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

More here on the issue of Spain dealing with an abundance of citizenship applications than it can’t cope with – specifically from ‘Franco era dependants’.

The problem, as the New York times sees it, is that Spain sees itself as a beacon for immigrants. So do many Latin Americans. I can’t say I was surprised to read that Spain is less welcoming to folk who won’t assimilate so easily.

Meet the Civil Guard unit that became the rising star of Spain’s latest political scandals.

I’ve mentioned that wild boars are increasingly venturing into towns, creating risks for locals.. Here’s an account of one fatal meeting.

More boar-ing stuff and the serious implications of it for Spain’s exports of pork.

The USA

Another Delusional Trumpism . . . I’m sharper than 25 years ago.

Trump insists there’s no inflation and that ‘affordability’ is a Democrat con. But strained consumers know better and Trump’s polls are sinking further. He really seems to believe that his bluster can surmount the reality of more and more middle and lower income consumers feeling the crunch as medical insurance/healthcare, housing, and auto costs keep rising, with little relief on other fronts.

Spanish

• Sacarle a uno de sus casillas: To molest, tease, or harass someone.
• Echar en falta: To be missing.
• Estar a sus anchas: To be ease, to be comfortable.

Did you know?

Much of England was effectively a Danish colony for almost 200 years. Danes controlled eastern and northern England from around 865, establishing settlements in Northumbria, East Anglia, and parts of Mercia called the ‘Danelaw’ region. Full conquest of the entire kingdom occurred in 1013 when Sweyn Forkbeard (1013–1014) became the first Danish king, followed by Cnut the Great (1016–1035), Harold Harefoot (1035–1040), and Harthacnut (1040–1042).​ After Harthacnut died heirless, the throne returned to the Anglo-Saxon line under Edward the Confessor. During Cnut’s reign, England was united with Denmark, and Norway – marking the peak of Danish power in England.​

English

It is to the Danish ‘invasion’ that we owe much of the simplification of English: Old Norse speakers learning Old English contributed to the erosion of complex inflections, such as noun cases, grammatical gender, and verb endings, shifting it towards Middle English and its reliance on word order and prepositions. Which is why we can’t understand stuff – eg Beowulf – written in Old English (‘Anglo-Saxon’). And why we find German so hard to learn, as it’s more related to Old German than English is to Old English, retaining ‘a complex case system and certain verb structures’. Time to cite this article – The Appalling German Language – by Mark Twain.

Finally . . .

My 2-night stay in a hotel in Murcia city was unusual. Every few minutes in my room there was a very short and low ‘wheezing’ sound which, try as I might, I couldn’t trace. I even thought at one stage it might be coming from my nose. Happily, I always carry ear-plugs, so I could get to sleep. The other unusual sound – which I feared would affect me more than it did – was that of a barking terrier in the room opposite mine. As this reacted to folk in the corridor, it was surely wrong/stupid to give its owners a room very near the lift.

Having got over the shock (and mild panic) of not finding my car where I thought I’d parked it, I motored up from Murcia to Madrid today. A 5 hour journey was extended to 6 when I deviated to see the delightful Petra of Murcia, Which is a chapel-cum-sanctuary dedicated to one of Spain’s many Virgenes. . . .

It was a pleasant trip on empty (toll) roads until 2 warning lights came on just as I hit heavy traffic on the south of Madrid. Happily the hotel room has a bath I could sink into and stop worrying about these.

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

The Usual Links . . .

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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.