What a difference a day makes. If you try to get into Pontevedra at 1pm on a sunny Saturday, you have to drive across the frustrated path of belligerent millions who are striving to get out, en route to the beaches that dot our magnificent ria. Or fjord, to you. But at exactly the same time on a sunny Sunday, you are the only person on the road. This is because Sunday midday is family lunch time. Nobody but pathetic loners goes to the beach at this time. Or anywhere else, for that matter. It is a great time for everything in Spain.

Talking of driving, I was again almost hit broadsides today by a car that was attempting to overtake me as I was making a left turn I had been indicating for 10 to 20 seconds. If I understood correctly, the response to my expressed irritation was that, as we were going round a bend, how could the driver be expected to know that there was a left turn round the corner and that my signal was, therefore, trustworthy.

My friend, Andrew, and I swap these ‘road stories’ with great relish. Which is just as well, as all females of my acquaintance detest them and make exaggerated gestures of boredom whenever I start to relate them. Needless to say, I ignore them.

Talking of Andrew… he has just told me that the door on their underground garage has been modified today so that it will, as it should, close automatically behind them. Trouble is, it will no longer respond to the remote controls on entering so one has to get out and open the door manually. And then get back to your car in time to drive in and stop the door from descending onto its roof. The guy is coming back mañana to fix it.

Visits to Galicia rose 22 per cent in the first five months of this year. I put this down to the lure of my web page [colindavies.net] and not, as some cynics would, to the fact that it is customary, in Holy Years such as this, to double the time off from Purgatory that is one’s reward for doing the pilgrimage to Santiago.