Paddling into 2020

I maybe could have chosen a more dynamic photo, but I love the ripple effect on this one: best large. Leaving S to his sickbed this morning, I went for a walk along the shore to the Playa del Muerto. It was a gorgeous day for sitting on the beach. Not necessarily for swimming if you are not Norwegian ... I saw one person fully immerse herself. I just paddled up to my knees; my feet were numb after five minutes.

A couple of Dutch guys arrived with a folded piece of plastic about the size of a deckchair. To my amazement, as they began to unfold and fiddle with it, it was evident that they were expecting to end up with a canoe. There was a lot of head-scratching and consulting of instructions (it was clearly their first time), but after about 45 minutes into the water it went with one of them aboard. The plastic was so thin you could see through it. Since I have a fresh supply of extras you can see part of the process below.

I ambled back after a couple of hours and prepared long-time favourite espinacas con garbanzos for later. S not very enthusiastic about food at that point, so we eventually ate it this evening, with arroz con leche for afters.

Last night I started watching El Silencio de Otros, an award-winning documentary about the search for justice of relatives of Republicans "disappeared" by the Franco regime. It's not a happy story ... they are still waiting. I found it a bit too hard going comprehension wise, so I ended up only watching half of it, and finishing it this evening. 

At one point, because Spanish courts would not consider the matter, a group of victims started a case in Argentina. It was interesting that the film pointed out that many ex-dictatorships in Latin America copied Spain's "law of forgetting", which granted amnesty to any and all war crimes.  It's still in force in Spain, but a number of other countries have figured out it's not such a great idea, as relatives whose parents were murdered by the regime, or who had their babies stolen at birth, have to live with that and cannot forget. So some countries have repealed them. The pain of the group of victims here was palpable as all their attempts to have identifiable criminals prosecuted failed. They didn't want vengeance: just truth and justice. The Spanish government (such as it is) is still stonewalling.

Minor footnote: the scene where PP councillors in Madrid stonily vote against renaming streets and squares still honouring Franco and his gang of war criminals. In 2016.