As soon as Emma had been initiated into the mysteries of Rioja and gaseosa it was through the little door behind the pool, onto the beach and into the sea.
I know it is childish and beneath me, and I have been talked to very seriously by Dianne, but I can still take a keen pleasure in finding out that it is, to quote Emma’s mum, “tipping down” back in the UK.
As we sipped our cocktails in the Brazilian bar after tapas in the Basque restaurant, sitting serenely in the balmy open air it wasn’t only the alcohol that I eagerly drank up. Horror stories of the typical awfulness of the August weather in Britain were a piquant an accompaniment to the drinks as the dish of dry roasted nuts.
However, enough of this gloating or I will suffer the consequences of the Wrath of Dianne. So!
We talked through the night until an irascible, curmudgeonly and plain rude old duffer from the adjacent flat intimated in bleating tones of astonished outrage that it was late and he was an invalid and so on. He is the sort of person who goes out of his way to find something to complain about and his shouted conversations on his mobile phone encourage one to think in ironic terms about his intolerance of normal speech!
Emma has not yet emerged into the (overcast) light of day, but hark, even as I type, a vision of loveliness hoves into sight and asks (with an edge) how I am feeling. The day has started.
For me of course, the day starts with my now customary visit to the BBC website and the Channel 4 medal table to see how much gloating is in order.
16 gold, 10 silver and 10 bronze is an awesome haul and our third position is astonishing but, being British I also note that there are some days to go before the end of the Olympics and I think that the shiny metallic days that we have rapidly become used to are at an end. I would love to be proved wrong, but I think the flow of precious metal is at an end. We will see.
Today to Barcelona and a grey day it is too. There are patches of blue and the more determined beach dwellers have set up their patches but no one is venturing into the sea and the number of people on the beach is sparse. A perfect day, in short, for visiting a city!
If we go to MNAC it will give me the opportunity to buy the English version of the guide that I have at present. Although I can stagger my way through most of the descriptions it is hard work and I need to get to know the artists and their influences and keep bobbing back and fore to increase my knowledge. At the moment the fluency of my navigation of the book is severely limited by my stumbling efforts at translation!
It will be interesting for me to have someone else who is interested in art looking at the Catalan artists that I think are unjustly undervalued by the Western (American) Art Establishment. I think that many of the Catalan artists I have looked at deserve a might higher profile in the history of modern art than they have at present.
Fortified by culture we will then be strong enough to journey south to attend a meeting which could be part of the solution to my future professional life in Catalonia.
Well, we didn’t get to any museum, but we did have a very fine meal and I managed to buy book in the Museos del Mundo series. This one was of MNAC – the very gallery we didn’t actually get to see.
I got the book by the simple, yet effective procedure of urging our merry little group to go to a restaurant which had a second hand bookshop on the way!
The ways of the bibliophile are many and devious!
I know it is childish and beneath me, and I have been talked to very seriously by Dianne, but I can still take a keen pleasure in finding out that it is, to quote Emma’s mum, “tipping down” back in the UK.
As we sipped our cocktails in the Brazilian bar after tapas in the Basque restaurant, sitting serenely in the balmy open air it wasn’t only the alcohol that I eagerly drank up. Horror stories of the typical awfulness of the August weather in Britain were a piquant an accompaniment to the drinks as the dish of dry roasted nuts.
However, enough of this gloating or I will suffer the consequences of the Wrath of Dianne. So!
We talked through the night until an irascible, curmudgeonly and plain rude old duffer from the adjacent flat intimated in bleating tones of astonished outrage that it was late and he was an invalid and so on. He is the sort of person who goes out of his way to find something to complain about and his shouted conversations on his mobile phone encourage one to think in ironic terms about his intolerance of normal speech!
Emma has not yet emerged into the (overcast) light of day, but hark, even as I type, a vision of loveliness hoves into sight and asks (with an edge) how I am feeling. The day has started.
For me of course, the day starts with my now customary visit to the BBC website and the Channel 4 medal table to see how much gloating is in order.
16 gold, 10 silver and 10 bronze is an awesome haul and our third position is astonishing but, being British I also note that there are some days to go before the end of the Olympics and I think that the shiny metallic days that we have rapidly become used to are at an end. I would love to be proved wrong, but I think the flow of precious metal is at an end. We will see.Today to Barcelona and a grey day it is too. There are patches of blue and the more determined beach dwellers have set up their patches but no one is venturing into the sea and the number of people on the beach is sparse. A perfect day, in short, for visiting a city!
If we go to MNAC it will give me the opportunity to buy the English version of the guide that I have at present. Although I can stagger my way through most of the descriptions it is hard work and I need to get to know the artists and their influences and keep bobbing back and fore to increase my knowledge. At the moment the fluency of my navigation of the book is severely limited by my stumbling efforts at translation!
It will be interesting for me to have someone else who is interested in art looking at the Catalan artists that I think are unjustly undervalued by the Western (American) Art Establishment. I think that many of the Catalan artists I have looked at deserve a might higher profile in the history of modern art than they have at present.
Fortified by culture we will then be strong enough to journey south to attend a meeting which could be part of the solution to my future professional life in Catalonia.
Well, we didn’t get to any museum, but we did have a very fine meal and I managed to buy book in the Museos del Mundo series. This one was of MNAC – the very gallery we didn’t actually get to see.
I got the book by the simple, yet effective procedure of urging our merry little group to go to a restaurant which had a second hand bookshop on the way!The ways of the bibliophile are many and devious!
No comments:
Post a Comment