There I was listening to one of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances on my postage stamp sized umpteenth generation iPod when a voice, quite a vulgar voice I thought, suddenly broke in and said something. 

For a moment I thought that someone in the recording studio had had a joke at my expense and I was truly shocked. I didn’t know that the machine had an independent voice function so I took more notice of the intrusive stranger than the information he (for it was a he) was giving me.  I eventually worked out that I had been told me that the battery was low.

This precipitated the frantic search for the appropriate power lead.  These were gathered together for the voyage to Britain and have not yet slithered their serpentine way to their appropriate lairs in Castelldefels again.  What is especially depressing is that I know that I have at least seven or eight of the appropriate leads lurking somewhere – but not, as it were, to hand.

To the Basque restaurant last night for a little something as my reckoning of days was a little askew and so I did not go out to dinner with Irene, where I was charged €3 for a bottle of fizzy water, or £2.64 in the debased coinage of my savings!  When I first came to Spain that overpriced bottle of water would have cost a measly £2.10 at the rate of exchange I could have got then.  But no riots from people in this area as El Crisis ravages the rest of the land!

We are working our way towards the Dead Month of August when Spain officially goes on holiday and everything closes down – well, not everything, but the attitude of those who are left to soldier on display such resentment that they are still in work while everybody else in the world is on holiday that they may as well not bother.  So, there are 5 days left for people to get everything they need doing done, because the next date for action will be September!

Obviously in a seaside town things are up and working, but I am still astonished at the number of businesses and restaurants that take a break in what one would have thought was the most profitable month of the year.  Ours is not to understand foreign logic!

My “swarm over Death” approach to the weeds in the garden seems to have been a signal failure.  If anything they seem to have become more vigorous and their hardiness pours scorn on my determined chemical herbicidal attack.  Perhaps I should have watered the plants to get them to take the poison to the roots, but the description of the gunk said that it was “systemic” so a touch of death on any part of the plant should have caused the bloody things to wither on the vine, so to speak.

I suppose I could read the instructions more fully or I could purchase something that I have always wanted to possess: a flame-thrower.  Not, unfortunately, the real thing, but the horticultural equivalent which is a Gandalf-like staff spouting fire at one end.  I suppose that I could get a sugar caramelizer and link the garden with the kitchen and justify the expense by versatility!  Or I could merely squirt the damn things again and hope for the best.

At long last what Stewart described as “your garden shed suitcase” has been totally emptied and then filled with other suitcases in the approved matryoshka fashion with one nesting inside the other.  This is fine and dandy until you want to use one of them and have to go through all the palaver of extracting the one you need – which is always in the centre.

My vastly expensive cabin luggage has failed after one trip with the extendible handle not.  I am furious and not only with the failure of the most expensive single piece of luggage that I have ever bought but also with the prospect of a search for the bloody receipt.  However, as I bought the damn thing in El Corte Ingles I expect service which will go beyond the mere production of a scrap of paper.  I hope!

Lunch today produced the unexpected result that Toni noticed the Ruta de Tapas was still operational.  This is a selection of bars and restaurants offering a tapa and drink for €3 as part of a competition to find the best tapa in Castelldefels. 

You are provided with a map and list of bars and tapas with a space to have the bar’s stamp in the requisite place to show that you have sampled their tapa.  There are 30 establishments taking part this year and so far I have sampled precisely one tapa washed down with a glass of Cava.

There is a section on the map/menu for you to nominate your favourite tapa – and thereby hangs a philosophical question.  Who should be allowed to nominate?  Do you have to try all to select one; or can you choose your favourite out of the ones you have tried?  If the result is dependent on popular choice then it is fairly meaningless of friends of one bar can sample the tapa and declare it superior.  Are all votes equal or does the opinion of someone who has sampled over half count for more than someone who has merely sampled a handful?  At the end of the day one could say that for god’s sake this is a tapas competition in a small Catalan seaside town, who cares?  I do.  I think about such things and worry.  Slightly.

This competition stretches over the whole of the rest of the summer so that is less than one tapa a day to get through the whole 30.  The impetus to complete the whole series is entry to a prize draw which entitles you to a special civic meal.

I think that this is an excellent way to get folk to try bars which they don’t know – though I find it difficult to imagine that there will be many people who try all the tapas – though I am going to make an effort!  An effort I might add that guests might be involved in during their stay.  Be warned!

The Football Season which allegedly ends officially for a few hours some time in the summer now seems to be restarted with a vengeance and be well under way as teams play for ever more esoteric cups.  Shouldn’t they be spending more time with their families or spend time starting them rather than playing interminable games of kick ball and filling up time on the TV?

Still no change with the book situation – but I have bought three more at the instigation of Toni no less!