Undone things

I should now be in school.

I have been sitting on the balcony with a pot of strong tea and watching the cleaners on the beach finally returning the sand to the standard of cleanliness that I have come to expect after the explosion of rubbish deposited during the night of festivity.

This is all very pleasant but it is not what I am supposed to be doing. It is not all negative of course. The dismissive machinations of The Owner do allow me to have the time to visit Gavá to claim my unemployment pay and to visit my Union to put on record the shameful process by which The Owner has terminated by contract.

And the girls will be here soon! A week of worry, when, before they have even arrived I feel an almost overwhelming desire to acquire a shotgun and start practising a macho scowl to keep at bay any predatory Catalan boys who may even glance in the direction of my Welsh wards!

I am sure that this is merely overreaction and I will find opportunities to relax, even if it is only through exhaustion!

I am looking forward to testing the stated enthusiasm that the girls have for eating. We should be able to test that at once by having a menu del dia when they arrive: start as you mean to go on, say I.

There are surely few people who would unwrap gaudily presented gifts and, finding that the largesse comprises a plastic ceramic hob scraper, a bottle of ceramic hob cleaner and a box of OHP slides, would chortle with glee. I am one of those few.

Not only will these items help me through a difficult period of taxing cleaning but they will act as an incentive to get another teaching job to employ the slides to their full potential.

Within seconds of handling the scraper

I was effortlessly removing cooked on grime which had resisted the most frenzied attacks with fingernails. The application of the Australian hob cream seemed to work wonders. Can it be that the fabled task of the uncleanable electric hob was to be relegated to the ‘done that got the t shirt’ realm of quotidian experience? Time, as they say, will tell.

There was also a Terry Pratchett book and a copy of Private Eye and The Week but these things do not lend themselves to arch comment!

What a splendid variety of delights the girls brought with them; I do think that I will eschew the allure of The Guardian Weekly and take out a subscription to The Week instead. Never let it be said that I was impulsive.

Our meal out was frustrated by the fact that the Basque restaurant was closed for refurbishment. I must admit that I do not quite understand the timing element in this equation when we are now at last in the throws of the main part of the summer season (now that the nights are drawing in, I hear pessimists say!)

Instead we went to a more conventional restaurant and had a variety of tapas. The meal was excellent and who would have guessed that two sixteen year old girls could be such excellent and stimulating company.

Our walk back along the beach was only marred by the immediate attention of all sentient men we passed who did not disguise their unashamed interest in my two companions. I had to make a formal apology for my sex!

Tomorrow sun bathing for the girls and a probable trip to Gavá for me. Indolent manufacture of vitamin D for the girls and adrenaline making frustration for me as the slowly grinding administration of Catalonia demands the maximum paperwork with the minimum of results. Or money as it is sometimes known!

The headteacher in exile, still nursing her rapidly mending bone, has expressed an interest in finding finance to found a school in the area. The situation becomes rapidly more interesting by the day. I have contacted my union and the wheels within the administration of my organization are slowly beginning to turn.

This is that wonderful time in any campaign when all seems possible: armed with Right and Wholesomeness it seems to be truly, in education in Catalonia terms, another Children’s Crusade. This is a comforting idea until you remember what happened to that particular Crusade.

The Children’s Crusade makes the Fourth Crusade seem positively wholesome by comparison!

But my self deluding optimism will not be denied. To a man who can, at last, clean an electric hob – nothing is impossible!