The first gentle drops of rain started to fall as soon as I went out of the front door on our way to pick up Ceri and Dianne. By the time we got to the airport (via a new and dark route that I had never tried before – much to the horror of Toni when I told him it was the first time I had tried it) the downpour had reached biblical proportions with walkways transformed into substantial rivers and the whole horror accompanied by OTT peals of thunder and exciting sheets of blinding lightning.
After their first attempt to get to Barcelona with their plane cancelled because of poor weather their final arrival to the rolling waves of a watery Armageddon was greeted by Dianne with barely suppressed hysteria!
By the time we had got home and were ready to go out for a meal the waters had abated somewhat and, although it was late, we managed to find a restaurant on the paseo which served a very passable meal though it was to the accompaniment of the raucous enjoyment of about twenty football fans sitting next to us who, in the Spanish way, all talked at once at the tops of their voices.
Their eventual departures after many loud toasts transformed the ambience in the restaurant from the stands to the sepulchre!
The meal and arrival aside it was time to get down to the most important part of Ceri and Dianne’s visit: the revealing of the tie.
This year I am going to be teaching during Saint David’s Day and I particularly wanted an appropriate tie. I had looked in the souvenir shop opposite the Castle for something appropriate when I was last in Cardiff, but couldn’t find anything truly suitable. I had thought that a daffodil might have been the most stylish (a new use of the word!) image to emblazon on the narrow confines of a tie but what they produced was far in excess (and I mean that word most sincerely) of my most jingoistic fantasies.
To hell with taste and decorum, I am now the proud owner of a fearsome piece of material on which large dragons in the very brightest red rampage diagonally across the tie which is slashed with the national colours of white and green. It is, one might say, noticeable. It impresses itself, as it were, searingly across the retina.
It might be a little more difficult than usual to convince the denizens of my school that this new monster is ‘one of the seven’ ties which I admit to owning! It will be a sensation!
Saturday saw us, eventually, in Barcelona and after a sophisticated lunch in a second choice restaurant we had the usual wander before terminal tiredness forced us back on the bus to return to Castelldefels for another meal!
Sunday has not dawned with the same sunshine that greeted us yesterday morning, but it is not raining so that is surely a plus!
I can now hear the unmistakable sounds of human movement and I feel that I will shortly be joined by sleepy eyed guests who might feel up to staggering to the bakery to get something for breakfast.
The dry weather did not last long and after lunch the atmospheric lighting of the waves under dark blue skies showed itself merely to be an artistic prelude to yet more dampness. So Ceri and Dianne left to the accompaniment of the gentle kiss of rain drops on windshield. I had to keep assuring them that the weather has been exceptionally bad for this time of the year and last year was much better and I am sure that it will all improve for the summer sort of fond hope!
An inept backward sweep of the razor in the shower has elicited a sanguinary response from my much abused chin.
I had the indignity of wandering about in a living pastiche of Homer Simpson with a small piece of bloody tissue adhering to my face and causing gasps of astonished sympathy from my newly awakened guests until judicious use of warm water managed to remove the blood stiffened paper from my face and reveal an almost imperceptible nick.
Always take your sympathy where you can find it is wise advice and I drank it up until it was resentfully reclaimed by harsh observers who expected more than microscopic rents in the facial skin.
With the departure of Ceri and Dianne I realise that we have no future visits planned until the possible arrival of The Pauls in August. In the summer. If we have one!
Until then the whole of the rest of the weary school term has to unwind itself towards the distant halcyon days of July. At the moment, at this stage of February, the end of June seems impossibly far away.
Easter holidays come first.
Please!
After their first attempt to get to Barcelona with their plane cancelled because of poor weather their final arrival to the rolling waves of a watery Armageddon was greeted by Dianne with barely suppressed hysteria!
By the time we had got home and were ready to go out for a meal the waters had abated somewhat and, although it was late, we managed to find a restaurant on the paseo which served a very passable meal though it was to the accompaniment of the raucous enjoyment of about twenty football fans sitting next to us who, in the Spanish way, all talked at once at the tops of their voices.
Their eventual departures after many loud toasts transformed the ambience in the restaurant from the stands to the sepulchre!
The meal and arrival aside it was time to get down to the most important part of Ceri and Dianne’s visit: the revealing of the tie.
This year I am going to be teaching during Saint David’s Day and I particularly wanted an appropriate tie. I had looked in the souvenir shop opposite the Castle for something appropriate when I was last in Cardiff, but couldn’t find anything truly suitable. I had thought that a daffodil might have been the most stylish (a new use of the word!) image to emblazon on the narrow confines of a tie but what they produced was far in excess (and I mean that word most sincerely) of my most jingoistic fantasies.
To hell with taste and decorum, I am now the proud owner of a fearsome piece of material on which large dragons in the very brightest red rampage diagonally across the tie which is slashed with the national colours of white and green. It is, one might say, noticeable. It impresses itself, as it were, searingly across the retina.
It might be a little more difficult than usual to convince the denizens of my school that this new monster is ‘one of the seven’ ties which I admit to owning! It will be a sensation!
Saturday saw us, eventually, in Barcelona and after a sophisticated lunch in a second choice restaurant we had the usual wander before terminal tiredness forced us back on the bus to return to Castelldefels for another meal!
Sunday has not dawned with the same sunshine that greeted us yesterday morning, but it is not raining so that is surely a plus!
I can now hear the unmistakable sounds of human movement and I feel that I will shortly be joined by sleepy eyed guests who might feel up to staggering to the bakery to get something for breakfast.
The dry weather did not last long and after lunch the atmospheric lighting of the waves under dark blue skies showed itself merely to be an artistic prelude to yet more dampness. So Ceri and Dianne left to the accompaniment of the gentle kiss of rain drops on windshield. I had to keep assuring them that the weather has been exceptionally bad for this time of the year and last year was much better and I am sure that it will all improve for the summer sort of fond hope!
An inept backward sweep of the razor in the shower has elicited a sanguinary response from my much abused chin.
I had the indignity of wandering about in a living pastiche of Homer Simpson with a small piece of bloody tissue adhering to my face and causing gasps of astonished sympathy from my newly awakened guests until judicious use of warm water managed to remove the blood stiffened paper from my face and reveal an almost imperceptible nick.
Always take your sympathy where you can find it is wise advice and I drank it up until it was resentfully reclaimed by harsh observers who expected more than microscopic rents in the facial skin.
With the departure of Ceri and Dianne I realise that we have no future visits planned until the possible arrival of The Pauls in August. In the summer. If we have one!
Until then the whole of the rest of the weary school term has to unwind itself towards the distant halcyon days of July. At the moment, at this stage of February, the end of June seems impossibly far away.
Easter holidays come first.
Please!
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