Retention and Release!

I am filled with dread and foreboding.

This is the common reaction of a teacher who starts the day knowing that he is going to be in his place of employment for an inordinate amount of time over and above the hours of normal employment.

In my case (can I over state it!) it is a “not only, but also” scenario: not only will I be stuck here during a period which it is my right to take off, but also I will be here for a meeting on a Friday evening.

I know that I might have mentioned this before, casually, in passing, but I think it will take repetition.

And now that I have got that canker of injustice out of my system (at least until the bloody meeting starts) I can face the rest of the day with something approaching cold fury.

The unaccustomed rain continued throughout the night accompanied by thunder that was positively operatic in its duration and sonority.

Today has dawned with the full fervour of a “red sky in the morning” giving a glimpse of our erstwhile elusive star that only serves to emphasise, cf. common superstition, that the day will degenerate into continued dampness.  A dampness which will add to the gaiety of nations as we sit glumly in the rain while ragamuffin students cavort among us with a semblance of frivolity in our beggared version of Carnival, just before the start of the meeting.

But: begone dull thoughts!  It’s five past eight and the sun is still shining!

I have so far capitulated to the kids that I am preparing to show un-improving films to young minds.  Sometimes my own personal survival is more important than the moral imperative to improve the minds of the customers!

The sun continues to shine and outface the Cassandras who bewailed the blue and white smudges on the weather maps last night.  Such sunshine is wasted at the moment; it will only be of importance in the afternoon when I have to go out and sit grumpily next to a table and monitor the kids as they “enjoy” themselves in Carnival – all the while thinking that my Carnival will end with a meeting.  And then a bottle of Cava.  Obviously.

My body thinks that we are coming up to a holiday because I feel that incipient discomfort which comes as a prelude to a cough or a cold: a certain thickness at the back of the nose and a roughness in the throat.  This would be par for the course where there to be a real holiday and, as a teacher, succumb to illness at the start thereof.  But I hardly think that a long weekend counts!

The sunshine is becoming more and more forced, as the time for it to be at its strongest gets nearer.  Indeed . . .

Time, as they say has passed since I wrote the last paragraph.

The meeting has come and gone.  Eventually.  The sight of so-called professionals laughing, chatting and joking in a meeting that was progressing further and further into Friday (Friday) evening is a memory that will live in infamy.  What part of “the start of the weekend” do some of my colleagues find difficult to understand!

So when I finally left in the evening, almost twelve hours after I had arrived that morning, I was not a happy bunny – but I kept my mind focussed on the cooling bottle of Cava that I had placed in the fridge a good deal earlier than twelve hours before.  So to speak.

Which is why I did not post the last episode in this continuing saga yesterday.

Today, Saturday, the threatened poor weather has not materialized and the sunshine has been encouraging.

What is appears to have been encouraging is the pack of dogs by which we are surrounded to give voice to their joy at the climatic conditions.  If I were not living in the midst of the noisy cacophony I might find amusing the howls, barks, yelps, screams, yips, yaps and unearthly baying that assail our ears on a daily basis.  But I do and I don’t.

After giving it some thought I have come to the following conclusions.

I understand that dogs will be dogs: they bark.  I do not have a problem with them.  It is the owners who deserve censure.  The inconsiderate idiots who, finding their own human relationships inadequate or non-existent need non-human companionship to compensate for their human failings.

My suggestion would be that all dog owners should be locked in their homes with their dogs and then the owners should have their legs broken.  The owners would then gradually disappear in the growing mountain of dog shit that they fail to clear up when they take their noise machines to the public toilets, or pavements as we more usually call them.

For a dog person like myself, it has taken but two short years of living in Catalonia to cure me of what I now recognize to be a self-deluding Romantic version of Man’s best friend.

My comments do not extend to yellow Labrador bitches of course, which remain outside and untouched by my dismissive screed!

Talking of pet hates (!) I am now well into “1000 Years of Annoying the French” and it is turning into a gripping historical read.  I am not always convinced by the historical shorthand which informs some of the more amusing statements; but it is packed with casual points of information which add highlights to a reasonable background of passing acquaintanceship with history.

The book reads more like an episodic novel than a work of academic research, but if anyone expected than from the title then they are delusional.  Though I have to say that the bits that I have checked out because of their basic implausibility seem to be based on fact.

As I am getting through the book with some speed, I expect to be able to start on the Nial Ferguson tomorrow.

What is a holiday weekend without reading!