Back to the grind

My first attempt at a lemon and nut cake from my St Jordi recipe book went down quietly in the staffroom today.  

Those who tried in within my sight were complementary but all commented on how sharp and tangy it was.  That reflects my taste and it certainly is a cake that fights back – as well it should with the juice of three lemons in the glaze on top that is itself topped with their combined zests!  It is also very rich made as it is with butter and eggs and stuffed with nuts and pasas and a generous dash of single malt whiskey.

A mite crumbly for my taste but delicious and one to make again – though it might also be useful to stick more closely to the recipe and translate more than the gist of the thing!

I know that it is Wednesday, but it is a beautiful day and I am in school.  I know that there has been a two-day holiday, but it is a beautiful day and I am in school.  On the positive side I am now nearer to the weekend than I am to the start of the week and there is every chance that the new swimming pool will actually allow some swimmers into it by the end of the week.

I am still resting on my laurels about my immersion in the arctic pool and am still trying to work out why it was that the water was actually cooler on the parts illuminated by the sun than those in shade.  This is surely counter intuitive and against the law of god.  For a completely static container of still water I am at a loss to understand how currents of icy water managed to ambush me as I trawled my increasingly weary and refrigerated way up and down the pool.  There seemed to be neither rhyme nor reason for the sudden shocks as lines of liquid icebergs engulfed my body. 

I am convinced that the sea would not have been quite so vicious, but I have lost my crevice tool for removing sand from unfashionable parts of the body and I simply couldn’t be bothered with all the fuss of walking all that way down to a jellyfish infested (probably) sea.

This week is the false dawn before the full onslaught of examination fever and, of course the meetings consequent upon getting another mark out of ten for the kids.  There is still one Saturday morning meeting left this year but I am spreading my poison around and expect it to be changed – to a Friday evening!  I could still weep when I acknowledge that I have fallen so low in employment terms in this country that I regard that as some sort of triumph.  A triumph at a time when the government is taking 5% of my salary to make up for their own inadequacies in guarding the national budget. 

Damn them all to hell! 

And the sun is shining which makes it all so much worse somehow!

On the other hand one of my colleagues has filled up the Magic Box of Never Ending Chocolate and I have just eaten a British Malteaser and they simply don’t taste the same as the damned foreign ones!

After a fairly awful lesson with 3ESO right at the end of the day that left me tired and drained I lack the gumption even to go out on the third floor and take the sun to which I am justly entitled.

I may have to find the energy to go out and discover new sources of get up and go to find a present for Toni’s sister for her birthday on Saturday.

It’s now past ten o’clock and I am past tiredness.  We did go to a few shops and found nothing suitable for Toni’s sister but we did buy a hair cutter.  I pause here for the chortles to die down and would point out that hair does grow upon my head.  Admittedly the major covering of the pate is of gossamer delicacy but there is a rugged sufficiency at the sides and back.  And that stuff needs to be cut, while the lighter stuff needs more shaving.  Our last shaver has given up the ghost so this was a necessary spending.  It is now charging for the next sixteen hours so that the weekend should be a time for the falling of the hairs.

By the time our purchases and non-purchases had been completed I was in no mood to wait for my food and so, eventually, we made our way to our favourite haunt of La Fusta which undoubtedly serves the best patatas bravas in Castelldefels.

While we were waiting to be served we could not help noticing that the television was tuned to a pay channel which was showing the Barça game.  We stayed until it ended and Barça were able to notch up another win, but alas, it will not be enough to stop Real Madrid from getting the league cup.  Indeed as I type Madrid are two nil up against Athletic Bilbao who are not playing at all well.  If Madrid win this match then they will have clinched the league and, as with the last goal that they scored, there will be an explosion of fireworks around us to celebrate this win.

In Catalonia, celebrating Real Madrid is a direct affront to all things Catalan and Toni will be insufferable moaning and groaning about the “foreigners” by whom we are surrounded!

Madrid are now three nil up and do not look as though they are going to lose so I should stop now before I have to catalogue the victory of our hated rivals!