In the name of Science!

The horror! The horror!

I slept in till after twelve in the afternoon.

I put this down to the stress of the four days of this first week (Dear God! we have the whole of the uninterrupted summer term ahead of us!) and, in some sort of way that I haven’t fully worked out, to Toni’s fault as well!

Having got that accusation off my chest and thereby proved that the extended slumber was not my own indolent fault we may proceed.

A watery sun barely warming the bricks of the balcony is not inviting. The desultory flapping of the awning in an irritating breeze and the pile of ironing waiting to be completed combine to make this more of a Sunday of Resentment rather than a Saturday of contentment.

What we need is Toni’s family to threaten to turn up: we are then galvanized with a manic energy and all the chores that should have been done during the week are completed in a frenzy of domestic cleanliness!

Today will mark our first visit to a Garden Centre. The visit is provoked, not by a lust to recreate the little piece of camp Paradise that was the garden in Wales, but rather to purchase a few green plants for the science lessons next week.

Buying something for school without the requisite correctly coloured and filled in order form is on the same level of difficulty as charming quarks or whatever it is atomic physicists do for kicks, but I seem to have short circuited the system and been given permission to ‘go and buy.’

I am not so naïve that I haven’t worked out that being told that I can buy and being pay for what I have bought are two different things. It is almost worth the cost of three or four cheap green plants to observe the convolutions that the school system will have to go through to refund my money.

There are so many possible ways for them to say no:
Not from one of our approved suppliers
Things should not be bought on a Saturday
The receipt is not correctly set out
Approval was not asked for in the right tone of voice
The receipt is not detailed enough
The receipt is on the wrong coloured paper
The receipt was given to the cashier on the wrong day
Only plants of a certain sort can be bought
The plants did not have a certificate from the Spanish Horticultural Society
Do the plants have a safety clearance for schools?

Perhaps I should work in the finance department in the school I obviously have a flair for the production of reasons for refusal. I would be perfect!

The plants have now been bought. A rather startled looking assistant in the Garden Centre listened with the rather pained expression that I have come to expect when I speak extended Spanish. I must admit that I was quite impressed that, with my limited vocabulary, I was able to explain that I needed six cheap leafy plants for a science experiment in my school to show the effect of sun and water on one plant as normal and the other with leaves cut off!

After one of my extended Spanish monologues I reach a point of intellectual exhaustion that Shakespeare himself could start reciting the Sonnets and I would barely look up!

I have now bought a web cam. I am not entirely sure why, but Toni bought one and it is a gadget so I went with the flow.

Needless to say, Toni’s purchase worked like a charm while mine took ages to load various drivers and other bits and pieces and then sulkily informed me that it would not work.

So I took it back.

Instead of immediately giving me my money back a little man appeared and proceeded to set up the camera with an in store computer. This took some time before he too reached the point at which the computer started to sulk. Instead of immediately giving up he started clicking with a vengeance.

Now, to be fair I had used the full repertoire of my computer knowledge to facilitate the installation of the web cam. I had sworn at the machine, roundly insulted the camera and eventually restarted the computer. I do not see what, in reason, I could have done more.

The assistant’s frantic clicking did, however, produce a picture from the camera. To my horrified disbelief, I could see that he was expecting me to go home and do the same with my computer. In fluent adrenaline stimulated Spanish I whimpered that I had no idea what he had done and therefore would not be expected to emulate his magical fingers on the keys.

His response came in machine gun Spanish and I had to hold up a hand to stem the flow. Admitting that I had not followed what he said, he asked, “English?” And I relaxed and prepared to be enlightened. In a response that would have done credit to the most obtuse Englishman abroad, he then repeated what he had said, in Spanish! Bless!

It took a little time for this new ‘language’ to register but, amazingly, we did eventually understand one another. And I returned with the camera and duly installed it.

Quite enough linguistic and electronic excitement for one day, I think!