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

Ceuta:

• Figures differ as to how many – 2-5,000 – migrants are still in Ceuta.
• There are reports of hundreds of unaccompanied minors there.
• As this foto show, young women were among the 70,000 who got around or through the border fence between Morocco and Ceuta on 20 July. Plus many young men, of course.

• The Spanish government is finalising a plan for the urgent transfer to the Spanish mainland of approximately 500 migrant girls. To which there is inevitably opposition in regions with right-wing governments. And from the EU Commission. The Guardian writes on this here.

In Barcelona, rental opportunities remain rare and rents continue to rise despite controls on them.

It’s reported that, unable to get a decent job in Spain, more than 8,000 young folk went abroad last year.

Separately, it’s reported that both Galicia and Spain as a whole are suffering a large and growing problem of work absences.

We are to have a new airline in Galicia – a Romanian company called Flytogalicia. It will operate out of Santiago de Compostela and will offer domestic and international flights. But none to and from the UK, it seems.

Last week’s weather ‘anomaly’ in the Atlantic brought us temperatures as high as 37 in Pv city. Today, a different anomaly brought us a drop of 10 degrees, plus some (welcome) rain. The Kiwi crop has suffered and, for the first time ever, all of Galicia’s vineyard have brought forward harvesting (la vendimia) from September to August. We are to have another pertubación on Saturday but I don’t know in which direction.

The Middle East War

The latest update from Naked Capitalism.

The United States of Trump America

Trump: I do have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un. I didn’t like the fact that we’re doing these massive military exercises really against North Korea when I’m friendly with him. [The personalisation of, well, everything]

• Trump Hits Brutal New Polling Low
• The woman in the news 1: How Natalie Harp Keeps Fueling Trump’sDelusions
• The woman in the news 2. . . Perplexity advises that: There is no publicly available independent evidence—such as medical records, treating physicians’ statements, hospital documentation, or legal filings—that verifies Natalie Harp’s claim that she had bone cancer. Her account rests entirely on her own repeated public statements

Because they are rare in Spain – and in Europe as a whole – I was surprised to see a Nissan pickup truck outside my house yesterday evening. In contrast, a Ford truck is the biggest selling ‘car’ there. What this says about respective cultures – and self-vision – is a good question. But, as with 4WD SUVs – it has to rank as a huge success for the marketing folk.

The final pages of Kurt Andersen’s fascinating run through the USA’s history – Fantasyland: How America went haywire. A 500 year history.

Spanish

• Dotación: Amenity
• Paisajismo: Landscaping
• Envolvente: Envelope

Did you know?

Richard Dadd, a brilliant nineteenth-century painter, had made out a list of people who deserved to be killed. The first on the list was his father. Dadd picked him up one day in Hyde Park and carried him on his shoulders for nearly half a mile before publicly drowning him in the river Serpentine.

Finally . . .You Have to Laugh

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 X at Thoughts from Galicia. And on Substack here. I no longer post 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. And this, on the annual costs of owning property here.