I do not regard a car as a gadget.
You would have thought with my love of things mechanical and electrical that I would have been a devotee of the sleek and on-board computer type vehicle and idolised it. But I’m not and I don’t.
I like cars because they make transportation easy and they give you independence. In purely practical terms, living in a tourist resort, they allow you to leave your immediate (and expensive) surroundings and go to supermarkets where the cost becomes more realistic.
Obviously they do have to have certain things – like an on board computer that gives you more information than you need or know what to do with and little figures on the dashboard that go green when people have put their seat belts on. And electric windows. Obviously. And air conditioning. Obviously. And it must be a nice colour. But care about it? Not really.
As if to punish me for this generally uncaring attitude towards a commodious lump of metal (Do people really give their cars names?) the parking space attached to the flat (worth its weight in gold, difficult to find, etc etc – I know all that) is fiendishly difficult to get into and get out of.
At present I have been allowed to manoeuvre tortuously and with the painstaking care of the newly qualified maiden aunt driver without the added complication of having someone wanting to get into another space in our subterranean garage and watching me try to get into my allocated space. When that does happen you may see a grown man cry!
The festa del mar with pirates was something else. It reminded me of a chapter from an E F Benson novel. The scene was set on the beach with a square castle (with crenulations); various stalls of fruit; a small vegetable patch; a few bales of hay and other indications of civilized life. Behind screens, near the water’s edge, triangular sails denoted potential pirates’ ships.
Drums indicated that the pageant might be about to start and there was a sort of procession of the various people involved in the future drama: including various peasants; three soldiers; two members of the aristocracy and a ragamuffin collection of pirates. I should also include people wearing official t-shirts and ostentatiously using mobile phones.
The action of the piece (such as it was) concerned a peaceful community beset by drink fixated pirates. Although the pirates scored an easy victory – having to defeat just the three members of the soldiery – their exultation was short lived when a sinister, black cloaked wearing, flaming torch wielding, figure appeared and precipitated the positive conclusion to the piece when, from behind the castle a doubled headed fire breathing dragon appeared and scattered the pirates.
All of this was accompanied by a commentary in Catalan which, mercifully, I was unable to understand!
The evening eventually ended with a display of fireworks. There is no way that the municipal expense of fireworks can be justified, but they are just so bloody good! I think the aspect of fireworks that is appealing to me more and more is the rarefied appreciation that is the appreciation of the spent smoke trails of past fireworks illuminated by exploding ones: I’m sure that there is a wonderful photograph to be taken to illustrate what I mean, but I’m not the person to take it. When fireworks go off I am the one staring open mouthed in amazement like any five year old child. I am profoundly grateful that fireworks can thus keep me in touch with a younger version of myself.
I’m sure that must be a positive aspect in some way that I haven’t worked out yet.
And I don’t intend to work on it yet awhile!
You would have thought with my love of things mechanical and electrical that I would have been a devotee of the sleek and on-board computer type vehicle and idolised it. But I’m not and I don’t.
I like cars because they make transportation easy and they give you independence. In purely practical terms, living in a tourist resort, they allow you to leave your immediate (and expensive) surroundings and go to supermarkets where the cost becomes more realistic.
Obviously they do have to have certain things – like an on board computer that gives you more information than you need or know what to do with and little figures on the dashboard that go green when people have put their seat belts on. And electric windows. Obviously. And air conditioning. Obviously. And it must be a nice colour. But care about it? Not really.
As if to punish me for this generally uncaring attitude towards a commodious lump of metal (Do people really give their cars names?) the parking space attached to the flat (worth its weight in gold, difficult to find, etc etc – I know all that) is fiendishly difficult to get into and get out of.
At present I have been allowed to manoeuvre tortuously and with the painstaking care of the newly qualified maiden aunt driver without the added complication of having someone wanting to get into another space in our subterranean garage and watching me try to get into my allocated space. When that does happen you may see a grown man cry!
The festa del mar with pirates was something else. It reminded me of a chapter from an E F Benson novel. The scene was set on the beach with a square castle (with crenulations); various stalls of fruit; a small vegetable patch; a few bales of hay and other indications of civilized life. Behind screens, near the water’s edge, triangular sails denoted potential pirates’ ships.
Drums indicated that the pageant might be about to start and there was a sort of procession of the various people involved in the future drama: including various peasants; three soldiers; two members of the aristocracy and a ragamuffin collection of pirates. I should also include people wearing official t-shirts and ostentatiously using mobile phones.
The action of the piece (such as it was) concerned a peaceful community beset by drink fixated pirates. Although the pirates scored an easy victory – having to defeat just the three members of the soldiery – their exultation was short lived when a sinister, black cloaked wearing, flaming torch wielding, figure appeared and precipitated the positive conclusion to the piece when, from behind the castle a doubled headed fire breathing dragon appeared and scattered the pirates.
All of this was accompanied by a commentary in Catalan which, mercifully, I was unable to understand!
The evening eventually ended with a display of fireworks. There is no way that the municipal expense of fireworks can be justified, but they are just so bloody good! I think the aspect of fireworks that is appealing to me more and more is the rarefied appreciation that is the appreciation of the spent smoke trails of past fireworks illuminated by exploding ones: I’m sure that there is a wonderful photograph to be taken to illustrate what I mean, but I’m not the person to take it. When fireworks go off I am the one staring open mouthed in amazement like any five year old child. I am profoundly grateful that fireworks can thus keep me in touch with a younger version of myself.
I’m sure that must be a positive aspect in some way that I haven’t worked out yet.
And I don’t intend to work on it yet awhile!
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