Spanish views from a small town

Beach weather is here, this week. My daughter already went to the beach this weekend, and the sands are starting to have occupants. Toward the end of the month, as soon as school gets out, they'll be filled with teenagers, if the weather holds. Tourists will appear next month, and August is strictly tourist month. Local people will reclaim the sands in September. There has been talk of ditching the masks, at least outdoors, at the end of the month. The vaccination is going well, and the incidence of contagion is slowly going down. At the moment, though, a mask is obligatory when we move around the beach, though not in the water nor when we lie on our towels.  Other than that, beach fashion depends on the tastes of those wearing it, or lack thereof.  Lately, more and more women go topless. Not so much because they claim that women's breasts are just like men's breasts, except larger, but because they don't want a tan line. Twenty years ago, it was rare to see the woman w...

Finally, the northeast wind has kicked in and summer is here. So, yesterday, beaches were filled with bodies soaking up the sun. So much so, that at one beach, people were turned away after 11:00AM.  When things were being prepared, some beaches were being sorted out so that distances would be kept between sunbathers. One beach decided to stick in wooden posts and tie ropes between them to section off enough of the sand to keep people well apart. People seem to have thought it was something like an art statement, for all the mind they paid it.  This week, some towns are going to use drones to check on how full the sands will be, and send in the police if people get too chummy. The interesting part is just how the police officers are going to request the new arrivals to leave.  In the end, the idea of setting up a web page to make appointments to go to the beach never went over well with most cities and towns. Each town decides the best approach for them. Sanxenxo tr...

Yesterday was time to start going afield. I went to the mall As Cancelas in Santiago, and my daughter went to the beach. It was hot, but the wind tamped down the temperature. I drove with my windows open, mask lying on the seat beside me. Traffic was light, even in Santiago around construction work they're doing on one of the major streets. The diversion cones had been put down back in mid-March, and not much work seems to have gotten done.  In As Cancelas underground parking lot, I found a spot right near the entrance. Normally, I have to wander around, looking for a nice spot without going down to the end. It was almost four thirty, but there were less cars than usual for that hour. I got out and put on my mask. My glasses promptly started falling off. Either the mask fogs the glasses, or it causes them to slide down my nose because of the elastic on the ears. Twenty twenty vision has something to say for it in times like these. The entrance has two automatic sliding door...

Ahh, the beach in summertime. When you're young, a towel, some sunscreen, a book at the most, and you're off, to lie in the sun with your friends. Someone might take a soccer ball. Someone else a couple of paddles and a ball. If it's windy, perhaps a windbreaker to set up on the sand and sit out of the wind. That's it. When you're still young but have that special relationship with that special person, you might spend the night together on the beach. When you're older and have children, the equipment grows. A small folding table, folding chairs, a pack of sandwiches and some water bottles. Toys of all kinds, small bodyboards for children, floating devices. But before you head for the beach, check out the prohibitions. There is one good thing on Spanish beaches; they're all public and free. Even if the private property of a millionnaire reaches to the shoreline, the beach is public. No small jewel of a sandy spot is off limits to anyone, even though you mig...

When we think of a cow, in our mind's eye we see a cow in a pasture, behind a fence, or in a barn, looking at us with its soft brown eyes, boredom on its face, as it chews its cud. Yesterday, vacationers had a different experience. It was a hot day. Here, we got a sea breeze in the afternoon, and sea fog rolled in late in the evening. But the rest of Spain broiled, and those who could, went to the beach. Including a cow and its calf.  At Playa de Bolonia in Cádiz, beach goers were left speechless when a large cow and its trotting calf came down to the sands and stood beneath a beach umbrella set over two beach chairs, waiting for the bather who had stamped them there. Whether someone waved a stick at them, or shooed them out, they would not move. The mother even ended up plunking herself down in the shade of the umbrella. The fact is, the two visitors are part of herds that live in semi-liberty and that have always wandered down to the beach. It's the human beach goers th...

If you were to find a tightly wrapped package ensconced in plastic, bobbing in the tranquil waters of the beach you chose to cool off, what would you do? First of all, would you recognize it for what it was? Would you take it home?  It seems most of the bathers at the beach of Pedregalejo, in the province of Málaga, knew exactly what they were dealing with. Literally. The life guard noticed an opened package bobbing in the water and tried to pull it in onto the sand. Someone near him saw what it was and the life guard was elbowed out. He was told to get out of the way to stay safe. Tens of people were reaching into the package, pulling out small, hard, squares that were tightly wrapped in plastic. Some filled their small coolers. One woman wrapped several in a t-shirt and left with it, only to come back in a little while wearing a different t-shirt. As many packets as possible were pulled out and spirited away. By the time the police appeared, alerted by the life guard, there was...

It's the first day of summer, and the day is worthy of the name. So why am I not making plans to hit the beach for the first time this year? Because I'm a water bather, not a sunbather. The water temperature is supposed to peak at 17ºC today, and the air temperature reach 27ºC (though I think it's passed that point by now), while the UV index is supposed to be 9. My idea of a good summer's day is not to roast like a peanut on a towel. Once upon a time, I wanted to be tan. When I was a girl I would spend as much time as possible in the sun and earn a sunburn. While everyone around me turned brown, I'd turn a nice vermilion. My problem was the white as alabaster skin I had been endowed with at birth. An aristocratic lady of the nineteenth century would have killed for my skin, but not a normal teenager of the late twentieth. Some summers I would despair. I would try different sun tan lotions with different SPF's. I would go ecstatic when, upon removing my watch,...

When people talk about spending Christmas at the beach, generally you think they probably live in Australia. Well, this year you can also do the same in parts of Spain. The forecast maximum temperatures will be in the low seventies in most of Spain, with occasional corners in the fifties, generally in the mountains. And it's not expected to go below freezing at any of the stations that send in data. Normally, by this time there should have been snowfalls of inches up in the mountains, but this year all the ski resorts are crying disconsolately and praying to the skies. Today the temperature at Santiago is forecast to reach 66ºF (19ºC). The normal maximum is around 53ºF (11ºC). But it's been warmer than that this past week. And, though it went down into the upper thirties a couple of nights this month, it still hasn't gone below freezing in most of the region. Other Decembers I have found myself hudding over a newly-lit stove in the mornings, imploring it to warm up fast. ...