Madrid – Page 3 – don't confuse the narrator

la Inmaculada

Although I now spend most of my time in the UK, I still work with people in Spain and – due mostly to the lack of response to my phone calls – I am very conscious of the fact that today is a fiesta.

In fact it’s the fiesta de la inmaculada concepción – celebrating the immaculate conception of Mary, mother of Jesus.
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July noon

Cars crouch low, jealous
of their shadows

A swallowtail dallies
among flower-bright trash

Wasps crawl terraza tables
where frosted glasses stood

Stray dogs sprawl
laughing in the heat

The city trembles

Europe

The lady in the photo is, of course, Europa. She’s sitting outside Madrid’s main airport, clearly enjoying the sunshine.

Botero's Rapto de Europa statue; Madrid Airport

She gives me an excuse to revisit a poem-in-progress – The three body problem – from which this phrase is taken:

[…] You’ll find persuasion – just
  a little gentle bull – can found a continent
  of opportunity. […]

It probably helps if the gentle bull is ruler of the gods on Mount Olympus.

I could care less

This week I had to fill in a form to register for a new doctor. Last time I registered was when I returned to the UK after 25 years living abroad; that was a fairly painless process, the only confusion being when they asked for my National Health number and I gave one in a format that they stopped using last century.

This time, although I had the right format number, I had to fill in a ten page questionnaire with all sorts of slightly bizarre questions. The one that caught my attention most was:

If someone cares for you, what is their name and telephone number?

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going home

Many years ago I used to regularly read the Peanuts cartoon in the Sunday colour supplement; occasionally, I would cut one out and put it with other bits and pieces in a scrapbook. I remember the last panel of one of these cartoons showing a fairly despondent Snoopy saying, “Thomas Wolfe was right: you can’t go home again.”
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