Life in Galicia

Contrary to others like France and Germany here in rural Galicia we got a way lightly.

On Saturday, as predicted well in advance, at about 5pm we started to experience severe gusts.
We went out twice to secure one of our poly tunnels as the wind had gotten into it and was starting to drag the foil out the ground.

At 8pm it was gone, dead quite. Sunday morning came with some sun shine and all just looked – wet -!

We went out to repair, re-dig the foil for the poly tunnel, went around our small aldea and talked to some neighbours. Except for some tiles fallen off an ancient roof nothing has happened.

Driving around we encountered a lot of minor landslides as well as some fallen trees, lots of water and where there are flood areas they are flooded but that’s it. I heard on the news that there has only been one fatality in Galicia.

We have enough water! It should last for two years but still it is raining. We have never seen the dams actually shedding water and its quite a sight. All embalses are draining water and at some , this is Belezar its a great sight.

Today Monday it is April – sunshine, shower, sun shine , shower – you get the picture but it is undeniable moving towards spring.

Two years ago it was a different story as high winds struck at midnight  see this blog .

This time we listened to the alerts and prepared a bit better.

Expat – The adventure rural Galicia

Yes I know carnival is long gone. We are deep in lent and a grumbling stomach and a dry liver do not make great companions to write blogs.

BUT, there are always little stories worth telling, specifically as you, in less than a year, can be at the right place at the right hour.

Our friends from Cristosende – don’t forget to visit their lovely blog about weaving and basket making in Galicia - mentioned that there is a special event with traditional masks, in the mountains between Ourense and Castro on the Saturday during the carnival week.

Ever eager to explore new things I jumped right in - “Yes, great lets go there – can you find out exactly when and where please” -

Three days before we received an email confirming as follows – It starts in Maceda Saturday at 9am -!

Oh boy, it is a bit more than a one hours drive from us, which means getting up at the ungodly hour of about 7am, allowing for icy roads and scraping the car as we were still in deep frost. I’m OK to work until the early hours of the day but getting up before the sun…… it’s a different kettle of fish (Spanish equivalent idiom is – Eso es harina de otro costal -).

On that Saturday, after I threatened to disassemble the alarm clock, I scraped the ice of the windshield at about 7.30am. I wore so many layers of cloth that I had to go round the car to complete the job, whereas normally I can just lean over. Needless to say that when we started off I realised I forgot the camera and we had to hurry back, as I said early mornings is not for me.  To write a cliche – we started into the sun rise and guess what, the temperature fell. Going to Doade, than across the Sil up to Castro and beyond our thermometer recorded -12C on this crystal clear frosty morning. The advantage of being alone on the road is that when following the dividing line it shortens the distance and thus the travelling time.

Now I have written before that the concept of time in Galicia is a more relaxed one. We arrived in Maceda at just before 9am and the little town was dead, no one about. Oh dear, have we got the day wrong? I’ll not manage another morning like this….. We parked and found a coffee bar. It may have been the morning, but the croissants on offer were out of this world. Whilst munching away we managed to ask the owner if today is the “day of the felos”. “Oh yes” he said, “sort of anytime soon, but don’t worry you’ll know when it starts” – he said with a slight smirk on his face.

Os Felos  en Maceda “O Entroido” (el carnaval) are believed to descended from the Sierra de San Mamede to parody and satirize the feudal lord as a reaction to the abusive taxes.

And yes, you will know when it eventually starts. 5 of them invading a bar and creating a racket will make your ears fall off.

Two buses appeared and after loading the bells we followed them into the mountains to one of many remote villages.

This year two buses were needed and about 100 felos descended on the remote villages. Here is a link to a video Felos Maceda on YouTube to give you an impression (Turn the volume down – you have been warned).

Not many people actually live in these remote villages, but still they go out of their way to prepare sustenance, not just for the felos but also for the followers.

The potent coffee liquer went down well on this day together with home made bicca and other tidbits.

We followed them to some villages, its easy as one just follows the buses.

On a cold crisp day this was a great experience. If you are interested it is always on the Saturday during the main carneval weekend. It does eventually start - not nessesarily at precisely 9am though.

Expat

Isabel Durán arriving at Zapatero Mer (abaixo)

Some weeks back we received a phone call – TV Galicia. After agreeing to speak in Castillan we were asked if we would mind being on TV as they where running a feature on foreigners, their reasons to come to the former end of the world and what they are up to.

So about two weeks ago Isabel Durán, her camera man and the producer arrived. Admittedly it took three phone calls to guide them, but they are from the big capital Santiago!

It was great fun and really interesting to see what goes into making it for about 5 minutes of fame on a TV screen. Isabel was very understanding that we would only stumble in, not necessarily grammatically correct, Spanish and she easily guided us through the whole process.

The whole episode was aired last Sunday and is available on the net:

Galician TV in Mer Sober rural Galicia – Vivir aqui

It is called vivir aqui – Living here – and is obviously watched by quite  a lot of people. Thus we will be famous for growing vegetables for the first time in our life and that in Germany the double beds are slightly larger than here in Galicia.

We tried to explain that we came here by an accidental holiday, where we simply fell in love with this area and decided to undertake a new challenge. 3^rd country and two more languages.

The garden(s) and nursery gave more food to talk  …..first time growing vegetables with the result of 8 month eating tomatoes…….

Explaining that we like the view from “bajo” / “lower” Mer we saw that it is now actually titled “Mer de Abaixo” which is Gallego for “lower Mer”.

I wonder what our neighbors make of this.

Even our blog is on the TV – how cool is that?

So we keep living our life quite openly, as now every one watching TV or Internet can see what we do, have and how we live.

Any complaints about the colour of the sofas are gladly received.

Doing this TV, you learn what cut to size means. It took a total of about 2.5 hours to end up with 5 minutes of fame.

Realising that they also filmed our casa vacacional, triggered us into action to finally register this and make it fully legal, before they aired anything. This will be another blog, believe me, as it shows bureaucracy at its best.

 Expat