Working to learn

A rugged determination to continue my swimming saw me get up at a reasonable time, in spite of the “holiday” at the end of my three-day week.  By the time I had come back, done a little light studying of my new unit in the OU it was time for lunch.

Our first choice of restaurant was closed so we tried a restaurant that we had been in only once before.  And the result was good and bad.

Firstly the bad.  When I see a sign outside a restaurant advertising a menu del dia for twelve euros I expect it to be on sale and not, because the day was a holiday, to be given the choice of a meal more than twice the price!

However, I was inclined to get taken by the trick and go with the Halloween Menu that they were selling.  It was exceptional!

The meal was a series of tapas-like courses (including a rather nice soup) with a bottle of wine and a couple of cocktails all included in the price.  Admittedly we paid over sixty euros for a meal that we thought was going to cost us twenty-five – but it was a real experience.  We spent a very enjoyable time trying to work out just how much the whole meal would have cost in the UK.  I think that the element which got to us was the fact that the meal that we had was in an unexceptional little restaurant, but the quality of the food was haute cuisine.  And the sun was shining!

Friday too saw me making my early way to the swimming pool where, as usual, I was the only one actually swimming.

The torrential rain we have had recently has flooded areas in the grounds of the swimming pool that I use and I made the vast mistake of parking under the trees and in sticky, slippery mud.  My laziness in wanting to park near the pool meant that I was cleaning mud from my sandals all day and the carpet in the car is now disgusting!  Still, I do have the little high-powered car vacuum cleaner for just such occasions.  But I will have wait until the mud is dry before it takes more effort to get it off the carpet than I am prepared to make for short-term cleanliness.

This Friday will go down in history as the day when a determined attempt was made to bring order to the chaos which characterises the Third Floor.  With Toni at his most totalitarian we have made the sort of effort which means that the place is in an even greater mess than it was before we started, but it is the sort of mess which can be sorted out in the bright light of tomorrow morning.  Probably.

But tomorrow is to be given over to the name day of all the variants of Charles in Terrassa, so the “final” sorting out will have to be delayed some.

Toni has had the idea of incorporating my grandmother’s octagonal inlaid table into some tearoom concept so that we can sit around the table sipping Earl Grey tea when we have become satiated with our realms of respective study.  He is even talking of buying some sort of tasteful tablecloth to make his concept more convincing.

I remain sceptical, as I do not believe that we can put back in the space of the Third Floor what we have taken out and not put back into any sort of order that I understand!

I am also trying to come to terms with my agreement to do an extra week of supply teaching in our local English speaking school.  I am doing someone a favour and I might well, quite apart from the money involved, be doing something which is intelligently self-interested.  We shall see.

In a shamefaced capitulation to the forces of nature, I have worn jeans and a coat for some time during the day.  In bed I have sought the comfort of the duvet!  I, even I, am having to admit that it is not the summer.

However, today has been fine and we decided to go to our “local” for lunch where we had a superb view of the kite surfers who seem to have descended on Castelldefels in force for some sort of international competition.  They looked picturesque and compensate in some way for the poor service that we uncharacteristically had in our local haunt.

Tomorrow might be the public airing of our new gadgets.  As an iPad owner I rather think that I spurn the new mini-iPads which have been launched on a punch-drunk public reeling from the plethora of electrical stuff by which they are surrounded.  The mini seems absurdly overpriced, but that is not going to stop the dyed in the wool macophiles!  And even I feel pulled in that direction!  Still as a multiple Kindle owner I think I have nailed my colours to the mast!

Tomorrow I must try and remember to make sure that I have a sufficient number of clean, white shirts for my next week of work.