Life in Galicia

Summer and the living is easy. Traipsing barefoot through our wine laden gardens in the formerkingdom of Galicia, here is a quick glimpse back in time.

Wikipedia shows a very concise article about Galicia specifically its time as a kingdom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Galicia

So the kingdom existed on and off from 410 - 1833. The first where Germanic speaking Suebi.
These are estimated to have been fewer than 30.000 and settled mainly in what is now Braga in Portugal, Porto and what is now Galicia in Lugo.

Later they where defeated and absorbed by the Visigoths.

The heraldic sign says it all - three beakers (vine?) Probably fuelled by this, the usual historic squabbles, marriages, invasions, etc. etc. happened but the kingdom of Galicia existed (on paper) until 1833.

In 1846 an armed uprising helped to regain Galicias territorial unity but it never again became a kingdom.

Its also interesting to read the details about the Xunta (Wikipedia Xunta de Galicia)

In short the Xunta de Galicia had its origin as the Xunta of the Kingdom of Galicia 1528 - 1833. It acted as representation of Galicia to the central Spanish monarchy. It held no real power as it was consultative only.

This changed during devolution and the Spanish Constitution of 1978 allowed for the establishment of the present Xunta (16/03/1978). In 1981 the Galician Statute of Autonomy passed thus ratifying the Xunta and Galicians self government and laying the foundations for the Xutas vast bureaucracy.  On the other hand to keep track, interpret and use the EC’s ever more complicated rulings and development plans (subventions to you and me) require a lot of inquisitive and interpretive minds. If you ever tried to get subventions for anything you will know what I’m hinting at.

Now we are running up to August, when Spain shuts down and all the Galicians come home. Yes, the population will shorty double or treble and for four weeks parking is a bit of a gable.

So relishing walking barefoot through part of this former kingdom I look up into the vines and see pleasure (grapes) and work (diseases / airing), but as I said “summer is easy”.

Expat

Just got a call from our friendly garage in Monforte. Salvatore speaks German and has worked in Germany for a long time.

So we have some new vents and a brand new cylinder block as the old one was a bit burned out. This may be due to us driving on 3.5 cylinders for quite a while…….

It’s an interesting experience as we hardly noticed not having a car. Yes, the summer weather helps as the “huerta” is producing and we still get treats from neighbors. It’s only about 30 minutes cross country to Sober with its two super markets, pharmacies and bars. We did the trip 3 times but more for fun than necessity.

The bread van comes each morning and we again missed the fish monger coming round on Wednesdays.

There is always someone going to Sober so when we needed another 30 m2 of plastic foil we just hitched a ride.

We had guests staying with us and friends visiting all of no problem.

We think that should it ever be nessesary a monthly serious shopping trip using a taxi will probably surmise.

So having no car here in the friendly neighborhood of Galicia and specifically near Sober is of no problem.

Expat

These are our first forays into vegetable gardening. Having cleared, with help from friends, an area of about 10×10(feet) this was covered with black foil until this spring.

With seeds we bought and lots more we where given by our neighbors we started. Salad from seed and small plants did rather well until it got to hot (didn’t know that). Peppers we bought as small plants so could try and plant a wide variety. Brassicas, col for the bunnies, onions, garlic (didn’t like the wet spring), peas, beans, tomatoes and carrots - all in.

We also chucked some left over potatoes on the compost - they do rather well there. So tonight - Eco dinner from the “huerta”.

Sorry must dash - hungry ….

Expat

PS The excellent “lomo” comes from the local butcher.