There is no smugness like that of the person who has had a swim as soon as he has risen from his bed. It may be an outdoor pool but the heat retention of the water makes the initial submersion merit no more than a gentle shudder before the swimming brings the temperature to what I regard as normal.It is with a queasy sense of unreality that I note that the date is the 23rd of July and a horrifically large portion of the holiday is behind me! The fact that I am bemoaning the remembrance of days lost when there are five clear weeks of holiday left (six and a bit before we have to see the kids) speaks volumes for my attitude towards the teaching of the young!
Today I fulfil my Lucretzia Borgia fantasies as we go in search of potent poisons. We have declared war on ants and weeds and are set to destroy both. I am looking for a good systemic destroyer for the weeds whose roots seem to bear no geographical symmetry with their pollution the surface. Our weeds are like a schematic representation of the Mafia with the root as the hidden Capo di Capos and the visible vegetation being the dependant criminals who keep the whole plant burgeoning. I see myself as the Elliot Ness of the weed world. The day of reckoning is at hand!
My nemesis of choice for the ant world is the disturbingly named “Nippon” ant killer. I have vivid memories of my mother; a gentle and considerate soul as far as most animals were concerned, shed this cloak of concern for animals with six or more legs.
My abiding memory is watching her put a drop of the viscous liquid near an ant run and then urge the insects who were fatally drawn to the liquor to “take it home” so that the entire nest could be wiped out. Happy days!
The other, more positive purchase is a window box for a balcony railing (if you see what I mean) as it has been decreed that vegetation shall sprout for the delectation of our summer guests. This will not be profusion of colour but rather of spikes as we are nurturing cacti - mainly because of the lack of nurturing that they demand.
As the cacti we have at present are more neophyte thorn than anything else the display will be more intention rather than reality. But, taking into account the second of the dictums by which I live of “Anything is Better Than Nothing” (the first being, “Never Refuse a Good Offer” rendered in Latin by our Classics Teacher as “No Repudies Bonam Pollicitationem”) it should add a certain something to an otherwise anodyne room. Though that is probably an unfair designation of a room with a view of the pool and a questionable glimpse of a fragment of the sea!
The diminutive cactus garden is now in situ and the individual plants are not going to be much bigger by the time the first guests arrive, still one must garden for the future; and given the rate at which these things grow, for the distant future!
Oddly, one of the cacti is blue – I assume that this is produced by dye and that the mature plant will assume a more natural colour. Or not, which would be good news for another plant which is orange – but I can’t help feeling that the colours were merely there to provoke the impulse buy for which I duly fell.
The weeds have now been drenched in what I hope is an indiscriminately vicious poison and I look forward to the rapidly yellowing vegetation which will be extracted from the ground as soon as it is absurdly easy to do so. And I have left enough time to give them a second dose before the arrivals start.
I am beginning to make a list of things that I have to do (apart from killing the young child who is screaming her way around the pool at the moment) on Monday. A full day.
I have just returned from getting our fast-food dinner from the excellent bar near where we used to live. I took the car. Mistake. The driving was as bad as anything that I have endured since I have been in this country. The parking was worse than appalling and the overtaking and undertaking was little short of suicidal. The only thing that makes that adjective inaccurate was that I did not see any deaths to make it fully appropriate. But the night is yet young!
There is a key zebra crossing (out of the scores that make driving along the sea road such a joy) which has the ability to create extravagant traffic jams. Holidaymakers cross it at a speed which disabled snails would scorn to match and gaze at the queues of infuriated drivers with mild surprise and clear distaste.
Parking was of course impossible and I had to use my full knowledge of where a semi-legal space could be found if I wasn’t to walk half the length of Castelldefels to get to the place. My eventual choice of parking place was uneasy rather than illegal – and I had no ticket so it was the right choice.
News has come through that one of the sites that we looked at a year or so ago as a possible location for a school has been snapped up by the mother of one of the pupils I had in The Worst School in the World in which I had the pleasure to teach when I first arrived in Catalonia.
The mother is a trained and dedicated teacher with a clear preference for the more creative aspects of education and is hoping to expand her tiny school to something like 50 pupils eventually. I wish her and her school all the best, especially as it might take away pupils from the school governed by the unsympathetic (a carefully chosen word) tyranny of the ignorant owner (not so carefully chosen) of the school in which I taught.
Revenge (in whatever form it takes) is a dish best eaten to the sound of trumpet fanfares whenever it offers itself no matter hot or cold.
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