Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain- This needs more research but I've read that a survey reveals the Spanish to be the most unhappy folk in the EU, while the British and the French were the most happy. Indeed the Spanish were said to rank as the 2nd unhappiest people in the entire world. Perhaps the list was upside down.
- This is one group of Spanish people who might now be less happy than they were a few days ago.
- The father of my latest grandchild is Spanish. So I was interested in this article. Though, after 19 years here, I'm pretty familiar with all it contains.
- Well, as I hoped and half-expected, the 'temporary' camino route compelled by the closure of O Burgo bridge is to be a permanent variante. So, you can now both enter and leave Pontevedra by very pretty and shady stretches alongside a river. Though it'd be more accurate to say 'large stream' in the case of ingress.
- Behind my house there are 20 new houses with spectacular views of the city. But no one enjoys these as the houses remain unsold - testament to the utter madness of the euro-driven construction boom-and-bust of 2002-2007. But this example pales into total insignificance set against this one from Miño in NW Galicia:-
Click here for a (wider) Google view.
- Good news for Brits resident in Spain.
- Today is the Medieval Fair in Pontevedra - the Feira Franca. Twenty years ago it occupied just one small street. This year it occupies not only the entire old quarter and much of the new but also the river. We have the chance to take to the water in 'old boats'. Here's a foto of the old Portuguese Gate, re-created every year for this last-of-the summer event:-
The UK
- I wonder how UK voters - when the election finally arrives - will take the news that the Brexit 'rebels' made a deal ('conspired') with EU leaders on an Article 50 extension before they denied Johnson an early election. Denying power to the people but giving it to Brussels??
- One of my neighbours asked me if I knew of Anthony Williams. I said not and then researched him for her. He turned out to be a 'food medium', who claims that a spirit gives him advice on what to tell gullible idiots to eat. And how to make a lot of money in the process. Starting in California, of course. The most concentrated area on earth for folk with more money than sense.
- How can anyone be so stupid as to produce an official chart - of hurricane Dorian - on which there's an extension of the area at risk made by hand by what Brits call a felt tip pen and Americans a Sharpie? And then make the hole deeper by saying he doesn't know who drew the line? Well, you know who. The Dunning-Kruger Effect at work again.
- Word of the Day: Guaperas. I know one, at least. A female.
- Yesterday I called the UK medical practice I last used 20 years ago. I wanted to get my NHS number for an imminent UK visit and expected I'd have to send an official written request. But, no. They asked for my name and old address and within 2 seconds gave me the number. I find it hard to believe this would happen if someone Spanish in the UK called their doctor's clinic in Spain. I fear they'd be asked to send a letter with a notarised copy of their ID document attached to it. And then wait for at least a week. Or maybe several months. But my daughter tells me I might be wrong. I sometimes am. In contrast - like Alfie Mittington - she never is . . .
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