A fine day

A three hour lie-in is such a luxury, eventually getting up at 9.30 am to make myself my first cup of tea at such a late hour!

The real luxury of course is settling down with the “late” cup of tea and immersing myself in my electronic copy of The Guardian.  It reminds me of my more intense days, years ago, when I read The Guardian (in its newsprint form) with a sort of air of defiant liberalism feeling myself part of a small, select community of right thinking people whose main job was to worry about people in the world who were not doing the right things.  Like reading The Guardian!

I could easily get used to a rather more spacious approach to living than getting up at 6.30 am and throwing myself onto a series of major motorways to get to an educational institution on a hill, albeit with spectacular views of the city.

Lunch was a return visit to a restaurant near the railway station on the beach which we quite liked when we visited it for the first time a few months ago.  This was the Marisqueria Casa Gallega situated on the Avda. Republica Argentina.

We had the same starter of pulpo which was unusual for a menu del dia as it is far more expensive than the usual starter.  It was reasonable, but I have tasted far better. 

My second course of paella was delicious and Toni struggled with his, which was a Spanish version of a mixed grill with a truly obscene amount of meat on his plate! 

It was the sweet which brought us back to reality and was easily the least impressive part of the meal.  Indeed I had a café solo to take away the cloying taste of the ersatz strawberry and cream confection presented to me. 

Overall though, excellent value, with wine, bread and a selection of olives included, though the service could and should be quicker.

We are, at present, going through a rather traumatic game of Barça.  The guys went in after the second half with a one goal advantage.  They came out for the second half and within a minute Piqué was sent off.  That, in itself is bad enough, but it is much, much worse when you are sitting near a thoroughly paranoid Barça supporter who is convinced that all the referees in Spain are out to ensure the league victory of The Team in White. 

At the moment the Barça coach is coming in for a fair amount of stick from the critic on the couch, not only for his choice of team to start the game, but also for his lack of decision in changing the arrangement of players now that Piqué has gone.

Even I know that a draw at this stage of the league is a disaster given the number of points that they have to make up to be in anything like real contention at the end of the season. 

Sometimes it almost sounds like I care, doesn’t it!

Tomorrow is a day to which I am not looking forward as Toni has decreed that it will spent making the house presentable for the visit of Brian which entails Great Cleaning and even more momentous tidying. 

If our visitors are to be shown our sea view they will have to go to the Third Floor and to get to that they will have to go through the room which, at present is not exactly presentable.

The room is also subject to the “quart in a pint pot” syndrome and I think that the tidying is going to be more along the lines of rearrangement than anything else.  But at least the path to the doors which lead out onto the terrace should be cleared!

Barça (with ten men) have now scored twice more so the score is 3-1 to us and there is only a minute of normal time left.  Although, to chime in with the conspiracy ethos which reigns in this house, the injury time allowance will be unduly high to allow the opponents of Barça to try and salvage something from the ruins of their hopes!

However, in the end, we are now only (!) 7 points adrift and The Team in White have some very difficult games ahead of them before they meet Barça – at home in Barcelona. 

It will make for a very interesting end to the season.