Dawn

Dawn

Sunday, September 04, 2005

The other thing about shower heads in the ceiling is that, if you get the temperature right with the hand set and then switch the flow, you will first be deluged with ice-cold water and then promptly scorched. No wonder they fell out of favour.

Driving out of Madrid this morning, it took a mere 5 or 7 minutes to get from the city centre to the motorway for Galicia on the western outskirts. Likewise, it was comparatively easy getting into Madrid last Wednesday evening. I wonder how many great capital cities you could say this about. Something of a contrast, though, with this evening, when the mass return from August holidays caused the usual huge jams. On a point of detail, it was interesting to see this morning, when driving through road works, that a significant percentage of drivers clearly thought there was a 1 before the 80 on the temporary speed limit signs.

On the debit side, I was hit yesterday evening by one of the gangs of pickpockets for which Madrid and Barcelona are now notorious. Happily, either I’m not easily distracted by coppers being dropped at my feet or this was a particularly inept group. Either way, I felt the hand going into my back pocket and was able to thwart the theft of my library card and driving licence.

Approaching Galicia from the plains of Castile, it was depressing to see a shroud of smoke over the mountains. Most of the fires seemed to be exhausted but there were two new ones raging just north of Xinzo de Lima. Happily, rains have arrived in the northern half of Spain this evening and are forecast to persist for 3 days.

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