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

Maria is despondent about the world but, like many of us, is compensating via the smaller things of life. Especially now that spring is here in Green Spain.

PTV means Pontvedra(n) por toda la vida. It comes as no great surprise to read that they’re a reducing percentage of the total of 85,000 vecinos. BTW: : For newcomers, the term can have a pejorative tinge, suggesting parochialism.

The Diario de Pv confirms what I’ve already noted. At the at least another 15,000 Caminoers will passing through the city this year. Possibly 20,000. Hey, ho.

Pv city’s first Semana Santa procession was on Friday night, in honour of one of Spain’s numerous celestial Virgins. Tonight’s will centre on Jesus entering Jerusalem on an ass, being greeted by folk – Jews en route to Christianity – with waving palm branches.

Portugal

Why Portuguese sounds more like Russian than Spanish. And where Galician fits in the Iberian linguistic landscape. Pretty accurate, in my view.

The Middle East War

See my earlier post.

More signs of a long conflict and resulting severe economic damage.

The United States of Trump USA

Trump – the ageing narcissist – is played by scam awards.

The many No Kings parades force Trump to snap and to go to war with his own party.

Inside Trump’s head. Trump admits that RFK Jr. is crazy. Podcast Video

The US empire is weakening, as – thanks to Trump – the dollar is further losing its pre-eminence in international trade.

Spanish

• Aguacate: Avocado
• Salmo: Psalm
• Lince: Lynx

English

Three words new to me in just 2 pages of Samuel Johnson’s account of his journey to the Hebridean isles in 1753.

• Esculent: Edible
• Perflation: The act of blowing through
• Cuddy: Some sort of fish. [A young specimen of the saithe (Pollachius virens), a marine fish also known as coalfish, coley, or pollock.]

Did You Know

According to Johnson, you could catch whitebait n the river Thames in the mid 18th century, when thy were so numerous you just needed to lowed a basket into the water and pull it up immediately.

Finally . . .

Well, I was wrong about the next issue of Private Eye. It was delivered yesterday and I wasn’t asked to pay 6 euros for it, 3 times the cover price. I don’t know what the declaration of the returned issue was but the one on this one says that the magazine is a ‘Gift’. We now wait to see what happens when the new EU rule comes in at the end of July.

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.