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Sunday, September 11, 2011

All things word together for good!


There are lies; damned lies – and printed information in Catalan.

I was assured by the details on the official stamp collecting form that the last restaurant that I had to get was closed for the first two weeks in September for their summer holidays.

Toni suggested that, in spite of indications to the contrary, we should go and check out the place.  We did and, of course, the place was open and information about summer holidays was greeted with incomprehension!

So, I was able to get the last stamp and finally complete the whole Ruta of 30 tapas!

The next problem, if I am to win a place on the table for the gastronomic feast, is to get my completed fully stamped form to the competition organizers. 

Why not post it, or push it through the door I hear you ask.  Simple, trusting folk: this is Spain!

On the off chance that luck would follow us, as it did for the “closed” restaurant, we decided to go to the Tourist Information Office (which was the official recipient for the completed forms) and amazingly found it open - in spite of the stated times telling us that it would be closed!

We walked in and told the person there that we had come to deliver our form and were promptly told that we couldn’t do that because he was connected with tourism whereas we needed to give the form to a colleague who was connected with gastronomy.  There was not the slightest suggestion that he could take this form and perhaps give it to his colleague on Monday.  No.  We would have to come back when the “right” person was there!

David’s sage advice came back to me at this time of disbelief: “Remember Stephen, this is not Britain!”  Indeed it isn’t.

But even this piece of idiocy fails to detract from the unexpected delight of having completed my Ruta.  And, of course, I am completely confident that I will win a place at the gastronomic meal or an ipad or possibly both.  Much better thinking about that than considering the months ahead.

Mr and Mrs Shouty had a party for their repulsive grandchildren yesterday and, just to increase the pleasure, they asked all the most boisterous children in the neighbourhood: and so from 11.00am until gone 8.00 pm we had the joyous sound of screaming, shouting, yelling children wafting its way through the window for over ten (10) hours.

In a positively negative sense I mixed up the days and assumed it was Sunday yesterday rather than today: that is a gained day in anyone’s money!

The Scumbags have gone!

Almost to the minute of the time that Toni predicted the troop of degenerates sloped out of their house and made their way to the car and out of our summer lives!  Apart from odd holiday weekends they should be safely away until next summer.

And tomorrow is the Great Arrival with blissfully empty classrooms of the past week now filled with the unwilling to be taught by the . . . well, I will not presume to paint all my colleagues with my own negativity!

The most pressing thing at the moment is finding my shoes which I have not worn for a couple of months and I am not entirely sure of their whereabouts.

But then, who cares?

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