The Moroccan government continues to find simple solutions to the problem of thousands of sub-Saharan Africans using its territory as a launching pad into Spain’s enclaves. Three days ago they started cutting down the forests near the fences and two days ago they took twelve hundred poor souls into the desert near the Algerian border and dumped them there. Following international protests, they’ve retrieved them, pending further strokes of genius.

Today we finally had some much-needed rain. More accurately, the Atlantic decided to rise up and drop on us. My elder daughter has always maintained that increases in humidity affect her both mentally and physically. This is one reason she’s happier in Madrid than Galicia. I’ve always tended to pooh-pooh this but have to confess it tends to be on cloudy days like today that I miss out one of the 5 stages involved in making my morning coffee. This morning it was neglecting to move the coffee from the grinder to the coffee pot before putting it on to boil. This is daft enough but doesn’t compare with taking the top off the grinder before the blades have stopped.

Stimulated by the rain, I decided to analyse my water bills in search of an explanation for higher totals over the last twelve months. I found that the unit cost of water consumed was increased by 300% last year. At that time the bills were issued by the local council, who not only failed to advise anyone of this huge hike but also neglected to cite the unit cost on the bills so we could see it for ourselves. As I’ve said before, consumer protection has some way to go in Spain.

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