Make the most of it!

All my classes have informed me, with growing seriousness that, “Today is Friday!”

They are not as demented as they might seem as we have May Day off, but we do not have a Bank Holiday Monday to look forward to.  And going on the logic of the kids it will mean that Thursday is actually Sunday – and I have no desire to go to school then.  On the other hand, again following the childish thinking, it would mean that Friday is Monday and . . . it’s probably better to take reality at face value and remember that I am going to the UK on Real Friday and am having Real Monday off.  If you see what I mean.  Anyway we are about due for our Second Easter (don’t ask) and we get another day off then.

The interminable rain has stopped at last and I scurried out onto the Third Floor and did what I do best until wispy cloud spilt my little browning session.

I have resurrected my impossibly expensive (even with a swingeing Tesco reduction) wireless headphones and have discovered that they (eventually) work well with the iMac and the range comfortably includes the terrace of the Third Floor which meant that I was listening to an excellent version of “Orfeo” as the temperature cooled.

I have to remind myself that I have to write an exam paper and finish the marking of my sixth form papers and pack my case tomorrow.  It’s not all holiday.

I also have to finish off reading my St Jordi book, “The Penguin Book of British Short Stories” which has been absolutely excellent.  I thought when I first looked at it that it was a flashier edition of a book I already possessed, but I have realised that my version is of a much earlier selection and this one, edited by the late Malcolm Bradbury is a much more exciting read.  Many of the stories are to do with the creative impulse and form a fascinating commentary on a post Modernist approach to writing too.  It is the sort of anthology that makes you slightly sad the more you read because the delight is steadily running out as you use up each well-chosen story!

I am also conscious that I will be away from base at the start of my new course, so I will have to take my computer with me so that I can participate from day one with what we have to do.  I will have to remember to take my first piece of written work (which I have completed) with me so that I can post it from Britain – a day is important in the modern Open University!

I have also managed to book an optical appointment in a Tesco branch in a desperate attempt to get replacements (not the plural) at a price this side of despair.  I might even try and get some other view of my contact lenses while I am there.

This practical element is to compensate for what might not be quite what I expected this visit to Britain to be.  But that is something which is a negative view and, at the moment, there is no reason to believe that things are not going to work out in the way that I first expected.  We shall, as they say, see.

Meanwhile I am in full weekend mode and an much looking forward to the free day tomorrow – in spite of Thursday and Friday still retaining their old significance!

And Real Madrid have not managed to score in the first half of their crucial game against the Germans.  They have to pull back three goals and they have left it all for the second half.  They have it all to do!

And Barça tomorrow, with an even more difficult deficit to overturn.

One can only hope.