‘What do you call a man who looks after sheep in English?’ a fellow pilgrim asks me on the road to Santiago? ‘Er, a shepherd?’ ‘That’s right. Un chepa. In Ferrolano un chepa is a guardía municipal (local policeman). I’ll explain. Ferrol is a port in the far north of Galicia, which due to its [...]

‘What do you call a man who looks after sheep in English?’ a fellow pilgrim asks me on the road to Santiago?   ‘Er, a shepherd?’  ‘That’s right. Un chepa. In Ferrolano un chepa is a guardía municipal (local policeman).  I’ll explain. Ferrol is a port in the far north of Galicia, which due to its [...]

“ ¿A cuanto están?” I ask the younger of the two women standing behind a row of upturned crates piled with higos chumbo (prickly pears). “MaMAAA,” she asks mama, even though they’ve been selling the things all morning, “¿A cuanto están?” “Tres euros la cena,” replies mother in her gardening gloves as she expertly slices [...]

Clearing through truckloads of papers the other day, I came upon a priceless handwritten note from last summer that I’d given up for lost. Vinegar bug holes Rice with stroke Tail of quick shave to the oven Codfish to the old one These gems were from the English version of the menu at a restaurant [...]

There’s a question I dread people asking me. It follows the where do you live bit and takes about nine hours for both of us to get right. ¿Machara-qué? ¿Cómo se deletrea? How do you spell that? How indeed. Macharaviaiya – pronounced Ma-cha-ra-bee-YAI-ya, and almost impossible to say without sounding drunk – is a modestly-sized [...]