In our nation/autonomous community/region, today is Galician Literature Day. So a public holiday. Everyone here will spend it reading poems or novels in Galego. Or perhaps, as the sun is shining, sunbathing at the beach.

Of course, as tomorrow is Friday, this will effectively be a holiday as well. Even for those who turn up for work. And, come to think of it, Wedneday seemed pretty relaxed too.

I’ve mentioned a few times it takes a long time to build a house in Spain. As an example - opposite my place, twelve months of intermittent pile-driving and earth movement have produced a great deal of noise, a vast amount of dust, a granite wall of impugned legality and these lovely signs, just erected. . .

As for the houses themselves, this is what they currently look like. . .

So I guess it’ll be at least another year before they’re ready for occupation. Quite possibly two. Three even.

The majority of Galician dairy farmers exceeded their EU milk quotas last year but Brussels says they won’t be fined as their colleagues in the rest of Spain under-produced. So Spain, as a whole, was within its limits. This seems to me to introduce a new legal concept – a crime that’s only a crime when enough others have committed it. But, then again, the offence of conspiracy needs at least two people. Its’ not enough to convince yourself you and your pals should blow up the Houses of Parliament, for example.

That’s it for today. As I can’t take the sun, I’m off to read Fran Alonso’s Males de Cabeza. Honest. But before I do, it is perhaps the day when I should admit I prefer the softer X’s of Gallego to the harsh J’s of Spanish. Sanshensho to Sankhenkho, for example. A few more years here and I’ll be not just a Galicianist or a mere nationalist but a fully-fledged Nationalist. Provided they give me a key job.