Cool days

Preparations continue to be made to combat the horror of Friday when five members of staff are going to be absent.  This is almost unworkable and has created total chaos.  The only way that such a loss of staff can be coped with is by collapsing classes right left and centre.  Or school is very much like Heathrow Airport in that we are so close to full capacity as far as teaching loads are concerned that minor changes or illness cause panic.  If anyone is away tomorrow the whole system will implode.  As it indeed fully deserves to, because this situation is entirely self inflicted with the incredible meanness of staffing creating a situation where every snuffle is a potential disaster.

As I constantly point out, our workload is the equivalent of working an extra day a week; therefore for every five teachers' workloads we are doing a colleague out of a full time job.  The maths is simple and the reality oppressive!

As there is a flu bug going around at the moment the day is looking more and more precarious.  I’ve had my jab and anyway I am one of the people who is not going to be there, so I can think, along with King Louis the umpteenth “après moi le deluge!” – if only!

I have been wrestling with the irritations of Power Point with the added itch of trying to get the thing to work on two different systems.  The programs are the same but any split between a Mac and a PC is heading for tears.  For some reason there is a difference in the way that you download a painting in the different versions of the program and I have had to resort to using the PC in Spanish to get the annotated Futurist painting done as an example for the class that I am teaching.

In theory I should now be able to tap the whiteboard and arrows should appear followed, with another tap, by a perceptive analysis that should amaze and delight the kids.  Fat chance!  But it will show them what I want.

The weather is now clearly cooler and we even had a spiteful downpour last night.  Today is bright but cloud is obscuring direct sunlight.  When we now get direct sunlight it is summery, even if it is not summer, but I do feel that the day when I have to wear long sleeved shirts is drawing ever nearer.  I find the ironing of short sleeve shirts almost possible; their long sleeved cousins are clearly impossible to get right.  I can see me wearing short sleeves well into January!

While in school I had a message via my phone which I did not at first believe.  It appeared that our splendid police force had turned up and arrested the illegally parked car of our noisy neighbour and hoisted it onto the pack of the crane lorry.

She obviously noticed at some point that someone was trying to steal her car and came down to the police and mendaciously but vociferously protested her innocence.  As she constantly parks on the pavement, knocks down parking pillars and has noisy, irritating dogs my only regret is that Toni did not have a camera to capture every detail so that I could relish them at my leisure!

He car eventually was whisked off with her in hot pursuit.  She returned with her car and I trust a substantial sum of money missing from her purse.  I calculate she will have to have her car impounded four or five times for the state to recoup the money they have spent on replacing the parking posts!

Having had such a pleasing response to our visit to the town hall we confidently expect a ninja team of dog poisoners to visit the inconsiderate cow and do the decent thing to her caterwauling curs!

Today, this evening is a significant day as I have given in to the moaning of another person and finally closed the living room windows because of the “coldness” which I do not necessarily feel in quite the same way.  I am prepared to admit that the weather has become somewhat cooler – my car thermometer tells me that – but it is still fine weather for the time of year.

United Nations Day will be celebrated on Monday next with the obscenity of my being in school.  The hated meeting at the end of a full day's work is scheduled to go on from 5 pm to 7.30 pm!  Two and a half hours of pure unadulterated torture which will start off in Spanish and almost immediately change to Catalan.

I am going to make it clear to all and sundry that it is a significant day for me in the fond hope that some shreds of common humanity will encourage me to escape early. 

This is a futile expectation because there is a sort of fatalistic, ghoulish pleasure that some of my colleagues find in these flagellestic and masochistic events and they do not like anyone to flee the delights.  And it is good preparation for the Saturday morning performance coming up in November!

However, to sweeten the occasion I have bought mini packets of Smarties to give to my colleagues in the meeting.  At the very least it will cause them to munch away rather than talk and hopefully it will increase the guilt they feel for keeping me from my “party”.  It will also make the whole situation look slightly absurd – which will amuse me.

The Family will be waiting for me at home and I am going to make it clear that any extension of the meeting will be directly insulting to my guests! 

Anything is worth a try!