Galician hospitality

Just packing up to leave this lovely apartment in Ponferrada. We have loved it here.
During the night, I realised there are lots of things I have failed to record - the fantastic hospitality of our friends in Pontedeume, including their wide circle of friends, who seem to eat and make music as often as they breathe.
In particular we had one marvellous lunch by the sea, at a restaurant in Ares opened by Miguel Ezquerro and his wife/chef Conchita. It was by chance a reunion of the wonderful Galician folk band Iriadona which - since the dreadful train accident of lead singer Lidia Sanmartin at Santiago a few years ago - has not really played together since about 5 years.  They came twice to perform at Faversham and since her remarkable recovery, Lidia herself has become an international star, performing in Brussels and Glasgow most recently.

After our amazing meal, they gradually produced their instruments and then they played - for two or three hours, a spontaneous concert-rehearsal, changing instruments, watching each other, getting into it. The sun was shining on the promenade, we sat under our terrace roof and melted into the sounds.
To hear them is to be carried into Celtic lands - it could be being made in Ireland or Scotland, the same kinds of melody, the same harmonies.  Their instruments are partly familiar, partly new to me - the pandeireta (a square double-covered hand-drum), the mandola, plus of course guitar, flutes of various kinds, and bodhran....
The next day, some of us met up again, at the house of Carola and Santi - for an evening meal in the open (under one of the sensible covered terrace roofs). She produced peaches stuffed with an egg and vegetable salad, a fine cheese which we didn't even touch!, turnip tops with cream and egg, then a massive paella cooked in front of us, and then postres - a kind of apple flan with a filling of compote.... this was delicious but the cook and her husband were disappointed with it because the pastry lining did not hold together properly. They are real gourmets... as indeed the whole Galician people seem to be.  The main idea of a lunch taken mid-afternoon, and then a drink + pincho (usually given as a freebie from a small choice of menu at most bars) is all you need for supper.
During Carola's supper, the assembled party sang me a Galician 'happy birthday' song... never heard it before.
The next day some of the gang met up again - Monday this time - at a bar on the mountain - in a garden, under cover.... This was a strange place, beautiful, an old boatyard of all things, with the dock still visible in the contours of what is now a carefully managed garden. Two rivers met here, though the water levels are different now, so no boats have been built since 1880. The only surviving record at the place is a set of photos of the boats - lovely elegant skiffs, perfect for fishing on the Eume estuary.
Robins and sparrow flitted about. One robin was very hunchbacked. Never seen that before either.
Had we known it, this little party was a prelude to the next day's exploration of the old Roman goldmines - the industrial archeology just sitting silently in the landscape.
I will try to add photos to this a little later.  For now, I wanted to record our deep pleasure in the festivities and hospitality and kindness and cooking of the Galician crowd. We are about to set off on the next stage of our Spanish adventure - to go up to Gijon on the north coast. Rain is forecast.