Thoughts from Galicia, Spain: 29.9.18

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.

- Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain. 

If you've arrived here because of an interest in Galicia or Pontevedra, see my web page here. Garish but informative.

Matters Spanish

• Here's an interesting - and impressive – development. The problem, I suspect, is that not many folk will believe the statements. The historically vertiginously high levels of corruption among Spain's political class has not exactly created trust among the ruled. (Which reminds me of a nice phrase I read the other day – Trust arrives on foot but departs on horseback. Or Hard won, easy lost, as I've always told my daughters.)
• It used to be that politicians never resigned here in Spain but now – in more tribalised times – this seems to be expected of many – if not most – of them. Here's one case, which references another. And here's Lenox Napier on the subject, with a prediction.
• Reading of a camino new to me - San Salvador – I went to my go-to site and confirmed that it does exist and, secondly, that the total number of caminos has shot up to 39, from 33 only a few months ago. All doubtless totally authentic relics of a thousand years ago. And then there are the 'variants'. Easy money.
• Want a hydrogen-powered car? You can now get one in Spain.
• Nice autumn places, from The Local.
• And here's the Eye on Spain on wine festivals.

The Spanish Language

• The possibly less-than-useful Chachi

Matters Galician and Pontevedran

• A 74 year old woman in Vilalba has admitted that she's one of the many Galicians who keep their cash at home, out of the banks. Or she did before someone climbed in through the window and went to the bag in her wardrobe. But her family have since said the cash might be somewhere else in the house. Let's hope so.
• The Xunta tells us it's destroying 50 velutina(Asian wasp) nests a day and that they've got rid of 12,000 so far this year. Four years ago there were none here in our region.
• It's rumoured that a Pontevedra bypass road (the A57?) is being built and it's even said there's some evidence of this up in the hills. But it's generally known as The Phantom Road and its arrival is forecast to be some time after that of the AVE high-speed train. Which – for at least 25 years – has been a moveable feast.

Finally . . .

• My elder daughter now has her latest novel – Esperanza - on Kindle. They say that all writers are traitors to their family. So, I will commence reading it today with some trepidation. Anyway, here's the précis - from Amazon Spain - and here and here from Amazon UK and Amazon USA . . .

A chicken bus moving through sullen villages and violent towns takes Carmen Muñoz back to her hometown on Guatemala’s Pacific coast, where she hopes to find a curandera to cure her sick child. But when Carmen arrives in Esperanza, she finds more than she bargained for, including a hostile family and the attentions of the man who once raped her, and who now insists on building a relationship with Carmen and her daughter. But when the charming and corrupt Jacobo Ramos starts trying to enslave Carmen’s mind as well as her body, it becomes clear that her real struggle will be to discover why she really came back to Esperanza.

I do hope I'm not Jacobo Ramos . . . .

© [David] Colin Davies, Pontevedra: 29.9.18