A resented day

Barcelona might be covered in a thick blanket of pollution by the sun is shining and the soft outlines of the buildings gleam magically against the contrasting glittering sea.  I continue to feel cheated as I watch this magnificent weather from the inside, trapped inside a school by the lure of insultingly low wages.  How much further can I sink!

If, the for rest of my time in this country people make wistful references back to the wonderful autumn of 2011 I will never forgive myself.  Gallons (or pounds or however your measure it) of Vitamin D lavished on uncaring buildings rather than on my receptive skin!

Still, I am getting through today my reminding myself of the fact that, contrary to all internal clocks and calendars, today is nothing more than a Thursday and that tomorrow is Friday and that is the start of the weekend.  By such mind games does one get through the quotidian horror of the slavery of a monthly wage!

The ironing still awaits, lurking in open view as white shirts and undershirts lie carelessly diffused on a chair in the living room like an exploded meringue.

Toni is getting no better and is becoming evilly accusatory about the treatment that his leg is getting.  I think it might be politic to get a magnetic resonance scan done privately before he hobbles around and destroys the health service piecemeal!

We now have cloud around the school – but I keep telling myself that the west is full of sunshine and that is where Castelldefels is.  And, even as I was typing the sun has returned.  I thought for one glorious moment that the heavens had taken pity on my imprisoned state and were trying to make it a little more bearable.  But no, the cruel gleam of outside sunshine mocks my room condemned state.

The one thing that I have to look forward to is the purchase of a toaster.  Our present model now only (and in a very stylish and Post Modern sort of way) toasts only one side of the bread.  It must be junked and something much more elaborate must be purchased.  I am thinking of some machine which can make those individually wrapped and long-lasting croissants taste and feel more authentically pastry-like rather than like a dead collection of chemical molecules completely unrelated to the fine art of the pâtissier together, of course, with cold fat.

There was a freakishly cheap toaster in one of the shops which looked as though it had been made from an unconvincing Airfix kit.  I spurned this and went to another shop and bought something much more expensive.  Just to hammer the point home about the necessity of supporting the materialist society I also bought a sort of hand mixer with various attachments because it was in a sale and because I sort of needed one.  I really did.

Lidl (god bless it!) came up trumps again when I went to get the bread as they had one of those stick-on electrode machines for stretching and massaging muscles which was exactly what Toni needed for his knee - which continues to give trouble.

My three-day stew in now fully consumed with the final version having fruit juice, grapes, olives and German sweet pepper in it – though precious little actual meat in it.  Delicious though.

As is usual, though always unexpected until it actually happens, a day off mid week always leaves teachers feeling more tired than if they had worked the week through.  It’s a good sort of tiredness, a small price to pay for a day off!

Our next time off is a long weekend at the end of October and then nothing until an absurd week in December when we come into school on alternate days in the middle of the working week.  Madness.  I hope that the kids take every opportunity to go on holiday for the whole of the week.  Though parents in our school take every opportunity to thrust their kids towards us, as they seem to want to get rid of them from their everyday lives whenever they can!  I am sure that it is not actually the case; it just appears like that.

I have now taken, on the back of the infection, to eschew the eating of lunch.  I am not really a lunch person and I welcome the opportunity to eat sparsely at midday and have a larger meal in the evening.  We shall see how it goes.

Meanwhile, one more day and then the weekend.