Lost Days!

Tuesday 22nd June 2010

Today was the Day of the Great Disappearance. The sacred day when, in the afternoon, with unseemly haste and unrestrained glee we bid the kiddiewinks adieu.

The morning was ¡Fiesta! – or at least the form of jollifications that we indulge in at the end of course for the kids.

The school is transformed by the stringing of plastic streamers and flags of all the nations (including the Union Flag – I checked) across the patio (playground) and pupils and teachers join together in various activities to which the parents are invited. My designated area of jollity was to supervise “traditional games.”

In the way that our school operates, I knew nothing about this (or indeed these) until the actual morning when, with a colleague in the English Department we discovered that “traditional games” involved the use of ropes and chalk.

Before anyone gets excited at the sexual possibilities of considerate bondage, where the ropes are chalked before applied, I have to tell you that we were in charge of skipping and hop-scotch.

I found myself a chair and a quiet corner of the playground, threw a few ropes in decorative patterns on the floor and urged passing school children to chalk out a hop-scotch grid. I then repaired to my chair in the shade and hunkered down to pass the long hours before lunch.

Children did skip and one or two of them made a half hearted effort to skip their way along the grid.

Luckily our almost complete lack of enthusiasm was covered by a group of children playing football: so time passed.

Once the kids were out of the way the staff repaired to the dining hall to have what can only be described as a sumptuous feast of various forms of dead sea creatures followed by a spread of sweets which included totally evil tiny cakes whose weight to size ration was gratifyingly disproportionate!

The Drinking of the Liberlis has becomes something of a ritual for Suzanne and myself and our libations had become more infrequent that we would have liked. Therefore, an impulsive moment of alcoholic desperation drove both of us both figuratively and literally to The Third Floor in Castelldefels to watch the drink and the sun go down.

This formed one of the many Fridays of this week. The first was yesterday with Irene who I had to encourage to remind me (as the drink flowed down my gullet) that “Tomorrow is a working day and not the weekend!” Doing much the same on the Third Floor again needed some sort of marker to indicate that the working week was progressing rather than falling into the freedom of Saturday and Sunday.

“Better to think yourself in a Friday than the first Monday of a new term” – as the Zen Book of Teaching states.

Wednesday 23rd

The kids have not gone!

All the pupils who failed an exam have returned today to sit their recuperation exams. This meant that I had to start up my marking mode again as the marks are necessary for a meeting on the real Friday of this week.

By the time we were given lunch I was exhausted and after lunch I fled home to the pool and the cool reality of soothing water washing away the memories of the red pen!

The Family arrived in the afternoon and preparations were made for the Sant Juan meal before going out and watching the kids set off fireworks.

As a past Health & Safety Officer for my school I am constantly appalled by the risks that institutions in this country take. Their attitude towards fireworks is one which constantly amazes me.

The whole of the day has been punctuated by small fire-cracker detonations and large land-mine like explosions. This is the time for petardos (versions of the penny banger) which have been illegal in Britain for years. Here in Catalonia small wooden huts spring up so that everyone who wants to may buy as many as they like of cheap explosives to hurl around as they wish.

The paseo along the beach was a ribbon of fire as young and old engaged enthusiastically in the traditional towing of fireworks at each other. Many of them, to be fair, only set them off among pedestrians so that a walk along the sea front was punctuated by some fairly energetic skittish behaviour as the more limb threatening tongues of fame snaked at ankle level along the paving.

It is also traditional for people to camp out on the beach and drink and have fires on which to roast various pieces of meat. In Castelldefels this year, this had tragic consequences.

Castelldefels has two stations, one in the town and the other at the beach. Late last night as people who did not want to stay out on the beach all the night were trying to get home, they crossed the tracts (something which is specifically forbidden) and a train ploughed into them.

12 or 13 people were killed and many more were injured, some, horrifically by body parts which were flung about as the bodies of the unfortunates trying to cross were fragmented by the force of the impact! The story kept running on what appeared to be a tape loop on the television and put, as you might expect something of a damper on what was a bank holiday.

However, the tragedy happened at the other end of Castelldefels and in the part where we were there was no indication of anything amiss.

The long delayed meeting with Caroline took place in the Basque restaurant where I felt fully justified in drinking the local wine as I had made my way there by bike.

So yet another Friday!

Friday 25th June 2010

I set off a little earlier than usual and was met by virtually empty (for the roads I usually take) rondas and I got to school far too early. It did however allow me to complete the two remaining “catch-up” papers of the students that I had to mark. These marks had to be collated for a meeting which lasted from 11 am to 2 pm! The whole of my contribution to this meeting consisted of the words “Tres comma ocho” Thank god I was there!

Staying in school one second longer than was absolutely necessary after yet another meeting of stultifying tedium meant that I eschewed lunch and went out in Castelldefels instead.

The most difficult thing I will have to do tomorrow is realize that it is Saturday!