There were 44 deaths in the first 43 days of 2006 on the Galician roads. The latest incidence of the regular occurrence of a lone car hitting a magnetic tree was abnormal in a couple of ways. Firstly, the driver was a woman. Secondly, we didn’t get the standard ‘for reasons as yet undetermined’ comment about the cause of the accident. Here this was unreservedly attributed to the driver distracting herself by reaching for her phone. The police could draw this conclusion because there was a call registered at exactly the time of the crash. And because the dead woman’s hand was still insider her bag. Coincidentally, the government has today announced a massive hike in the penalty for using a phone when you are driving. Or any other electrical appliance. Vamos a ver.

Fractionally under a year ago, I mentioned houses in Spain are built very slowly but suggested two new places near me might buck this trend as things seemed to be proceeding at a pace. Twelve months on, neither of them is yet finished, though it’s true they both seem to be on the last lap, with plants and shrubs being placed around the gardens. As for the big place nearby belonging to the head honcho of Opus Dei in Pontevedra – well, this is now in its 6th year of construction but I expect to see it occupied any time now. So much money has been spent on the garden it looks as if it were established 30 years ago. We normally only expect this degree of extravagance from the local drug dealers but, naturally, I rule out even the remote possibility of this activity in the case of an Opus Dei bigwig.

There seems to be a consensus around two aspects of Iberia’s new T4 terminal at Madrid airport:- 1. It’s magnificent to look at, and 2. After 2 weeks, it’s not yet functional. As a result of the latter, many of Spain’s provincial airports were in chaos yesterday because of delayed or cancelled flights. Not that it’s always better to travel by coach. A group of senior citizens was yesterday held up for several hours outside Jaen after the police arrested both of the drivers for being drunk. But only after 3 terrifying hours of meandering along one of the main roads heading north. For Galicia, as it happens.

I give a conversational class to five teachers of English on a Monday evening. They are all very fluent and the session is always fun but we exceeded ourselves today when discussing changing attitudes in Spain towards sex before and during marriage. The high spot came when one of the group told us of being propositioned by a married man while she was attending a hen party for one of her friends. He, it turned out, was at a similar function for one of his friends. Or a ‘cock party’ as she quite logically called it.