Season change?

A suspiciously clear drive in to school this morning.  The sun was shining and even the motorcyclists were behaving with a less than suicidal attitude towards other motorists!

The mornings are getting pleasantly lighter and there is something soul enhancing about travelling to school in daylight rather than in pre-dawn darkness.

This weekend (?) sees the clocks going back or forward or whatever which means that we will be an hour nearer to darkness yet again.  On the other hand it also means that we are that much nearer to the summer!  I mustn’t allow myself to count the days to the two-month release!  That way lies madness!

 

Today is Budget Day in Britain and the speculation is, to put it mildly, tired.  It seems as though the tax threshold is going to be raised to something like eight thousand pounds a year which is certainly positive from my point of view – though from the point of view of the economy and its management by the present bunch of self-serving idiots who govern the country at the moment, I am not so sure.

At the moment I seem to have slipped below the radar of the tax authorities and I have not had significant communication with them for years.  Perhaps it is time for me to approach them and ask what is going on, or perhaps I should adopt the advice of those more learned in government and “leave well alone”.

I am not sure of my tax status as a British citizen domiciled abroad.  As far as the Catalan and Spanish governments are concerned I am a normal tax paying citizen, paying into a pension fund from which I am going to gain nothing – and there doesn’t seem to be an “opt-out” option which would enable me to boost my meagre payment from the school.

Last year, following the advice of colleagues, I made the effort to go in to the tax offices with all my documentation of my employment history and ended up paying the government more, whereas everyone else that I know was given some form of payback to soften the blow of having so much money ripped from their fragile salary.  C’est la vie!

I should have done some marking during the time that I have before the start of my first period, but the general climactic conditions and my predisposition to sulk about being indoors when the sun is shining all contributed to my sulky reluctance to put red pen to paper.  I am relying on my “library” period as a time when I can do those things that I have not done – and it delays the work for another couple of hours!

My individual welcome back has now included doing a cover for a colleague.  There is a sort of equilibrium in the giving and taking in a school situation that I expected that I would be chosen because of my “uncovered” period in the UK.  People had to cover my classes (why, you might ask as it was a period of absence known in advance) therefore I have to pay back.

Even allowing for “breaks” this interminable term winds its way on with inexorable slowness.  I think that the musing that I do on the trip to Gran Canaria makes it more intolerable.  The absurd lateness of Easter this year has unsettled all the usual internal clocks of teachers leaving a general dissatisfaction and an aching sense of longing for freedom!

Now that I have a new Internet radio, which is very much more reliable than the old one, I am listening to Radio 4 with more regularity.  The advantage is that it keeps me up to date with what is going on in the world in a much more convincing way than the media in Spain do.  The disadvantage is that it keeps me up to date with what is going on in the world!  I now have much more to worry about in a completely futile way!

The only time in my life when I have savings, the whole of chaotic progress of the world seems bend on destroying them.  From world financial crisis to natural disaster everything tends to make my savings less.

I am still recovering from the horror of finding that the “unexciting but dependable fund” into which my savings were placed for “steady growth” on the advice of a “financial advisor” lost 40% of their value in one extended swoop.

I still amuse (if that is the term) myself with speculation about what I might have bought if I had done what I usually do when I have money – and that is spend it.  I eventually worked out that I could have had a world cruise (with outside cabin and balcony) for two; drunk nothing but Champagne and bought a Rolex watch – especially if I had converted the pounds sterling into euros as soon as I had the pounds in my hands.

What seemed like excellent value when the euro was 70p doesn’t seem quite as good when, on a good day, the euro is trading at 86p.  Ah! for the good old days when the peseta was devalued to keep pace with the loosing value of the pound!

It looks almost certain that in the next financial year the wages of teachers will not be increased.  As inflation is forging ahead with scant regard for the normal factors which should be in play with the sort of financial crisis which should be governing our lives, teachers are getting more and more poorly paid.

Presumably, there has to come a time when even our supine profession makes some sort of stand against what is going on in the so-called profession.

Our type of school has an outstanding court case against the government to try and claw back the 5% decrease in grant that was given to our school to pay part of the teachers’ salaries.  We do not know what will happen if the schools loose the case and have to carry the reduction for the foreseeable future.

I am not sure what my reaction to a reduction in my salary would be.  I mean, I know what my reaction would be, it’s just that I don’t know how negative my reaction would be and what action, if any, I would take.

If I am truthful I think my presence in the school is becoming more and more unreal as the routine becomes more and more natural.  It may be a paradox but I am living it!

 

It is now, officially, Spring and the weather is living up to its designation.  From where I am sitting I can see a may tree whose branches are loaded with blossom and walking out onto the balcony you meet the wafting cloud of that sickly-sweet, slightly miasmic perfume of the tree.  As we have brisk breezes as well the scent is swept away only to assault you afresh as soon as there is a lull.

The air is fresher and the vistas a little clearer these days and I am waiting for the solid lump of heat that usually strikes the shirt and tie in late April and early May!

Meanwhile one more day to the weekend.  And three weeks on Sunday: Gran Canaria!