In a restaurant I want my food served on a plate, it can be any shape or colour, I really don’t mind, but on a plate please. An exception might be a scallop served in it’s shell, or other types of seafood – but even then they would still be served on a plate or platter of some sort. Fast food is of course, a whole different matter.

I follow a site called “we want plates” which contains photos of some of the more outrageous and bizarre examples of how food in sometimes offered – some are quite hilarious.

My favourite is actually a local Galician delicacy served “in the Dutch style”…. served in a clog!! Can they really believe that this looks appetising?

This morning I was shocked (quite literally) to discover that the bodega had been taken over by none other than Johnny English (aka Rowan Atkinson)! I entered the office at just before 9am when daylight had barely arrived, and the office was almost completely dark. Sitting in my chair was the silhouette of a person, which at first glance made my heart skip a beat. It wasn’t until I turned on the light that it immediately became apparent that it was merely a (life-sized) cardboard cutout!

Someone had managed to acquire a cutout of Johnny English (apparently from a local cinema) and decided that it would be fun to seat it at my desk… which of course it was. I can only assume that the joke was somehow related to my Nationality rather than the fact that I am as clumsy, awkward and dysfunctional as Mr Bean himself!

There is something a little less savoury that they don’t tell you in the guidebooks about Galicia – that it is a major entry point for drugs, not only for Spain, but for the whole of Europe. The same little idyllic beaches, hidden coves and inviting ‘Rias’ also provide the perfect landing grounds for the small boats of the international drugs trade. To the naked eye there is very little evidence of this, apart from the occasional road blocks on our local roads and motorways. Traffic is filtered down to a walking pace as you are obliged to weave your way through hoards of police vehicles, whilst being surveyed by heavily armed police (some wearing face masks). All a bit sinister….

This local ‘trade’ is so widely acknowledged that the Spanish TV channel Antenna 3 actually makes a highly acclaimed drama series about it – Fariña (which means ‘flour’ in Gallego – the slang word for cocaine). Obviously it is set, and filmed in Galicia, using almost exclusively Galician actors. In fact, it is so local that they were actually filming in our own street last Friday. The road was closed intermittently for periods of the day, and to be honest it was a bit of a struggle to stop them filling our bodega car park with their vehicles.

Unfortunately, they did not film immediately in front of our building, and so the hours that I spent applying make-up were completely wasted!

We are always proud to say that our wines are sold around the world, and sometimes pop up in quite unusual places. Apart from cruise ships and airlines our wines have been found at the London Olympics, in Hong Kong department stores, at this year’s Wimbledon, in hotels and restaurants on the island of Malta and even in a famous Winery restaurant on the Mornington Penninsula near Melbourne! To be honest, I’m quite sure that there are many other remote and unusual locations that we simply haven’t discovered as yet!

Fortunately we also are sold quite widely around the UK, but we just didn’t know (until this week), quite how widely…. Our daughter (confusingly, also called Angela), was travelling around Scotland with her French boyfriend Matt, and hopped across to the Isle of Skye, in the remote northwest corner of the country. Clearly there is not a huge choice of places to stay, but they found the small but highly rated Uig Hotel, located, by coincidence, in a place also named Uig (not Portree – apparently that’s quite important).

Imagine their surprise to find just one albariño on the restaurant wine list – our very own A2O ‘Sobre Lias’ – Slàinte!

A few days ago I received an e-mail from Blogger, the website that hosted our original blog. The mail asked if I wanted to continue maintaining our old Blogger site (naturally, I said yes). To be honest I was not aware that the old site still existed, but apparently it does.

Our first blog was created in 2006, and continued with Blogger until 2011. We moved from this site to upgrade to WordPress, a software that allowed us to simply integrate the blog into our main website – incorporating everything under one ‘roof’.

So, if you quickly want to catch up on what we were doing back then, or simply want to see how often I have repeated myself over the last 12 years, then take a quick glance at the old site by clicking HERE

Since 1776, when they signed the US Declaration of Independence, the Americans have been celebrating beating the British, and eventually expelling them from US soil.

Since 3rd July 2018 the English have been celebrating beating Columbia on penalties in the World Cup! (OK, maybe not quite the same historic significance, but a reason to be happy nonetheless).

The English are especially ecstatic as they have a wretched record in penalty shootouts – losing shootouts in the World Cup in 1990,  1998 and 2006, and in the European Championship Finals in 1996, 2004 and 2012.

So whatever you are celebrating today, football or Independence, Happy 4th July![:es]Since 1776, when they signed the US Declaration of Independence, the Americans have been celebrating beating the British, and eventually expelling them from US soil.

Since 3rd July 2018 the English have been celebrating beating Columbia on penalties in the World Cup! (OK, maybe not quite the same historic significance, but a reason to be happy nonetheless).

The English are especially ecstatic as they have a wretched record in penalty shootouts – losing shootouts in the World Cup in 1990,  1998 and 2006, and in the European Championship Finals in 1996, 2004 and 2012.

So whatever you are celebrating today, football or Independence, Happy 4th July!

We often hear stories of celebrities who insure parts of their bodies against loss or injury – dancers may insure their legs, singers can insure their voices and I have even heard of tasters who insure their palates. So what about tasters insuring their teeth?

As a former wine buyer I used to take every possible precaution to protect myself against colds and flu, as in the short term, it would simply be impossible to taste, but what about teeth? By coincidence Angela and I are both undergoing some significant dental work at the moment (no, we haven’t been knocking each other’s teeth out), and I have to tell you that it has had a notable effect on our ability to taste easily. Fortunately is has not prevented us from tasting completely, but has meant that we have both had to modify our techniques.

Angela has had a mouthful of plastic for more than a year now, and then recently, just for good measure, they have added a bit of wire too. My treatment, an implant, has meant that I have been given a denture to wear for the last ten weeks, as the dentist waits for the bone in my jaw to recover.

Whilst I cannot “shpeak” for Angela, I can tell you that I find it quite “imposhible” to taste with a denture, which means that the only option is to remove it. However, this in itself causes another problem. When I try to draw air over my tongue to intensify the taste, the wine simply tries to escape through the gap in my teeth! Stupid I know, but significant…. Of course, I still have the ability to taste, but in the short term (until the work is complete) I have had to modify my physical technique. Not so easy after decades of doing it in my sleep!

It’s quite a well-known fact that Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish Prime Minister is Galician, and spends much of his vacation time here in Galicia – or Sanxenxo to be more specific, about 12km from our Bodega. Indeed, when we are there in summer it is not uncommon to see groups of rather sinister looking security guys hanging round on the street corners adjacent to his building.

However, another more closely guarded secret is that U.S. President Donald Trump also spends some time here (although it can be quite difficult to hide the huge outline of Air Force One as it touches down on the tiny Vigo airstrip).

In today’s photo we can see Donald (clearly in some sort of hi-tech disguise) as he breaks ground on his new golf resort in our Province.

(Fake News Alert!)

Addendum: I forgot to mention that this is not a ‘shopped’ photo, but is actually a real Galician woman called Dolores Leis.

A day or so ago I posted an image of a local festival on our page, depicting a crazed monk beating French soldiers over the head. And thereby lies the clue: they were French soldiers.

To cut a long story short, the celebration in Mos this month is to mark a significant Spanish victory in the liberation of Galicia, as they expelled the invading French army. March 23rd 1809 signalled the beginning of the end for Napoleon’s Iberian campaign in the Peninsular Wars fought between Napoleon, the Spanish Empire, the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Portugal.

Starting in 1807, as Napoleon sought to occupy the Iberian Peninsula, the joint forces of France and Spain invaded Portugal. However, less than a year later, the French turned on their Spanish allies, and the depleted Spanish forces were easily overcome. Eventually, in November 1808 the Spanish Junta was forced to abandon Madrid.

The fight back, lead by a Spanish resistance that continually harassed the occupying forces (considered to be the first evidence of guerrilla warfare) started in early 1809, with Vigo and Pontevedra being among the very first Spanish regions to be liberated.

In today’s image (posted originally on the Instagram of that time) there is no firm evidence that monks were guilty of assaulting any French troops. Proof, if it were needed, that fake news has existed for many years!

Now here’s a local poster that caught my eye, originating from the small town of Mós, near Vigo. Of course, it is just one more example of the numerous Fiestas and Celebrations that take place every week here in Galicia (and all around Spain). Today I will not explain exactly what it represents, but leave you to ponder for a day or two. I must confess that initially I had no idea what it was myself, and had to do a bit of research to find out. Suffice to say that it is some sort of historical re-enactment that apparently involves monks hitting uniformed soldiers over the head! The explanation will come later….