If nothing else I am getting somewhat fitter as I wend my way between buildings to complete my timetable. At some point I must count the number of steps that there are between the staffroom in building 4 and the staffroom in building 1.
I suspect that there are fewer than 40 all told, but there seem to be many more when one is trudging from one place to another will a full briefcase! The steps range from modern concrete and contemporary stone to garden rustic and cramped servants’ marble.
One building is what looks like an old masia (Catalan farmhouse) with a simple terracotta tile laid roof with rafters stretching out underneath the eaves. The windows have rustic stone surround and are arched. At first floor level there is an extensive balcony with access from the staff room. The view from the balcony is one of the most expensive in Barcelona as (smog allowing) you are presented with a tree interrupted view of the whole city.
We look down on Barcelona’s football ground and have a clear view of Montjuic and most of the iconic buildings which poke above the general roof line. We can see the sea and we can kid ourselves that, given our height, we are above the general smog line!
I must admit that I have not had over many opportunities to take in the view today as my day has been pretty much filled up since my start at 8.15 am! Our normal end time is 4.45 pm so a day can seem interminable and lunch for the secondary section of the school starts at 2.00 pm. This is not the school day to which I am used!
As I come in early two days a week I am entitled to one early end and I have chosen a Friday, so as soon as I have finished with my second year class (which I take in a strange room at the top of an ornamental flight of stone stairs and which has one wall made out of pupil produced stained glass) than I am off down the steps, tripping across the elegantly manicured artificial grass lawn and out into the expensive roads of Pedrables.
If you leave early you miss all the giant coaches and expensive cars used to collect and distribute the pupils back to the arms of their loving parents!
Once on the motorway you can sail past the growing queues on the other side of the road and put the car into the developing grooves that mark the journey home.
As usual the journey is marked by jaw dropping poor driving as cars swish their way into any available space which seems to offer any sort of marginal advantage in the desperate race of death which is the journey home.
Motorcyclists have replaced pedestrians as my number one ‘hate’ group. This may have something to do with the fact that my route to school gives little opportunity for pedestrians to show their renowned disregard for any other road user and to demonstrate their legendary fearlessness in the face of a large, quickly moving metal house bearing down on them.
Motorcyclists are truly the motorized scum of the roads. I was once travelling at 80 km per hour (the legal limit near to Barcelona) in the middle lane of a three lane motorway and been passed ON BOTH SIDES by motorcyclists threading their way along the road by negotiating the limited spaces BETWEEN three lanes filled by moving cars! Their complete disregard for anything approaching consideration in their driving is breathtakingly suicidal and I am becoming more and more inclined to execute (how appropriate that word seems) a little zigzag maneuver to clip the passing motor cyclists and send them to the oblivion they are so obviously seeking.
I have to admit that, given the number of young people on crutches that one sees in Catalonia I fear there must be a growing number of motorists who have succumbed to the temptation!
One3 chore which has been completed was to call in to the shopping mall in Gavá and put some of my suits in for dry cleaning. The cost, at just under thirty pounds (given the present exchange rates) was a little shocking so that they will have to be used in judicious rotation to ensure that they last me through to the end of term.
I am looking forward to going out to dinner this evening for a drink and a chat.
But I still have to do my one piece of marking, which is the magic which is needed to ensure that I get the rest of it done this weekend. The idea of going back to school with the load of marking hanging over me while the next load of work is nearing completion is too depressing to contemplate.
I have approximately 37 minutes to get something done before the weekend starts and Rioja makes any coherent evaluation impossible!
I suspect that there are fewer than 40 all told, but there seem to be many more when one is trudging from one place to another will a full briefcase! The steps range from modern concrete and contemporary stone to garden rustic and cramped servants’ marble.
One building is what looks like an old masia (Catalan farmhouse) with a simple terracotta tile laid roof with rafters stretching out underneath the eaves. The windows have rustic stone surround and are arched. At first floor level there is an extensive balcony with access from the staff room. The view from the balcony is one of the most expensive in Barcelona as (smog allowing) you are presented with a tree interrupted view of the whole city.
We look down on Barcelona’s football ground and have a clear view of Montjuic and most of the iconic buildings which poke above the general roof line. We can see the sea and we can kid ourselves that, given our height, we are above the general smog line!
I must admit that I have not had over many opportunities to take in the view today as my day has been pretty much filled up since my start at 8.15 am! Our normal end time is 4.45 pm so a day can seem interminable and lunch for the secondary section of the school starts at 2.00 pm. This is not the school day to which I am used!
As I come in early two days a week I am entitled to one early end and I have chosen a Friday, so as soon as I have finished with my second year class (which I take in a strange room at the top of an ornamental flight of stone stairs and which has one wall made out of pupil produced stained glass) than I am off down the steps, tripping across the elegantly manicured artificial grass lawn and out into the expensive roads of Pedrables.
If you leave early you miss all the giant coaches and expensive cars used to collect and distribute the pupils back to the arms of their loving parents!
Once on the motorway you can sail past the growing queues on the other side of the road and put the car into the developing grooves that mark the journey home.
As usual the journey is marked by jaw dropping poor driving as cars swish their way into any available space which seems to offer any sort of marginal advantage in the desperate race of death which is the journey home.
Motorcyclists have replaced pedestrians as my number one ‘hate’ group. This may have something to do with the fact that my route to school gives little opportunity for pedestrians to show their renowned disregard for any other road user and to demonstrate their legendary fearlessness in the face of a large, quickly moving metal house bearing down on them.
Motorcyclists are truly the motorized scum of the roads. I was once travelling at 80 km per hour (the legal limit near to Barcelona) in the middle lane of a three lane motorway and been passed ON BOTH SIDES by motorcyclists threading their way along the road by negotiating the limited spaces BETWEEN three lanes filled by moving cars! Their complete disregard for anything approaching consideration in their driving is breathtakingly suicidal and I am becoming more and more inclined to execute (how appropriate that word seems) a little zigzag maneuver to clip the passing motor cyclists and send them to the oblivion they are so obviously seeking.
I have to admit that, given the number of young people on crutches that one sees in Catalonia I fear there must be a growing number of motorists who have succumbed to the temptation!
One3 chore which has been completed was to call in to the shopping mall in Gavá and put some of my suits in for dry cleaning. The cost, at just under thirty pounds (given the present exchange rates) was a little shocking so that they will have to be used in judicious rotation to ensure that they last me through to the end of term.
I am looking forward to going out to dinner this evening for a drink and a chat.
But I still have to do my one piece of marking, which is the magic which is needed to ensure that I get the rest of it done this weekend. The idea of going back to school with the load of marking hanging over me while the next load of work is nearing completion is too depressing to contemplate.
I have approximately 37 minutes to get something done before the weekend starts and Rioja makes any coherent evaluation impossible!
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