From the BBC Science & environment section:
This may be an appropriate place to comment on how the Spanish have difficulty in distinguishing between the /b/ and the /v/ sounds. The two letters are pronounced the same in most parts of Spain.
Continue reading “crappy word choice”
After a couple of weeks involving a lot of travelling, I returned to the pueblo late on Monday. Then I had to leave again on Wednesday and make a quick trip to Scotland for a meeting. Which entailed leaving the house on Wedesday morning and going by car, bus, metro, plane, taxi, taxi, shuttle bus, plane, taxi, taxi, taxi, plane, plane, taxi, taxi, bus and car, and getting back here at lunchtime today, fifty hours later.
For reasons which may be understandable, I was half asleep this morning on the bus back to the village. I realised just how dozy I was, though, when it lumbered over a speed bump and I woke up thinking – “goodness! Have we landed already?”
Having woken up, I started looking around and noticed this sign on the window behind the driver:
Which is all very well, but there were no seatbelts to wear.
I think perhaps the best thing about the sign, though, is the marvellous brand name: Fecalbus. I know the local bus company isn’t brilliant, but I didn’t think it was that bad.
The village bus station looks quiet in the photo. Not so the journey into Madrid this morning.
En el autobús,
las viejas cotillean;
sólo los hombres casados
pueden dormir.
Roughly translated:
On the bus
old biddies gossip;
only married men
can sleep.
I swear you could tell which guys were used to nagging wives: they simply closed their eyes and nodded off as if the screeching voices were a lullaby.
Continue reading “poetry on the bus”
Spain goes from fiesta to fiesta and here in the village the first proper working week after the long summer has ended with celebrations in honour of Nuestra Señora la Virgen del Pilar de Arenas.
It’s half a lifetime ago that I first left the UK to live abroad, but barely a day goes by when I’m not in touch with someone there, and I still read the British news when I have time.
Usually, my friends and family keep me up to date when there are stories they think I’ll find interesting, so I was disappointed to realise that no one had told me that the hunt was on in Essex for a lion until it was practically all over.
I’ve always been fond of cats of all sizes, so, since the Essex lion has (probably) turned out to be a mythical beast, I thought I’d post some of the lions I have among my photos.
Continue reading “yet more mythical beasts”
don't confuse the narrator 