‘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 [...]

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 [...]

Have you heard the ‘good’ news? Starbucks is coming to Malaga. Or at least to Malaga airport- when the new terminal opens this Easter.  It’s eight years now since the first two Starbucks opened in Madrid. Today there are 71 of them cluttering up the centres of Madrid, Barcelona and Sevilla. There are also two [...]

Every other bloke in Andalucía is called Paco. In our village there’s a whole slew of them: Paco el panadero (Paco the bread van man), Paco del bar (Paco of the bar), Paco mechero (lighter Paco – a cheerful chap in his 50s with a mental age of seven who has a thing about lighters [...]