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There is a different quality to the light and to the oxygen one breathes when one is on holiday. Life takes on an altogether rosier look, even when the skittish sun hides behind the clouds. The tasks that one has half set oneself during moments of calm in the working week seem not altogether impossible to complete.
I am trying, desperately, to keep out of my mind that this spring break is half the length of the holiday in Britain. By careful self-delusional computing you can eke out the holiday to eleven days and that seems like a real gap.
And the summer term is never as bad as the first two. Is it? And we do have a really good summer holiday to look forward to. Really. And the second year sixth leave in May and I’m sure that there are other things that I have forgotten all of which combine to make the summery months more bearable than the dark months of winter.
To celebrate the first day of the holiday (even if it is a Saturday) I have done some weeding. Most of it is the delightful stuff where one gives a gentle tug on the weed and it gracefully comes away from the loose earth with a clump of roots. Other, ill-bred weeds do not.
There are three (four if you count our gloriously artificial ‘lawn’) types of grass which strive for life where they shouldn’t. Two of these green survivors are fairly easily uprooted; the third, however, is not. Like a lizard with its tail it gleefully allows me to rip away the stalks safe in the knowledge that the powerhouse of obtrusion is still safely packed away in the firm earth ready to spring forth (the grass that is, not the lizard’s tail) when the next shower comes.
We also have a string-like plant which creeps along the ground sinking anchor points at seemingly random positions which give it a better than evens chance of survival when confronted by a frankly dilettante weeder like myself.
However, I have just surveyed the grün blitzkrieg (can that be right? Doo adjectives go after the noun and do they mutate?) and I have made a distinct difference. If the sun continues to shine then I may consider making a further sortie later in the week to mop up the stragglers.
There are still weeds in profusion around some spiky and prickly plants which thrive on the left had side of the garden and I have made an executive decision that they add a colourful background to the plants that should be there and, even with garden gloves I am not going to venture into those picturesque regions.
I am determined to go out for lunch today to celebrate this untoward freedom. We could go on our bikes to one of the many restaurants by the sea which has been built along the paseo. Yesterday, for the first time, I actually used my bike to go and meet Caroline for one of our monthly semi-hysterical chats over a bottle of wine. I feel that if one goes anywhere by bike then one has earned the right to a bottle of wine at least.
By the time I left Caroline it was getting dark and I still have not managed to set up the dynamo on my bike so that it produces light for more than a few seconds. I needn’t have worried no bike that passed me had lights and I’m not sure that the paseo actually counts officially as a road.
I have been reading a slim volume of essays on Jonathan Swift edited by Denis Donoghue called ‘Swift Revisited’ this is the publication of a linked series of Thomas Davis Lectures given in 1967. I have had this book for years and never read it. It is only 90 pages long and there are five lectures.
I have to admit that I read most of it lazing in an unaccustomed bath and very enjoyable it was too – the book as well!
Swift was a deeply odd character and his relationship with ‘Stella’ and Vanessa are fascinating. One of the lectures emphasized the political aspect to Swift’s life and literature. As the bath water god colder I told myself that in just a few pages I would get out, but I didn’t. I think that I might try and get hold of a copy of the biography written by the ex-MP for Ebbw Vale. That could be ideal summer reading! Click on Amazon!
The Family have descended and left us with a selection of leaves and branches which are going to be used as part of the barbecue later in the week for our long delayed feast of calçots.
For the first time in I don’t know how many months I have thrown caution to the winds and dressed in shorts and t-shirt I have disported myself upon the third floor. For the first time this year it was actually possible to lie out on a sun bed without suffering from exposure! Long may such days continue!
Especially as a colleague has gone to France for a week and it is expected to rain the whole time!
I will have to remember to wear yellow when I see her next!
I am trying, desperately, to keep out of my mind that this spring break is half the length of the holiday in Britain. By careful self-delusional computing you can eke out the holiday to eleven days and that seems like a real gap.
And the summer term is never as bad as the first two. Is it? And we do have a really good summer holiday to look forward to. Really. And the second year sixth leave in May and I’m sure that there are other things that I have forgotten all of which combine to make the summery months more bearable than the dark months of winter.
To celebrate the first day of the holiday (even if it is a Saturday) I have done some weeding. Most of it is the delightful stuff where one gives a gentle tug on the weed and it gracefully comes away from the loose earth with a clump of roots. Other, ill-bred weeds do not.
There are three (four if you count our gloriously artificial ‘lawn’) types of grass which strive for life where they shouldn’t. Two of these green survivors are fairly easily uprooted; the third, however, is not. Like a lizard with its tail it gleefully allows me to rip away the stalks safe in the knowledge that the powerhouse of obtrusion is still safely packed away in the firm earth ready to spring forth (the grass that is, not the lizard’s tail) when the next shower comes.
We also have a string-like plant which creeps along the ground sinking anchor points at seemingly random positions which give it a better than evens chance of survival when confronted by a frankly dilettante weeder like myself.
However, I have just surveyed the grün blitzkrieg (can that be right? Doo adjectives go after the noun and do they mutate?) and I have made a distinct difference. If the sun continues to shine then I may consider making a further sortie later in the week to mop up the stragglers.
There are still weeds in profusion around some spiky and prickly plants which thrive on the left had side of the garden and I have made an executive decision that they add a colourful background to the plants that should be there and, even with garden gloves I am not going to venture into those picturesque regions.
I am determined to go out for lunch today to celebrate this untoward freedom. We could go on our bikes to one of the many restaurants by the sea which has been built along the paseo. Yesterday, for the first time, I actually used my bike to go and meet Caroline for one of our monthly semi-hysterical chats over a bottle of wine. I feel that if one goes anywhere by bike then one has earned the right to a bottle of wine at least.
By the time I left Caroline it was getting dark and I still have not managed to set up the dynamo on my bike so that it produces light for more than a few seconds. I needn’t have worried no bike that passed me had lights and I’m not sure that the paseo actually counts officially as a road.
I have been reading a slim volume of essays on Jonathan Swift edited by Denis Donoghue called ‘Swift Revisited’ this is the publication of a linked series of Thomas Davis Lectures given in 1967. I have had this book for years and never read it. It is only 90 pages long and there are five lectures.
I have to admit that I read most of it lazing in an unaccustomed bath and very enjoyable it was too – the book as well!
Swift was a deeply odd character and his relationship with ‘Stella’ and Vanessa are fascinating. One of the lectures emphasized the political aspect to Swift’s life and literature. As the bath water god colder I told myself that in just a few pages I would get out, but I didn’t. I think that I might try and get hold of a copy of the biography written by the ex-MP for Ebbw Vale. That could be ideal summer reading! Click on Amazon!
The Family have descended and left us with a selection of leaves and branches which are going to be used as part of the barbecue later in the week for our long delayed feast of calçots.
For the first time in I don’t know how many months I have thrown caution to the winds and dressed in shorts and t-shirt I have disported myself upon the third floor. For the first time this year it was actually possible to lie out on a sun bed without suffering from exposure! Long may such days continue!
Especially as a colleague has gone to France for a week and it is expected to rain the whole time!
I will have to remember to wear yellow when I see her next!
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