Danger bird, he flies alone

Sunday held only more awful weather and Moises said he would drop me in A Gudina in the evening. Once more I hopped around A Eirexa for the day, my clothes taking in the woodsmoke from the open fires and Gallego flowing around me, I sat quietly in my chica inglesa bubble. Evening came and I was sat in the rest stop restaurant again, eating a plate full of meat and chips and watch Real Madrid vs Barcelona. It was late and I didn't feel like I was going to leave really. The owner of the albergue in A Gudina wasn't answering Moises' calls, so I went back to the albergue unfazed. The next day I would return to Vigo, and stay with Moises' godparents. It had been two weeks since I'd landed there and I had mixed emotions about going back. It seemed like th cosy option, another family home with a sofa and a fridge. 

We stopped at Javier's parents house in Verin on the way to Vigo and I got to see the flat Moises was going to rent for €3000 per year. It was open plan to the extreme, a large attic room with one window which had once housed four Brazilian girls. They most have gotten know each other spectacularly well. We went downstairs to Javier's parents flat which had all the comforts of two pensioners persuing all the hobbies an empty nest and retirement allowed. We ate walnuts and drank beer and I watched Javier's mother, who reminded me of one of my mum's friends, her thick wavy hair piled into a youthful pony tail, eyes sparkling playfully behind glasses propped haphazardly on her noes. She fussed warmly like the white geese from Aristocats when she realised I was travelling alone, insisting that I should take Moises with me - 'the bird that flies alone dies before summer.' 

We arrived at Moises' godparents house late. All the women of the house were bellowing. Moises' godmother, Nolly, had her father in hospital with a bad heart and her mother was trying to feed him fried food. Nolly was in a wheel chair with a broken ankle and blasted impassioned condemnation of her mother between puffs on her cigarette. Sara, her daughter, similairly demonstrated wildly to me with elaborate gestures the drama in the hospital, her grandfather who was bed bound but all there mentally, counterbalanced by her grandmother's Alzheimer's. Neice's muddled around and in the garage Jorge minded his own, hanging up cold wet washing late into the night. When Sara invited me to the bar, I recognised there were things to be said between Moises and Nolly that weren't for my ears, the edges of Nolly's eyes were a deepening red. 

Sara floored the car to the bar in two minutes. She struck me as a woman who needed a drink. We collected our drinks and crisps from the bar and made our way through several doors and empty rooms, past the kitchen. I assumed there was a beer garden but this was soon dispelled when Sara's hand encircled the handle of yet another door, and she turned to me with a finger on her lips. 'Dont tell Moises' she giggled. The door opened and I was engulfed by a warm glow and pot smoke.