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Sunday, July 13, 2008

Always something to do even if it's nothing!


The colour of the sea is like that found on an early seaside photograph which has been colour treated – not unpleasant, but not quite blue. There has been a steely quality to the tone of the water inspite of the fact that most of the day has been bathed in glorious sunshine.

We have had the sort of weather where sunburn could strip the flesh from your bones: very hot with a stiff breeze coming off the sea so you don’t notice the temperature. You could actually see people turning that light, slightly watery looking pink which is my favourite colour for very good, very fresh, barely cooked meat. Not something you are likely to find in Spain unless you ask for it; I appear to be in the midst of a country of ‘well done’ diners!

And 'well done' is the colour I am mimicking as the temptation to laze in the sunshine and make enough vitamin D to carry one through the winter becomes irresistible. Well, as I took every opportunity of reminding those I left behind in Wales when I first moved here, “it is on the beach after all!” Now that I think about it, it still sounds pretty good!

But next week will be no time for lazing about. Toni has to continue the paper trail that started as soon as he was sacked. With any luck this one will end up with a more substantial amount of money per week than he could every have expected to get in Britain – and it will give him time to look around for a job more suitable to his qualifications and interests that the one which quit him.

I too have much to do. The second part of my Campaign for Real Teaching in Schools That Have Sacked Me will continue with letters winging their way to various interesting destinations.

I will also have to contact my union again and work out the strategy for getting official bodies involved in making The Owner’s life just that little bit more difficult.

There is also the phoning of the school to discover if they have found the lone maverick lawyer who will say that black is white and agree with the administration of the school that the fraudulent contract that I was given was actually legal and tip top. It is a ‘nice’ legal point that the administration is making. I have to agree with them that the contract qua contract is indeed legal, but not for the job that I was doing inside the school.

Their argument is similar to their pointing to a prescription drug and saying this drug is effective and then using it for a disease for which it was not intended. I’m not sure that likening my teaching to a disease is the most appropriate of images to use, but it’s simply too hot to think of another!

Job hunting also calls with our local English glossy freebie magazine littered with low paid possibilities! Worth investigating, if only for exposing their shameless attempts to exploit indigent fellow countrymen and the opportunity to reject with contempt the derisory pittance offered as ‘salary!’

But now I must get the documentation together for the letters that have to be sent on Monday. My first public salvo against The Owner.

I shall await the replies with interest!

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