Buying therapy

The risible lunacy on the roads is becoming more marked as the weather warms up.  I will not elaborate on the numerous suicidal manoeuvres that enlivened by journey to work; suffice to say that my intake of breath was sharp on a number of occasions.  Driving along the motorway sometimes feels like you are a part of driving display team whose members have just met for the first time and are doing a little improvisation based loosely on a shared death wish!

Actually arriving at the school and having to cope with the merely breathtakingly inconsiderate stopping, parking and driving off of parents as they deposit their children in our care is a positive relief from the imminent slaughter on the main roads!

Our first lesson was broken up by the clothing police coming around to check on the suitability of the scanty wear of the female pupils.  Certain pupils were taken out of class to an accompaniment of barely concealed hysteria and delight at the interruption.  Bringing pupils back to normality after something as exciting as indecent exposure is difficult to the point of impossibility – especially as the class in question is one not noted for its maturity.  To put it mildly.  Just how to start the day!

I am getting more and more frustrated with the broken zip in my school bag.  I have hunted around at home and discovered that I have no other to take its place!  I find this difficult to believe, but I seem to remember giving one away.  Such shortsighted altruism!

I did “pop in” to El Corte Ingles and was duly horrified at the price that is being asked for some very ordinary looking cases.  I did, however see one which is made by the Swiss Army Knife people.  I rather like the idea of having a bag made by such unlikely manufacturers.

By an effort of will which continues to astonish me, I actually left the store without buying anything. 

In a further astonishing act of consumer denial I went to a common supermarket and looked in one of the adjacent shops at low priced alternatives. 

The supermarket only offered a large case on wheels, so I am tempted to go back to El Corte Ingles and have another look at the Swiss Army Briefcase and if I can’t bring myself to buy an overpriced piece of office luggage with a little Swiss logo, then I will go downmarket and buy something which will probably have a half life of a few months.  And then I will have to buy another which would indicate that buying cheap is false economy so I ought to buy Swiss now.  I do like logic linked to spending!

It took me just over an hour to decide which of the briefcases to buy.  In fact, to be exact, I didn’t really buy a briefcase; I bought a computer case.

I don’t really see how I can be held responsible for a purchase when the zips have a little white cross on a circle of red on them.

 

To be absolutely truthful the new case is not exactly what I wanted.  Just as with my ideal watches I do have a list of requirements for my ideal case: double zippers (if that is what you call two zip heads on one zipper); a small zippered section on the front for keys; a section for papers; a padded section for a computer; rugged construction; little pockets and thingies for things; an overall look of subdued opulence.

Well I got most of what I wanted.  It was very, very difficult rejecting more expensive cases than the one I eventually bought.  This is a disturbing tendency which I will assiduously attempt to reverse when I next assay a purchase!

As I suppose is natural, the contents of the old briefcase will not fit into the new one.  The major problem, as I have always found is what I used to call a “pencil case” but which is now apparently called an “accessory case” – but it looks just the same and it doesn’t fit in the same way that these “cases” never do when you have all your bits and pieces in place in the briefcase.

Dinner this evening was in a second choice restaurant with first class food.  We decided to have three tapas: patatas bravas; pinchos, and anchovies in light batter – looking like large white bait.  The wine was superb (the waiter virtually refused to give us gaseosa saying that the wine could not be diluted as it was too good) and, as usual, I had forgotten my phone to take a photograph of the label!

The waiter was someone we knew from the restaurant at the end of the road on the beach and he offered us a glass of Cava which was from the same house as the red wine: delicious.  The name was Castelo de Pedregosa and it is a label that I shall look out for, especially in Cava!

 

The excellent meal for two of us was €29 – a real bargain.

And tomorrow is Friday.  Life is sometimes, well, satisfactory!