Day three and counting down!

I am beginning to succumb to the traditional curse of Mondays.

I wake up early and turn back to doze for that delicious hour or so when reality shades into Surrealistic wish-fulfllment, when all manner of things appear to be possible.

The intrusive and terminally irritating wake-up jingle of electronic musak that serves as an alarm bell on my mobile phone drags me back to the quotidian necessities such as leaving the bed and getting ready for school.

As Mondays start at 6.30 am all of the resented tasks are completed in darkness with the harsh bolt of electric light (and the official start of the day) being delayed as long as possible.

The joining of the never ending stream of traffic on the coast road is always a calculated risk. The glare of oncoming headlights seem one long light show and one has to rely on the fact that Spanish drivers are well used to people pulling out in front of them in a way which would get them beeped in the UK but here passes without rancour.

The dark crew with me as part of the sombre parade make their way towards the city. I branch off by the airport and join up with another motorway and a succession of traffic jams and dawn begins to break over the snarled up and snarling drivers.

Arriving early usually means that there is a prime parking space available (as the only possible advantage to this unnatural starting out) which means that I will be well placed to get into the stream of traffic going home in the maelstrom of cars driven by parents from our school who look straight ahead and will not give an inch.

It is sometimes comical to see the steely determination not to let me out become compromised by the youngster in the back of the car informing their parents that the flashing light indicates a teacher rather than a mere member of the public!

But the sheer horror of having to turn up on a Monday is becoming more and more of a bind: though that could well be that there are only a few days left before the end of term and each day is almost unbearable in its grinding tedium. Neither kids nor staff actually want to be there – and it shows.

Tomorrow is a normal day and then there are differences for the last day. I am accompanying the 1ESO to a visit to the Winter Fair which takes place in the square in front of the cathedral in Barcelona. Please pray that it doesn't rain because that would mean teaching for the periods that would have been spent drinking coffee, sorry, supervising the kids!

These last two days are going to be hard going as it is patently obvious that everybody's mind is, to put it mildly, elsewhere.

Nevertheless life goes on and I am beginning to use my new, unjustifiable computer. It is a thing of great loveliness and it does a bit of computing as well. It is so much quicker than my last machine that I feel that its purchase is justified by that factor alone. Well, not quite if I am truthful, but I don't care.

Part of The Family came down to Castelldefels with Toni and I was able to distribute part of one of my purchases from last year: candles composed of gold, frankincense and myrrh! They were a purchase from M&S so they must be good: I am sure that they improve and mature with time.

I am trying to put off the horror which is the realization that I have bought nothing for Christmas apart from a superfluous computer. Which, think about it, is not bad going!

Now spiritual preparation for a day's teaching that I don't want to do.

 Again.