According to recent articles los 11.000 funcionarios (civil servants) of the administration of the Xunta de Galicia will strive to support the crisis by simply working 90 minutes less during July and August.
First of all – working ??? – Second how insensitive can a government become when there are 50% juvenile unemployment, everyone speaks of the crisis but the well air conditioned civil servants will have to work less hours.
You don’t belive it – here is the link to the full article – Unos 11.000 funcionarios y altos cargos trabajarán 90 minutos menos al día
It leaves one speachless, discussing this with local they just shrug their shoulder …. lod funcionarios….. a meaningful look and we switch to much more important issues like the weather which is similarly unchangeble.
As you hopefully know by now we have an open garden and plant sale this weekend.
And here is a gardening quiz. Which one is not a rose? Just click and you get the answer.
Have a great time and to see more like below come and see us and the garden on Saturday or Sunday.
yes we are having an open garden and plant sale week after rastrillo on the 16th and 17th of June.
Come and have a look and if you have a bare patch there are quite a range of tough but beautiful plants which are looking for new – well; – l bare patches –
As usual it will be well sign posted.
Today I am a bit short fused as we are now taking on the battle of re registeringa casa vacacional due to new legislation.
It should be a straight forward pocess involving a bit of fees ….. HA!! you aven’t met the full burocracy at its finest yet!!
Not only is this a new law but it also entails that actually noone really knows what to do or ask for, it is worth than the famous video.
The office - Spanish way
Like asking our concello for a licencia ayunamiento prevista and receiving the answer don’t know yet but have some plans drawn and send. When our architect phoned them a week later to ask about what plans they would like, the answer was an encouraging “lots of them please”.
So today we are having a meeting with eva out architect about drawing up plans, as we need two sets one now and one when we changed the layout to make it smaller so we can rent it cheaper.
Than I will write a letter to the tourism Lugo not asking but telling them that we expect a detailed procedure that is easy to follow to guide us through the process. This will have to be in Castellian and that we will not be inclined to waste any more time trying to get any sensible answers.
So I’ll keep you posted. Now off to send a requests for clarifications to the Ombudsman for Galicia – requesting clarifications on proceedings and to The European Ombudsman regarding the new law requiering a Spanish registered architect, which I find is unfair limitation of my choice of tender.
Again all will be written here in great splendour.
Enjoy life and don’t forget visit Casa de las Flores
A June medley - Flowers Ribeira Sacra
PS. You find the Regional ombudsman for Galicia here – click Obudsman Galicia
Thought one of these words in the title would trigger an enlargement of your normal atention span for this blog.
If it was skirts you are in luck!
Wearing a skirt
Click - Full screen
This is what it is about…….
Here in the Ribeira Sacra even the praying mantises wear skirts.
I have to admit I had to look twice to belive it.
The right picture is linked to a full screen one, just click on it.
OK next BAILAR
Barbara came home from one of her local shopping expeditions and told me – your majesty – your and your cameras presence is requested next Thursday (local holiday) at the “colegio”. This is one of those “holiday” days you can get in trouble with, if you joke too much about it.
Here it goes; It is GALICIA LETTER DAY – No, before you ask, they don’t do numbers – just letters. It is a provincial holiday where either one assembles on the beach at low tide and listens to a Galegan writer droning on, or, like in our case, one goes to the local childrens rythmic dance presentation, which happens to be on the same day and does not involve letters or numbers, just music and kids enjoying themselves.
Little did we both know that this would be a serious event and would take a significant amount of time.
Great performances
BUT – there was a bar provided!!! And – the kids where actually quite good and artistic.
Here is one photo that sums it up nicely.
I dutiful took a lot of pictures and will present our neighbours with a nice CD as their kids presented. I also generated a colage which looks quite nice, printed this on gloss and sealed in plastic sleve. We’ll advise soon what the neighbours thought about it.
Now to shopping !!
Today saw the grand opening of our display / shop.
This is for visitors and guests, so they get an idea what is on offer here at the Casa de las Flores, respectively at Zapatero and the gardens of Lemos Verde.
We, that is Barbara, the Repsol representative and myself saluted the display with a coffee and frothy milk on top, to mark the occasion.
Which nicely rounds of this dribbling / scribbling with Explosions.
Well no actual explosion (sorry if I mislead you, well now that you made it thus far please do read the rest), rather the prevention of explosions by bottled gas and the overuse of carbon monoxide. Here, if one has an official contract with Repsol, they not only check any gas related installs at the beginning, they do so every 5 years.
Certified!
We received a nice letter informing us in no uncertain terms that such a review was mandatory (if we wanted to keep the contract that is). So being the subservient estranjeros for which we are famous around here, we bowed into a Repsol office and carefully asked to be reviewed.
So today I received a call from the engineer asking if I could stand to attention in the afternoon – no sorry – he very nicely asked if there would be anyone in the “casa” a la tarde.
Actually I think this is great, as he checked the valves, exchanged!! the tubes and checked monoxide etc. – very serious – very accurate.
After this, he fought the usal large battle with paperwork and we received a nice folder containing a copy of all this, whilst handing over 65€.
Now that we are “certified” for the next 5 years, we are not just covered by an insurance, we can still buy more gas bottles and use the twice weekly lorry to get slightly cheaper gas (bottles), if that is, I wouldn’t forget the dates and put the empties out after the lorry passes through……
According to recent articles los 11.000 funcionarios (civil servants) of the administration of the Xunta de Galicia will strive to support the crisis by simply working 90 minutes less during July and August.
