Holiday: A Taster

FRIDAY 24^th JUNE 2011

A definition of “pleasure” for me is constantly to remember that today is Friday and not the weekend and that, more importantly, I am not in school!

Last night outdid the 5^th of November by the sheer perseverance of people throughout the night, the whole night and continuing into the morning, of setting off fireworks whose raison d’etre was to produce a bang.

When I went to bed, amid flashes, explosions and distant sounds of revelry, I lay my head on the pillow and wondered, “How am I going to get to sleep?”  I was about half way through that sentence when Morpheus claimed me for his own.  And I slept peacefully through the cataclysm that is St John’s Eve with a tranquillity which thoroughly irritates lighter sleepers.

As a concession to ¡Fiesta! I actually stayed in bed till ten this morning; which is three and a half hours later than I usually get up!  I am not very good at the “lie-in”, I never have been.  It is something of a duty paid to holiday that I do it all – but even during the long holiday I never become acclimatised to wasting the morning!  The afternoon, yes, but the morning never!

Toni continues to paint and things are looking somewhat brighter.  It is hardly surprising that wood, this near the coast and the salt laden sea breezes rots fairly quickly.  Paint at least delays the inevitable destruction and makes the old and worn out look bright and superficially acceptable!

After the triumph of the Garden Peacock, I am now turning to the multi-level cactus garden.  The latter will incorporate discarded elements from a disassembled water feature and a certain amount of new buying.

The evening was spent in Barcelona in Les Caracoles – a restaurant just off the Ramblas where my cousin and a group of friends were meeting for a meal.

It was an excellent meal and the company was stimulating.  I came into Barcelona by one of the slowest and most frustrating buses in Catalonia which stopped at every bus stop to pick up the single person who was placed there just to irritate me.  It also stopped at every single bloody one of the traffic lights (and there were many) which impeded my progress.

On Toni’s advice I booked a cheapish hotel room opposite the Liceu rather than try and make it back to Castelldefels after a late meal.

The room in the Hostal Paris was basic; my miniscule room had a shower and basin but no loo.  The bed was rather short for me and the air conditioning was programmed to turn itself off after a short period of operation so that there was no appreciable diminution in temperature.  It was on the third floor and there was no lift. 

But it was in the centre of the city, within an easy walk of the restaurant and it cost €35; it made sense to me at that price and it might be somewhere to consider if I have to go to operas during the weekend in the next season.

SATURDAY 25^th JUNE

The thin and short bed did not invite lengthy occupation and the only thing which kept me in it was the time of the first bus back to Castelldefels.

This time the trip back was with the quicker bus and so we were able to begin our rounds of the supermarkets to get what we needed to continue our process of mild transformation of the house at a reasonable hour.

Finding the fitments for the mirror was impossible, but the wood and cacti with other bits and pieces were easily purchased.  Wandering round overpriced garden centres was just like old times back in Cardiff.

As indeed was the eye-wateringly high cost of a collection of parsimonious water using weeds and a few stones!

Toni continues his anti-mosquitoification of the house with more and more inventive ways of securing our insect free peace.

A peace which has been rudely shattered by our obnoxious neighbours on one side entertaining a degenerate section of their unspeakable family; on eth other side by the moronic dogs; further down a man who can only communicate at a shout having a party for some unformed human and culminating in the screaming dogs at the end of the row!  There is plenty of material here for any Grumpy Old Man to have a field day!

SUNDAY 26^th JUNE 2001

The Cascading Cactus Garden is now complete with the peacock standing proud on its plinth in the centre.  Words fail me - as I am sure they will not fail visitors when they view the Designer Corner of the demesne!

I don’t really know what Japanese knotweed looks like, but I think that our little garden is riddled with it.  I say this because we have a species of creeping plant which is like something out of a science fiction story.  From extensive casual listening to Gardeners’ Question Time on Radio 4 when there was nothing else worth listening to, I know that Japanese knotweed is a pernicious pest and spreads.  On those two criteria we have it.

I remember being told that a Bizzy-Lizzy was totipotent, so that any part of it stuck into dirt would produce a plant.  I used this attribute to produce multiple plants which I fed with Plantoids™ and fabricated a generation of spindly, sick-looking plants that would have done credit to any of those in-bred drawling families of the decadent Deep South!

At least you got flowers with those, which is more than you get with the insidious growth of our ground-covering pest.  Like some of the more flamboyant lizards’ dismissive attitude towards their rear ends, it seems quite prepared to sacrifice whole visible strands of itself in order to protect the essential areas of growth – which are usually nowhere near where you are doing the damage.  And I am convinced that any part of the bloody thing once it touches anything remotely approximating to earth seizes the chance to propagate itself and spread like “innit” in so-called Modern English Usage.

Today is gloriously sunny and very hot and the inevitable hordes have descended to shatter our coastal idyll.

I have driven out to the supermarkets (closed) and the town shops (closed) to try and get a few bits and pieces that are necessary for the tidying up of the house.  The only places where anything other than a beer and a coffee can be bought are in the Chinese Shops (open) where I have been prepared to compromise on what I wanted to buy and come away with reasonable alternatives.

The centre of Castelldefels in front of the church has been cordoned off and a massive piece of Papist art has been constructed or drawn in what looks like coloured sawdust.  As a concession to the secular, much of the design is floral and the central motif comprises doves in flight.  On the dais, which is the sort of open-air stage for community events, an altar has been set up the backdrop for which is a representation of the chalice with the wafer with the name of Christ “IHS”.  There is a massive hanging of the same image on the façade of the church and I assume that the congregation will ritually destroy the art as they assemble to hear mass.

There are various flower festivals in Spain where incredibly intricate patterns made up of flower heads are constructed along the streets, are admired for a moment and then destroyed by tramping feet.  Presumably it is yet another version of the transitory nature of life highlighted by the church to encourage the “faithful” to book a place in the Eternity Hotel before it is too late.

The centre of town was relatively quiet but the beach part is anything but.  There are queues of cars waiting to get to the sea and start their hopeless pilgrimage around the Via Doloroso of parking areas before finally settling on places which defy comprehension. 

There are people parked on pavements, thereby reducing the width of the road to one uneasy, and very narrow lane; there are people parked on zebra crossings; on areas marked with do-not-park lines; on roundabouts (!); in driveways; double parked next to rubbish bins; There are droves of people who, when they finally get back to their cars will realize that they should have put their wing mirrors in before they left!

There has been a Great Cleaning today, and I have been told, in no uncertain manner, that This Is How It Is Going To Be In The Future.  Everything In Its Place.  Dream on!  But I have to admit that things look good – it’s a pity that it takes so much effort to keep it looking like that!

Because of the deadly parking today I have gone to our local ‘pollo a last’ and we have had a superb meal with grilled vegetables with the same sauce that they use on calçots: delicious!

Now we have the final task of the holidays: putting up the mirror.  Given the difficulty in finding the fittings to secure it to the wall, getting it straight should be downright impossible.  Then there is the position on the wall, not only in terms of height, but also in where to place it.  Toni’s plan it to have it centred on the table, but I can see it all coming down to a battle of wills!

Tomorrow the week of half days (minus one) begins which take us to the end (hallelujah!) of term at long last.

There are other meetings lurking somewhere in those four days but with any luck, I should not be involved.  My task, rather, is to find out exactly what I am teaching, even if the idea of actually having a realistic timetable at this point in the year is something beyond the wildest dreams of Catalan educationalists!