Good item on the early morning news today – A glass of red wine with each meal is not only beneficial but essential for longevity. I’m almost there but will now try harder in respect of breakfast.

Last night saw the celebration of the feast of St Juan (Xoan) here in Galicia and, indeed, throughout Spain. This involves leaping over fires - for one pagan reason or another - but I discovered the real significance of the festival when I tried to enter the car park of the shopping mall on my (Poio) side of the river this morning. Different municipalities, different holidays. The place was closed.

I had planned to engage in the traditional eating of sardines which marks this feast day – I once managed to finally get some at 3am – but the hayfever that mysteriously hit me yesterday turned out to be a summer cold. So I stayed in to sweat it out, swapping red wine for a hot toddy make of Scotch. Life can be tough. I don't much like Scotch.

Talking of holidays . . . The kids have broken up and are now off school until mid September. Which means the 11 o’clock surge in the wi-fi café now brings not only raucous adults but also noisy offspring. I wonder if the library offers wi-fi.

I mentioned the other day that activists on the left of the political spectrum appeared to have arrogated the Progressive label to themselves. But now I discover there are Progressive Conservatives as well. Indeed, they all belong to the constituency of ‘Progressive Politics’. Soon the word will be as confusing and as useless as Liberal. Meanwhile, though, it seems that Gordon Brown’s biggest fault is that his face doesn’t fit. Literally. “Gordon Brown is a victim of the fact that progressive politics has become personality-dependent, charisma-driven, messianic almost.” Poor idealistic bastard.

By the way - The program on Spain I cited yesterday (Paradise Lost) is on ITV tonight at 9, or 10 Spanish time, if you have a satellite.

Finally . . . an solicited testimonial for “In the Garlic”. I’m re-reading (and re-enjoying) this book by a couple of ladies who know Spain well. I’ll try to resist quoting too much from it but I smiled today at the comments that, when you take anything back to a shop here, you have to remember that the customer is always wrong. Especially if it's Carrefour, in my experience. And that Spanish road signs remain “un asunto pendiente”, a matter yet to be sorted. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, neither of these will come as much of a surprise, of course.

And now I'm off to have zamburiñas in garlic in my favourite tapas bar and then to watch the Spain-USA football match in my preferred bar. Both of these are about 20 metres from this wi-fi café. Spain can be oh so . . . . well, convenient at times.