"Work!" Discuss.

Pity me as I sit here in the front room in Terrassa, like Blanche Dubois, depending on the kindness of strangers’ networks to get me onto the internet. Or like Dives waiting patiently at the rich man’s server for some crumb of the web to fall into my computer. It’s a sad old life as an electronic beggar!

Toni meanwhile has departed for Part II of the transit of hell which is Spanish (as opposed to Catalan) bureaucracy: this time for his diving licence. I declined to accompany him as I felt that my experience of street waiting for his Identity Card was sufficient to give me the feel of what is in store for me when I become a resident in Spain. Sufficient unto the day, and all that.

Ah, I see that the rich man has condescended to scatter a few electronic waves in my direction and I am now connected with a signal strength designated as ‘very low’ – which sounds exactly like some minor Dickensian character building up to the big death scene of some much loved, vapid, put upon heroine!

This reminds me, I should be reading ‘Oliver Twist’ which is the next novel in the historical sequence in my version of the rereading which is being completed by my aunt and myself. I think we both have been a little lax in our efforts recently, but I’m sure that there will be a big putsch in the New Year. At least with ‘Oliver Twist’ this will be a true ‘rereading’ unlike ‘The Pickwick Papers’ which for me was a first reading! The shame of such an admission!

There is something deeply satisfying to type inconsequentialities while someone else is ironing: I am with the hero of Jerome K. Jerome (‘The K is for Klapka’ – the title of a never forgotten Radio 4 afternoon play) who said “I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.” And when it is as well done as Carmen is now doing it, it is even more satisfying. Why? Because she irons with a sheer professionalism that does not invite emulation.

We are now building up to the preparations for the New Year. There are not as many strange traditions here as you might expect given the coprophiliac tendencies of the Christmas celebrations in Catalonia. The only strange custom concerns grapes. It is traditional to have twelve grapes ready on New Year’s Eve so that when the clock in the centre of Madrid (or wherever else the television companies have decided to centre their evening’s ‘entertainment’) begins to strike twelve, for each stroke a grape must be eaten. The ability to eat a grape a stroke is sure to ensure good luck throughout the year.

What is astonishing is the way that this custom has been commercialised. You would have thought in a country which produces a fair number of grapes it would be impossible to make an easy buck from selling one of the agricultural staples, but they manage it! You can buy twelve (count them) grapes in specially packed presentation containers. Plastic bags in the same shape as the old fashioned sweet bags, with a ribbon on the top. As an extreme example, the advertising of tiny tins of twelve (count them) grapes have begun: what a masterpiece of commercialism! In a country where grapes are as cheap as chips, the spirit of profit has found a way to take away the horror of having to count out twelve grapes from a bunch and only for x times the cost of the original uncounted articles!

I look forward to being in Spain for the celebration of The Kings. God alone knows what arcane mysteries have to be performed for this major celebration. Having seen the suicidal and homicidal firework displays which accompany the festivities which each town and city feels necessary to provide the correct amount of danger to match the importance of their festive day, I shudder to think what must happen during The Kings – human sacrifice? I wouldn’t be surprised.

Talk about coincidences: Clarrie has just phoned and, as soon as I was passed to The Good Doctor, the battery on the phone conked out. I’ve just put the bloody thing to charge but, and here’s the coincidence, when I returned to the computer the program which chooses pictures at random from my Pictures folder was showing Clarrie and The Good Doctor! I’m sure it’s a sign of something!

Meanwhile life goes on. This is another way of saying that Carmen having finished the ironing is now starting on the next stage of her Sisyphus-like existence and starting the preparations for the next meal. She may have a large rock to push, but it’s a very tasty one.

So to speak.