The sky is difficult to read this morning: layers of cloud, smears of grey enlivened by occasional wedges of a bluer grey; where the sun should be there is a whiter shade of glowing pale; there is a brisk breeze, but it is still warm enough for me to be typing this in my swimming trunks on the terrace of the Third Floor.
My early morning swim was perhaps a degree more bracing that usual but it took little fortitude to immerse myself and do my statutory lengths. There is no better feeling of complacency than that which comes with swimming in the open air when all around you is the silence of indolence!
One becomes habituated to the gentle push (remember the arthritis) from the side every few seconds in a pool as small as ours, and I know that were I to attempt to swim lengths in a proper 25 or 50 metre pool I would be exhausted in spite of the fact that I can swim for half an hour in our communal pool and feel positively refreshed when I get out!
Today is the second lesson of the week for My Pupil and I intend to go in early to Barcelona and make the pilgrimage up the escalators to MNAC and finally (after over a year) change the address they have so that the information sent to Friends of MNAC can actually get to me directly rather than my having to cull it from the post box of my previous flat. I will also call into La Caixa and get the proper catalogue for the Barceló exhibition for which I only have the free handout at present.
I am now reading “Homo Faber” by Max Frisch, useful because of the unusual wait for the train this morning going to Barcelona: still better than going by bus!
The long pilgrimage from the metro to the portals of MNAC with some of the elevators stopped because of what appears to be preparations for some sort of show around the magic fountain took even longer than usual. I managed to speak to the lady-of-a-certain-age who was behind the Friends of MNAC desk to change the address to which advance information about forthcoming events is sent.
The lady painstakingly took down the information in what can only be described as a hesitant manner and then she asked me if I was going to visit the gallery. When I replied in the enthusiastic affirmative she raised a hand and made her stately way towards a desk opposite where the admission tickets were being bought and got a special ticket for me. Nothing like feeding my flagging self esteem to make me appreciate works of art more!
Although something of a hurried visit I did manage to see the companion piece of the famous wall painting of Casas and a friend on the tandem that has almost become a sort of artistic symbol of Barcelona to match the Gaudí church! I was also enabled to check again the MNAC’s holdings of Joaquim Sunyer who is the subject of the latest art book I bought from a cheapo book stall in the concourse of Sants railway station. My Spanish/Catalan collection of painters that few Brits of heard of grows apace!
The lesson with My Pupil was even more bizarre than usual with the hot topic of conversation being the educational and community programmes of publically funded arts organizations. I explained things in English and then My Pupil said, “And now in Spanish?” As usual I found myself way out of my linguistic depth – not that this stopped my flow of conversation in any way!
It appears that My Pupil after a more than usually stressful few weeks has decided to take a holiday so that my trips to Barcelona will cease for a few weeks. This is just as well as the trip to The South has to be planned.
This is the few days which are going to be spent somewhere in the south in the house of the previous headteacher of the School That Sacked Me. We are planning to go by train, but this is proving to be a little more problematical than might have been supposed as we don’t really know exactly where we are going. One can hardly take “somewhere in the south” as a real destination!
We are working on it!
The trip back from Barcelona, although in air conditioned comfort, was a trip of particular horror.
In the rush for seats in Sants I sat, I later discovered facing two ladies. One was of unexampled innocuousness while the other wasn’t.
There are few things more disgusting than watching someone eat, when you are not. The lady opposite me was wearing one of those unflattering, slightly flounced, crimpelene looking creations in folksy brown incongruities. She had a skull like face with bulging eyes and she placed sunflower seed after sunflower seed into her wrinkled mouth, cracked it, sucked out the seed and then placed the husk in a small plastic bag.
I tried to read but if I wasn’t being revolted by cracking and sucking sounds, I was being revolted by the expectation of cracking and sucking sounds. She kept up a non-stop diet of the bloody things all the way to Castelldefels.
I stayed in my seat as an exercise in Zen calm.
It didn’t work.
My early morning swim was perhaps a degree more bracing that usual but it took little fortitude to immerse myself and do my statutory lengths. There is no better feeling of complacency than that which comes with swimming in the open air when all around you is the silence of indolence!
One becomes habituated to the gentle push (remember the arthritis) from the side every few seconds in a pool as small as ours, and I know that were I to attempt to swim lengths in a proper 25 or 50 metre pool I would be exhausted in spite of the fact that I can swim for half an hour in our communal pool and feel positively refreshed when I get out!
Today is the second lesson of the week for My Pupil and I intend to go in early to Barcelona and make the pilgrimage up the escalators to MNAC and finally (after over a year) change the address they have so that the information sent to Friends of MNAC can actually get to me directly rather than my having to cull it from the post box of my previous flat. I will also call into La Caixa and get the proper catalogue for the Barceló exhibition for which I only have the free handout at present.
I am now reading “Homo Faber” by Max Frisch, useful because of the unusual wait for the train this morning going to Barcelona: still better than going by bus!
The long pilgrimage from the metro to the portals of MNAC with some of the elevators stopped because of what appears to be preparations for some sort of show around the magic fountain took even longer than usual. I managed to speak to the lady-of-a-certain-age who was behind the Friends of MNAC desk to change the address to which advance information about forthcoming events is sent.
The lady painstakingly took down the information in what can only be described as a hesitant manner and then she asked me if I was going to visit the gallery. When I replied in the enthusiastic affirmative she raised a hand and made her stately way towards a desk opposite where the admission tickets were being bought and got a special ticket for me. Nothing like feeding my flagging self esteem to make me appreciate works of art more!
Although something of a hurried visit I did manage to see the companion piece of the famous wall painting of Casas and a friend on the tandem that has almost become a sort of artistic symbol of Barcelona to match the Gaudí church! I was also enabled to check again the MNAC’s holdings of Joaquim Sunyer who is the subject of the latest art book I bought from a cheapo book stall in the concourse of Sants railway station. My Spanish/Catalan collection of painters that few Brits of heard of grows apace!
The lesson with My Pupil was even more bizarre than usual with the hot topic of conversation being the educational and community programmes of publically funded arts organizations. I explained things in English and then My Pupil said, “And now in Spanish?” As usual I found myself way out of my linguistic depth – not that this stopped my flow of conversation in any way!
It appears that My Pupil after a more than usually stressful few weeks has decided to take a holiday so that my trips to Barcelona will cease for a few weeks. This is just as well as the trip to The South has to be planned.
This is the few days which are going to be spent somewhere in the south in the house of the previous headteacher of the School That Sacked Me. We are planning to go by train, but this is proving to be a little more problematical than might have been supposed as we don’t really know exactly where we are going. One can hardly take “somewhere in the south” as a real destination!
We are working on it!
The trip back from Barcelona, although in air conditioned comfort, was a trip of particular horror.
In the rush for seats in Sants I sat, I later discovered facing two ladies. One was of unexampled innocuousness while the other wasn’t.
There are few things more disgusting than watching someone eat, when you are not. The lady opposite me was wearing one of those unflattering, slightly flounced, crimpelene looking creations in folksy brown incongruities. She had a skull like face with bulging eyes and she placed sunflower seed after sunflower seed into her wrinkled mouth, cracked it, sucked out the seed and then placed the husk in a small plastic bag.
I tried to read but if I wasn’t being revolted by cracking and sucking sounds, I was being revolted by the expectation of cracking and sucking sounds. She kept up a non-stop diet of the bloody things all the way to Castelldefels.
I stayed in my seat as an exercise in Zen calm.
It didn’t work.
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