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'*  

Note: Our August Peregrina fiesta is, of course, of 2 weeks’ duration, not 2 days’. My apologies to those who saw my typo before I corrected it yesterday.

Living La Vida Loca in Spain 

• Come the summer in Galicia, come the forest fires. And, usually, the tragic death of at  least one firefighter in the crash of a plane or a helicopter. As has just happened up in Lobios, near the border with Portugal. Which the fires don't respect, of course.           
• According to this vitriolic chap, our ex king was a bit of a cad. And had nearly 5,000 lovers. Whether he was or wasn't or did or didn't, many towns and cities around the country are now busy changing street names which honoured him. And the current king is using his elder (teenage) daughter to try to burnish the tarnished image of the monarchy. Which might well work. Poor girl.
• Some folk go so far at to see this as the beginning of the end of the Spanish monarchy. Which might well be right.   
• I was pleased to read last  night that Mark Stücklin and I share 3 things:- 1. Shock that Brits who'd never think of not using a lawyer when buying a house back home happily take the advice of smiling agents or developers that either they don't need to do so here or that they should use theirs: 2. Disbelief that, after 20 years of counselling against this on both our parts, it's still happening; and 3. Insistence that it's essential that buyers get themselves not just any old lawyer but a qualified and independent one. See MS on the subject here.
• Here's one useful list of lawyers. Confusingly, Galicia is in the Madrid list. And here's MS on the challenge of finding a competent and honest lawyer.      
• Driving in Spain: Another realisation has belatedly dawned on me . . . When a driver who hasn’t made any signal either when approaching a roundabout or when on it then signals right once they’ve exited it, this simply means: ‘By the way, this is the road I’ve chosen to continue on.’ I mean, what other explanation is possible?
• María's Day 56.  

Spanish 

• María has endorsed my doubts re this being a good equivalent of ‘The pot calling the kettle black’ - El que tiene tajado de vidrio no tira piedras al de su vecino. More like ‘People in glass  houses etc. . . ‘. María gives these better alternatives: El burro hablando de orejas, or Dijo la sartén al cazo."  I prefer the first one.

English/Spanish

• Three more refranes:-
• - The cobbler’s sone is always the worst shod: En casa de herrero, cuchillo de palo.
• - The truth will out: Se pilla al mentiroso antes al cojo.
• - The wages of sin is death: El pecado se paga con el  muerte.

Finally . . . 

• I think I've raised this issue before: As they haven't re-appeared at my bird feeder since I came back from my 2 weeks away, I searched an answer to the question: Do sparrows migrate? The answer: All house sparrows are sedentary; they remain in virtually the same place throughout the year. Sparrow usually stay within 1 kilometre of their birthplace. So . . . Have mine just found a garden where the grass is greener? And, if so, is the same true of the  collared doves?
• I get spam messages in the Comments to my blog. But why someone would think it profitable to advise a brothel in Manesar in India is rather beyond me,

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