Just as the ten year building boom is ending – along with its bonanza of 7% tax on each sale – the Galician Xunta has decided it’s a good time to set up an agency to stop what’s called here ‘savage urbanisation’ and to prevent further despoliation of the coast. Maybe they were too busy on other things before now. Reviewing planning permits perhaps.

Readers who know I have a bet on will understand why I cite this quotation from a Spanish news source - There is more evidence of the slowdown in the Spanish real estate market, with data published this morning showing that the price of retail housing has fallen in ten regions of the country for the fourth consecutive month.

At a local level, I’ve decided to take an Anglo-Saxon approach to one particular real estate issue. Talking to a couple of my neighbours in the street yesterday about the fear in the air that our local displaced gypsies will set up camp elsewhere, I told them I’d decided to sell my house to one of said gypsy families at a price way above the market rate but that, if they and other neighbours wanted to meet it, I’d be happy to sell to them. I got the impression from their nervous laughter they thought I was joking.

Galicia Facts

Only 2% of fathers here take any of the paternity leave to which they’re entitled.

In 2006, Galician companies invested three times as much outside the region as foreign companies invested here - 5.6bn euros, against 1.7bn. This time, ‘foreign’ really does seem to mean from outside Spain and not just from Cataluña, Andalucia, etc. as the major investee countries were France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Brazil and Portugal.

Finally, some culture . . . If you click here, you’ll find [on my Galicia web page] a rough-and-ready list of the Spanish authors cited by Michael Jacobs in his [sort of] literary odyssey around Spain in the early 90s.

For those with most interest in Galicia, here’s the relevant extract. The dates are only indicative of the period:-
Ramón Valle Inclán, 1920s. Bohemian Lights and Divine Words
Rosalía de Castro, 1870s. Galician Ballads, Follas Novas, and By the Banks of the Sar
Emilia Pardo Bazán, 1870s. La Tribuna
Pérez Lungín, 1920s. The House of Troy
Alvaro Cunqueiro, modern. The Traveller in Galicia
Camilo José Cela, 1950s. The Hive, Divine Words, Journey to the Alcarria, and Pascual Duarte

I’m afraid I can’t say right now which of these are available in English. More anon.