Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain

Note: In case you're new to this (18 year od blog), I possibly need to stress that I love living in Spain - even in less sunny Galicia - and the comments you'll read here are of things that interest, amuse or irritate me. This is not, then, a vehicle for paeons of praise about this great country. You can find plenty of these elsewhere. I sometimes have my tongue in my cheek and sometimes I'm being ironic. You'll have to figure out for yourselves when, unless I insert the irony icon -  - to help you.

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'*

Living La Vida Loca . . .

• Having woken at 5.45 to take my daughter and grandson for early trains north to Santiago and then south to Madrid, I almost forgot to go to the Comisaría for my 9am cita about my new TIE. 
• But I made it, at almost a run, and was dealt with immediately by 2 pleasant ladies, who volunteered I was the first they were doing this for.
• I was pretty sure I'd been told on the phone the fee was €12 but yesterday I found the on-line application form confusing as to what category of several I was in. So, I paid the highest amount via a bank order. To be told today that I shouldn't have done so, and that my payment shouldn't go through. 
• To make the correct payment - of €12 - I had to leave and to a bank. Where - because I was the only customer - the kind teller, having said I'd have to use (12 step) machine, came out from behind her screen and did it for me.
• Back at the Comisaría, I was given a resguardo - which hopefully the police will accept in place of my Certificate of Residence which was retained.  I also have my old card - which expired in 2011 - and while this might be good enough for receptionists and some staff in Correos - is unlikely to be acceptable to any of the various police forces I might be stopped by.
• All in all, a pleasant enough experience but I won't be surprised, of course, if I end up paying both fees.
• The thought occurred to me that I'd been treated well in both places because - between my Panama hat and my mask - all that the ladies could see was my blue eyes. Which are still relatively 'exotic' up here in Galicia. All by analogy with me finding all the women who pass me very attractive because all I can see - above the  neck - is large brown eyes and long dark hair . . .
• Anyway, the card will take 4 weeks to produce and I'll need to make another cita to go and collect it.
• More praise where it's due. My water company has written to warn me that - in the light of a very significant increase in volume - I might have a leak. This is a huge advance on 6 years ago, when one of these cost me €650. Which the same company couldn't have cared less about.
• This - from The Local - is British newsreel footage on Spain in the 1960s. Possibly a tad patronising. Not to mention replete with breathtakingly casual sexism, racism and an overall lack of political correctness.  ‘Easier’ times . . .
• A Brit who lives down in Andalucia says that Gaucin is the Notting hill of Spain. I'm not sure that would cut it for me.   
• Here's what it might look like in a camino albergue for a while:-

• And here's María's Day 3 of our Adjusted normal.

The USA

• Fart on Kavanagh’s betrayal. 
• Fart on 7/11. 

Finally 

• I'm nearing the end of Woody Allen's autobiography, which is neither as interesting nor as funny as I'd hoped. Too much of a roll-call of people he's worked with over 75 years. Many of whom are unknown to me. And virtually all of whom he's been very impressed by, in one way or another. The stuff on Mad Mia is of interest, since I’ve know a similar personality.
• Right on cue comes an article in in the Spanish media on the chap who's always dubbed Woody Allen’s voice here. For obvious reasons, he's associated with - tarred by? - WA and has lost work because of it. Farcical, in more than one way.
•  

* A terrible book, by the way. Don't be tempted to buy it, unless you're a very religious Protestant.