A Spanish Holiday

My time here in O Grove is slowly coming to an end. My knee is better, but not perfect and I fear it may well need another Operation to fix it. So what have I been doing for the last few days?

I chose O Grove by the price of a hotel room for 15 days more than any other criteria, so the town was not my first choice for a two week stay. O Grove is a small fishing port on the east side of a small peninsula on the Atlantic Coast just north of Pontevedra. In the Bay off the fishing port are many mussel beds which attract trip boats for tourists. When the tide is in, there are no real beaches to lie on, but when the tide is out the beaches make for great beach combing.

Every morning I have walked around 500 meters to a Cafe for a light breakfast of coffee and a croissant. I am well known there now and they bring me my coffee and croissant as soon as I sit down. There are around a dozen hotels and an equal number of restaurants, cafe or bocaterias that I pass on the way. My hotel is virtually empty as seem all the others too. On the water front and around the port are many more restaurants, so the choice of where to eat is large, yet what to eat is not so large a choice, since all seem to offer the same. Sea food  and shell fish in all its forms is top of the list and only a few offer a menu of the day. Here the menu does not always include the vino either. Not all restaurants have wifi either.  So my choice of where to eat has been further limited by my need for wifi. Up until 22 June I did not have wifi in my hotel room, only in the bar of the hotel, which was never open for selling drinks either! However, I now have wifi in my room, so life has improved some what.

After breakfast I have slowly walked back to my hotel via the water front, buying stuff in a supermarket for a picnic lunch, which I have taken on a bench in the shade on the promenade in front of my hotel. After lunch I have retired to my hotel room and my bed, to sleep and read the afternoon and early evening away. This enforced bed rest has done my knee some good and I have used the time to read or watch TV. Fortunately most of the films can also be watched in the original language. Since I have now wifi in my room I have also watched some German TV programs, on my iPad, when the Spanish ones do not suit me, but reading has been the main activity of choice. 

I downloaded the Kindle App for my iPad on arrival and was pleasantly surprised when I suddenly had access to all the books on my Kindle at home! So my thanks goes out to the Phileas Fogg Club for giving me the Kindle in the first place. 

Around 8 o'clock in the evening, after a soak in the bath, which also does my knee some good, I go out again looking for a place to eat. Then it's back to bed to read and sleep for the night.

I am now ready for a new adventure as this one is beginning to get boring. The undoubted highlight of my day has been the beach combing I have done on the way back to my hotel after breakfast.

              The shells I have rejected and returned to the beach.

These shells I have kept. Some I have varnished with nail varnish to bring out the colour.

My next adventure is to fly to the UK on 27 June to visit friends and attend my Corps reunion. The plan had then been to spend time visiting more friends until I was required to crew a yacht to sail to Kiel in Germany. Sadly this will not now take place since the skipper requires to be operated on. It just goes to show that without good health life is nothing. Consequently I shall return to my home earlier than expected. My knee and Christopher my grandson, will be thankful and I am pleased that I will now be at home to see him on his first day at school!