Dawn

Dawn

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

I regularly say the Spanish don't have good antennae or radar to warn them you're coming towards them. At its worst this means that a chatty group of three will block your way until the very last moment, when the one directly opposite you will turn sideways and almost make enough room for you. My observation was that this wasn't rudeness or lack of consideration for others; it was just a natural consequence of the lack of good radar. You don't appear on their screen until you're right in front of them. But now I wonder. For yesterday I conducted an experiment which throws all this up in the air. I didn't mean to. Things just fell out that way . . . . Against the backcloth of a pile of partially-read magazines, I decided to read one as I walked into town. So, I crossed the bridge with my head down. But not so far down that I couldn't notice that people were starting to move out of my path a good 5 to 10 metres ahead of me. As I say, this has thrown me somewhat. And I guess the obvious thing to do is repeat the experiment, firstly while reading a book and secondly while wearing dark glasses and carrying a white stick. In the latter case, will the gap extend beyond 10 metres? Stay tuned.

Today I went slipper shopping on behalf of my sister. She bought a particular pair when last here and wanted another one. But the shop had closed and I had to do an (unsuccessful) tour of the shoe shops in the old quarter. All seven of them. Tomorrow I will try those in the new quarter. God knows how the town can sustain so many shoe shops. Not to mention the women's clothes and accessory shops that are still opening up. Just how many wives, girlfriends, sisters and daughters of money-laundering drug traffickers can there be?

Talking of clothes . . . Today I made my annual trip to a seamstress shop – of which there are also quite a few – to get the moth-holes in my pullovers repaired. They buggers weren't put off by the bunches of lavender in the wardrobe. And not for them the cotton, wool or even the lambswool sweaters. Only the pure lambswool and cashmere items will do for their bloody eggs.

For a couple of weeks or so, I've been on the verge of retracting any negative comments I've made about the repeat prescription service here. For I've discovered that, armed with your health card, you simply go to the pharmacy, where they insert your card, look on the screen and give you want you want. Or they did until today, when I was told I couldn't have any more until 26 of December, even though I'll run out in two days. The pharmacist suggested the doctor had made an error or that something had been erased but, whatever the reason, I needed to go back to the surgery. So I'm leaving my negative comments on the record for now.

Opus Dei is a Catholic organisation which is considered pretty far to the right by everyone who isn't a member of it. Some would even say proto-fascist. Anyway, it's said to be powerful in Spain (where it originated), so I guess we shouldn't be surprised to read that around a third of Spain's judges belong to it. But it's discomforting.

Finally and still on Church matters . . . Not many of us will ever forget Cecilia Gímenez, the 80-year-old Spanish woman who restored a picture of Christ in her parish church, turning him into an attractive orang-utang in the process. Well, it seems she's come out of her self-imposed purdah and is selling one of her works on eBay. As I write, the going price is 630 euros but who knows how high it'll rise. If interested in bidding, you've got just over 5 days left to get someone – possibly yourself – an unusual Xmas present.

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