Now the mornings are darker we’re sat outside in almost darkness – and it’s not that early! But the combination of our super streetlights and our own light does mean we can see what we’re eating!

We’re still without a car. After the car failed it’s first roadworthy test we had a list of things to fix – some needed a garage to do and others Ian could do himself. Recently we’ve been using a garage which was working really well – however they don’t have any mechanics currently and were unable to do it – so we tried another garage. When the car went to be retested, it failed again. Annoyingly – it passed on the things that Ian repaired and failed on the garage repairs. What made it super-annoying was this new garage was eye wateringly expensive.

We tried another garage, this time in Burela who is giving us a quote. If necessary we’ll take it back to the very first garage we used which we only stopped using as they didn’t have the equipment needed at the time for a particular job, and hopefully they’ll be able to do it.

We’ve had again the ‘should we spend any more on this car’ and the ‘can we do without a car’ discussions. The answer to the first is yes. We’re not going to be able to buy a new car so any car we get will face potential issues – so at least we know where we are with our Mercedes – at over 40 years old, there are few surprises! The answer to whether we can do without a car is clearly ‘yes we could’ – we’ve been without a car for 4 weeks now and surviving! But we’d have the issue of the vet, in particular any emergencies, which would be more of a challenge if we had to go with Daisy. We can walk to do shopping in San Cibrao, and get heavy things delivered – so that would be OK. Hopefully it won’t come to that – we’ll see 🙂

Last week some archaeologists undertook an excavation of a 3×3 meter square and they had an open afternoon for people to see what they were doing.

We can see the headland from the house – so of course were interested to know what they were finding. This is also where we watched the eclipse and sometimes sit on the big stones at the back of the photo above.

It appears that they found some quite interesting things – including what might have been a road which was unexpected. I’m not sure what will happen next as I don’t think there’s funding for a full excavation – or perhaps the unexpected findings in this mini-excavation will open doors for more excavation work.

This is a translation from an article in the newspaper which will tell all about it better than I can 🙂 Our castro is ‘Rueta’ which is mentioned towards the end:

Rethinking Galicia’s Past: How Coastal Hillforts Challenge Local History

To understand recent archaeological discoveries in Galicia, it helps to know a bit about its ancient inhabitants.

Long before the Romans arrived, the region was home to the Castro culture (roughly 1000 BC to 100 AD). People of this era lived in castros—fortified, walled villages usually built on hilltops. These settlements typically featured stone circular houses and were thought to be self-contained communities where locals farmed, raised livestock, and worked with metals.

Castros settlements were:

• Location and Defense: They were strategically situated on hilltops or coastal promontories. Their main defense was a thick stone wall (muralla) encircling the settlement, often reinforced by a ditch (foxo) and earthen rampart . The wall was not just defensive but also served as a territorial and identity marker .
• Layout: The core of a castro was the croa, usually an elliptical or circular enclosure. Some larger sites had outer extensions called antecastros. Access to the croa was deliberately difficult, via ramps or steps .
• Buildings: The typical dwelling was a circular or oval stone hut with a conical thatched roof. Inside, there was usually a central hearth, a stone bench, and a dirt floor. Smaller, square structures with raised wooden floors served as granaries or storage to protect goods from humidity . Buildings were often separated by small spaces used as corrals or dumps .
• Society and Economy: The economy was largely self-sufficient, based on agriculture, livestock, and metallurgy. While traditionally linked to the Celts, modern scholarship views Castro Culture as an indigenous development with some Celtic influences, rather than a result of mass invasion. Society appears to have been relatively peaceful, with little archaeological evidence of widespread violence or destruction .

For generations, historians believed these ancient Galicians were primarily inland creatures who turned their backs on the sea, despite living on an extensive coastline. However, new archaeological work along the Northern (Cantabrian) coast is completely overturning that theory.

Key Discoveries Changing the Narrative

Recent excavations at coastal castros—such as Castro de Fazouro, Castro de Cabo Blanco, and most recently Castro de Rueta—have revealed that these sea-facing settlements were not isolated farming hamlets, but bustling maritime hubs.

• A Strategic View of the Sea: Unlike inland hillforts designed to overlook valleys and crops, these coastal forts were positioned specifically to monitor sea routes, navigate treacherous shores, and control local bays.
• Seafarers and Traders: Excavations have uncovered fishing tools, fish processing areas, and imported trade goods. Far from fearing the ocean, these communities were active sailors who traded along the Atlantic coast, connecting Galicia with other ancient European cultures.
• Unique Architecture: Rather than following standard inland layouts, these coastal forts adapted to cliffside environments, featuring thick defense walls facing the land and open access to natural harbors.

Spotlight: The Latest Findings at Castro de Rueta (Cervo)

The Castro de Rueta, located right on a coastal headland in the municipality of Cervo, provides a prime example of this ongoing research.

Initial ground-penetrating radar surveys in 2022 suggested the presence of underground structures, including what appeared to be a cluster of around 12 ancient roundhouses and a potential sauna or metallurgical furnace near the village entrance.

In September 2026, archaeologists conducted targeted excavations at Rueta that uncovered surprising, remarkably well-preserved features:

• Paved Stone Streets: Excavations revealed a paved stone roadway (enlousado) running through the site—a sophisticated urban feature rarely seen in such pristine condition in coastal hillforts.
• Massive Stone Structures: The team uncovered unusually large, thick stone walls and the remains of a roundhouse with a preserved doorway. The sheer scale and quality of the stonework have surprised researchers, showing a level of architectural sophistication rarely documented on this part of the coast.
• Iron Age Ceramics: Archaeologists recovered native Iron Age pottery fragments, including wheel-thrown pottery pieces that suggest early trade or contact with Roman influence.

Why This Matters Today

For decades, local history books portrayed ancient Galician society as isolated and purely agricultural. This new research proves that Galicia’s deep relationship with the ocean goes back thousands of years further than previously thought.

Instead of being the “end of the world” (as the Romans later called it), the Galician coast was a thriving gateway for Atlantic trade, cultural exchange, and maritime life.

The ITV test – which is the equivalent of the MOT – is very different here and with an extremely old car, one we very much appreciate.

The test is completely objective – it’s a drive through test at official centres, with different tests done as you drive through. At the end you either pass – or it fails they give you a list of things that need attention before retaking. You have so many weeks to get the repairs done and then the items if failed on are retested and (hopefully) the car passes for another year. There isn’t a charge for the retake.

The good thing about this is that if you fail the test you get a list of what needs doing without needing to ‘guess’ at what may or may not pass before going in. And there’s no need to go to a garage for a checkup before the test. Saying that, I think if a car fails because it is dangerous ie didn’t have any breaks, it would not be allowed back on the road until fixed.

So Ian took the car to the centre and it failed as we expected, and we now have a shopping list of repairs. The car is in the garage now where they will do some of the repairs, others Ian will do to save money.

We’ve been in this situation before and it always prompts the question of is it worth paying $$ to keep the car on the road – but we keep coming back to the fact that it runs and is reliable for what we want. We could end up buying another car which has more serious problems. It’s rare that we travel further than Burela (6km) or San Cibrao (3km), perhaps if we did longer journeys it would be a different matter.

There are a few tamarillo trees at the end of the road and they have already got quite big fruit so I guess ours won’t come to anything this year – but hopefully next year. Particularly if we move them from pots into the ground. They are also known as tree tomatoes, and we have tried some which while didn’t taste particularly tomatoey, I can see will be useful for winter salads.

The fruit ripen in the winter – same as the chayotes which we have a few vines growing. We also have an angel hair gourd growing but the aim is to pick these when they are young and use them like courgette rather then wait until they are fully ripe and then the skin is hard and the inside is all stringy which is what is used to make the angel hair preserve.

We see a lot (relatively) of angel hair preserve in the supermarkets – it’s either sold in cans like this or ready made into a sort of (extremely sweet) pastry dish.

The angel hair gourd, chayote and tamarillo are (I think) all from south america and we have noticed much stronger roots and connections to south america here than when we were in Extremadura – I guess because of the strong north African influence in southern Spain for so many centuries which never got this far north.

I’d never really thought about where they originated, but I did notice that there seemed to be a bigger selection here and bigger bags of them in the supermarkets. I also noticed when we’ve bought plants that there was a remarkable selection of different types of padron peppers as I had assumed there was just the one – green.

Well, it turns out that padron peppers are from padron in Galicia – just the other side of Santiago.

Well well!

We’ve grown padron peppers but have left them to go red. I’ve only ever seen them as green in the shops, but they are nice when red.

We decided to dry what we’re not using and as always it’s a suprise that we start off with trays of veg and end up with just a small jar full when they are dry!

I’m quite a fan of dried food – I’m surprised really that it’s not embraced more – particularly when there are concerns over increasing food waste & the transport costs. I realized after seeing mountains of veg or fruit fit into little jars after dehydrating how much money is spent on transporting and storing water! Dried food takes less space, lasts longer and I think tastes better. Perhaps if we had a big freezer it might be different, but as we are at the moment, it certainly works for us 🙂

And here’s Millie stood by the door.

I was actually taking a picture of the bougainvillea which seems to have had another growth spurt! Another trim is in order 🙂

We have lights for Christmas, Carnival and Fiesta of the Fried Egg. The Christmas lights stay up till Carnival (but not lit during that time).

Perhaps the winter lights are the nicest as they are on longer. As it is we only see these lights for a few minutes before bed! Now the Argentinian family have left we are the the only ones again down this end of the village – so having our own Christmas lights makes us feel quite special!

Interestingly, the lights we have this year look like the two end bits of the Christmas lights, so I think the lights must be modular where they can switch out bits to make the lights relevant to the season. Which would suggest that there’s no fried egg shaped light at the moment!

The sun goes behind the hill behind us at about 20 past 8, so if we wanted to see the eclipse we had to go to the end of the road. We decided to go over to the stoneage fort on the headland which we did.

I don’t think either of us was unduly excited by the eclipse, and certainly wouldn’t have joined the eclipse hunters as they scouted out the best viewing points across Spain, but given we could experience it without too much effort we decided to give it a go.

Unfortunately Wednesday was a cloudy day and the sun did break through almost exactly as the eclipse started – but went behind a cloud just as the sun was completely eclipsed!

But I don’t think that really mattered as we did experience complete darkness with the insects starting to cherp and a cold wind blowing. The darkness faded in and out quickly and it was a strange thing to witness.

I’m glad we watched it – a glad we saw it on the stoneage fort on the headland as it did add to the atompsphere.

We met a man who was also going to the headland and he told us that there was originally a castro of 11 houses. This one hasn’t been excavated yet, unlike the one at Foz which we can see the footprint of the houses. I can’t remember how many were there – but will try to remember to take a look next time we’re in that direction.

I wonder how many eclipses those stoneage houses have seen…

The area where the fire that happened just outside San Cibrao at the end of last year still smells smokey when walking along the lane.

We’re very much in the wild fire zone here in north Spain. I think nearly 80% of the land burned by wildfires in the last 10 years is the north coast in total – and this is part of what made the recent fires in Madrid and Alicante so serious – we ‘expect’ fires here – central Spain is not known as a wildfire hotspot (relatively – everywhere is prone to fires).

This map shows the total amount of land which burned due to forest fires/wild fires. We were very aware of this when we moved here – and buying a house at a distance from eucalyptus was at the top of our priority list.  We avoided all the areas which are big red splodges!

If you look closely at the map, North East from Sevilla, you will see that Extremadura in the area we were in was also a hotspot!

There are big discussions about the role of the eucalyptus in this. A Fire Chief said that covering land with eucalyptus was the same as covering it in napalm. And while there are nowhere near the number of eucalyptus further south – they are everywhere in Spain.

Which I think everyone knows but little has been done but I think things will change. While other areas aren’t as densely planted with eucalyptus as here, they are throughout Spain..  Particularly with fires now happening outside of the ‘normal’ areas.

The trees grow so quickly that even in areas which have been burned by fire – the trees are back and several meters tall within 5 or so years – ready to burn again!

There are trials being done here for replacing eucalyptus with other cash crops- Avacados are one, which is being trialled in Ribadeo. The eucalyptus which were planted around Villagarcia were cut down a couple of years before we left.

Of course there are two sides to every story and the wood industry says that eucalyptus plantations are good because they are a crop and raise money – therefore people have a vested interest in insuring they don’t burn before they can be harvested. I think that’s probably true in some places, but so much of the land is abandoned in rural areas or the families have moved away and no longer have any connection to the area, the trees and land are left unmanaged (unlike other countries, the vast majority of rural land including woodland is privately owned – millions of people own small bits of rural land and woodland).

But given that eucalyptus are a ‘new’ thing – less than 100 years old – I don’t think anyone is too wedded to them as being part of the culture/heritage, so I am sure that if a less flammable tree could be found which also generated money, most people wouldn’t really care what was on the land.

I guess time will tell…

We celebrated with a frozen pizza and bottle of Extremaduran Cava.

No cheese feast this year. Cheese is so reasonably priced here that cheese feasts are now pretty much an every day meal!

I wonder what we thought the next 23 years would bring 23 years ago 🙂