Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain: 21.3.21

 Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

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

- Christopher Howse: 'A Pilgrim in Spain'

 

Covid 

Covid-19 and its possible nemesis, the vaccine, have presented us with an existential dilemma, all about understanding risk. You  can say that again . . .

The UK: Holiday  bookings soared a couple of weeks ago, for Spain Greece and Italy in particular.  Certainly in jeopardy now. Will they get their advance payments back?

Cosas de España

Here are some ‘eco tours’ you can do in Spain, if so inclined.-

1. A 6-day search for bears and wolves in the Cantabrian mountains, with accommodation in low-key guest houses.

2.  A minimum-impact Camino pilgrimage: El Camino del Reciclaje — or the recycling route — with 450 registered eco-hostels on the caminos Frances, del Norte, Ingles and Portugues, and a simple plan: pick up rubbish left by others, drop it at recycling stations and for every 3 stays at approved accommodation they will plant a tree. 

3. A Solar-powered farm: Casa Olea, located  in the Sierra de Aracena, between Cordoba, Jaen and Granada. Three self-catering cottages with private pools on a gentle slope above a wildflower meadow that has never seen pesticides, in the cork oak and chestnut forests 60 miles northwest of Seville. There’s yoga; a farm shop selling local olives, cheese, wine, seasonal fruit and veg, and most parts of the pig; and magnificent walking, 

Cousas de Galiza

Yesterday’s newspapers featured the mayor of Pontvendra looking at newly discovered petrogliphs up in the forest behind my house. Here’s one I snapped last week. Given the flatness of it, I wondered if it’d been used for sacrifices. And why it looks like a tortoise but isn’t called A Tartaruga, instead of A Pietra do Monte Tomba.

Yesterday I suggested you looked for inconsistencies in our new Covid rules, born of tension between the conflicting aims of preventing gatherings and yet giving succour to some industries. Today, a new one has arisen; what on earth are we allowed to do by way of numbers in a car, in the face of everyone wrongly in it being fined €600? For, if individuals who either have a relationship or live separately alone can visit each other in their homes, why can’t they be in a car together? The answer to this will determine whether 6 of us take 2, 3, 4, or even 6 cars on a short trip up the coast. Or a taxi or hired mini-bus, if bizarrely, this is allowed . . .

Maria's Tsunami: Day 48

The UK

Middlesex University is cutting its ties with the UK’s biggest provider of homeopathy training - The Centre for Homeopathic Education - after it peddled vaccine misinformation and encouraged the use of potions made with phlegm to protect against and treat Covid-19. One's compelled to ask why was there a tie in the first place. Money, I guess 

The UK and the EU

Waging war over vaccines can only end in tragedy for Britain and the EU. How very true.

 

Spanish

New word for me - pachanga

1. Danza originaria de Cuba.

2. Fiesta, diversión bulliciosa.

3. Partido informal de fútbol, baloncesto u otros deportes.

English

Someone is described The Times today as A smug, spiky Manolo’d death eater. I’ve no idea at all what it means. Possibly women in the fashion industry.

Finally  . . . Quote of the Week

It’s funny, isn’t it, how people who spend their lives telling people they are compassionate and forgiving, somehow turn out to be not compassionate and forgiving at all.

Especially in these Woke Times.