Thoughts from Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain

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 Normal in the Netherlands . . .

• I could be wrong on this but, whereas in Spain there's said to be 42 ways to order coffee, here in the Netherland there seems to be just one - "A coffee, please". And it arrives with a sachet of sugar and either milk/cream in a small plastic tub or a sachet of powdered stuff. Maybe not in Starbucks and the like. But, then, I don't go into these.
• Another 'odd' thing here is that you have to look at the small roadside kilometre markers to see what the speed limit is. Not so easy at night. But not on motor/highways, of course.
• Driving to Hilversum yesterday afternoon, I read the first line of an electronic message on an overhead gantry and thought how like English the Dutch wording was:

Out and about?

Then I noted that the next 2 lines were:-

Avoid busy places

Control the virus

• In contrast . . .  In  one (surprising) regard, Dutch trains are less 'international' than Spanish ones; they don't repeat the announcements in English. 

Life Back Home 

• Advice here on how to avoid Covid in bars and restaurants. 
• The Guardian here talks of the other famously corrupt 'royal' family - the Pujols of Cataluña. Who've said they know where the bodies are buried, I believe. Note that the (judicial) investigation has taken more than 7 years.
• Day 38 of María's chronicle. 

The USA

• A challenging article   

The Way of the World

• An interesting development.    

Finally . . . 

• I wonder why all men who live alone after a divorce think that towels have to be retained until they're totally threadbare. Except me of course. But, then, I have 2 daughters who'd give me hell, if I did.

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