Tsunami, 34 & 35. Trying to Find the Neolithic.

Yesterday, I went walking in the woods, again. I went down a dirt lane that leads to the highway that runs at the foot of the hill behind our house. That highway is both a blessing and a curse. It has taken traffic away from our front door, and the nearby main road, but it has obstructed easy access to the woods on the other side. Now, there are tunnels at certain intervals. I had tried to find one of them earlier in the week, and found that it was blocked by monstrous growths of eucalyptus, gorse, and broom. The other day, I backtracked and found an accessible one, though full of mud from all the rain this winter. 

I decided to try to find a megalithic monument, which appeared on Google Maps. Whether or not I found it, I'm not sure. Right where the satellite put me, there was a glade next to the highway. It was surrounded by a stone wall, and had only a few young eucalyptus growing in it. It had obviously been affected by the great fire of 2019, with a lot of dead, grey and black branches lying about. There were boulders peeking above the ground. If any of them had anything engraved on them, weather and time had taken them away. Either that, or the carvings were covered by the bouncy green moss that was growing over many of them. 

I had wanted to walk to a series of neolithic burial chambers further down the hill today, but a pinched nerve in my lower back told me I wasn't about to do so. However, a neighbor and cousin warned me that the last time he had been there, the remaining stones were overgrown with gorse, brambles, and broom. Still, I'll try to walk there when I can, and have the time. 

It's a shame that no effort is made to preserve our history. Historical buildings are knocked down or changed beyond recognition; ancient treasures are bulldozed or allowed to have weather and time decay them until they vanish. Even so, I don't think we're as bad as Italy. I read, years ago, that it didn't pay to find antiquities there. Anyone who has a field and digs a cellar to build a building, if they find any Roman remains, tries to destroy them. Otherwise, whatever their objective for the lot in question will remain on hold until the site is thoroughly checked out by archeologists, who then decide whether it is possible to continue with the owner's wishes for the field. That means, any development will be held up for months, years, or forever. So, people keep quiet about what they find, most of the time. I'm just happy that Pompeii was found in the nineteenth century, and so escaped such pragmatism.

So, my walking is now on hold for a couple of days. The problem is that rain will return as of Wednesday evening, and will stick around till at least the weekend. Some morning I might go for a drive, then. Most of Galicia is now opening up. As of tomorrow, those in the health area of A Coruña and Pontevedra, can go outside them, and others can go in them. Perhaps a drive will be in order.

But I will try to avoid tightly packed terraces. The rules have changed, and now all bars and restaurants have to put out all the tables they have a license for, on the terrace. But they have to tape off half of them, because only 50% are allowed to function. So, what did they do in Boiro, where I did my weekly shopping yesterday? They had the usual number of occupied tables, with a few, small tables never before used, set up among the others, without any chairs. Those were taped off. So, the terraces looked busier than ever, only if those taped-off tables had had chairs around them, there is no way all those people could have fit there in normal times. As we say around here, feito a lei, feito a trampa. Loosely translated, the law is made, the cheating is done. Or, if you can't find a loophole, you can knit it in. 

Life continues.