You pays your money and you takes your choice

Monday is the day that little old ladies hobble to their banks to talk to their money.

You can’t get near a counter for little old ladies lurching from the arms of their grown up children towards the tellers and asking incomprehensible questions that necessitate the combined efforts of teller and children to pacify the questing oldster. Who, presumably after seeing that the money is safe and well and untouched, hobbles home to gather enough strength for the next foray to the bank in a little week’s time.

Having experienced at first hand exactly how Spanish banks treat their customers I think that the older generation have something to teach the rest of us. I have discovered the bank book: this you can feed into a cash machine which then automatically types out the transactions that have occurred on your account. You therefore have some proof about what is going on with your money. It is the first line of defence against the incursion of unscrupulous bankers – is that an example of tautology?

I must get away from what is rapidly approaching an obsession with the state of Spanish banking; but when you are as intimately involved in the machinations of those organizations as I am in these first few weeks of settling in and scattering money about me as if it were bankers’ profits then you must allow me a little leeway to scratch the itch of my hatred!

The next stage in settling in is to get our possessions from Cardiff to Catalonia.

This has not started well with my phoning Pickfords to start the process and their not phoning back, in spite of an assurance that they would be in touch within the hour: that was this morning and it is now half past two in the afternoon. Even allowing for the hour’s difference this is not acceptable. And the weather, by way of pathetic fallacy, is overcast with the Mediterranean looking a lot like the Atlantic. I could have got this colour of sea in Penarth, though it has to be said that even though it is overcast, in some way peculiar to this area, the sun is still managing to make the waves sparkle!

Our first domestic disaster: the sink in the kitchen is leaking! Though to compensate for this, the tap is broken and refuses to give any water. The tap itself is a fairly dated used-to-be-cutting-edge sort of thing which has one spout (on an extendable hose) which is operated by a side lever which also regulates the temperature. It took us (at one time six of us) some time to work out how to operate it and it was only by brute strength that water was urged out of it. The physically demanding nature of the water experience meant that it was a breakage waiting to happen and perhaps it is a good thing that it’s happened sooner rather than later. I am not convinced by the positive nature of that particular piece of kitchen philosophy; especially as I have to wash the dishes in the bathroom (I was going to say in the loo but that gives entirely the wrong effect!)

The first clash about the flat is over. I have been to the den of thieves who took a whole month’s rent as commission and asked them to do something about the tap and dripping sink. I also pointed out the inadequacy of a year’s rental for a flat without an oven: unthinkable. We will see what happens. Thank god the person I had to deal with spoke a form of English. I spoke a form of Spanish and we got on famously!

The blustery conditions on the beach today have brought out the wind surfers in force. And very impressive they look too as they leap along the waves at a speed which is totally inappropriate to the flimsy contraption on which they are standing. As I watched their exhilarating failures to stay afloat they prompted me to think about their activities.

There is a whole area of human endeavour which, while fascinating to watch, is totally unthreateningly participation free – for the thinking person. What sane entity would actually want to risk life and limb to bump along the waves at frightening speeds with one foot attached to a board which could fly off in any of the 360º that a circular motion can propel the thing to choose? And limbs are eminently breakable!

Like skiing: a ‘sport’ for the mentally deranged.

My grandmother regarded the onset of winter with personal hatred, and snow and ice with particular detestation. She hated slipping; it was almost a phobia for her. Slipping meant loss of control with possible injury: bad. The reasoning was simple and unquestionable and I find myself more and more in agreement with my maternal Grandmère.

But skiing is enjoyable to watch; in the same way that motorcycle racing is rewarding viewing: they might fall. Let’s face it there is a whole range of ‘sporting’ activities where the only pleasure in spectating is the possible crash, smash, collision, double cartwheel or other disaster that relieves the tedium of watching the ‘sport’ at its soulless worst when nothing is happening except for the practioners, well, practising. The perfect example here is, of course, formula 1: how unbelievably tedious is that hi-tec boredom when all the drivers are doing is driving - round and round and round?

There are other sports where spectating is marginally worse than participation: potholing, for example. Potholing and hang-gliding were two sports that I had to promise my mother I would never, under any circumstances, indulge in during my time in university. It says much for my mother (and little about me) that she insisted on non-participation in insane sports rather than full participation in moral rectitude as one of the preconditions for leaving home for the wild excesses of Swansea University. I think there might be an element of irony in that statement; though quite where is a moot point!

Tomorrow I want to buy something for which there is no possible justification.

And I don’t mean membership of the Conservative Party.