Conrad came to mind as I went from the relatively clear, clean air of Castelldefels to the dingy pall over the dark heart of Barcelona. The distant hills were shrouded in misty but murky filters of light orange, ochre and khaki: it made the landscape look artistic and strangely beautiful, but one was not at all convinced that one should be breathing the air surrounding it!
The sky is white at the horizon shading into an unconvincing blue in the sky from which a bright but tired looking sun is doing its best to convince us all that summer is truly here. The atmosphere is sticky and energy draining – but that might just be a side effect of getting up early for my 8.15 am start with the equivalent of Year 9!
Staff have started chanting the litany of salvation for this time in the term consisting of the encouraging words, “Well, we’re getting to the end!” This would be truly encouraging if it were true; but the real truth is that we do not finish school until the end of June. OK, the kids will have gone some time before, but we will still be in school and still longing for that fateful day when we will be free for two glorious months!
As you can tell there is an element of stir-craziness in the way that we are going about our business, but the short, sharp shock of the impending examinations will bring us all back to our oars in the slave galley and we will dutifully bend our back under the lash of the whip from our overseers as we keep the drudgery going.
The camera is the one bright spot. It is a truly remarkable machine whose potential I have barely scratched. There is a vast discrepancy between its look – which is a truly unremarkable and ordinary looking black digital camera when it is switched off and the fearsome beast it becomes when the lens erupts from it unfeasibly slim body!
I am going to have to explore sub-menus otherwise I will have paid top dollar for a machine which is not being pushed as hard as it should be. A continuing story.
I couldn’t face the so-called “graduation” of students in my school and I fled at the end of the day just before the actual end of school so that I avoided the maniacal exodus of kids in their parental tanks as they fled towards their homes.
I made good time and arrived home to find Toni sitting outside on a garden chair staring at me morosely. He had come outside at 1.30 pm and inadvertently locked himself out; locking keys and mobile phones and phone numbers safely inside. He had been sitting there patiently (redesigning the house in his mind to fill his time) for over two hours. As he had been preparing his lunch when he locked himself out he was more than prepared to visit Rober’s in the centre of Castelldefels for a superior burger and refrescante.
Rober’s was, of course, the scene of my arrogant attempt to evade payment when simply walked away after the last burger that we had there, the vulgar necessity of paying having slipped my mind. While buying bread in the shop opposite Rober’s one of the waitresses in the establishment crossed the road and intimated that it would be preferable if I abandoned my attempt at the behaviour of royalty and succumbed to my essential plebeian status and actually paid for what I had consumed!
Toni was, of course, convulsed with shame at such behaviour while I merely found it amusing. Today, I reminded the waitress that El Ladron (The Thief) had come back to patronise the establishment – but this time I paid for what I ordered at once!
Next Tuesday is the first of June and one will be able to say with some justice that the end of school is truly in sight!
The weekend is an opportunity for me to take some pictures and I have downloaded the 180 page manual for the camera and am now a few steps further forward to knowing how it works.
Onwards and upwards!
The sky is white at the horizon shading into an unconvincing blue in the sky from which a bright but tired looking sun is doing its best to convince us all that summer is truly here. The atmosphere is sticky and energy draining – but that might just be a side effect of getting up early for my 8.15 am start with the equivalent of Year 9!
Staff have started chanting the litany of salvation for this time in the term consisting of the encouraging words, “Well, we’re getting to the end!” This would be truly encouraging if it were true; but the real truth is that we do not finish school until the end of June. OK, the kids will have gone some time before, but we will still be in school and still longing for that fateful day when we will be free for two glorious months!
As you can tell there is an element of stir-craziness in the way that we are going about our business, but the short, sharp shock of the impending examinations will bring us all back to our oars in the slave galley and we will dutifully bend our back under the lash of the whip from our overseers as we keep the drudgery going.
The camera is the one bright spot. It is a truly remarkable machine whose potential I have barely scratched. There is a vast discrepancy between its look – which is a truly unremarkable and ordinary looking black digital camera when it is switched off and the fearsome beast it becomes when the lens erupts from it unfeasibly slim body!
I am going to have to explore sub-menus otherwise I will have paid top dollar for a machine which is not being pushed as hard as it should be. A continuing story.
I couldn’t face the so-called “graduation” of students in my school and I fled at the end of the day just before the actual end of school so that I avoided the maniacal exodus of kids in their parental tanks as they fled towards their homes.
I made good time and arrived home to find Toni sitting outside on a garden chair staring at me morosely. He had come outside at 1.30 pm and inadvertently locked himself out; locking keys and mobile phones and phone numbers safely inside. He had been sitting there patiently (redesigning the house in his mind to fill his time) for over two hours. As he had been preparing his lunch when he locked himself out he was more than prepared to visit Rober’s in the centre of Castelldefels for a superior burger and refrescante.
Rober’s was, of course, the scene of my arrogant attempt to evade payment when simply walked away after the last burger that we had there, the vulgar necessity of paying having slipped my mind. While buying bread in the shop opposite Rober’s one of the waitresses in the establishment crossed the road and intimated that it would be preferable if I abandoned my attempt at the behaviour of royalty and succumbed to my essential plebeian status and actually paid for what I had consumed!
Toni was, of course, convulsed with shame at such behaviour while I merely found it amusing. Today, I reminded the waitress that El Ladron (The Thief) had come back to patronise the establishment – but this time I paid for what I ordered at once!
Next Tuesday is the first of June and one will be able to say with some justice that the end of school is truly in sight!
The weekend is an opportunity for me to take some pictures and I have downloaded the 180 page manual for the camera and am now a few steps further forward to knowing how it works.
Onwards and upwards!
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