My last lie-in on my last day of freedom is over and I am sitting in the sunshine watching my cup of tea go cold.
Usually I could fortify myself with comparing my situation with that of my colleagues in Britain. Certainly the temperature here in Castelldefels is nothing like the grotesque temperatures recorded in certain parts of the United Kingdom, but those odd bitterly cold temperatures have ironically turned my extended holiday to ashes. What is the point of having an extra long holiday if it is to be matched by my British colleagues through school closure!
I must admit that it was good that both my hosts were there for all of my stay, but that pleasure is also tinged with resentment at their escaping the full horrors of the start of term. It even looks as if this ‘holiday’ will continue into next week with ice and snow flurries ensuring that safe schooling is (allegedly) impossible. It will be interesting to see if the Local Authorities try and find some way to claw back what they have lost: I foresee gigantic rows ahead and I am sure that the unions are girding themselves up for the future frays.
I do have some marking to do, though I find myself disinclined to do it as I am surrounded by a multitude of displacement activities ranging from mopping the floors (only joking!) to reading and relishing a fresh page in my new visual dictionary. Anyway, I have to prepare myself for the excitement of a late lunch.
This will take place in a house outside Sitges and is yet another meeting about the foundation of a new school in the area.
Ever since I arrived in Catalonia and had the educative misfortune to teach in The School That Sacked Me I have been a party to various schemes to establish a school in which something approaching real education can take place. People have come and gone (mostly gone) but the idea remains either a strongly burning light in the Stygian gloom of teaching through English in the Sitges area or as a dangerous Chimera. I have yet to decide which is the more apposite image!
I am looking forward to this meeting because I will get an opportunity to meet the architect and also get to hear about the latest governmental communications which really do make what we are up to now something with at least fragments of substance.
The most frustrating element in our struggle is that there is an obvious and growing need for the sort of school that we propose to establish. All we have to do is get the money. And the use of the word ‘all’ in the previous sentence may well be the most ironic use of that particular word in 2010!
2010 is, of course, an iconic year for me and a phone call from Paul Squared yesterday was encouraging about my party for United Nations Day. At the moment October seems an impossibly distant month, but I know that if anyone is planning to come over from Blighty for the event then they have to be quick off the mark when the autumn fares on easyJet are published. I can sense that this distant jollification will be something towards which I look with increasing hysteria the more the school year creaks its way onwards towards the Happy Hiatus of the two month summer break.
With sunlight streaming through the windows of the living room the temperature is gradually rising (even without the central heating on) to an acceptable level – though my ankles still feel cold. The hire car that I had when I went over to Wales was so basic that it had neither central locking nor a temperature gauge. I found it easy to slip back into the door locking habit, which after all accounts for most of my driving experience, but not having a temperature gauge was something which was a constant irritation. I realized by its absence how often I note the number of degrees. I think it has something to do with the fact that I listen to Radio 4 on my internet radio in the kitchen and so I always have a point of comparison when I get into the car to go to work. It means that every day I have a little reminder of why I am in Castelldefels and not Cardiff – at least in terms of temperature!
I am still picking over the memories of my visit to Cardiff. I packed a lot into my time there and so much of what I did was bitter-sweet. I now find myself repeating what I have said so often to people in Britain “I’m only a couple of hours away!” as the sense of loss struck me more forcibly this visit than at any time in the past. Something which I am sure will be the basis for a great deal of musing in the future!
Meanwhile I have had to change position on the sofa as the sun was too strong! I shall now have to go out for bread and I will find exactly how much difference there is between sun through a window pane and sun in a ‘bracing’ environment in the great outside.
And the displacement activity on which I have decided rather than mark is: dusting! You can see the level of desperation!
Usually I could fortify myself with comparing my situation with that of my colleagues in Britain. Certainly the temperature here in Castelldefels is nothing like the grotesque temperatures recorded in certain parts of the United Kingdom, but those odd bitterly cold temperatures have ironically turned my extended holiday to ashes. What is the point of having an extra long holiday if it is to be matched by my British colleagues through school closure!
I must admit that it was good that both my hosts were there for all of my stay, but that pleasure is also tinged with resentment at their escaping the full horrors of the start of term. It even looks as if this ‘holiday’ will continue into next week with ice and snow flurries ensuring that safe schooling is (allegedly) impossible. It will be interesting to see if the Local Authorities try and find some way to claw back what they have lost: I foresee gigantic rows ahead and I am sure that the unions are girding themselves up for the future frays.
I do have some marking to do, though I find myself disinclined to do it as I am surrounded by a multitude of displacement activities ranging from mopping the floors (only joking!) to reading and relishing a fresh page in my new visual dictionary. Anyway, I have to prepare myself for the excitement of a late lunch.
This will take place in a house outside Sitges and is yet another meeting about the foundation of a new school in the area.
Ever since I arrived in Catalonia and had the educative misfortune to teach in The School That Sacked Me I have been a party to various schemes to establish a school in which something approaching real education can take place. People have come and gone (mostly gone) but the idea remains either a strongly burning light in the Stygian gloom of teaching through English in the Sitges area or as a dangerous Chimera. I have yet to decide which is the more apposite image!
I am looking forward to this meeting because I will get an opportunity to meet the architect and also get to hear about the latest governmental communications which really do make what we are up to now something with at least fragments of substance.
The most frustrating element in our struggle is that there is an obvious and growing need for the sort of school that we propose to establish. All we have to do is get the money. And the use of the word ‘all’ in the previous sentence may well be the most ironic use of that particular word in 2010!
2010 is, of course, an iconic year for me and a phone call from Paul Squared yesterday was encouraging about my party for United Nations Day. At the moment October seems an impossibly distant month, but I know that if anyone is planning to come over from Blighty for the event then they have to be quick off the mark when the autumn fares on easyJet are published. I can sense that this distant jollification will be something towards which I look with increasing hysteria the more the school year creaks its way onwards towards the Happy Hiatus of the two month summer break.
With sunlight streaming through the windows of the living room the temperature is gradually rising (even without the central heating on) to an acceptable level – though my ankles still feel cold. The hire car that I had when I went over to Wales was so basic that it had neither central locking nor a temperature gauge. I found it easy to slip back into the door locking habit, which after all accounts for most of my driving experience, but not having a temperature gauge was something which was a constant irritation. I realized by its absence how often I note the number of degrees. I think it has something to do with the fact that I listen to Radio 4 on my internet radio in the kitchen and so I always have a point of comparison when I get into the car to go to work. It means that every day I have a little reminder of why I am in Castelldefels and not Cardiff – at least in terms of temperature!
I am still picking over the memories of my visit to Cardiff. I packed a lot into my time there and so much of what I did was bitter-sweet. I now find myself repeating what I have said so often to people in Britain “I’m only a couple of hours away!” as the sense of loss struck me more forcibly this visit than at any time in the past. Something which I am sure will be the basis for a great deal of musing in the future!
Meanwhile I have had to change position on the sofa as the sun was too strong! I shall now have to go out for bread and I will find exactly how much difference there is between sun through a window pane and sun in a ‘bracing’ environment in the great outside.
And the displacement activity on which I have decided rather than mark is: dusting! You can see the level of desperation!
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