traffic – don't confuse the narrator

à propos April

In the United States and in Canada, April is National Poetry Month.

Although we don’t actually celebrate the month in the UK, focusing instead on a single Thursday in October for National Poetry Day, the concept of “national” celebrations has become very blurred in recent years. With modern tech and global comms, it’s sometimes hard to ignore the sheer number and volume of voices taking it for granted that what’s true in their region must be true everywhere.

So there is a little bit of my mind that seems to think I should be writing or posting poetry throughout the month.
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no more fun

True, there was no diversion on the other side of the sign, but nor is life “a glorious cycle of song” on this side. There again, what did I expect?

no poetry

Traffic delays possible - road warning sign

There’s no poetry
in traffic jams:
we edge forward
foot by foot. Caught
behind a juggernaut
with no opportunity
to scan ahead for a turn,
we’re stressing
in the fast lane,
going oh
so
slow,
syncopated with
the nearside flow;
we can’t even
reverse.

counting cars

In the previous post I said that back in 1964 there were a fraction of the number of cars in Spain that there are today. I’ve actually looked that up and figures cited this week in the newspapers claim that back then there were “dos millones de vehículos frente a los 30 millones de ahora y cuatro millones de conductores frente a los 25 millones que existen en la actualidad.”

Let’s look at that again, in English:
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coches de choque

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.

Las fiestas del veraneante, to be precise – the annual celebration during the last week of August which is put on for the benefit of those who spend summer in the pueblo. Veranear – “to summer”. Not a verb that exists in English, though we do talk of birds wintering in warmer climes.

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