somehow acted – when pressed – as the clutch.

But before this happened, I needed to get over to Victoria one night and was forced to ask John if I could borrow his motor bike. Grimacing, he reluctantly agreed. Which was probably fair enough, as I’d never ridden a motor bike previously . . .

The ride over to Victoria was uneventful but – after my treat of egg and chips with my girlfriend in a Victoria restaurant – the return trip to the hotel certainly wasn’t.

All went smoothly until I arrived – late at night – at the top of the pass in the middle of the island, where there were 2 dogs sleeping in the middle of the road. I slowed down, of course, and as I approached the dogs, they ran to the side of the road, one to one side and the other to the other. Feeling it safe to accelerate, I quickly arrived at the spot where they’d been sleeping. Unfortunately, so did both of them. Each must have simultaneously decided the other had been wiser and so changed his mind as to which side to flee to. Anyway, I braked and swerved and the bike went from under me, sliding into the ditch at the side of the road.

Shaken but apparently not hurt badly, I limped from the road down into a track through the jungle which I knew would take me close to the hotel. This involved walking through vast spiders’ nets strung between the palm trees but I knew that tree spiders were harmless, so didn’t worry about them.

My left leg ached a bit but not enough to stop me walking. I later learned – from Dr McGregor- that I’d cracked my shin bone and that I really shouldn’t have been able to walk but I guess adrenaline did something for me.

I arrived back at the hotel to find that Jerry Legrand was still up. As was a furious John Edgely, who kept repeating that he’d known he shouldn’t have lent me his motorbike to me and was clearly unconvinced by my laying the blame on 2 accursed curs.

As I had a bleeding gash on my left shin – possibly caused by a pedal as the bike fell sideways – I was taken to the hospital. Arriving after midnight, I was met by Dr Gregor, clearly not at all happy at being roused from his bed to deal with me. He examined my leg and told me that the gash would need stitching. I might been imagining this but it seemed to me that he did this with relish and without regard for the pain it was causing me. As I’ve said, I didn’t take to him. And not being able to understand his Glaswegian English didn’t help.

Anyway, while examining my injured leg, he intrigued me by asking if I’d played a lot of football. I said that I had and asked why he’d put this question to me. He replied that I had a serrated chin bone, something which I later checked and confirmed. Which rather surprised me as I thought I’d always worn shin pads. But apparently not.

The stitching done, I was wheeled into a rope-pull lift to the first floor, where I was to have a room of my own. Each jerk of the rope and jolt of the lift, was agony but I could hardly blame Dr McG for that. And it was even more painful being shifted from the gurney onto my bed.

The next day, my leg was giving me more pain than it had the night before, so when the good doctor asked me to get out of bed and walk, I told him I couldn’t face that. But he insisted and I did try, only to collapse back on the bed with the pain. Again, I felt he was taking more pleasure from this that he should, causing me to wonder if he was a bit of a sadist.

This suspicion was heightened during one of the chats he and I had during my stay of several days, when he was telling me – with a smile on his face – of the joy of drilling a hole into a patient’s skull. But I later realised that the patient would have to be conscious for a sadist to enjoy that experience.

Anyway, I concluded at that time that he was – or had been – a surgeon back in Scotland and I wondered if there’d been some sort of disgrace which had compelled him to move to the back of beyond in the Indian Ocean. But I’ve never sought to find out.

My room faced the road that ran from Victoria eastwards to the Seychelles College, so I was able to see – and shout greetings to – friends who were making their way there. I was reprimanded for the shouting, of course.

There was a balcony on this side of the hospital, running past all the rooms and shared by all the patients. I say ‘all’ but there was, in fact, only one other patient – an Indian gentleman somewhat older than me. To him, I owe the discovery of the mango, which he – rightly – called ‘The king of fruit’. Only years later – while living in Jakarta – did I discover that there are sweet mangoes and sour mangoes, with the latter being the one used to make (sugar-added) chutney. So I left out house boy free to steal them from the tree in our garden.

Before I left the hospital, Dr McG removed the stitches, whereupon the gash immediately re-opened. This, of course, did not improve my opinion of him. And the ground was prepared for the spats described in the last episode.

I was left with a nice scar to add to the ankle scar that I’ve already mentioned. I’ve occasionally cited it on one of my several passports over the decades of travel I did since then.

I’ve checked if there’s anything on the internet about ‘my’ Dr McG and his time in the islands. Intriguingly, though, there are references to 2 other McGregors:

– A Dr. William MacGregor who’d served as an Assistant Medical Officer in the Seychelles from February 1873, and

– A Dr Francis McGregor who’d been a lawyer and Seychellois politician in the 1990s. But he’d only have been 15 in 1965.

So, neither of these could be guilty of the crimes against me. But was there a McGregor dynasty in the Seychelles? If so, the 2nd one could well have had half the genes of my tormentor.

Or maybe these were just 2 of the very many Scots who left their homeland to work overseas.

Which reminds me that the first time I heard this saying was when I was with some Americans in the bar on the beach in front of the hotel . . . Glasgow has a population of less than a million but there are 3 million Scots overseas singing about the bloody place.

The AI search engine I use says Billy Connolly – another Scot I’ve had difficulty understanding over the years – was the originator of this phrase. But, as he was born in 1942, he must have done this before he was 24. Which is certainly possible, I guess.

My thanks to those readers who take the trouble to Like my posts, either after reading on line or in my FB group Thoughts from Galicia.

The Usual Links . . .

• 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. If you do this but don’t read the posts, I will delete your subscription. So perhaps don’t bother if you have other reasons for subscribing . . .
• 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.