Frantic fun!

What a way to start the day! 

To be greeted with the information that the examinations which have yet to be sat by the pupils will all have to be marked, ready for assessment with class and individual commentaries all ready and in the computer by Saturday afternoon “at the latest” so that things are ready for the interminable and pointless meeting on Monday – which also coincides with the last opera that I am supposed to see in the Liceu. 

This is going to cause a real problem.  Not that I ever say anything of any importance whatsoever in these meetings (during which I am in something of a protective coma brought about by almost terminal tedium) but presence is regarded as the sine qua non of professionalism in a display that the school (as opposed to other sentient beings like myself) thinks is the culmination of educational excellence.  It is, of course, nothing of the sort – but try telling meeting-hungry talkers that!

I think that this is going to be a major irritation.  I have no intention of missing my opera (not at the price of the seat that I have paid for!) but am prepared to compromise with the meeting by attending part of it.  I am going to leave at 7 pm and that gives me an hour to get into the centre of Barcelona. 

An hour of tension and worry that will be brought about by every (and I mean every) traffic light being against me and the Diagonal lateral being forced into one lane by illegally parked cars, vans and busses and, the central horror, sudden road works forcing time heavy diversions into unknown parts of the city infuriatingly, tantalizingly and constantly adjacent to where I want to go. 

I will leave those concerns for the day itself and concentrate on getting through the next few tension-filled days of celebration, examination and frustration.

Days are getting a little over-filled at the moment with all sorts of events getting squeezed into less than a week.  By Wednesday of next week things should be a great deal clearer – one way or another!

It is Toni’s Mum’s birthday on Saturday and yesterday (just 3 days before the event) Toni informed me that he has no idea whatsoever about what to buy her.  The default present is perfume by Rocha but his mother has very pointedly told her offspring that she is well stocked with that particular liquid and they would have to do some out of the box thinking.  Three days before.

The only suggestion I have made, my suggestions having been sharpened by the yearly struggle to find presents for my own mother fresh in my mind, which has found partial favour is a camera.  This purchase however, is one which needs the active and financial participation of all the children to make it come to fruition and that, dear reader, is a task in itself.  And not one that I am particularly eager to undertake.

The Birthday Party has come and gone with my participation spasmodically active from my cataleptic state of exhaustion – even the Cava (decent Cava I might add) failed to raise me above the semi-somnolent.  The start of the Europa Cup added a fatigued horror as I assumed that the “party” (with Toni acting like the Ghost of Christmas Past as he had a dickey tummy and could eat and drink nothing but Coke and ham) was going on until the end of the match.  Luckily, at half time The Family decamped and I went thankfully to bed.

This morning brought a round of frantic marking as I have worked out that it is unlikely that I can get everything done by the deadline of Saturday afternoon (sic!) by which time everything has to be marked, the marks entered into the computer system; comments given for each child and a group description given to class teachers.  Ha bloody ha!

It is now late at night days after the date of the opening sentence to this entry and both sets of examination papers have been marked and I am readyish to start the comments during what free time I have in the absurdly long day that our school imposes on us.

By way of relaxation I called in to our local Lidl shop to get bread and ended up buying bed linen: that, surely is the beauty of shopping.  And I didn’t get bread in the end either.

Ever since my shock of finding out the cost of a single down and feather pillow in El Corte Ingles I have been resting my head resentfully on the plastic apology for a pillow that I now possess.  You can imagine my glee when I say that Lidl had its own pillows and my glee converted to near hysteria when I realized that they actually had real feathers in them!  The fact that they cost almost twenty (sic) times less than the pillows in the aforementioned shop might also have had something to do with my heightened emotion.

The bed now has a riot of floral motifs and two elongated feather filled pillows and I will find out now if such natural artifice is conducive to more restful sleep than I have failed to get used to in the near past.  I do hope so, because I need to be refreshed and finger ready to start punching information into our computer system.

If I can’t get it done tomorrow then it will not be done at all because I am treating with contempt the instruction from On High that all information must be in the system by Saturday afternoon.  How dare they presume to hijack part of our weekend when they are actually paying us less!  Bloody cheek!

But, mindful of the ravelled sleeve of care and all that I will repair to my bed and hope that the gentle fingers of Morpheus will work their magic and make me fighting fit for the fray on the morrow.

One can but hope!