Ponters Pensées: 2.8.16

House Ownership: There was an item on British news this morning about the steep fall in home ownership in the UK over the last 30 years. A few years ago, I noted here that Spain held the EU record not only for first home ownership but also for second home ownership. And third! I wonder how La Crisis has affected this.

Words: In his(then)/her(now) 1988 book on Spain - entitled "Spain" - James/Jan Morris points out that Spaniards use the word Casino to mean (private) club. But doesn't add that a Club here is usually a brothel. But, then, it might not have done back in the 80s, when the euphamism for these ubiquitous institutions was American Bar, I'm told.

Comings and Goings: I went shopping this morning, for a cable to connect a usb pen with my phone. The guy in the IT shop is always slow but today he combined this with the standard practice of trying to serve 4 people at the same time. Including the 2 who came in after me. So, I left and made my way to another IT shop on the way to my watering hole. It had closed down, of course.

Finally . . . A Sequel: I wrote yesterday to a hostel I'd stayed in in Sigueiro, north of Santiago. I thought I might have left something there. The charming owner wrote to say I hadn't but that she remembered my blog comments about the vicious, high-pressure hose at the side of the toilet. She expressed the hope I really hadn't used it. As it's for cleaning only the toilet, not any part of the human anatomy. I assured her I'd been too frightened to experiment with it! And invited her to dinner. I guess she's been too busy to reply. Oh, she just did . . .

GALLERY

Last year the hortensia flowers outside my kitchen window were an insipid whiteish colour. This year they're again the prettier blue of previous years.

Could this be the result of me now chucking ground coffee dregs below them? Or just a wettish June.