As the ludicrous two day week which marks the end of term is turning out to be a disaster on many levels, I will not dwell too closely on the flaccid chaos which characterized today and which looks as though it is going to be a continuing theme for tomorrow.
Instead I will concentrate on the more mellow chaos which is at present all around me in the living room.
With Toni safely in the bosom of his family preparing for my arrival with wrapped presents and nowhere near the Room of Chaos, I have popped into my storage facility and liberated more boxes of books. The number of boxes left in the little room near the airport is rapidly approaching single figures and I will soon be able to cancel my contract with the storage people.
When I find somewhere to put the books which are at present piled up on the stairs, on the sofa, the coffee table and the dinner table. Oh yes, and the floor.
All shelves are full and some are double stacked, but I have to have my books.
Take the recent releases. Beardsley drawings; Tom Sharpe novels; my old paperback version of ‘Catch-22’; Dickens, Coleridge, Ronald Searle, Tolstoy, Martin Amis, Goya, Brangwyn, Lowry drawings, ‘The Way of the Sufi’, all my Douglas Adams novels; Hardy; an amazing number of John Arden plays; Dannie Abse; my copy of ‘Spring Awakening’ from which I learned the lines to play Professor Corona Radiator; traitor Blunt’s book on Italian art and hundreds of others – all of which I have to have around me. 'Where' is the only problem.
Still I have a couple of days before I go up to Terrassa and join in the festive fun and I am sure that I will think of something and find some nook or cranny to fit a few hundred books. Possibly.
Today it has rained. Rained with the sullen determination that I know so well from British weather at its most spiteful. It created problems for the planned jollifications for the kids today and the threat of rain tomorrow threatens the arrangements for the last day of term.
As the last day stands at present: the day opens with my having to take a class for a colleague. This imposition is then followed by my being a referee in a football contest (!) and then normal teaching. I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to these delights. Because to do so would be to lie.
Thank god for my books!
Instead I will concentrate on the more mellow chaos which is at present all around me in the living room.
With Toni safely in the bosom of his family preparing for my arrival with wrapped presents and nowhere near the Room of Chaos, I have popped into my storage facility and liberated more boxes of books. The number of boxes left in the little room near the airport is rapidly approaching single figures and I will soon be able to cancel my contract with the storage people.
When I find somewhere to put the books which are at present piled up on the stairs, on the sofa, the coffee table and the dinner table. Oh yes, and the floor.
All shelves are full and some are double stacked, but I have to have my books.
Take the recent releases. Beardsley drawings; Tom Sharpe novels; my old paperback version of ‘Catch-22’; Dickens, Coleridge, Ronald Searle, Tolstoy, Martin Amis, Goya, Brangwyn, Lowry drawings, ‘The Way of the Sufi’, all my Douglas Adams novels; Hardy; an amazing number of John Arden plays; Dannie Abse; my copy of ‘Spring Awakening’ from which I learned the lines to play Professor Corona Radiator; traitor Blunt’s book on Italian art and hundreds of others – all of which I have to have around me. 'Where' is the only problem.
Still I have a couple of days before I go up to Terrassa and join in the festive fun and I am sure that I will think of something and find some nook or cranny to fit a few hundred books. Possibly.
Today it has rained. Rained with the sullen determination that I know so well from British weather at its most spiteful. It created problems for the planned jollifications for the kids today and the threat of rain tomorrow threatens the arrangements for the last day of term.
As the last day stands at present: the day opens with my having to take a class for a colleague. This imposition is then followed by my being a referee in a football contest (!) and then normal teaching. I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to these delights. Because to do so would be to lie.
Thank god for my books!
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