Palencia
has several fine churches and a cathedral. I only got to see 3 of the
former and each, in its own way, was impressive. But they all fuse
together in the memory. Except for the one attached to the convent of
Sta Clara. For, in this one there was a permanent grill at the back
of the church, through which the nuns could see and hear the Mass and
the nuns could be observed at prayer. Which all felt a tad medieval.
But the lasting memory is of the five or six nuns there all being
below five feet, or 150cm. This rather endorsed my theory that every
Spanish family is forced to send any daughter below this height to a
nunnery. Though I've also wondered whether nuns in Spain aren't all
put in some sort of press immediately after they joined the order. To
be more serious, each of them clearly had some difficulty in moving,
though only one of them looked particularly old. A result of spending
so much time on their knees, maybe.
Back
in the real word – There's something odd about a city which names
one of its crossroads Square of the European Constitution and
one of its main arteries Avenue of Human Rights. A left-wing
council, one assumes.
And
in the real, real world – The previous mayor of Alicante has been
arraigned for corruption, alongside the current one. A family affair?
290
kilos of cocaine have been stolen from a police lock-up in Cádiz.
The fourth time in so many years this had happened. The thieves broke
in from an adjacent building. Spanish has a special word for such a
hole – Un butrón. Which may or may not say something.
Satnavs
– Don't you just hate them! Driving from Palencia to Pontevedra
this afternoon, I became increasingly irritated with the instruction
to turn off every time we approached a junction. I'd told the
satnav to take me to my Home address
and so I couldn't fathom its
bolshie behaviour. After an hour or so, though, I realised I'd
set Palencia as my Home address yesterday afternoon. So, the
satnav, poor thing, was driving itself mad trying to take me back to
where I'd come from. I apologised and put it out of its misery.
Here's
a tip for those driving on Spain's wonderful autovias and
(expensive) autopistas – Unless you're desperate for
petrol(gas), don't go off unless you can actually see the
petrol station signposted off the main highway. The reason is that,
as today, you may see a couple more signs and yet never come upon a
petrol station. Particularly if the sign is for Allariz – a pretty
place, made even more attractive by not being scarred by a purveyor
of petrol. Happily, though, it's only another 12km to a real Repsol
station, visible beside the A52.
Another
sign of the times – Shops/kiosks buying gold in Barcelona have
risen in number from 82 in 2006 to 589 this year. I wonder if the
prices paid reflect the recent increases in the price of gold.
Leaving
the Alfajería in Zaragona, I called in the first bar I came
to for a shandy. The owners were Chinese and I had difficulty getting
them to understand what I wanted. When I later went to pay, the
husband had disappeared and so I spoke to the wife. She clearly
didn't have a word of Spanish and had to ask her 10 year old daughter
to translate. And so it was I got a shandy for one euro from a woman
with one of the prettiest smiles in Spain. On reflection, perhaps I
should have tried English.
Finally
. . . When I first came to Spain, I was told that the Local Police
were the lowest of the several levels - five? - in Spain. Little more
than clowns or country bumpkins, it was suggested. Well, here are two
of them providing some proof of the veracity of this claim. Oddly
enough, it's said it was the wife of one of them who posted this
job-destroying video on the internet. Showing there's someone even
more stupid than her husband.
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