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Sunday, May 12, 2013

Dayflow!






I couldn’t wangle a decent seat on this flight so I am typing this on one of the rear seats in a free row, so at least I have ben able to put the other arm rest up and give myself a little more room.

The weekend is over and I am totally wrecked.  I need the rest of the week to recover from the excesses of the past two days (and one night) which I spent in Cardiff, but that is not to be and I will be teaching at 8.15 am tomorrow.  Retribution is swift after indulgence!

Friday evening was almost civilized as I arrived far too late and far too tired to do much more than drink a glass of wine or three and go to bed.

Saturday, I was graciously informed, was mine to do in as I wished.  I therefore decided to keep the appointment I had made to go to the optician in Tesco, Culverhouse Cross.  It was a very good thing that I did so because the service there was exceptional.  From the pre-tests to the choosing of frames everything was done with a friendly courtesy and professional ease which was a delight.

The optician even managed to fit in a consultation for my contact lenses by checking appointments and making time.

The end result was I spent over five hundred quid!  So see what doing your job gets you!  And, even though that might sound a little steep, it does include four pairs of glasses and a month’s supply of a new type of contact lens for me to try.

I did voice my idea that the basic problem with my eyes was that I have cross dominance.  In other words I am right handed by left eye dominant.  At the moment my left eye is adjusted for distance and my right for reading when I am wearing contact lenses.  The brain is supposed to work out which eye to use for which activity which it pointedly doesn’t when I wear them.  My solution was to swap functions.  The optician decided not to do that but changed the prescription so that the difference between the two eyes if more obvious and, he said this would make it easier for my brain to accept.  I hope it does because I prefer to wear contact lenses than glasses, though at the moment it is much easier for me to wear glasses for the amount of reading and writing that I am doing.  Hopefully after June when the schoolwork ends I will be able to use my contact lenses more.  That is the plan anyway.

And going back to the five hundred quid spend, I actually had a bit of a bargain there.  If you are not a glasses wearer that might seem to be impossible – but if you are visually challenged then you will have grown up being regularly being shafted by opticians.  I have been wearing glasses since I was about eight and contact lenses since I was eighteen.  So if you count up all the money that I have spent and money which has been spent on my behalf – and have every payment adjusted for 2013 prices I must have spent tens of thousands of pounds on flimsy bits of metal, plastic and glass and consultations when you, the customer, have to do most of the work to get the prescription right!

So with Tesco the consultation and prescription were free.  They also have a buy one and get the second pair free.  Which is good value.  Until you realize that all the little extras are extra.  So I have the lenses thinned, I have varifocal made to my specific prescription with a wider reading area and they are photo chromatic and they are lightweight.  All of that little lot of extras add about one hundred and fifty quid!  And those extras are not “free”.  So I decided to have two pairs of glasses with everything and then two “basic” pairs with no extras.  And the contacts lenses are daily disposable, but they work out at less than a quid a day.  And if you have been wondering at my slumming by using colloquialisms like “quid” it is merely because I cannot be bothered to find the pound sign on this Spanish keyboard, far too much effort!

So my lunchtime on Saturday I had justified the trip in purely financial terms, quite apart from seeing the Pauls.  I did call in to see my Aunt Micky and was horrified to see a picture of That Woman set out for contemplation and adoration.  But she is my aunt and so I didn’t say exactly what I felt, but I did relate the story of my setting fire to my candle of That Woman and her blue bouffant is now well and truly burnt.  I also told her that the film of this act of fully justified post-mortem fiery revenge was freely available on YouTube and that she should watch “Burning Thatcher” as something which would be good for her soul.  I regard my little film as the equivalent of an act of devotion and a modern take on a chantry where the evidence of my act of immolation will have some form of life immortal in the electronic world!

I did call in to see Louise but she was out and so I was denied my traditional cup of tea and a chat.  Another time.

Uncle Eric too did not have a visit from me this time around.  Shame on me!

Saturday night was supposed to be the opportunity for me to take the Pauls out for a meal.  Our first, second and third choices were full so we decided to patronize an old haunt, “Le Monde”.  Our ill luck was to continue however as there was a power cut in the recently reopened restaurant and while we waited for our table a round of drinks was fourteen quid.  Not the place to stay and get drunk in.  Time crept on and we felt that there must be somewhere else in the centre of Cardiff which could offer us a meal.

Our plan was therefore to go to one of the restaurants that said it was full and take a chance.

This was a good plan because it worked.  Our meal in “Viva Brazil!” was interesting and good.  There is a substantial buffet island with cold and hot food to load onto your plate.  When you have regained your seat you have to turn a beer mat which is green on one side and red on the other.  Green means that you want one of the roving waiters to bring something to your table.

The waiters wander round with a metal spike on which is impaled meat of some sort and, with the large and menacing knife that he also carries around be begins to carve off a slice which you pick up (with what looks like a pair of sugar tongs) and transfer it to your plate.  A very nice idea and there was plenty to eat.  I think the trick of the place is to ensure that your first selection of food will accompany what is going to be brought to your table.  I chose various types of potato and fish – I do like surf and turf!

But it was expensive.

Sunday was The Day and it Went Well with our eventually being upgraded to “White” armbands which meant that we were able to walk through the crowds (rather than be part of them) into the area directly in front of the stage on which the heroes of the team were to parade themselves.

This achievement was preceded by a beautiful meal in La Strada (if my memory serves me properly) in which I had the best risotto, of the seafood variety, that I have ever eaten.  It was washed down, however, by one hundred and twenty quid’s worth of booze which made an al fresco meal into something of a fiasco.

But an excellent day which prepared me in no way whatsoever for the next “illegal” day off school.

Monday started on a somewhat delicate note because of the alcoholic orchestration of the previous day but I was determined to use all the time to the full so I went to Tesco and spent, because that is what I do.  Well.

There was also time to visit Hadyn (yes I know that it isn’t spelled like that, but I have spelled it like that for as long as I have known him and I am simply not prepared to change now) and sit, in glorious sunshine, in his back garden.  Somewhat unexpectedly I was also able to help him repair the fence.  Never let it be said that I was not prepared to earn my cups of tea!

The exact time of my departure was a bit hazy for me and so it was only when I was galvanized into activity by Paul 1 who said that I needed to make a move that I did.  Through a complicated piece of key exchange I had to leave the Pauls in a pub go and pack and then return to key to the Pauls and go on my way.

The packing, amazingly, took longer than it should have done and, with all my little purchases stuffed into the walk-on luggage the damn thing would hardly close.  As it was I have to carry my computer and hope that they would not insist, as I have seem Them do, that I put it in my suitcase for the passing of the control.  Shutting the case with a computer in it would have broken the thing in two.

I left the Pauls (at least the Pub) with a vague feeling that I could make the flight with enough time, but I did not have the confidence to check that this was so.

In the event this che sara, sara approach worked and I got petrol and to the airport in plenty of time.  I must try that attitude again!

I failed to pass the security check and was patted down and my shoes checked.  My case failed the security check and various things had to be dug out of the congealed mass of commodities and dirty clothes.  The Sudafed didn’t make it and my mobile phone was checked for traces of explosive.  I asked.

I think that my idiotic purchase of sparklers and Roman Candle type decorations for Toni’s birthday cake may have been the cause of this as I plonked the sparklers and candles into my case before I realized the impossibility of actually getting them out of the country!  Can it be that their machinery is so sensitive that it can pick up decorative gunpowder, still wrapped after having been left in a case for a day or so?  If so, so impressive!

I eventually got through and settled down to while away the stretched time that exists in every airport terminal in the world.  In the event it was not too bad and the flight was called at the time that they said it would be.

Bristol Airport is now one of the most unfriendly places I have ever been to.  If you are flying EasyJet the walk from the plane and to the plane is of almost comic length.  Indeed they have put up notices to tell you that you are still on course and I have seen more than one able-bodied traveller eye the wheelchairs provided at strategic points throughout the Long Trek with what can only be described as longing!

The flight was full and generally uneventful and, although I didn’t get an emergency exit seat I was allowed to move to the back where there were free rows so I was able to spread out.  I will pass over the collection of returning Spanish schoolchildren in silence, which is certainly not what they did!

An 8.15 start the next day dampened the spirits when I finally got home in a much more expensive taxi than usual and so I drifted off to sleep eventually, I was that tired that sleep was not easy, with the dread of an examination marking packed week ahead.

And that it what it was, with OU work being a distant memory.

In spite of the crap in school I did, at the end of the week I managed to write my “object driven” and “object centred” approach to the Festival of Britain Crown that I chose as my object for the first exercise on the Tutor Group Forum.  I have thoroughly enjoyed this introduction to the course and I am finding the comments on the National Forum even more stimulating.  I am not as securely in my comfort zone with this course material and I think that is a very good thing.

I did make the mistake of looking at some post connected with “A150 Exam Results” which was a foolish and masochistic thing to do.  Hysteria is, after all, catching!

So to the end of this week and The Wedding.

This was held in a Masia in the countryside, down a winding dirt track and was excellent.

The actual ceremony was held outside with white draped seat a la Americana with real rose and flower petals strewn along the sides of the path leading to the “stage”.  All very pretty, but when we arrived we were not given a drink.  And we went on not being given a drink (apart from a table with bottles of water on it!) for longer than was strictly necessary!

Once the ceremony was over we were ushered to a canopied area where, to my horror, we were offered a drink composed of tropical fruits!  My aghast face must have spoken volumes as glasses of Cava soon appeared.

The yucca crisps were a nice touch and they prepared us for an entrance to the courtyard area of the Masia where, passing by the kids who had been issued with soap mixture to create a curtain of bubbles we came to the tapas.  These were, without exception, exceptional!

From sushi with cream cheese (!) to jamon iberico everything was tasty, beautifully presented and interesting.

The highlight for me was a mini scallop gratinated on its shell.  Toni’s mum and I regarded these as our rightful property and consumed a plate of them before we were dragged away clawing for more!

Some of these tapas were presented on plastic spoons, the disposable equivalent of Chinese soupspoons but with an arched stem.  I believe that the traditional adjective to use for such elegant constructions of food is exquisite – and they were.

The Cava was on tap, as it were and with hot tapas following the cold together with plates of risotto we had had our meal before the meal started!

Food, food and more food.  And we were even threatened (I thought it was a joke) with yet more food after the dancing.  It was not a joke and I refused to push another morsel through my mouth!

The distribution of gifts meant that I am now the proud possessor of a mini bottle of Cava and a Cuban cigar!

At the moment we are preparing to go out to lunch after which I think the next time that I will need to eat will be sometime in the distant summer.  You will note that I used the word “need” in the last sentence.  That gives me, as they say, “wriggle room”!

And I still have to get back to Castelldefels to prepare for the week which is getting closer all the time.

Saturday, May 04, 2013

A day of difference?


Well, at least there isn’t a class in front of me to prompt me to indulge in a little displace activity typing this time.  No, this time I am looking at the snaking queue of sullen looking travellers as they wait for their flight to board.  And, although I have only just arrived, I can feel the heavy atmosphere of the waiting area of an airport beginning to press in on me and squeeze out the last few drops of enthusiasm that I ever had for air travel.

I have just over an hour to wait before boarding starts and that is dependent on everything being on time.  Which, to be fair to EasyJet, it often is.  But, even if everything goes according to plan I am still going to get into Cardiff at an unwelcoming hour – although I can be assured of a glass of wine from my hosts as soon as I set foot over the threshold!

Toni is getting progressively more paranoid as his examination approaches and I certainly did my bit to boost the paranoia to outright hysteria by “losing” my wallet just before the taxi was supposed to arrive and then compounding the panic by failing to print out the information about the car which I hope is waiting for me in Bristol.

Were Toni an eighteenth century heroine he would now be drinking a cup of weak China tea from his dish and would be dipping his pen in his inkwell to start a long and complicated missive outlining his travails to an eager correspondent who would relish his cross-written account of my antics.  But he isn’t.  So he is probably sitting down, studying assiduously and letting the intricate details of Information Technology sooth the edges of his jagged nerves!

What, actually awaits me in Cardiff I do not know.  The rough outline of what I am going to do in Wales is clear in all its fuzzy detail, and I look forward to the fascinating clarification that actually being there will bring.  Probably.

I think that my expectations from my proposed visit to the Tesco optician are pitched unreasonably high.  What I want is to purchase two pairs of highly expensive specs for a bargain price.  I want someone to suggest another type of contact lens that will actually work with my eyes – and I want it all to be delivered in next to no time.  I think that I have set myself up for disappointment and I am honing my tried-and-tested attitude of world-weary resignation to cope with it all!

I have not contacted Uncle Eric or Aunty Micky and so my visits to them will have to be done in hope and on the hoof.

But it is what is going to happen on Sunday that holds the real interest for me.  Building on my new-found enthusiasm for a doggedly successful Cardiff team (how many recent attempts have they made to get to the Premiership?) I want to see the heroes (whose names I will assuredly learn by Sunday afternoon) and express all the pent-up hopes of a fan who has yet to see an entire Cardiff game!

I truly feel that the effort that I have made to be present at the civic celebrations for the success of The Bluebirds takes my personal take on assertive fraud to a new and hitherto unreached level.  I have set myself a few personal goals (!) for my activity on Sunday which I have no intention of mentioning at this particular moment in time, but even I am eager to see what I will be writing on Monday as I swan my way back to Spain throughout the long length of a full school day!

Thursday, May 02, 2013

Sun is life!





Third Floor Therapy has somewhat restored my faith in this country and the fact that the “tangle free” element in my new earphones actually works is an added factor in my relative happiness.

I state this because I am typing this in a staff room which is not a factor in my general well being added to which my lessons happen one after another in an unbroken sequence.  The sun, however, is shining and that is what I need to focus on!

While I have done the marking that I am supposed to have done and written the exam paper that was also part of my workload for the day off, I am conscious that I have done nothing practical about what I need to take to the UK with me. 

This is not a variant of the British habit of assuming that any foreign country that you care to name will have none of the necessaries of life and therefore you have to take tea and toothpaste with you otherwise disaster will inevitably ensue.

I have to dig around to find my optical prescription and other bits and pieces which will jump into significance when I get to the rainy shores of my country and will help fill the hours that I am going to spend there.

By the time I have decided on everything that I have to do, my visit is going to take on the look more of a military campaign than a restful trip.

My book of British Short Stories is now well and truly read and I am more than half inclined to get the rest of the volumes in the series to replace the battered versions that lie decaying in my library.  On the other hand that is merely a waste of money and there are, god knows, other areas in which the money can be better spent.

It is a salutary thought that we are now in May and therefore I can write that I will finally be retiring next month.  I know that those words may be greeted with a somewhat ironic chuckle form those who have celebrated a sequence of retirements with me in the past, but this one is different.  Because it is real.

And reality will be that the extra money ceases to dribble into my bank account while the expenses, on the other hand cascade out.  But, as I mentioned before, the sun is shining, so who cares?

Even the music that accompanies my journey to school has improved since I started on the Mercury recordings (Volume II).  These digitally re-mastered recordings have a particular quality of crisp sound that is invigorating to hear especially when the choice of music is demandingly popular.  This morning I wove my way through the suicidal traffic to the jaunty sound of Gershwin.  It was, in fact just that little bit too upbeat for a school day after a day off, if you know what I mean (and all teachers will) and left me feeling paradoxically depressed.

It took a cup of Hammam tea – which is, as I am sure you know, an everyday mixture of green tea, dried dates and rose petals - to get me back on track.  I have been gifted a collection of exotic tea bags by Lydia and it has been a bewildering taste experience going through them.  They are, unfortunately, running out now and so I will soon be back to the quotidian decaffeinated variety.  Which reminds me that these are much cheaper in the UK than they are in our local Carrefour.

The chaos surrounding the proposed introduction and implementation of the iPad in September of this year continues to provoke anger and despair in about equal quantities.  Basic questions are still to be answered and even more fundamental guidelines have yet to be set – and school ends at the end of next month.  God help them all!

Meanwhile we have an examination today.  Gosh!  And another one on the Monday on which I am still in the UK.  And there are more next month which will eventually lead to the final mark.  Whatever that means.  I am becoming increasingly cynical about the “marks out of ten” which seem to define the educational system in this country.  But I have about one month and twenty days more of these things and then I can (O wonderful phrase!) “look back on” education rather than dread one’s personal involvement in it!

The resonant phrase of Adolf the Housepainter has been going through my head recently (especially when I consider the raw material in my classes) – “The future of our country lies in its Youth!”  Now that really is a sobering thought!

My long day’s journey through the morning is about to start and there is the threat of a meeting in the afternoon which I might have to attend.  But even this slog is lightened by the thought that I do manage to get away early and therefore miss the transportation ruck that is parents picking up their kids at the end of school. 

I used to think that it was only in five-a-side football that the human personality was displayed in its starkest colours - but picking kids up in the car at the end of school runs it a close second.  It also gives teachers an explanation for the attitude of the kids: if the parents behave so atrociously you at least have the glimmerings of an excuse for the kids’ own lack of tolerance and courtesy if such are their guidelines for human behaviour!  Or perhaps I am drawing too much from selfish double parking!

For the umpteenth-and-twentieth time I am sitting in front of a class that is sitting an examination. 

This is the only activity in which a normal class in this school remains silent and focussed.  By the time they reach secondary age all of our kids have a default setting for examination into which they click as soon as a paper is put in front of them.  This is the life they know and can relate to.  The ways in which the information is put into their skulls creates all sorts of problems for them, but the tedious way in which it is examined is doggedly accepted by all!

I have now changed classes so that I can get a different view of the top of kids’ heads as they scribble away at what I will have to mark before I go away so that the papers can be given back on the Tuesday when I return.

I could take the papers with me to mark, but I have bad memories of the last holiday I went on where the burden of marking was hanging over me the whole time.  Admittedly I finally completed the marking sitting on a balcony in a decent hotel and overlooking a small cove on the shores of the Med, but I cannot say that it is a particularly happy memory and, let’s face it, sitting in a room in Rumney with the rain falling promises a different level of misery altogether!  Better to get it done and out of the way today!

I will, of course, have a set of papers waiting to be marked when I return on Tuesday.  But that is next week and in the distant future when each new day brings me closer to that magic day in June when everything changes!

An almost full day, taking in a Departmental meeting to round things off.  The implementation of the iPad is still number 1 on the agenda though plans do seem to be a little firmer and help has been announced as the IT teacher has been assigned one period a week when he is the exclusive property of the English Department.  This is a small step, but it is at least in the right direction.

Tomorrow off to the UK, though a fairly late flight means that I will get to Cardiff after midnight and therefore I will be in the UK when my next course officially starts.  I have taken care that I will be fortified with the necessary technology to ensure that I am ready to play a full part in the initial moments of the new enterprise and my work is up and running.  Bring it on!

Meanwhile, as you might have guessed, this typing is the traditional displacement activity as I actively ignore the marking which is sitting in my brief case: