Awake, for morning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that puts
the stars to flight.

And, lo, the hunter of the east 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/Galiza

I hope I haven’t already posted this . . . Selling in Spain as a Non-Resident: 10 Things You’ll Want to Know.

Some good news for the lowest-earning autónomas . . . The government is freezing contributions for them. As for the others . . . .

HT to Lenox Napier of Business Over Tapas for this item . . A webpage called Invadidos.com – dedicated to stirring up anti-immigrant emotions – is operated by 2 Seville-based agitators writing under false names and is financed by Russia. Its latest offering was more a week ago, so maybe it’s been shut down.
https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=business%20over%20tapas

Lenox also reports that: The Costa del Sol is home to 113 mafias of 59 nationalities. Still, then, ‘a sunny place for shady people’.

Also from Lenox . . . A British sea shanty abut Spanish ladies. You might notice that the Irish singers change ‘British’ to ‘Irish’ at least once . . . Which this singer doesn’t do.

And a final HT to Lenox for news of this ‘beautiful’ web page on Spain’s Moorish legacies. As a plus it has articles on subjects such as Samarkand, which I hope to get to one day soon.

You’re never far from a eucalyptus wood or forest in Galicia. It’s an important cash crop. And – because it helps their spread in a few ways – the tree features – as a bad actor – in our (many) summer fires. Anyway, the crop is being harvested behind my house, with a huge impact on the scenery. I can no longer make my way with conviction along the many forest paths. Or at least not without the maps I had the foresight to sketch 4 or 5 years ago. And which were useful during Covid. For taking illegal walks at night.

The evidence . . .

Incidentally, walking past the 2nd of these this morning, a friend and I felt that the wonderful aroma arising from the work was a mixture of eucalyptus and lemon. Though there’s no evidence of any of the latter tree.

MAD MAGAWORLD

MAGA is unhappy about Trump’s nonsensical Argentinean initiatives.

What happened to Stephen Miller?

Quotes of the Day

• If Trump is willing to commit $20bn from the US treasury’s emergency fund – or is it now $40bn? – to buy Argentine pesos and rescue the drowning Javier Milei, he will do anything.
• The stakes for American democracy are high. What happens in the cities, and how far the courts will allow Miller to achieve his goal, will reverberate for many years to come.
• If you’re going to face the media very frequently, I guess it’s a great help not to have to worry about what you’re saying is true or not, and if only your enemies are going to point this out, while all your supporters say nothing at all about it.

Russia

Trump finally takes serious action, it seems. Perhaps Putin doesn’t really have the kompromat on him. Just Trump’s admiration and affection.

Spanish

• Indagar: Investigate.
• Albacea: Executor (of a Will)
• Toisón: Fleece. Golden Fleece
• Tejón: Badger

Anyone got any views on this? . . . A Spanish friend claims that the Spanish language is more ‘physical’ than English, in that its everyday phrases often refer to an action, rather than a thought. There’s a woman on Instagram who promotes this view but I don’t have the app, so can’t access it. An example given is that the English phrase ‘I like you’ becomes ‘Me caes bien’ – ‘You fall to me well’. I think my friend gave another example using Echar (‘To throw’ and numerous other meanings) but I can’t remember it.

Did you know?

Surely a TV series . . . From the late 1800s into the mid-20th century, an all-female collective of “professional shoppers” terrorized London’s department stores with a mixture of charm, cunning, and the kind of teamwork most startups can only dream of.

Transgenderism

Cases of trans-identification are said to be in free fall. Social contagion? Institutional enforcement?

Finally . . .

I don’t really regard myself as living a tough life but it dawned on me today that I’m fighting 3 battles at the moment – against a tiler who defrauded me, against a roofing company which did a bad job last November, and against my community’s insurance company in respect of the water leak from my neighbour’s house that damaged my basement floor about 5 years ago. I really should be more miserable, perhaps, But I do have Spanish friends who know the ropes better than I do. and this helps a lot. I might actually win one of the battles. But am not too optimistic.

Finally . . .Finally . . . You Have to Laugh

One of the friends helping me with my challenges is my lovely ex neighbour. We had a meeting scheduled for 12 today and she wrote to say that she wouldn’t mind if I was late. This made me laugh out loud because – as I had expected – she arrived 15 minutes late. As she always does. I say ‘late’ but, of course, 15 minutes doesn’t really qualify as that in Spain.

My thanks to those readers who take the trouble to Like my posts.

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 . . .

I can also be read on Facebook.

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.

If you´re thinking of moving to Spain, this link should be useful to you.