The heat last night meant that in spite of the predation of mosquitoes the window was left open. This also meant that we were regaled with the brittle forced laugh of the teenage girl next door as she showed her delight at the mawkish posturing of the males with which she surrounds herself in the pool. Her high pitched expressions of delight were punctuated by even higher pitched squeals of faux displeasure as a few drops of water touched her skin when the males went into their clumsy mating displays.
The one positive virtue this girl has is that she refuses to surface and face the world at any time before the clear afternoon. This sometimes has the negative effect of prompting her parents, especially her father, to trumpetings of displeasure and repeated howlings of her name as they try to get her up!
We have not, yet, had the farcical accompaniments of breaking crockery and slammed doors which we had last year, including what we sincerely believe to be a thrown hi-fi system during one incandescent row!
Poor weather is starting to close in around us in the rest of Spain which is fine by me as it is restocking the reservoirs that supply us with water! This attitude may appear on the surface to be a tad selfish – but it works for me!
The simple tasks for the summer are running out and I will soon have to contemplate starting on one of the more significant ones. I am trying not to panic as I realize that one thirtieth of my holiday has already gone, never to be recalled – no, wait, my calculations have been faulty; there are 31 days each in July and August, so I have only used up 2/62nd or 1/31st: much better!
Spain has just made it to the semi final to the accompaniment of car horns and the explosion of fireworks. They now play Germany in the semi finals and I know who I will be supporting!
I have re-read “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and other stories” by F Scott Fitzgerald with a view to using the stories for our equivalent of the sixth form because at the moment we are using “The Great Gatsby” which would not be my choice of book to give to students whose first language is not English. I have suggested the stories as a possible replacement, but I thought I ought to re-read them since I read them god-knows-how-many-years-ago in a Penguin Modern Classics edition which cost me three shillings and sixpence! Which does actually give you some idea of the length of time!
On one level I thoroughly enjoyed reading these stories, surprised by how much of them I actually remembered and delighting in Fitzgerald’s style and content. He doesn’t do happiness very well, but I do enjoy the misery that he writes. I think it is a function of being an English teacher that we, as a breed, much prefer to teach death and unhappiness than anything cheerful. I always cite Blake as my defence: which would you rather read “The Songs of Innocence” with their insipid “little lambs” etc or “The Songs of Experience” with running blood and “mind forg’d manacles” - no contest I think!
But how would non-native English speakers respond to them? And are they of sufficient quality to encourage the effort which would undoubtedly be necessary for an understanding of their content and meaning? I think the answer to those questions is probably yes. But I will give it some more thought until I make a recommendation. It will also give me time to find out if the edition that I know is actually still published!
I count the reading of the book as completing my task for the day. So there.
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