Getting your timing right.

Today, for once, public transport worked well for me. I needed some fuses, an easy item to buy you may think. If I were in Spain that would certainly be the case as there are ferreterías all over the place, veritable Aladdin’s caves filled with shelves of odd items of all different sizes. This used to be so in the UK as well but over the last 20 years or so small hardware shops have slowly but surely disappeared to be replaced by huge stores, usually located on retail parks on the outskirts of town. This is fine if you are involved in a major DIY project and want to buy more or less in bulk. However if you want a single screw of a particular size or, as in my case, a couple of fuses, it really is not convenient.

Fortunately for me, there is one of the last few remaining little hardware shops just a short bus ride away. So, clutching my over-60s’ bus pass in my hot little hand I trotted off to catch the 11.55 bus. A short walk from the bus stop got me to the hardware shop. The shopkeeper (hardware monger?) found the item I wanted and I hurried back to the bus stop to catch the 12.25 bus back home. I decided to stay on the bus beyond home in order to go to the supermarket where I did a quick run round, bought a number of things and was back on the bus home by 1.25. Job done!

Sometimes it works perfectly, unlike my last trip to Manchester which involved me in a wait of almost 50 minutes for my connecting bus. Isn’t public transport wonderful? Thank goodness I don’t have to pay for it!!!

Anyway I got back home before the weather changed. I’d been in long enough to put the shopping away and make a cup of tea when I started to hear a distant rumble which went on and on and got closer and closer. For the next hour it went on like that, accompanied by what I have to call una tromba - a truly Galician style downpour!! Later the weather improved again but at the time it was quite spectacular.

Now, I read in La Voz de Galicia that autumn has arrived. It’s official, apparently. Here we don’t quite have the autumn colours in the picture that accompanied the article which then went on to say that they expect less rain in Galicia during the autumn. Well, yes, I can see that, it’s all been falling here on me. I’ll just have to sit back and watch it.

On the subject of sitting down, it would seem that a huge chair has mysteriously appeared on the top of a hill in Moaña, looking down on the Ría de Vigo and visible from all around. It just appeared overnight from Saturday to Sunday. People got up in the morning and there it was. So far nobody has claimed responsibility for it but it’s already becoming a place of pilgrimage. Whole families are turning out to walk up the hill and have a look at it. What’s more, there is even the beginning of an organisation to prevent the removal of the rickety-looking seat.