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

Mark Stücklin again reminds us here of how tinkering with the property market and not addressing core factors can be counter-productive, this time in nearby La Coruña.

And here’s Lenox Napier on regional elections.

Given how hard life is for self-employed autónomas in Spain, I was surprised to read that a huge percentage of new jobs were going to these, including many both foreign and over 50. Then a friend reminded me that many employees in the hospitality trade are compelled to so this, saving the employer taxes. So, not genuine entrepreneurs.

Galicia has a total of 2,008 villages/hamlets in which not one soul resides. The breakdown by province:-

• Lugo – 934
• La Coruña – 722
• Pontevedra – 182
• Ourense – 170

Property tends to cheap in these places. Unless the owners and the estate agent see a guiri coming . . .

One of the problems of finding a particular village in Galicia is that many of them share a name. I believe there’s 2 Bretoñas, for example. Here’s the 5 top most-used topographical labels:-

• Outeiro (Hill) – More than 350
• Vilar (Cultivated plots) – 259
• Igrexa (Church) 252
• Castro (Fort) 136
• Souto (Place of chestnuts) 133

The storms haven’t finished with us yet. There’s one, called Kristin, which is lingering down in Portugal and Ingrid and Joseph are getting together tomorrow to give us a hell of time for 2 days. Then a break on Saturday before another storm hits us on Sunday, ahead of 2 weeks of rain . . .

Talking of which . . . Tuesday this week was the wettest day in Pv city for 10 years. And, as David up in La Coruña has said, it’s not good for potholes. For one thing, it makes them bigger. And for another, it hides the bloody things, pretending they’re just puddles. And aquaplaning is taking its toll on the autopista.

I checked my recollection and got this AI answer: “Yes, for much of northern Europe, the claim that “winters will get warmer and wetter” broadly matches mainstream projections. For southern Europe, however, projections are for “warmer and drier overall, but with heavier downpours when they do occur.” So, in Galicia are we in northern or southern Europe? Or both?? Getting the worst of each???

At least I haven’t lost an umbrella yet, compared with the 5 destroyed in 2000-1, which was even worse than this winter.

Travellers are – understandably – eschewing the train at the moment. Equally predictably, air fares have shot up opportunistically. In the case of Madrid-Sevilla by more than 400% . . .

The USA

See my Trumplandia post published earlier today.

Spanish

• Couza: Carambola. Star fruit.
• Rebasar: To exceed, pass, go beyond.
• Acta: Record, minutes.

Did you know?

‘I was just following orders’ . . . .The first record of this defence was in 1474, when a knight of the Holy Roman Empire was put on trial for atrocities committed under his command but not by him directly. He claimed he was only following orders from the Duke of Burgundy. But this didn’t wash with the court and he was beheaded. Kristi Noem could well escape this fate.

Finally/You Have to Laugh

A reference to the reaction to the train crashes . . .

Finally . . . Finally . . .

The little bridge in the marshes(marismas) of Alba(Dawn) I mentioned yesterday, featured in the DdP . . . Open today. But maybe not tomorrow.

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 there.

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