I had a round trip of 300km today, up into the mountains of Lugo and Ourense provinces. The rolling green acres up there look a lot like Cheshire. And, with cows and slurry trucks all over the place, they smell like it as well.

Two things spoiled an otherwise very pleasant, traffic-free drive. Firstly, a clearly illegal motor-bike race was coming in the opposite direction, involving some truly horrific sights on the bends. And, secondly, virtually every ridge is now covered with modern windmills, slowly churning. I have finally come down on the side of those who believe these mar the aesthetics of the view. They are, in fact, even worse than the occasional lines of electricity pylons. Not only are they haphazardly placed but their movement constantly distracts the eye. We need a modern Quixote to take them on.

Gratifyingly, 62% of Galicians say they feel equally Spanish and Galician. But this, of course, means 38% feel more local than national. Within these, a significant percentage say they don’t regard themselves as Spanish at all. This got me thinking of the UK again; it’s hard to imagine anyone there answering the question ‘Where are you from?’ with ‘Cheshire’ or the like. Though I guess things are different in the USA, where you might answer with the name of your state.

In town today, I came up against a young man trailing a Rottweiler on a lead with his left hand and carrying a miniature Yorkie in his right hand. I resisted the temptation to ask whether the latter was the former’s lunch.

These days far more people hit this blog than my web page on Galicia. So I’ve decided to fight back against Google’s downgrading of my site by printing the following at the end of each blog, albeit in smaller typeface. My apologies to my regular reader[s], who can, of course, simply ignore it …..

For new readers – If you’ve arrived here because of an interest in Galicia or Pontevedra, you might find my non-commercial guides interesting – at colindavies.net