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One of the crazy things I love about living in Spain is the small village culture, which can be very narrowminded and closed to all outside influences, but is still fascinating nevertheless.

Cateto is the word used to describe a vilager who is also a person with no manners, who is rough and course just like the landscape. The word can be translated to mean someone who is boorish, a redneck, yokel, country bumpkin. When used in Spain it is mostly considered offensive, though sometimes can be used with a sort of fondness.

Anyway, catetos are usually loud and have no concept whatsoever of privacy. Pretty much everyone in a small Spanish village knows everyone else. Family, friends, feudal enemies, anyone at all who comes from the village is known to them. Outsiders are tolerated but even 3 or 4 generations later are still considered foreigners.

Villagers who are considered cateto will stand at a bus shelter and greet a complete stranger, and then simply start pouring out their heart to them. Nothing is private, they'll tell about their finances, their sex life, problems their cousin has with almost anything.

It's very amusing watching them, but after they leave all the city folk look around at each other with incredulity, then everyone laughs and smirks, catetos are such strange folk.

There is one village custom however that you still find in the cities, and which I like very much. When saying hello or goodbye Spanish people have no problem using the word guapo which means beautiful. And not just with people who are beautiful. Old, young, fat, thin, atractive, ugly, or any combination of these, you'll still hear people saying ¡adios guapa!

Babies are something I don't have much experience of, especially at the very early stages, but a friend of mine has been asked to be a godparent to a child, and apparently there are books that teach how to help be a part of a young child's life, or so I'm told.

Parents naturally get a lot of help, not just from their own parents, but from doctors and nurses, child care centres etc, but friends who take on a godparent role get no help, I guess society doesn't see the need for it or assumes that if they need to help raise kids that they'll get the help they need at that point.

We were talking about this the other night over dinner, a group of us, and the subject how to look after a new born came up, what to feed them, how to change nappies, their learning.

I think we all agreed we didn't understand how our own parents coped. And Wikipedia doesn't help very much, just look at how sparse their information is.

My friends feel it's a responsibility that shouldn't be taken lightly, whether as parent or godparent, actually Janet said she thought it's a great idea for a godparent to learn something about new born babies, after all the parents wouldn't choose someone they thought couldn't be trusted.

The first 9 months of a baby's life are critically important to their health and development, and at that age they change so much, learning how to recognize good and bad sounds, touch, letting their little minds grapple with the reality of the world around them, it's not a task to be undertaken lightly.

According to NASA calculations gleaned from their findings using the Kepler telescope there could be as many as 2 billion earth-like planets in the Milky Way galaxy, and some of them might be quite close but our technology isn't quite able to detect them yet.

The Nasa report also announced the discovery of another 1,094 planets.

The statistics suggest that using our current understanding of the goldilocks zone around a g-type star that 1.4% of sun-like stars should have a rocky planet like earth. However the goldilocks zone is being revised in light of new physics, and with revised zone boundaries, as many as 2.7% of sun-like stars might have an Earth twin.

That's very exciting news because with 2 billion planets, the probability of finding life elsewhere starts to look better. Don't forget that's only in our Milky Way Galaxy, but in our local neighbourhood there are around 35 galaxies, with two that are similar sized to the Milky Way.

The distances between us and the other planets are still way beyond our ability to reach them either by space travel or communication, but it's an exciting time to be making exoplanet discoveries.

Christmas is fast approaching, but today (December 8) is a public holiday in Spain to commemmorate the life of the Virgin Mary who is in many cases seen as a more important figure in Christian belief than Jesus.

Look closely at the photo attached to the front of the bus in the photo below. Notice both sides of the photo feature Mary?

I don't know who placed this in the bus, it wasn't the driver because they change buses and routes several times a day, suggesting this is permanently in this bus. Interesting isn't it?

Have you ever had a child, or your partner was pregnant? Then you know how stressful having children can be. Some good friends of mine have just gone through the process of artificial insemination and are now happily expecting twins, though she's in her mid 40s so is justifiably worried about the dangers.

We were talking last night about the things she has to be aware of, actually she showed me a photocopied sheet of don't dos that her doctor gave her, with the two biggest being don't handle raw meat without wearing gloves or thoroughly washing her hands in hot water and soap, and not to handle cats.

This means she can't come to my apartment because of my cat.

OK, that's fine, I can handle that, it's no problem to meet them at their place or at a restaurant. Though it begs the question what sorts of things do people need to be aware of during the Pregnancy Calendar from inception to birth?

My own partner wants us to have kids and she can be quite sensitive at times, and this conversation got her nervous that with her internal body clock ticking along, well you know how worry plays havoc with the mind and people who are pregnant naturally become more cautious. Thankfully her and I aren't pregnant yet but her mother keeps dropping hints.

Next week my friends find out if they are safely into the second trimester, and then they can stop worrying, I hope, and get on with enjoying being pregnant and looking forward to having their twins. It's exciting times for them. Anybody else pregnant? Share your stories in the comments below.