Escape!

Pleading ill health I fled from the meeting yesterday when, after an hour and a half we had only completed discussion about two of the four classes that we were supposed to cover in the scheduled two hours of the full meeting. 

This morning I heard the grisly news that the meeting went on for another hour and a half and finally finished at 8.00 pm after three solid hours of pointlessly self-indulgent talk!

The only positive part of the entire meeting was my distribution of the remains of the Toblerone from the Media Studies lesson which ended just before the meeting started.  Two months ago there was the obscenity of holding a meeting on United Nations Day during which, by way of celebration and expiation I handed out mini boxes of Smarties.  That action was so unexpected and welcome that I had a round of applause.  This time the acceptance of large pieces of a 400g Toblerone bar was greeted with delight but no further demonstration of audial dexterity.  How quickly the unexpected becomes customary.

So, in the last two days some of my poor colleagues will have taught a full timetable (and believe me in my school that means exactly what it says) and have been to five hours of after school meetings!  The expression “lions led by donkeys” has never seemed so appropriate.  And we have three teachers absent today which produces its own specific form of chaos, as “supply” is a concept exotic and strange to this school.

I am hoping that my illness is coming to its mucus dripping climax and that from tomorrow I will on the upward slope to wellness.  I bloody better be!  I have no intention of adopting the usual cunning tactic of teachers and celebrating each holiday period by a parallel period of selfless illness. 

In the past (and only in Catalonia) the number of times that I have been actively ill on Christmas Day has been beyond a joke.  For the first few years I alternated illness with Toni’s sister and it was more than a few years before we were able to toast each other at the Christmas meal with a brimming, bubbling glass of Cava!

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my latest camera.  It should have arrived yesterday from Amazon, but I always assumed that the three-day delivery time was a little optimistic.  Today however could be a very real possibility for delivery and I am looking forward to playing around with a camera with a satisfyingly large number of features which I will probably never use.  But that, as I always point out to those who question my gadget capabilities, is not the point.  The point is possession.

In the way of our school I have now gained a free period because the class I should be teaching is off on a trip and have immediately lost it by taking a class which a teacher on the trip should be taking himself.  Such is life in our establishment.  Win none and lose a lot.  I’m sure it’s character building.  Though I tend to think that my character is quite well enough developed as it is.

I have now (well, not at this moment with a class in front of me) tried on the new trousers for my costume for the end of the term.  I do not have wellies and while this is not an essential part of the costume (as we have what looks like a pair of black, fur topped plastic greaves to make ordinary shoes look more imposing) I feel that real boots add an essential touch of verisimilitude to the whole outfit.  I might even buy some and put the expense down to the school! 

There again I don’t want to press my luck too far; after all I have made the school buy 600g of chocolate for my Media Studies class!

I caught the weather forecast for today in the UK on the television last night and today in Catalonia is one of the most convincing reasons for my presence here: glorious sunlight and blue skies with fluffy white clouds.  It is cold (I do not expect miracles) but bright and that lifts the spirits!

Having the 3ESO as the last class of the day (again) at the end of a day which started at 8.15 am for the kids is not my idea of fun – but I am buoyed up by the overwhelming belief that my new camera will be waiting for me when I get home. 

The idea of not having a new camera waiting at home after a last lesson with 3ESO (teaching the passive) after a week with two meetings after school (and it’s only Wednesday) would be unbearable and intolerable. 

So, in spite of the fact that Toni has not sent me a message informing me of its arrival I will persist in my naïf faith and not make myself even more miserable than I need to be.