tales to be told

As I must have taken around a thousand photos while I was travelling recently, I thought I’d have no problem thinking of things to write for the blog and would manage not just to post on Saturday and Sunday, this weekend, but also on the two bank holidays.

It was late on Friday evening when I finally managed to get a post written, and so late on Saturday that it actually registered as early Sunday morning. If I don’t get a move on, tonight will be no better.
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navigational skills

Although I am a frequent user of public transport, it’s been a long time since I travelled any distance by car. Recently, though, on a trip to Galicia’s Costa da Morte, I spent many hours as passenger – and navigator – in a rental car.

I like maps and have a reasonable sense of direction, so I don’t actually regret declining the GPS option, but it certainly wasn’t all plain sailing: much of the time was spent juggling a road map, which seemed to show nothing smaller than an A road, a trail map, which showed all the tourist routes – many of which turned out to be suitable only for walkers, and Google maps on a phone that was having trouble connecting to the local network.
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transcreation II

Last week, in the post Coast to Coast, I briefly mentioned transcreation. For those unfamiliar with the term, it’s a portmanteau word derived from translation and creation.

Translation is seldom easy and, depending on your definition of the word, translation of poetry may be considered impossible: should you focus on form or content? on sound, on patterns of metre or rhyme, or on meaning?
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tripods, triffids and the Trinity

While travelling along Galicia’s Costa da Morte recently, I visited a number of lighthouses – of which, more in a later post, I hope. But they were not the only structures that stood tall along the coastline.

There were radio masts and towers dotted about, as well as a fair number of monumental crosses, which didn’t surprise me given Spain’s Catholic culture and the deadly fame of the coast.
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despite appearances to the contrary…

…the jovial chap in the photo below, who looks a bit like Santa Claus on his summer holidays, is in fact supposed to be Hércules en la nave de los argonautas – Hercules in (on?) the Argonauts’ ship.

I had forgotten that Hercules accompanied Jason and his merry men on the Argo, although I must have watched the 1963 film a score of times.
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