Dawn

Dawn

Monday, July 27, 2009

Something I’ve noticed about the summer events I attend is that, if you sit on the edge of these, there’s a good chance you’ll see the same person several times during the evening. The other thing I’ve noticed is that it’s always a pretty woman. Odd that.

Anyway, the observant among you – when looking at yesterday’s foto of the band in the bar in Sta Lucía/Moraña – will have noticed that, despite the incredible noise being produced, there was still a TV blaring away in the background. As I wrote, it was a very ‘Spanish’ day.

Even the non-observant among you will have noticed I’ve moaned a lot about the three speeding fines I’ve picked up over the last year. And so will understand why I was interested in a report in our local press yesterday about an ex chief of the Vigo police being investigated for arranging the cancellation of a hundred euro fine handed out to one of our multi-millionaire local drug dealers. The latter obviously felt as aggrieved as I did at the abuse of the law. So, naturally, has my sympathy . . .

Talking of rules . . . Accustomed as I am to the relaxed Spanish approach to these, I rarely find myself shaking my head in wonder these days. Specifically, I’m no longer shocked to see mothers smoking as they lean over their babies’ buggies in the street. But I did find myself pursing my lips in reproof in my regular café-bar today, when two women ignored both the law and the sign on the door and took their toddlers into the dedicated smoking chamber. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so judgmental, today’s most heinous crime.

And still on rules . . . Am I wrong to think that Spain has a higher incidence than average of two particular motoring offences:- 1. Failing to put your lights on at night, and 2. Driving the wrong way down an autopista? The second, of course, is rather more fatal than the former. And is known as kamikaze driving here. Perhaps they’re just a Galician thing.

Finally . . . I leave you with the question posed by my Madrid-based daughter, as I drove along the coast road last weekend at the speed limit, with a huge queue of cars behind me:- “Dad, why on earth are you driving so slowly?”

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