Sea dog to be arraigned?

That Nice Lady Decorator does not do languages. She is however adept at communicating with foreigners when she wants to. We had arrived at the seaside town of Camerinos having visited Cap Finesterre and driven up the coast to find the “pretty fishing village” that the Lonely Planet guide had promised us so often in the past. It was better than anything we had experienced, but pretty? I don’t think so. However, she did find us a pretty place to stay, and with some kind of festival clearly being staged in the evening, we settled in for a late lunch.

Cap Finisterre was an interesting place. It claims, in some references I have seen, and which I reported in yesterday’s column, to be the most westerly point in Europe, but is not even the most westerly on the Iberian peninsular, that accolade belonging to somewhere way to the south in Portugal. But I digress. I was talking about the Decorating Persons ability with languages.

It is usually the case that when she has finished saying something loudly in English, but with a Spanish accent and accompanying it with vigorous gesticulations sufficient to ensure that the non-English speaking indigenous waiter would understand, that said waiter would scurry off and bring her whatever he thought was required. We had decided to partake of tapas at a harbour side restaurant, and after a couple of beers, she had grown curious about what one of the cooks was barbecuing in the street close to where we were seated. Using that winning smile and her best Spanish, she was able to ascertain that he was burning pieces of pork. I was impressed because, as I said at the start of this column dedicated to the excellent services of Currencies Direct, languages are not at the top of the list of her skill set. It seems that when asking him what was being incinerated over the hot coals, she had used expressions such as “moo”, “baa” “oink oink” and even “neigh”” to get her message across. Sign language is alive and living in Spain.

Caught on camera. Dog breaks the law

Earlier, the dreadful town of O Grove had retrieved its reputation as far as we were concerned, by revealing a fantastic walk along one of its beaches. I had said yesterday that the natural beauty of this coastline has been destroyed by the appalling architecture and failure to preserve what would have been beautiful buildings, but, away from the dreadful urbanisation, we found some stunning beach situations, a picture of one I publish today.

The one downside, which we discovered when returning to the car, is that dogs are prohibited from the beaches. We had not seen any signs to that effect when we had exercised the criminal canine Banjo on one of these beaches. When I saw the sign on the way back to the car, I knew that we had to do the right thing. Call the police, get him to make a full statement admitting his guilt and take the consequences. Astonishingly, his protector, That Nice Lady Decorator, disagreed. She was of the opinion that if the Spanish were sufficiently remiss not to place signs at every entry point to the beach, then Banjo could not be held responsible, and anyway, the signs were in Spanish, so how could he or she know? It was a good argument, however it was fatally undermined later, during the sign language incident, because the signs on the beach were in the form of a drawing of a dog with a large cross through it. Sign language in other words. I think the meaning was clear, he should turn himself in, be prosecuted, arraigned and then they should throw away the key.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News