The future is too far away!

Someone mentioned the “J” word in the staffroom today and was told off quite severely.



There are many things that can be said with impunity within the sequestered confines of our private space but talking about “July” is not one of them.


In Catalonia we teach until the end of June and then we have a (fully justified) two clear month holiday. There was some talk of having a week at the end of February when the rest of the country will be taking its “White Week” to go skiing, but we preferred to work on and keep the two months release sacrosanct.


We are only allowed to talk of the Christmas holidays as they are within a (barely) tolerable length of time. Once our little one day extension to the weekend is over we face the horror of a November with only the relief of weekends to keep us sane.


At least in my case there is the delight of a visit to the UK and the celebration of a civilized tea party for the natal celebrations of my aunt. Luckily as this momentous event is on a Sunday it will impracticable for me to fly home on the same day and so I will be forced to take a day off school. I see no reason why I too should not have something to celebrate to allow me to feel a certain sympathy with my relative!


December is a marvellous month for us with a three day holiday incorporating La Constitución; La Inmaculada, and a linking dia libre elección. With the weekend this gives the delight of a five day break! And then the Christmas holidays start on the 23rd of December and we do not enter school again until the glorious 10th of January next year! That (including weekends) is a period of release of eighteen days! One feels that one ought to go somewhere warm – even though the days here are far from the sort of cold which I have been used to at the end of October.


I think that talking of holidays has given the world a twist and I have just been reminded that I have gained a free period! Life goes on getting better! Though at some point I think I might be asked to teach something to somebody again!


The weather was good enough for me to sit outside in the sunshine and read my Kindle, but it is getting steadily colder and I fear that the days of my continued wearing of short sleeved shirts may well be numbered – though I am sure that I can delay succumbing to that sartorial admission of winter for a little while longer.


A little while.