Colin Davies

23 February 2026

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

Allegedly . . . The least visited places in Spain – where tourists are always welcome. One of them is on our North coat – the Cathedrals beach. It wasn’t crowded with tourists 20 years ago but certainly is these days. Everything’s relative, as they say.

A few days of warmth has brought out several things:-

  • Profuse blooms on the mimosa trees (though these emerged in January, TBH)
  • A long stalked yellow weed that’s always the first plant to show in winter, heralding spring.
  • The tiny white flowers of the wild strawberry flowers
  • Daffodil stalks, but no flowers as yet
  • Lilly flowers
  • Cherry blossom, which seems to have come out of nowhere.
  • Be-Lycra-ed-joggers, and
  • Pot holes no longer obscured by water. . . . On main highways as well as on minor roads.

Retail outlets continue to close and, often, re-open with great frequency in Pv city. It’s enough to make one suspect it’s true that 25-50% of them are essentially money laundering places.

The UK

Facing a £3bn blow, Britain is the biggest loser from Trump’s new tariffs. Trade with the US is becoming ‘even more chaotic’ amid rising uncertainty.

Europe

No more games? The EU has halted its trade deal with the USA over Trump’s tariffs chaos

The USA

See my earlier Trumplandia post. There’s a podcast there in which a psychologist stresses that a demented Trump cannot constrain himself and is not being constrained by any person or organisation. But is about to attack Iran. Quite terrifying really.

  • Query: In what other modern democracy would a man as mad and as powerful as Trump be left in power. Answer: None.
  • The other madman, Stephen Miller, loses it here, at minute 3.

Russia

The strategy of Russia’s liberal elite is clear: make your peace with Putin. This is how they survive.

BTW . . . . I’ve just finished The Return of Russia: From Yeltsin to Putin, the Story of a Vengeful Kremlin, by James Rodgers, and recommend it for those interested in how things have gone since 1989. And why.

Spanish

  • Farugo: Seaweed
  • Rematadamente: Hopelessly
  • Rematadamente bien/mal: Pretty darn/absolutely well/badly

Did you know?

A wonderful invention which might or might not be the gel previously cited.

You Have to Laugh

Finally . . .

Another of my mother’s sayings. when you told her you’d thought you had or hadn’t done something: Well, you know what thought did? He followed the dust-cart when he thought it was a wedding.

Finally . . . Finally . . .

I’ve mentioned a woman in my Pilates class who never stops talking for the entire hour. It struck me this morning that this might be an illness or medical condition. So, I checked with Perplexity and got this list of ordinary terms: chatterbox, motormouth, blabbermouth, windbag, jabberer, garrulous and loquacious. But also compulsive talker or talkaholic. All of them fit the bill. But none are in Latin . . .

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 . . .

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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 there.

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

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