August lunacy

En español abajo.

August here means fiestas. So the village is unusually full, with people who no longer live in Viana, or who have never lived here but whose family come from here, and are here for their holidays in large numbers. This weekend in particular, from Friday 12th to Monday 15th – a bank holiday – is when all sorts of events are laid on for the edification and entertainment of young and old alike.

There's a funfair, of course, and live music laid on for the important pre-lunch vermouth hour and evenings. The bars are rammed and the terraces throng with people, at least where there's shade at the moment. Some of the events are thought up and organised by locals rather than council, and are therefore entirely unofficial. One such is a midnight excursion of canoes and paddle boards onto the lake which almost surrounds the village. 

On the night of the full moon – and what a moon it was, a deep red at first, large and properly bright – about 40 of us headed down to the pontoon where a thriving club for paddle boarders and canoeists has its base. The lake being artificial, and its level subject to the needs of hydroelectric power generation as well as natural considerations like rainfall, meant the pontoon itself was stranded, sagging dry and forlorn some  distance from the water. So task one was to lug all the boats, boards, oars and lifejackets for those who wanted them down to the water's edge. 

Off we set. This is an illuminated affair - fairy lights, torches and so on are handed out so everybody is lit up and can clearly be seen even on cloudy nights. Round the tip of the peninsula we went, people watching us from high up on the bridge into town.

You can just about see the lower bridge which obstructed us at the foot of the main one.
Photo: S Lopesilvero

Though the bridge too is standing several metres higher above the waterline than normal, we'd usually pass under it and head off in that direction. But the water is so low at the moment that the medieval bridge that marked the original crossing, usually hidden deep beneath about thirty feet of water, is standing proud of the surface and blocked our way.

No matter. A wave at the spectators high above us and a 180-degree turn to head back whence we came, at which point events took a decidedly Galician turn. Now were this a British event, I imagine one or two might bring a beer with them, but in the main, beers would be taken either back on shore from cold boxes, or back in town afterwards, the boats and kit all safely stowed. Not here.

Pic: S Lopesilvero

Pulling all the boats and boards together into a sort of makeshift island, beers were passed round. Liqueurs, both coffee-flavoured and the most popular herby ones that I don't like at all, were passed round. Bread and jamon was passed round. A bottle of champagne opened to toast a club member's birthday. All this out on the water. Everything dutifully tidied away – we're big on not littering, having removed rubbish from the lake when it was even lower a few years back – and it was off into town for a drink. That's another thing that I never did back home; go out for a drink at well past 1 a.m.

Last night featured an 80s-themed party round the whole village, with the bars and locals dressed up accordingly and the bands playing era-appropriate music. A flash-mob type dance featuring around fifty of the locals in the main square went off superbly - genuinely joyful and uplifting. They'd been rehearsing in the town's sports hall for some days, including one night when forest fires and thunderstorms left them in darkness. 

Today, Saturday 13th, is feria, the busiest one of the year, and there will be more live music. This is possibly the day of the year, other than Carnival or the Mascarada, that Viana is at its busiest. Last night I got in at 4 a.m. Tonight, if my diminishing capacity to stay out late drinking allows, it could be later still. 

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Aquí, agosto es sinónimo de fiestas. Por ello, el pueblo está inusualmente lleno, con gente que ya no vive en Viana, o que nunca ha vivido aquí pero cuya familia es de aquí, y que viene a pasar sus vacaciones en gran número. Este fin de semana en particular, del viernes 12 al lunes 15, día festivo, se organizan todo tipo de eventos para la educación y el entretenimiento de jóvenes y mayores.

Hay un parque de atracciones, por supuesto, y música en directo para la importante hora del vermú y las noches. Los bares se llenan y las terrazas se llenan de gente, al menos donde hay sombra en este momento. Algunos de los eventos son ideados y organizados por los lugareños y no por el ayuntamiento, por lo que son totalmente extraoficiales. Uno de ellos es una excursión nocturna de canoas y tablas de paddle en el lago que casi rodea el pueblo. 

La noche de la luna llena -y qué luna era, de un rojo intenso al principio, grande y muy brillante-, unos 40 compañeros nos dirigimos al pontón donde tiene su base un próspero club de practicantes de paddle boarding y piragüismo. Como el lago es artificial y su nivel está sujeto a las necesidades de la generación de energía hidroeléctrica, así como a consideraciones naturales como la lluvia, el pontón estaba varado, seco y abandonado a cierta distancia del agua. Así que la primera tarea fue arrastrar todas las embarcaciones, tablas, remos y chalecos salvavidas para los que los quisieran hasta la orilla del agua. 

Nos pusimos en marcha. Se trata de un asunto iluminado: se reparten luces de hadas, antorchas y demás para que todo el mundo esté iluminado y se pueda ver claramente incluso en las noches nubladas. Damos la vuelta a la punta de la península, mientras la gente nos observa desde lo alto del puente que lleva al pueblo.

Aunque el puente también se encuentra varios metros por encima de la línea de flotación, normalmente pasamos por debajo y nos dirigimos en esa dirección. Pero el agua está tan baja en este momento que el puente medieval que marcaba el paso original, normalmente oculto bajo unos diez metros de agua, se levanta orgulloso de la superficie y nos bloquea el paso.

No importa. Un saludo a los espectadores en lo alto y un giro de 180 grados para regresar por donde vinimos, momento en el que los acontecimientos dieron un giro decididamente gallego. Si se tratara de un evento británico, imagino que uno o dos podrían llevar una cerveza, pero en general, las cervezas se llevarían a la orilla desde cajas frías, o de vuelta a la ciudad después, con los barcos y el equipo bien guardados. Aquí no.

Reuniendo todas las embarcaciones y tablas en una especie de isla improvisada, se repartieron las cervezas. Se repartieron licores, tanto de café como los más populares de hierbas, que no me gustan nada. Se repartió pan y jamón. Se abrió una botella de champán para brindar por el cumpleaños de un miembro del club. Todo esto en el agua. Todo se recogió debidamente (somos partidarios de no ensuciar, ya que hace unos años retiramos la basura del lago cuando estaba más bajo) y nos fuimos a la ciudad a tomar una copa. Eso es otra cosa que nunca hice en mi país: salir a tomar una copa más allá de la 1 de la madrugada.

Anoche se celebró una fiesta de temática ochentera por todo el pueblo, con los bares y los locales disfrazados en consecuencia y los grupos tocando música de la época. Un baile tipo flash-mob en el que participaron unos cincuenta vecinos en la plaza principal fue magnífico, realmente alegre y animado. Llevaban varios días ensayando en el polideportivo del pueblo, incluida una noche en la que los incendios forestales y las tormentas eléctricas les dejaron a oscuras. 

Hoy, sábado 13, es feria, la más concurrida del año, y habrá más música en directo. Este es posiblemente el día del año, aparte del Carnaval o la Mascarada, en que Viana está más concurrida. Anoche llegué a las 4 de la mañana. Esta noche, si mi menguante capacidad para estar hasta tarde bebiendo lo permite, podría ser más tarde aún.

The C word

This next couple of days we have a lot of guests coming. One of the middle weekends of August brings the Fiestas, and with a lot of people back in Viana for holidays anyway at this time of year, even more will be coming for a few days around this weekend. Many locals' houses are full of visiting family members and ours will be no exception.

So this morning I was doing what everybody does when they have guests coming, right? The spare bedroom sheets need changing, hoover the room, dust - make sure it's in good order for your mates, basically. Now for most people this simple, mundane task would pass without incident. When I'm doing it, however, I manage to make an absolutely straightforward job look like a short Clouseau film. Or something Chaplin made. While pissed.

I am, dear reader, one clumsy bastard. I have, quite genuinely, almost knocked myself out by standing on a rake, the rising handle coming off the floor like a lever and smacking me just above the eye. This was years ago but honestly, the only other person who's ever done that in the world is Jerry the cat from Tom and Jerry, and he's a cartoon for fuck's sake.

For some, Clouseau is old-fashioned, knockabout farce. For me it can
sometimes feel like a hard-hitting ('scuse the pun) fly-on-the-wall documentary.

So day to day I never know what new form of idiot way to do myself injury I'm going to discover. This morning, though, I did at least manage to get new bedsheets in place without incident. I say without incident, I'm of course discounting the standard stuff that goes on every time I move around the house. I caught my elbow on the door handle on the way in, stubbed my toe against the leg of the bed frame and smacked my shin on that same frame just coming into the room. But this stuff is so frequent that it barely deserves a mention - it doesn't really count. I was just warming up.

Just inside the door of the room in question there's one of those square, black shelving units from Ikea with four equal sections. On top of that is a small TV. Behind the TV, resting against the wall with its base against the back of the telly, as a cork board about the size of a sheet of A3 paper. Pinned to it are dozens of pairs of earrings, those owned by my partner's late mum Julie. Lots of her stuff has been given to friends of hers, and some to charity, but there's still a fair bit around the house and this is one such example. Above the whole thing, on the wall, is a set of shelves in an oval shape with a few knick-knacks on it.

Dusting behind the TV, I jolted the board slightly and two or three earrings fell out of the cork. Bugger. Carefully lifting out the cork board, I found the loose earrings, pushed them back into the cork, and replaced the board behind the TV. Onward. A couple of moments later, I'm running the long hoover pipe thingy up the wall to remove a cobweb when I catch the edge of the shelving unit a glancing blow and it immediately falls straight off the wall, spilling its contents - among them two glass paper weights and a ceramic tealight holder that's been around since before I met my missus.

It also, needless to say, landed on the cork board, this time bringing the lot down and knocking basically all of the earrings off. Alone (apart from the cats) in a quiet house, the crashing sound it made was only drowned out by my subsequent copious, vociferous swearing. I used two words beginning with C, dear reader, and only one of them was 'clumsy', as I castigated myself volubly. The cats barely stirred - they're clearly used to me. But I now had to find and replace all the earrings and put everything back in its place.

Some twenty minutes later, I'd finally got everything back in place. Only a small breakage to the tealight holder, mercifully - it could have been a lot worse. Before I put the corkboard back in place, however, I thought I'd better check on the floor behind the shelves to make sure no earrings had dropped down behind there. Leaning over the telly to look down the back, I headbutted the fucking shelves, and off the wall it came again.

Happily a lifetime of such ineptitude has also heightened my inner clumsy-alarm's sensitivity to my own uselessness, and it remains at DEFCON 1 more or less constantly. I was therefore able to react so quickly this time that I pinned the shelf to the wall with my hand before it even dropped appreciably, and saved any further calamity.

I was, frankly, relieved to finally exit the cleaned room. Now there's the weekend, including handling glasses, knives and crockery my partner's accumulated from all over the world, to negotiate. Should be a laugh. For everybody else.