Post festivity languor!

Christmas Day is over and done with! 

The meal this year was better than last because it was all home made and the size of the prawns that we had for a starter were certainly much larger than anything you would normally get in a restaurant!

The M&S mini cakes were duly eaten and expressions of amazement were duly uttered at the sheer density of the sort of cake that we Brits eat on this festive day.  I managed to get a mini slice from the traditional Christmas Cake cake topped with icing sugar and marzipan, while the other two with toppings of crystalized fruit and nuts were devoured by the others.  A taste of home in foreign parts!

The weather, in spite of the weather forecast, is bright but cold and is making me think that going to Gran Canaria for this time of year is a very sensible idea!

Today is my saint’s day and I am currently switched into a present-receiving mode before Toni and I make our escape dragging all the accumulated loot behind us to Castelldefels.

My “reflective” piece for the second part of the TMA for the OU was finally written on Christmas Day and sent off courtesy of the Wi-Fi in Toni’s Mum’s flat.  I have spent the morning today catching up on the text book based work that I should have done to get myself back on course according to the Sacred Timetable found in the august setting of the Student Home for my module.

We are allowed a Christmas Holiday in the OU and I am using it to ensure that I build up a cushion of work completed before the inevitable “events, dear boy, events” conspire to knock me off course.  Part of that enterprise is settling what my next module is going to be, and for that I am going to have to take some advice about how my future in the OU is supposed to work out.  I am quite tempted by the MA in Art History that the OU offers, but I may need to complete a few higher-level courses before I attempt that.  The only real problem is that the present MA is going to be discontinued at the end of next year and I am not sure what is going to take its place – if anything.  I see my career with the OU stretching over the next decade, so anything is possible!

When I get back to Castelldefels I can put Book 1 of the course back on the bookshelf and get Book 2 and start going on the next stage of the work.  The next TMA is in early February so there is not a great deal of time before I need to get back to the mind-set of barely controlled panic to get the work done!

The second opera in the present season is tomorrow and I have not yet booked a hotel room to make the experience more enjoyable.  I am assuming that I have left it far too late and for the interval food and drink too.  I am not sure that I like rushing a quick interval snack at an inflated price, but then what are “ordinary” prices in a world famous opera house!

This performance is of Rusalka, which I have never seen in an Opera House, though god knows I have heard “that aria” often enough, not least in Cardiff Singer of the World competitions where it is something of a favourite with sopranos – and with audiences too, hardened competition competitors are not fools when it comes to important choices to sway judges!

Meanwhile The Family we have just left, may well be visiting the seaside tomorrow!

The Holiday Season continues.