Tsunami, 17. Walking Around.

On Monday, some restrictions were lifted in Galicia. You can now shop till eight or nine, go to the library, the theater, or the cinema (at 30% capacity), or train individually in open air sports installations. Some special education classes also resume, and university classes will be going offline. But, we still can't travel between townships, nor get together with anyone we don't live with (those trips to the movies will be lonely ones), nor sip our coffee at a café terrace. There is talk that to open hospitality businesses, there first must be firm moves to determining how many people can be on the terrace with signs, and some kind of electronic registry of clients, so they can be tracked in case of an outbreak related to the establishment.

Of course, this means I still continue with online classes on Thursday and Friday, after Carnival break. Next week, it will depend on what the experts decide on Monday, but I suspect that, at least until Wednesday, I'll still be doing on-screen time. Sigh. 

Since I've been free these afternoons, and the weather has been obliging, I've been for a walk along lanes and paths I haven't stepped on in at least twenty years. Behind our house there are fields that lead up to a hill, where we can see a section of a dusty lane. I've been walking down our road to where it begins, and then following it up. On Monday, I descended onto paths that led to an abandoned house, then continued along the path next to it. Without realizing it, that path was a river. All the rain from these past weeks has overflowed the water table, and the water will come out wherever it finds least resistance to flow to a lower level. In this case, it was the path. After the first time my foot sank into the muddy flowing water, I gave up, and just tried not to step in over the top of my feet. 

Yesterday, I followed the same forest lane, but continued forward, to then come down behind the village on another lane I saw. Thanks to Google Maps, I knew more or less where I was. I followed it, and before I descended into the heart of the village, took a left turn. What had once been a quite used lane has turned into a muddy path that meanders between the woods and lost fields. Many of the fields I passed no longer have their earth turned. I even passed some ancient vineyards that had been abandoned. And I found myself coming up behind the abandoned house of the day before.

That house had been built there, far away from the center of the village, by the richest man of the times. He had been equally respected and hated, from what I remember my mother told me long ago. So much so, that when he died close to forty years ago, his house remained closed up, his son living elsewhere. 

A group of youths decided to go look at the house. There had been reports of lights in the windows, and they wanted to check it out. One night, they approached the house from the front, and walked up to one of the windows that had its shutters open. They looked in (I presume with a flashlight; there's no street lights out there.), and ran screaming back to the village. They had seen the coffin set out, with the deceased in it, a large unlit candle at each corner. 

Most likely, the light had been reflections of headlights in the window glass from the village, and the funeral director had left the candle holders and the supports to hold the coffin in the room where the body had rested before the funeral. But the night and the primeval fear of the dead played with the boys' expectations. 

Yesterday, I tried to approach the house from the front; the back was impossible. But, the closer I got, the more entwined the brambles were. The area in front of the house looked like it was simply covered in dead grass, but the brambles were everywhere. To get to it, one needs good boots and a scythe. Since the owner died, the house was rented out years ago. At that point, it was no longer in good shape, yet livable in a primitive sense. Now, windows are gone, shutters are hanging on a hinge. It was sold some years ago. That new owner has since died, as well, and I don't think his two heirs are much interested in reforming it. 

A problem to reform is the tumulus right behind it. Behind the property is the path I came along, which is between it and a round hill. That round hill is a Neolithic tumulus covering a dolmen. I wandered around it before descending to the house, and found the entrance. It faces east, and, though it was cleaned of vegetation a couple of years ago, it desperately needs cleaning again. The opening could be intuited, but not actually seen unless I wanted to be embraced by a variety of ferns, gorse, brambles, and possibly snakes. Though they might still be hibernating. 

Our village has ancient origins. Not only do we have that tumulus, but remains of Roman tiles have been found nearby, pointing to the possible existence of a Roman villa once upon a time. That wouldn't be strange, since Romans have been known to have come through here. In a dolmen on a nearby hill, archeologists found the remains of a Roman spear when they opened it up in the 1960's. Names of places around us have Latin origins, though the names might be posterior to their occupancy, while Latin was the common language. 

It was an interesting walk. Today, though the rain is holding off at the moment, is not destined to be such a nice day. At any rate, I have a hair cutting appointment in the afternoon, so I wouldn't be able to keep discovering. Maybe a Sunday afternoon in the coming weeks, before the daytime temperatures become too hot to go walking in the sun on the hills.

Life continues.

 

The tumulus.