Ways of speaking, ways of thinking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a decent early morning swim, a nicely surrealistic accompaniment to my post-swim cup of tea by sighting a man with a parrot on a collar and lead, arriving to have a coffee (the man and his lady companion, not the parrot) at an adjacent table.  The white parrot (cockatoo?) alternated his perch from the man’s shoulder to the top of a free chair, but was generally unobtrusive, and certainly quiet, though constantly disconcerting. 

     I think it was the collar and lead that discomforted the most but was not enough to distract me from answering Carles’ questions about English Usage, with which he assaults me most days.

     Yesterday, he wanted to know about expressions of surprise and, knowing his predilection for the archaic (he uses “spiffing” with relish!) I offered him “Goodness gracious me!” as something suitably outré in modern use!  He had forgotten it by today, though after a Herculean effort of memory he dredged up the “gracious me” part.  I wonder if it will make it to his RAM tomorrow!

     Today’s Word of the Day was “spoil” and its use with regard to children (specifically his grandchildren) and to things in general. 

     I enjoy our little chats because it keeps me in touch with my teaching side and, while I do not think that I have the same agility with explanations that I had when I was in the classroom, it does make me think to try and find the way to explain things that to a native English speaker need no explanation.

     I hasten to add that these little forays into education do not, even in the slightest, make me regret my “retired” status from the teaching profession. 

     Teachers have my admiration and sympathy, but not my emulation!

 

The weather is certainly on the change.  I have not only started wearing a short jacket when I set off in the early morning on my bike to the pool, but also when I go on my extended bike ride to the end of the Gavà Paseo after my swim.  The days of a t-shirt being adequate for both are now gone, as indeed are the nights without a sheet and with an open French door.

     Although somewhat overcast, there are intervals of sunshine, and I am still using a small electric fan to keep cool in my chaotic squalor on the third floor.  There are still times in the mid afternoon when the big fans are needed, but the weather is decidedly “fresher” which is our euphemism for colder.

     As with the UK, though not in such a squalidly chaotic way, Spain is dreading the winter with the increases in power and prices generally.  Although the winter is cold, it is not as bitter as the UK, though central heating and blankets with a couple of eiderdowns are necessary to get through the colder snaps.

     Castelldefels is a rich little town with a selection of Russian oligarchs and Barça players living here in multi-million-euro houses (as well, of course, as we, the genteel poor-ish) so the fear of what the winter can bring is somewhat modified by the fact that many here are well able to compensate for the hike in prices and still smile.  But, like any sizeable town, you need an army of lower paid people to keep the place running – and how are they going to survive?

     As part of my forced awareness, I am determined to find out how and what the council is planning to mitigate some of the deleterious effects of the coming financial hardship.

     From time to time, we have volunteers stationed at the check-outs of our local supermarkets asking for donations for Food Banks.  I have no idea where these are situated in our town, and I also don’t know how they are funded.  But I am going to find out.  And Do Something.

     With my not-fit-for-purpose knees there is a limit to what unskilled help I can give, but there must be something that I can do.  I am aware that, though I might “preach poverty” I am comfortably well off compared to many given my status as a Baby Boomer who got born at the right time for virtually everything!  So, even if we have to make some cutbacks in our expenditure to cover exorbitant fuel bills, there will still be something left over to help those who are really having to make the decision between buying food and staying warm.

     I suppose that I am writing this down as a way of forcing myself to do something more than just ruminate.  For example, I am sure that my pool would be more than prepared to collect food for the Food Banks, they have done it before, and perhaps they might be prepared to do it on a more regular basis during the winter months. 

     Before I ask anything of institutions and myself, I have to find out just how these things are organized in Castelldefels and then take it from there.

     Responsibility begins at home, and my home is here.

 

Sunshine after rain

No sooner had I started for my Catalan lesson on my trusty bike than the skies opened and lashing rain assaulted me.  I had to wait for the protection of a bridge before I could dismount and rootle around in my backpack for the bike rain trousers (there must be a single word for them, surely, that phrase is just so unwieldy – leggings perhaps) and go on my less damp in the nether regions way, conscious at the same time of the amount of static electricity I had to be generating from the swathes of waterproof nylon in which I was now encased.

     God alone know what impression I made as I eventually dripped my sodden, baggy way into the class – though one member of the group was delighted that she had finally seen me in a pair of long trousers, albeit of a strictly utilitarian persuasion!  I divested myself of various wet garments and eventually I was able to sit in remarkable dryness given the ferocity of the storm.

One of the reasons that I love this country is that, at the end of the class, I went out to ride home in blustery sunshine.  There is none of the spitefulness of the lingering rain syndrome so common in British weather.  In Catalonia it can be raining, misty, cloudy, cold, blowing a gale – but you can virtually guarantee some sunshine at some point in the day.  It is a rare occurrence indeed when the sun stays away for an entire twenty-four hours.  Delightfully rare!

The waterproofs (that’s the word!) were bought during my last visit to Wales and haven’t been used since I returned, so I will have to ensure that they are thoroughly dried before they are put away, because it might well me months before they are needed again and I do not want to withdraw a moldy garment from its packaging when occasion calls.  In the UK you can put them away in their damp state because they will be called into use far sooner than any mold could form!  Or at least, I like to think so, it makes me jocose when the weather here is not as equitable as I would wish it to be!

The fear of the upcoming examination in Catalan is developing.  One of the participants in the class asked for clarification of what exactly was going to be in the test (a much more comforting and less intimidating word) the week after next, no, at the end of next week I now realize.  We have done two pieces of writing (that have been corrected) that will be models for what we will have to complete in the test and we have been given pretty clear indications of what sort of vocab we will need to be conversant (exactly!) with.

In the description of my house that was one of the topics, I tried to explain that of the three stories that comprise the dwelling, the ground floor is taken up with the entry and the staircase, the living quarters start on the first floor with the living room/dining room and the kitchen.  The problems came in the way that I translated ‘living quarters’.  I went for a literal translation from English to Catalan “els quarts d’estar” which I suppose would be something like “quarters of being” – perhaps unsurprisingly this stumped the teacher who demanded to know what I meant.  My explanation ranged over three languages and was not easily resolved.  There is a Catalan phrase for “living room” which is “sala d’estar” – the ‘room of being’, so I think that my attempt is more than reasonable.  But it didn’t pass muster, and I was offered the complex alternative of “l’allotjament” or the much simpler “l’habitatge”.  The ore astute among you will have realized that my typing all of this is merely a device to try and fix the words in my mind so that they can be used to great effect in the examination.  Anything is worth a try, to get a foreign word to stay in my mind!

The other topic we had to complete was an email to a friend.  Given a free hand to write what we liked, I always tend to veer towards my own interests, so exhibitions in art galleries or operas in the Liceu tend to be my stock in trade for such pieces of writing.  I told my friend that I had been to an excellent exhibition in MNAC and I was then able to list the Catalan artists whose work was featured in this fabricated show.  Outside of Catalonia how many of the following artists would be known: Ramon Casas, Joaquim Mir, Joaquim Sunyer, Modest Urgell, Joan Brull, Ramon Alsina?  The Catalan artists with world recognition are probably Salvador Dalí and Joan Miró – and Picasso, of course.  Yes, I do know that he wasn’t Catalan, but Pablo himself said that he had the soul of a Catalan and so he is counted!

It is one of the delights of living near MNAC in Barcelona that I have been able to get to know a whole range of Catalan artists of whom I had never heard before I lived here.  All of the names above now mean something to me and I can link specific works of art to the names.  Of all of the artists that I have come to appreciate living in Catalonia and being able to see their paintings relatively easily, the artist whom I most admire is Ramon Casas – a draftsman and painter whose charcoal sketches of the good and the famous in Barcelona (his sketch of a young Picasso is constantly reproduced) are astonishing.  Yes, perhaps his art did not develop in a way that influenced world painting, but he remains a remarkable second or third order artist and one who deserves a wider audience for his work.

Not long after I first arrived in this country a local newspaper produced a whole series of books featuring Catalan artists, all of which I bought and which provided a firm foundation for me to begin to build my knowledge of a whole new school of art.

Always learning!

O God The News!

 

Never let it be said that the bloody awful weather dictates my attitude towards life.  However, I am in a bloody awful mood to match!

The news from Britain as the shambolic ‘government’ of talentless Conservative (have you any idea how difficult it was for me to put a capital letter at the start of that word) lower than vermin, self-seeking, inept, traitorous, bastards descend lower and lower into the farce that is their approach to Brexit.

And my contempt for May grows.  And, no, I have no sympathy for her as she is savaged by the liars and cowards with whom she has surrounded herself.  Whenever I see her robotically defending the indefensible and fell a smidgeon of sympathy, I only have to remember her tenure at the Home Office and the heartless and ILLEGAL processes that she put in place to banish any fellow feeling for her ‘suffering’ now.  Her on-going failure at least gives a re-reading of the “all politicians’ careers end in failure” as hers has been failure in its more continuous manner.  To say nothing of her dancing.

It is a sign of desperation and picking through the dregs that Pixie Cheeks Gove has been asked to take on the barbed wire rimmed, poisoned chalice of Brexit Secretary.  But he will only accept if he is allowed to renegotiate!  What world are these people living in?  Are they so secure in the foreign investments that they can look on with equanimity as the rest (the large rest) of us suffer?

I know that I do not command a great deal of sympathy as I spend my retirement by the side of the Med here in Castelldefels – but my pension is paid in pounds sterling and when I first came to Catalonia a Euro was 70p; now a Euro is 87p which means that my pension has been reduced by 20%, a fifth of my buying power has been wiped out largely because of the stupidity of a discontented electorate listening to the lies of the Brexiteers and believing that those Brexiteer had access to whole herds of magic unicorns who would make all manner of things well!  Rubbish.  Just recite the names of the most prominent Brexiteer and then ask the age-old question, “Would you buy a used car” from any of them?  Of course, you wouldn’t, so why entrust the future of your country to the sick imaginations of these failures?

And that scum that has resigned . . . and I paused there because my dictatorial watch informed me that I had been sitting for too long and I needed to move about for a minute!   

Perhaps its is just as well I walked away from the keys.  What do I achieve by venting my spleen?  I suppose it could be considered cathartic, but apart from keeping my blood pressure within the green range, cui bono?

It is, however, ironic that the “onlie begetters” of Brexit are generally not in government any more and therefore are not dealing with the mess that they have made!  Nothing like denying responsibility, but I suppose they have the superb example of Cameron to take as their guide for thoroughly selfish irresponsibility!

And the back wheel of my bike has been punctured or something because it was thoroughly flat when I attempted to ride it to my Catalan lesson this morning.  And now I have to go and pick it up in the pouring rain.  Again.  Much as I like the bike, I have to admit that I have been singularly unlucky with the damn thing.  I have barely gone more than a fortnight riding the thing without some reason to take it back to my bike man.  The broken spokes have become a running joke and the suspension is suspect too.

I am now thoroughly regretting that I have ordered the updated, fat wheel version of the bike that I have.  It will have improved brakes and gears, with a sexy paint job (sigh!), a full colour display and a back pannier, or at least a framework to put one on, and the thing will have a sort of brake light as well.  As you can see, I am easily persuaded with the trivia and don’t really care about the important engineering of the thing!

The new bike should/might arrive in time for Christmas and will give me something to worry about, while not being able to ride the thing because of poor weather.  It is all in the anticipation and not the reality!

Anyway, to finish off a near perfect day, after I have collected my bike, I then have to return to the centre of town for a dental appointment.  If a day is going to be bad then it does make sense to concentrate all the badness so that you can enjoy it a schadenfreude sort of way.

To keep my sanity, I have not gone out of my way to find what new infantile lunacy the so-called Head of the Free World has been up to.  That can wait until I am stronger!