Closing eyes!

Guiltily cheered by the awful weather in Britain I am able to face what are going to be fairly stressful days ahead.

Not only is my knee playing up at the start of a day when I do little else but traipse from one building to another lesson after lesson up and down innumerable steps, but also I have to buy Toni’s birthday present; get stuff for the meal for The Family who are descending on Wednesday for the celebrations; start marking the pointless examinations – oh yes, and teach!

At some point I am going to have to make an appointment for the doctor so that he can read the auguries from the red stuff taken yesterday and, by contrast, I am supposed to be doing “something cultural” with Suzanne.  A full and satisfying week which should result in complete prostration by Friday.  At best.

Of course I have no idea about what to buy Toni for his birthday so, as long as I remember on my way home, I will call into MediaMarkt and hope that electronic inspiration hits me - and the impact is not too costly!

The only thing that I need to buy for myself is windscreen washer.  This is the season of pollen and when you live in an area which is covered in pine trees then pollen takes on a completely different meaning.  Given the sheer quantity of pollen that a single pine tree makes it is astonishing to me that the entire world is not covered in coniferous forests.  I remember last year that Carmen kicked her son’s football into the branches of a pine tree in the park and thick clouds of pollen floated from the branches in a totally unconvincing sort of way.  It looked as though boys had been paid to sit up a tree and when a flying object hit any branch they had to open their sacks of powder in gleeful abandon.  All the cars in our area look as though they have been to one of those Indian festivals where the main occupation is throwing pigment around.

Most of the pollen in our area seems to have settled on my car and no matter the speed at which I travel it does not go off to do its stuff elsewhere.  I can’t help feeling sorry for the tenacious pollen trying its damndest to do its reproductive stuff on the unyielding surface of a motorcar – but full marks for trying.  And that’s another thing I have to do – get the car washed before the pollen becomes an integral part of the decoration.

Toni’s presents have been bought and, more importantly wrapped.  The card has been written.  The food has been amassed and Toni can set it out tomorrow.  The Cava is cooling in the fridge and I am beyond tired.

We had a disastrous meal after doing the shopping.  Torradeta in Centre Comercial L’Anec Blau was the perpetrator of the gastronomic crime against food.  Perhaps stupidly I chose the offer of three tapas for €6.90.  On the surface they sounded OK.  On the surface.

The meal was not helped by my participation in a cliché before I had eaten a thing.  The ketchup bottle was one of those commercial squeeze things filled with watered down liquid which had coagulated in the narrow nozzle.  A little pressure and soon one of the dishes was explosively filled with ketchup.  And Toni’s shirt had interesting red stains, as had the table and various condiments.

My meal was taken away but alas, when it returned nothing was new.  The three tapas had merely been cleaned up a bit and reheated so that they had the texture and taste of ancient cardboard.  Disgusting.  And expensive for what it was.  Never again.

Tomorrow the first and second of the examinations I will have to mark and then the bloody, bloody meetings.  One of which is still scheduled for a Saturday morning.

Think not of such things.  That way madness lies!