FRIDAY 16TH DECEMBER 2011
Arriving home to a new-cameraless house is
a dispiriting experience. I checked
again in my emails and ascertained that the item had been “handed over to
carriers” in Spain five days previously.
Five days is surely enough to deliver one small package!
Toni, as usual, suggested a practical
course of action: phoning the company.
Unable to find the details on Amazon’s “complete” list of carriers but
the Internet, as ever, provided the dire news that the carrier is one with
which I have had similar unsatisfactory experiences before.
After trying various telephone numbers we
were at last able to find out that, yes, the item was in the carrier’s
Castelldefels office and of course they had left a note informing us that they
had attempted to deliver the package.
And if there was no note then it was perhaps the large letter box on the
pillar of the front gate, just under the “B” of the torre of the house, was
impossible to see by the hard working deliverer. Or, if we didn’t like that obviously false
excuse then it was Amazon’s fault.
As our past experience of this carrier is
that its operatives are a little less than honest and scrupulous in their
deliveries – casually throwing packages with fragile contents over the front
wall and leaving notes (!) for non-response when people have been at home. We always end up trying to find a parking
space in the congested area around the office in the centre of
Castelldefels. I feel the futility of
making a fuss when I am there and the desire to get my hands on the package
always outweighs the expression of frustration that I should make as a response
to the incompetence that they constantly show.
The end result of the telephone calls was
that we went in person to pick up the goodies and then had a meal in a corner
restaurant that we had tried (and dismissed) once before. In an exceptional demonstration of
magnanimity we decided to give it a second chance.
We had a series of tapas including a very
cold and oddly tasting Russian Salad and a thoroughly delicious Pulpo Gallego
served traditionally on a wooden round accompanied by some potatoes cooked in
the Gallician style. All this was washed
down with a more than decent Rioja diluted by Casera to make it seem reasonable
and positively abstemious! It was quite
pricey at €45 but I think we can let it re-join the list of the favoured
establishments that we sometime patronize.
Though the expense may limit our attendance.
The worst thing about gaining a gadget in
the short term is the amount of time necessary for the battery of the damn
thing to charge. The tiny red light on
my camera stubbornly refused to extinguish itself in spite of my constant trips
to the kitchen where the machine was soaking up power from one of the three pin
sockets that take British plugs.
I did eventually get my hands on the little
beauty and it is a delight. It is small,
as befits a device that is now in direct competition with mobile phones. The improvement of the mobile phone as a
picture taking machine has compromised the utility of a separate camera and
therefore the newest cameras have to contend with increasingly sophisticated
gadgets like the i-phone 4 (S) which offers a whole suite of editing
possibilities as well as the computer facilities – not to mention a phone!
My new Samsung looks more like a phone than
a camera and it is only when the thing is switched on the lens emerges that its
single function is made clear.
Its touch screen and icon led capabilities
have only been tentatively explored by me at the moment but, as I have brought
it to school, I took advantage of a high vantage point and a particularly
spectacular dawn to take my first “proper” photograph!
The USP of this camera is the fact that it
has a screen which can be tilted to 180° which, I am reliably informed, facilitates the taking of accurate,
well centred low level and over-the-head shots.
There is also a satisfyingly large number of icons which allow the image
to be played with. I do have another
camera which is larger and bulkier which does the same sort of thing, but this
one appears to be better, more sophisticated and a damn sight smaller.
The real test, of course, will be with my
on-going attempt to take a satisfactory fireworks photograph. With dawn safely on the memory card can pyrotechnics
be far behind? I am itching to try every
aspect of the machine out, but I am constrained by the presence of colleagues
to keep it to myself – as I rather expected I would have to. I am, however, going to flaunt it in my
Current Affairs class under the specious topic of “Gadgets – do we need them?”
Well, I did get to show off my camera and
the discussion was interesting, at least it passed the time and that is one
thing which has been dragging throughout this week which started with the
horror of consecutive meetings on the first two days after school. I don’t think we as a staff have actually
recovered from those yet. It will take a
holiday just to get back to normal.
Next week is, at last, the final week of
term – just another four days until Thursday and then release! This final week was not made any more
tolerable by Paul 1 phoning up to let me know that he had just broken up for
the holidays!
SATURDAY 17TH DECEMBER 2011
The feeling of wellness was further away
today. In spite of the pills and lotions
that I have gulped down I am feeling still below par. This is clearly not fair and I am becoming
more and more worried as soon I am going to be ill in my own time. It is one thing to be unwell during the
weekend, it is quite another to be misfiring on one or more cylinders during a
proper holiday.
We did manage to go out for an excellent
lunch and I did manage to take some photographs, though putting them in the
body of an email seems to be something which is simply too difficult to accomplish. I have even been on You Tube to get the
advice of the under tens who seem to command authority on that benighted
site. Nothing works.
A generally miserable day and early to bed
in the hope that the morrow will dawn bright and that I might follow it.
SUNDAY 18TH DECEMBER 2011
A lie in but still no real
improvement. I think that another visit
to the Quack is called for, certainly before Christmas and the general
cessation of activity which that festival entails.
I have noticed that the engine in my car is
racing when I accelerate. I have no idea
what this means except that I am sure that it entails my throwing large sums of
money at surly mechanics. I hate
spending money on a car when you have already bought the bloody thing almost as
much as I resent buying cleaning fluid: necessary but hardly interesting.
Toni and I are now snuffling and coughing
in a demented way that reminds me of the more harmonious sections of that
extended joke of an opera I went to see recently - Le Grand Macabre. The way we are both feeling at the moment do
chime in with the more noisy end-of-the-world manifestations that clumsy piece
tinkered with.
The only clearly positive thing that has
happened today is that Barça have won the title of World Champion Club
Side. This is good is two ways: not only
because Barça have won, but also because Real Madrid have not. I await with pleasurable anticipation the
snarlingly petty whinings of the coach of Real Madrid who I think has a genuine
gift for comedy in the manner of Max Wall!
Tomorrow is the start of the final week of
term which will be truncated by the fact that we finish on the 22nd
of December and therefore Friday will be the start of our holidays.
There is almost a tangible fear in our
place that this last week may descend into some sort of Saturnalian orgy of
education-free enjoyment for the kids so tests, timed essays and photocopies of
extra work are being marshalled so that no element of jollity informs our
woefully extended days.
The last day of term is always a
struggle. I can remember the admonishments
of successive headteachers who were firm believer in the “teach until the end”
theory of pupil containment – mainly of course because they were not the ones
doing the teaching.
I think that even we do “something” on the
last day of term with kids exchanging “Secret Santa” presents; a football
tournament, and even a film. I will, of
course have other duties (cough allowing) and will see to keep as great a
distance as possible between me and pupils en mass. I also have a free period during the last
period of the day and I am damned if I am going to give that up to help some
dreary concession to the season. I cannot
wait for the moment of release and I shall ritually kick the dust off my feet
until next year.
Four more days!
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