After three weeks of the grey-green UK “summer”, I returned to the dusty yellows of Spain and found the village in the throes of fiestas.
Category: spanish
naming names
From Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest:
CECILY […] This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.
GWENDOLYN [Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.
I wonder how different the average Spaniard’s social sphere is from that of the average angloparlante.
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the power of prayer
I didn’t know the Baptists were so self-condfident, but it looks as if this church is sure its congregation is safe from Hell fire – click and see the full-size image to read the text on the wall alongside. 
Photo taken in central Madrid, July 2008.
two old men
I don’t usually stop and talk to anyone on my daily walk to the village. It’s just a quick visit to correos to check for mail (9 times out of 10 there isn’t any) and straight back, working up a sweat.
There are maybe half a dozen old guys I see regularly, but we simply mumble un saludo and keep going. And there’s one vieja who does a short walk, all on the flat, as far as the polideportivo, and I might exchange a few words with her.
Today, however, I spoke to two old men.
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adopt-a-gay
Well, no, that probably isn’t what the newspaper is saying, but it’s the way I read it. From today’s Público online:
Cambio de sexo gratuito en la Sanidad pública
Catalunya en 2005 ya había aprobado una ley que favorecía la adopción de parejas del mismo sexo. […].
And the phrase which has caught my attention is la adopción de parejas del mismo sexo, which appears to me to be talking about adopting same-sex couples.
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don't confuse the narrator 