What weekend?

Another lie-in!  Such criminal indulgence.  But not for long.

Up and doing gave me time to read “The Week.” 

Usually this inestimable publication arrives well after the week that it is supposed to be about, this in spite of the “Time Sensitive” inscription emblazoned on the front of the postal package.

Today, however, I read it on my iPad and so was able to enjoy something electronically that was more closely related to the actual date.  I think it makes sense to continue my subscription to the electronic version rather than the wayward print version.

It is a sign of age or something that, for the last week I have been wearing a jumper.  A jumper!  A man renowned for wearing shorts through the hardest winters in Catalonia, reduced to espousing the apparel of the elderly!  I now wear a scarf.  I put my coat on when I move from building to building.  It is a sad development in the story of my erstwhile hardiness that I have descended to such namby-pamby coverings in my day-to-day existence!

At long last Sales have hit Catalonia and the shops in our local centre were packed with spenders (apparently untouched by any concept of Crisis) and so I was able to boost my collection of jumpers at purchases at half price.

I would imagine that, having bought (pure wool) jumpers there will now be a heat wave in Spain.  I look forward to it.

In the way that one does, I have done nothing in the way of school work that I should have done, and there is no health in me (as the Prayer Book has it) and I am sure that I will regret my indolence during the rest of the week, but there again, who cares.  Next week is going to be a continuing horror of marking so I may as well throw in the stuff that I haven’t done with the rest of it so that I “get in the groove” and won’t really notice at all.  That sort of logic has made my life difficulty in so many ways in the past!

I have had various conflicting dates from Amazon about when my various purchases should arrive, but the consensus that I have gleaned from the series of emails that I have received is that next Thursday will see everything that I have ordered arrive in god knows how many parcels.

In the way that these things happen, the dogs next door have been suspiciously muted in their barking almost as if they know that their electronic nemesis is about to arrive and make their miserable lives just that little bit more eventful.

I must admit that my faith in the efficacy of the dog repellent/bark stopper machine that I have purchased is limited but, in the immortal words of that centre of philosophical enlightenment, Tesco would have it, “Every little helps”.  As long as the ultrasonic whine is enough to unsettle the dogs as they bark in their untrammelled way and give them at least some sort of pause for thought then I will be satisfied.

At the moment when the noise of their moronically insistent barking finally frays my nerves past breaking point I open a window and hiss a sharp “shush!” by emphasising the “sh” part in the same way that I have heard Catalan teachers quieten pupils.  Though I have to admit that as the teachers who do this are almost inevitably women, the “sh!” tends to be a more sibilant “sssss!” so that it sounds like the kids are being threatened by a rather insistent snake.  My sound to subdue the dogs is a quite subtle combination of the two sounds.

When I have the machine I will open the window, hiss my hatred at the malevolent beasts and then follow it up with a blast from the machine.  Eventually, I hope that the mere act of opening the window will cause the curs to slink away into obscurity and terrified silence.  Time and good batteries will tell!

But enough, I am determined to do at least one thing for my “book” before the end of the weekend.  Then at least I can go to bed with what I am pleased to call my conscience placated!

Sweet dreams!