It’s undoubtedly true the Spanish tend to look down on their Portuguese neighbours. So it must be galling for them to know that – after 10 years of effort on the part of their security forces – the country’s most wanted criminal was arrested in Portugal. And thanks to the keen observations of a lowly shepherd.

After 18 months – and 2 summers! – of horrendous levels of noise and dust, the efforts to carve a flat building site out of our nearby granite hillside may be nearing an end. The rock-busting machine appears to be working on the basement/garage of the last building. I still think it will be another 18-24 months before any of the houses are occupied but the initial stages will surely move rapidly. This is because they’re being done by a team of Portuguese who are ferried in each day by a minibus which arrives at 7.45am and leaves almost 12 hours later at 7.30pm. This means it must set off [from Valença, I guess] around 7am. Which is 6 in Portugal. So, God knows what time they get up. Anyway, the houses should be finished smack in the middle of whatever is the consequence of the ending of the property bum. A good place, then, for me and Biopolitical to decide who’s financing the cava. And to consume it.

An odd incident in my local Día supermarket yesterday evening. Picking out a floor cleaner, I couldn’t help but notice, next to me, a tightly-dressed woman of a certain age with what used to be called a well-turned ankle. I saw her again when she squeezed past my trolley – and me – at the checkout, as she left without buying anything. Finally, it was hard to avoid her as she leant in a Dolce Vita sort of way on the pavement railings above the parking area. The portly bald driver of a departing ancient Mercedes certainly found her provocative, as he tooted his horn at her in the juvenile way Spanish males do at attractive women. Being of an innocent disposition, it still took me 5 minutes to realise she might have been on the game. But at 5.50 and in cheapo Día? Perhaps she specialises in what she thinks is the rich foreign tourist trade. Or anyone with a pink face.

The perils of a Google translation. I saw yesterday that my comments on a school kid had been translated into Spanish as ‘the bored young of a goat sitting at his school desk’. In compensation, it was nice to see that my phrase The Atlantic blanket had been rendered - even more euphoniously - as La manta atlántica.