I’ve mentioned the brochure (belatedly) issued by the Pontevedra council on our summer events. As ever, this is in two parts and is written only in Gallego. Which all tourists, I assume, are expected to understand. One part relates to the events round the Fiesta of the Virgin of Pilgrimage (our patron saint) and the other relates to summer events in general. Here’s a picture of the guide as it is when it’s given to you.

And here how it looks when you’ve opened it out.


As you will see, one half is upside down from the other. But this, too, is traditional. Not so this year’s ‘star’ design of the whole thing. Which must have looked brilliant on the drawing board but, in fact, makes the bloody thing hard to open, as you catch your fingers on the points.

And talking of great decisions . . . I read today that the Galician government – the Xunta – sees the solution to having three small, uncompetitive international airports for a population of less than three million is not to rationalise them but to give each of them a specialisation. So, La Coruña’s will concentrate on people flying to and from Britain; Vigo’s will be the hub for flights to and from France; and Santiago will become ‘more international’. Meaning the Rest of the World, presumably. Now, this may be a stroke of genius or it may be a solution which only a committee of bureaucrats could come up with. My guess is it’s the latter and that the already-successful management of nearby Oporto airport in Portugal are rubbing their hands with glee. No wonder they have signs all over the place stressing that it’s the airport for all Galicians.

Two excellent bits of good news today:-

1. A young Galician lady from La Coruña was crowned Miss Spain yesterday. Albeit in Mexico, where the event took place;

and

2. I was not killed this morning by a 4 x 4 which raced round the roundabout at the bottom of the hill but screeched to a halt a metre away from me on the crossing. Mind you, it did belong to the Tráfico Department of the Guardia Civíl and, though I doubt anyone would have been prosecuted for running me down, it might have been a tad embarrassing for the council to explain why my blog had suddenly ceased. Well, maybe not.

Finally . . . My elder daughter Faye has very curly blonde hair, which naturally gets a lot of attention here. The Spanish word normally used for curls is rizos but the owner of one our favourite tapas bars said on Saturday night that she had tirabuzones. I think this word actually means ringlets, rather than curls, but what I’m actually interested in is its origin, as a buzón is usually a mailbox and tira means a strip of something. Anyone got any ideas?

Postcript

Over in the Comments ‘section’, reader Cade and I are still having fun around the issue of subjugation of the Galicians by the Castilians. Though now without the personal insults that were his previous stock-in-trade.