Dawn

Dawn

Tuesday, October 23, 2012


Like all of my neighbours, I've been known to put an unusual item or two alongside our communal rubbish bins, to be collected by the nightly truck or picked up by the local gypsies. But someone was extra cheeky last night and deposited the ex-contents of his/her bathroom – a sink, a toilet and a (broken) bidet. Someone, though, must have found them useful, as they weren't there tonight. So I think I'll make them a present of my old microwave tonight. At the moment it's an inconvenient trip-trap in the garage. Incidentally, the only dumping that really annoys me is that of bags of hedge clippings that fill up the contenador, despite the notice saying they're not to be left there. OK, there's no municipal dump so they're hard to get rid of but there must be a better way than this. A compost heap?

As I was emptying my post-box this morning, the lovely Amparo emerged from next door. Shortly after, came her husband Toni:-
COLEEN! HOW ARE YOU?
Deaf apparently. How are you, Toni?
GOOD. GOOD. LEESTEN, I CUT MY HEDGE YESTERDAY AND SOME OF THE CUTTINGS FELL ON YOUR SIDE OF THE FENCE.
Yes, I know.
I'LL COME ROUND THIS AFTERNOON AND COLLECT THEM.
No, don't worry Tony. There's not many.
OK. OK.

Yesterday's election results in conservative Galicia were everything that the Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, would have wanted. Despite the cuts and the tax increases, his PP party not only retained its absolute majority but also increased the number of its seats in the regional parliament. Galicia is often included with Cataluña and the Basque Country as a region with secessionist demands but the nationalists have only 21% of the seats, split between two feuding parties. Their percentage share of the vote is even less.

Up in the Basque Country, things were rather different. The two nationalist parties were first and second in the voting and will now negotiate a coalition. Which will surely be more of a problem than Sr Rajoy is letting on. Especially if November's elections in Cataluña, as expected, bring a resounding victory for secessionist parties there.

As I regularly say, who on earth would want to be Prime Minister of fractious and fissiparous Spain? What chance independence referendums in 2014, at the same time as Scotland's? Whether Sr Rajoy wants them or not.

Driving in Spain
1. If you find yourself on the inner lane of a roundabout, heading straight on, and someone comes from your right, crossing dangerously in front of you, it's you who's in the wrong. The inner lane is reserved for drivers doing a U-turn. You will be fined otherwise.

2. Does anyone know what the law is relating to flashing amber traffic lights. My understanding was that one could proceed but should let people cross if there were any. But I've never seen any Spanish driver stop for pedestrians.

Finally . . . Interesting to see that the UK politician, Andrew Mitchell, has finally resigned for, allegedly, making nasty comments to a couple of policemen. Things are done rather differently here. When a town hall car was clocked at 150kph near Sevilla at a time when the mayor was on his way to a meeting there, the council said they couldn't provide details of who'd been driving the car as the records for that day were not clear. Possibly because they no longer existed.

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