Dawn

Dawn

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

There’s a forest behind my house, where I walk my dog every morning. Apart from the growing of trees, this is used for a variety of human activities but mostly tipping, tupping and tapping. Of veins, rubbish and each other, though not necessarily in that order. In keeping with the pattern of land ownership throughout Galicia, small individual plots are marked off with whatever is handy – rocks, coloured sticks or upturned bottles on the end of poles. I occasionally see people taking wood from these plots but am never sure about the legality of it. Early this morning, I happened upon a couple of fairly advanced years who were chain-sawing a tall eucalyptus that was suspiciously close to the track. I wondered whether the wife had said, “ Looks like the temperatures are going to drop. Let’s nip up to the forest and get ourselves some wood for the fire”.

In recent months, the Spanish authorities have given the impression of taking traffic infractions rather more seriously than in the past. Last week’s announcement – just ahead of the long holiday week – was that there would be a total of 132 unmarked police cars patrolling the highways, on the look-out for those speeding, driving without belts, talking on their phones, etc.
Galicia’s share of these cars is 17. This compares with only 2 or 3 in nearby Asturias and Cantabria and is second only to Castile and Andalucia, which are very much larger. I haven’t seen any explanation for this but it certainly fits with the fact that insurance premiums here are higher than elsewhere. By the way, one of the unmarked cars was pictured in the press, complete with registration number.

I see that David Beckham has said that he’s contemplating leaving Real Madrid for the sake of his kids. Nothing to do, then, with the fact that the fans have begun to boo his appearances on the pitch.

Opening my car boot last night, I realised why we've had nothing but rain for 5 days. After 6 months of perpetual sun, I finally got round to buying a parasol the evening before the deluge began.

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