21st October 2012
When you have a day which is close and muggy
you have the opportunity to rise above such stultifying weather and forge ahead
with a new project or give in to the sense of entropy and vegetate.
I chose the latter course for yesterday and
did nothing. I fed and watered myself
and read the newspaper and that was basically it.
I refuse to feel the guilt that such a
giving-in to indolence should encourage; I look on it more as a day of
preparation for the journey and return which is facing me this evening.
As the trip is so short it is difficult to
feel much about it – apart from the fact that it is a necessary one to show
support for my cousin in our shared sense of loss. And given the number of people who travelled
from Scotland to Stewart’s funeral and had to make hurried departures from the
house to catch various trains to go back to whence they came I can say
little. The distance between Barcelona
and Cardiff can actually be covered in little more than three hours if you are
going via Bristol as I am. A couple of
hours to Bristol and then about an hour from Bristol to Cardiff.
But you are supposed to get to the airport
two hours before your plane is supposed to depart. There is the delay in getting off the plane
and getting the car. At least with the
new crossing there is less chance of being held up on the Bridge than there
used to be with the other one. So I will
actually start off at eight in the evening and get to Cardiff (having gained an
hour in the difference between time in Spain and time in the UK) by about one
or two in the morning. Ah, the delights
of air travel.
I am packing a coat of some sort. I have not worn a coat since I came back from
France, but I fear that I may have to indulge the British weather a
little. I am also wearing jeans and not
shorts. In Spain I aim to wear shorts
until late November and in some parts of December, but I am not so jejune to
believe that I can do this in the country of my birth! We shall see.
The last time I went to the UK I was delighted by the weather and was
even able to have breakfast sitting outside the café – and we had to move
because we were not in the shade and the sunshine was too intense! Fond hope for the end of October I fear!
Monday, surely, will be the day when my
material from the Open University arrives.
That will give me just over a week until the course proper starts on the
3rd of November and I had hoped to be a little more in advance than
that to give myself a flying start.
Still, the fact that Toni is studying as well is an incentive to take
things seriously and make sure that the cut off dates for the tutor marked
assignments are merely reminders for me rather than ominous fingers of doom as
they were the last time I attempted OU courses!
Just over a week and a half after the
course has started I am back in the UK for a more extended time with
commitments right, left and centre which are going to take up my time. It is recommended that you allow fifteen
hours of study time a week for the course which is over two hours a day. A couple of days lost and you are already up
to three hours a day and that is difficult with the best will in the
world. But these are cavils provoked by
nervousness of not having the material this near to the start of the course.
United Nations Day looms when, not only
will the traditional celebrations take place, but also it is the opening day of
the website for the course. You see,
everything is now related to the OU!
Nowadays you do not have to get up at the
crack of dawn and watch, through bleary eyes some academic lecture on
BBC2. I can well remember crawling
towards the television and sitting close enough to see what was going on
because I had not put my lenses in and clutching a cup of tea wondering what
the hell I was dong and why! Now there
are DVDs and anyway the schedule of the BBC is too full to allow academics to
do their things and do them with Beatle-style haircuts and in black and white!
Now for a shower and a change into my
British clothes to prepare myself for the rigors of modern travel. At least I have my newly-found Nano to soften
the edges of boredom which strikes me as soon as I have passed passport control!
Today – 23rd October 2012
An hour waiting in the plane on the runway
was not the best way to start the journey to Bristol on Sunday evening. Although the plane was full I managed to get
a seat on the front row between two people who looked daggers at me as they
thought that they had managed to keep a free seat between them. The harsh element of their disappointment was
that they had kept the spare seat from almost the whole of the loading of the
plane until I, the last person to board claimed it!
Leg room was the only thing that kept me
sane while we waited and waited for a new slot to fly because the rain had
taken our allocated slot away from us.
Rain? A little rain? So much for modern technology.
A further irritation was the fact that my
hand luggage, the only case I was taking to the UK, had been tagged as
something which needed to go into the hold.
This is because so many more people are taking substantial cases instead
of putting a large case in the hold.
This means that the overhead storage gets filled with remarkable speed
and you are left bewailing the wasted time as you stand sullenly with the other
zombies waiting for the carrousel to jerk into some sort of movement.
Luckily my bleats of injustice were
listened to and I managed to get my case on board in the overhead rack, though
it was nowhere near my seat.
I eventually arrived in Cardiff at about
1.48 am and Pauls Squared (bless him!) made a cup of tea and made a more than
generous ham sandwich to keep body and soul together.
The funeral of my aunt, the reason for my
visit, went very well with a short but clear service and an enjoyable get
together afterwards.
My late aunt was a forthright character (I
discovered two or three of us had used the word “feisty” to describe her on our
sympathy cards) and it is difficult to regard such a vital woman as dead, so
her character is irrepressibly alive in our collective memory!
In a welcome return to eccentric clergymen
of bygone days, the young, chubby faced vicar who took the service was
accompanied by his liver coloured Labrador who lay contentedly behind her
master as he conducted the service. And,
as the coffin was hidden behind the curtain in the crematorium the vicar picked
up the dog’s lead and led the rest of us out of the chapel.
Paul was not in the best of moods when he
finally came back from school so to lighten the atmosphere we went to an Indian
restaurant and had a truly excellent and reasonably priced meal in The Spice
Island in Rumney. By the second or third
drink we were all feeling a little more mellow and getting up the next day was
just that little bit more difficult!
However, get up we did and, with the usual
delays along the Avon and under the suspension bridge I made good time to the
airport.
Once through the increasingly arduous
security I got out my new Rowling, “The Casual Vacancy” and started to
read. In spite of the fog in the area
which was delaying a plane to Jersey the climactic conditions did not appear to
impede our progress and the Barcelona plane was not delayed.
The problem with getting something to eat
and drink and going to the loo and carting around a case and a very large book
is that something has to give. And I
lost the book.
The book was bought in Tesco and I paid
nine quid for it rather than the list price of twenty. I was annoyed. And the flight was being called.
I trudged resentfully to the gate and
waited discontentedly for the queue of Celtic supporters to make their noisy
way into the plane.
At this point the particular sort of luck
which is the positive counterpoint to my feckless unconcern made itself felt.
For the first time in my life (at least in
an airport) I heard my name being broadcast with an invitation to return to
Security.
And there was my book – linked to me
because I had used the card and addressed envelope from Hadyn as a
bookmark. Time after time I am saved
from my own unconcern.
The flight back was uneventful, apart from
the Celtic fans momentarily hosting the cans of beer that they were drinking
before returning them to another part of the plane!
The fog and drizzle of Bristol gave way to
bright sunshine in Barcelona as one of the Celtic fans exiting the plane
remarked in a delighted tone to his colleagues, “It’s just like July!” They should be so lucky!
A disconsolate Toni was raised from his
depression by going to a new restaurant for us in the centre of town called,
“Tast” – and I have officially designated it as “A Find”. For €12.50 we had an inventive and delicious
meal with the only drawback being there was but a single glass of wine to
accompany the repast.
The rest of my Olympic First Day Covers
have arrived with the surprising addition of an free official Philatelic Bureau
“Gold Medal Winners” album to put them in.
God bless the Philatelic Bureau – though they do not appear to have sent
me the “Olympic Memories” FDC which should have been issued in late
September. I think another phone call is
in order.
As indeed has been necessary for the OU
material which has still not arrived. A
very helpful lady told me that another batch has been sent – which should mean
that the original shipment will arrive bright and early tomorrow!
I will be glad to be back in my own bed –
and tomorrow is United Nations Day!
Hooray!
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