Yuletide

Christmas in our corner of Galicia can be disappointing if you like flashy lights and decorations;  there are a few decs here and there but nothing on the scale of the UK even in A Coruna city. Personally the child in me loves the decs and lights but the adult prefers a greener less gaudy Christmas, LEDs must have impacted on the energy consumption but the cost in direct energy used and all the used once then dumped decs just does not go with the Christmas spirit - good will and joy to all mankind might be better achieved if we worked harder to protect the future of our planet rather than lighting it up and making it pretty...however we do have three sets of lights and a tree, balancing that a few of our decorations date back to the late 1800s and a fair few from the mid 1900s so we do try to do our bit and make them last.

25 Dec passes with little fuss although there might be church stuff going on that I am not aware of, the peak as far as children are concerned is 6th Jan - Kings day when the presents are delivered, this is obviously how Papa Noel manages his Christmas rounds so well- splitting deliveries between the 25 Dec and the 6th.

New year is important although a lot of it seems to revolve around eating 12 grapes as the clock strikes - a custom started by an astute grape grower to use up the late harvest seems to have become a national obsession with 12 wishes to be made and bad luck to be had if you get it wrong. I can't be doing with superstitious nonsense especially commerce generated superstition but we had local visitors and I tried to down my grapes, still have not managed to think of 12 wishes though.

We also found out that a fire in the living room is needed - Jose brought some homemade firewater in a plastic bottle, added a lot of sugar, some lemon rind and some coffee beans and did this....

Then this happened...

And occasionally this...

And the living room got hotter and hotter as it burned for 40 mins until most of the alcohol has dissipated. We ended up with the windows wide open at midnight and we all had to be careful where we stood :-)

Weather has been mixed with some downpours, some showers and some sunshine temperatures cool at night, although not frosty, and rising to a comfortable 10 or so, occasionally like yesterday it hits 17.

Autumn colours still glowing on the autochthonous willow and oak, lambs are prancing in the fields and finches / sparrows / robins are feeding their young - Autumn, Winter and Spring all mixed up together.