If you had been in the office of our school on Friday afternoon then you would have had to put up with a succession of parents all explaining to the office staff that they had been lucky enough to get a late appointment for their child at the dentist so could the child be got so they could go to the appointment.
This was all a tissue of lies of course. Friday was the start of the ‘puente’ the bridge which was going to link the weekend to two days of holidays. The parents merely wanted to steal a march on all the other people who were going to be leaving Barcelona to go to holiday homes and skiing!
The true irony of this lying approach to getting the family together for a quick get-away is that I have developed toothache. Some time ago I had some work done on a wisdom tooth, done I suspect in a very inexpert way, which had left me with a niggling discomfort which has now developed into outright pain. There is no way that I am going to get a dentist on a Sunday and there is little chance of finding one on a Monday because it is Fiesta. And we are off to Sort on Monday and won’t be back until Tuesday and then on Wednesday it’s back to school. I suppose toothache is the one infirmity where it is allowable, necessary, and traditional to hope that the pain will simply ‘go away.’ As I have little choice over the next few days I am going to adopt this approach with whatever enthusiasm I can muster.
Yesterday saw the second of our wine tasting experiences. The first was of Champagne and this one was of red wine. The tasting was held in Sitges not far from The School That Sacked Me. The one feature that was common to both tastings was that the television was on showing the Come Dancing Celebrity Thingie which everyone sneered at and watched with rabid intensity. The art teacher from the school who does not have a television in the house watched this British cultural institution with open mouthed amazement!
When we finally got down to the tasting (after the boy of the household had shown shocked recognition of me as The History Teacher during a short sojourn in his school before my present position) we in our turn were shocked to discover that we had ten wines to taste!
Our little group comprises people whose jobs are still something of a mystery to me but I am gradually working out their back histories. I am the latest and newest member of the group which has been a functioning group of friends for some time. All but one member are British – though it has to be said that everyone (with one glaring exception) speaks Spanish fluently!
Our tasting (or drinking) is serious fun. We do comment and we even write out our notes so that we can make some sort of educated assessment at the end of the tasting and we decide what we actually want to drink.
The high point of my contribution to the discussion was to suggest that the nose of one wine was reminiscent of the smell of warm dryer fluff. This gave a number of those present to give the impression that they personally had never come into contact with dryer fluff in their lives. I half expected to hear the famous rejoinder that, “It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different!" A good time was had by all.
The next meeting of our little group will be in Sitges again, but this time I will be deciding the theme of the tasting and buying the wine.
Any ideas will be gratefully received!
This was all a tissue of lies of course. Friday was the start of the ‘puente’ the bridge which was going to link the weekend to two days of holidays. The parents merely wanted to steal a march on all the other people who were going to be leaving Barcelona to go to holiday homes and skiing!
The true irony of this lying approach to getting the family together for a quick get-away is that I have developed toothache. Some time ago I had some work done on a wisdom tooth, done I suspect in a very inexpert way, which had left me with a niggling discomfort which has now developed into outright pain. There is no way that I am going to get a dentist on a Sunday and there is little chance of finding one on a Monday because it is Fiesta. And we are off to Sort on Monday and won’t be back until Tuesday and then on Wednesday it’s back to school. I suppose toothache is the one infirmity where it is allowable, necessary, and traditional to hope that the pain will simply ‘go away.’ As I have little choice over the next few days I am going to adopt this approach with whatever enthusiasm I can muster.
Yesterday saw the second of our wine tasting experiences. The first was of Champagne and this one was of red wine. The tasting was held in Sitges not far from The School That Sacked Me. The one feature that was common to both tastings was that the television was on showing the Come Dancing Celebrity Thingie which everyone sneered at and watched with rabid intensity. The art teacher from the school who does not have a television in the house watched this British cultural institution with open mouthed amazement!
When we finally got down to the tasting (after the boy of the household had shown shocked recognition of me as The History Teacher during a short sojourn in his school before my present position) we in our turn were shocked to discover that we had ten wines to taste!
Our little group comprises people whose jobs are still something of a mystery to me but I am gradually working out their back histories. I am the latest and newest member of the group which has been a functioning group of friends for some time. All but one member are British – though it has to be said that everyone (with one glaring exception) speaks Spanish fluently!
Our tasting (or drinking) is serious fun. We do comment and we even write out our notes so that we can make some sort of educated assessment at the end of the tasting and we decide what we actually want to drink.
The high point of my contribution to the discussion was to suggest that the nose of one wine was reminiscent of the smell of warm dryer fluff. This gave a number of those present to give the impression that they personally had never come into contact with dryer fluff in their lives. I half expected to hear the famous rejoinder that, “It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different!" A good time was had by all.
The next meeting of our little group will be in Sitges again, but this time I will be deciding the theme of the tasting and buying the wine.
Any ideas will be gratefully received!
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