Christmas comes early!

 New Lockdown, third week, Saturday

 

 

 

 

This morning I unearthed my gloves before I set off on my bike ride.  And I needed them!  Although it was bright, it was cold and I was glad when my constitutional ride was over and I could have my cup of tea and a bowl of muesli as my reward. 

     The ride was made a little more exciting because the battery level was fairly low and when this electric bike does not have any power assistance it drives like a lump of clay – heavy clay.  Only once have I had the misfortune to run out of battery and even on level ground on the lowest gear setting it was hard bloody work!  So, instead of taking in the empty swathes of beach and the glittering expanses of sea, my attention was pretty much focused on the mobile phone sized screen that gives me information about my ride, and more particularly, how much battery life is left.

     To add to the gaiety of one’s concern the battery percentage is depicted in different colours with the last gasp of the machine being numbered in red.  For the whole of the return leg of my journey, the figures were in the red and I had to concentrate hard on other things rather than allowing my stress levels to be raised by wondering if I could make it back without wheeling the bike home.

     I did manage it, and even allowed myself the luxury of a higher power setting for the final few hundred metres, tempting my luck.  The bike is now drinking deeply on the outside power point and should be fully charged for my ride tomorrow.

 

 

Christmas (as I think is allowed in the wreckage of the year that calls itself 2020) has come a little early this year.

     Every year I debate whether to delve into the space under the eaves and exhume the artificial Christmas tree that is stored there.  It is a great deal of effort for something that takes up too much space in the living/dining room.  Where the tree used to go, the space is now occupied by Moppy, the Narwal machine that hoovers and mops automatically, well, robotically.  As the machine lives in a home station which is the size of a squat pedal bin, where it is, is where it stays.  So, we were presented with a problem.

     The solution came in the form of a small shelf that was erected by Toni to hold a fan, used to deflect the cigarette smoke from the next door neighbour who indulges her filthy habit sitting on the tiny balcony of her living room, then the prevailing breeze takes the mephitic miasma into our living room via the open windows.  As we don’t have aircon, open windows during virtually the whole of the summer and a chunk of the autumn are essential.

     The neighbours (on the mephitic side) are only there during the summer, so the shelf and the fan are not presently in use and the small shelf was calling out for a miniature Christmas tree – that Amazon has provided.  It came today and with the handmade decorations made (for Charity) by SQB it has now been decked out.  The lights are a string of those LED tiny lights powered by 3 AA batteries, and as I have rechargeable ones I think that we can be fairly profligate with the lights.  So, we have started now.  For the first time in my life, I have put up my Christmas tree, tiny and artificial as it might be, over a month before Christmas!

     The next festive thing to plan for in the putting up of the Belen, or nativity scene.  Over the years the characters that I have added to the basic Holy Family and a Cow have grown exponentially to include not only the Wise Men and Farmers, but also various other trades people and surrounding bits and pieces.

     But the bits and pieces of a Belen do not make up for what promises to be a strange Christmas.  Toni will want to see his family, but that doesn’t really look as though it is going to be possible safely.  All is still speculation and we have made no plans whatsoever.  We haven’t really discussed it apart from my asking in a fairly jocular way, “What do you want for Christmas Dinner?”  And we didn’t come to any real conclusions.  What is likely to change and get better in the next month?  Who knows?

 

I have started cleaning the glass of long ignored paintings and putting some of them up again.  The idea of a full re-hang is attractive, but the sheer effort in moving everything around is daunting and some paintings are too big to be moved easily.  I need more wall space!  Or, in my lottery dreams, a gallery with library and study on two levels with one of those ladders on rails to get at the higher books!

 

Monday will be the end of this particular lockdown and we will be able to go out for a meal and I will be able to go for a swim.  I don’t think that anyone is kidding himself that this is going to be anything like normality.  If we put all the ‘ifs’ together that we have been listening to, then some sort of vaccine should be rolled out in the New Year and the bulk of the population should have been inoculated by April.  That is, of course, the most optimistic view of the next five or six months.

     The logistics of getting viable vaccine to an entire population is daunting.  Given the way that most politicians have reacted to the pandemic, we have absolutely no optimism that things are going to be better than the chaos of the initial approaches.  But, there again, I am always optimistic and you never know, perhaps at last, this bloody Conservative government (UK) and the so-called ‘Socialist’ government of Spain can get their shit together.  For once.  I know that I am better off in Barcelona than I would be were I to be in Madrid!  For that, thanks!

Cold research

New Lockdown, Third Week, Wednesday

 

It was cold this morning and even I questioned the wisdom of wearing T-shirt and shorts with open sandals on my earlyish morning bike ride.  Admittedly, I was wearing a windcheater, mask and helmet which added to the general warmth, but my hands were definitely less than warm.  I mention this because, even when my legs are cold to the touch I do not feel too much discomfort, therefore for me to complain of the cold means that it’s, well, cold.

     It did get better during the day and we were able to have the window of the living room open without too much discomfort, but the reality of the second half of November is beginning to make itself felt.  And that is depressing because we have months of non-summer to look forward (!) to.

     The good news is that the swimming pool should re-open on Monday with the same restrictions as previously, that is, only ten people allowed into the pool during any one hour, meaning that the pool will have to keep to a maximum of two people per lane and reserving your place is essential.

     I have just checked and the booking app has the activities for Monday 22^nd of November listed, but greyed out at the moment, so they should become active towards the end of this week.  I will have to check in daily to ensure a place as, believe it or not, the 7 am slot for swimming is quite popular!

     I have to admit that it will be relief to get back into the groove of early morning swimming, as I am not the world’s greatest bed-lazer.  Although the is an initial spasm of resentment when the alarm does off at 6.15 am, it soon passes and I knuckle down to demands of the day and I think that I am becoming more or a ‘morning person’ than a ‘late night denizen’ – especially as I usually go to bed at around 10 pm nowadays!

     And perhaps the early morning start will encourage me to start filling out my notebook again.  This, of course, depends on what the swimming pool café is allowed to do.  If they can serve a limited number of patrons who sit physically distanced then that is ideal for my creative exercise.  If not, I really will have to make time to start a tradition of filling in the thing at another period in the day.

 

My Catalogue Raisonné is taking shape, and, at the moment, I am bogged down in the detail of the thing.  Getting accurate measurements and remembering (which I think I have not in my notes) that height goes before width in the dimensions of paintings and prints is a trick I should have learned by now.

     Finding out more details about the Habitat prints is becoming very difficult.  In 1999, the Habitat store in the centre of Cardiff had a scheme whereby a number of their employees were given training and the opportunity to produce a limited-edition print.  I bought three of the prints, two of which I have, and the third got lost in the move from Cardiff to Catalonia (together with a raku plate depicting fish).  I cannot fully decipher the signatures and there appears to be no information on the web about the scheme or the artist printmakers.

     Just to give you some sort of idea about the quality of the sales assistants in Habitat at the time, one of the printmakers with whom I spoke was actually a fully trained architect, but he couldn’t get work as an architect and so working in Habitat was at least in or around some sort of cutting edge design.

     I have Googled what I think the names are but have had no luck yet.  I will print out their signatures and see if anyone out there recognizes the handwriting or the signatures.   

 

 

I would dearly like to find out more about the consequences (if any) of the scheme with what happened next in these young print maker's careers.  Do get in touch if any of what I’ve mentioned happening twenty years ago rings any bells.

     And, before you ask, I have tried to contact what is left of Habitat these days, and they are only taking queries about problems in sales and delivery owing to the pressures of Covid, so no luck there.   I am patient – up to a point and will be satisfied with eventual knowledge as long as it comes soon!

The way that the Spanish talk about their climate makes the British preoccupation with the weather look like a casual remark.  Each year that snow falls in Spain (as it does every year without fail) it is greeted as a unique phenomenon and one worthy of vast swathes of television time, showing presenters knee deep in the white stuff with a 'natural' background of snowball throwing kids.  The falling level of the reservoirs in the summer is painstakingly documented with drowned villages seeing the air again and spoken of in apocalyptic terms as if the rains of Februrary are never going to happen and fill them up again.  And so on for each season as highs and lows are lovingly relayed to appalled viewers who at least have a ready made topic of conversation for the rest of the day.
     This year we have, to be fair, had pretty bad weather.  At least we have if you are looking at the whole of Spain and not just at Catalonia and Castelldefels.
     Here in Castelldefels we usually get off lightly.  Snow in Barcelona (it does happen!) does not mean that anything falls on our little town.  Even The Beast from the East has not really had that much effect, though it has been cold and we have had torrential rain.
     In all the years that I have been living in Castelldefels I have never seen snow where I live, near the sea.  I have once seen snow on some of the surrounding hills, but in my front of back garden - never.
     It was therefore with something approaching shock that I looked out at the car park from my inside seat in the cafe in my local swimming pool and saw undeniable flakes of snow.  Not only did I note it down in my ever-ready notebook, but I took a (bad) photograph of it failing to stick on cars as proof that it actually did occur.
     It seemed fitting to note the occasion with a poem and the following is what, with the sun shining outside and the temperature at 16C or so, I have come up with.
     The last line is one of the main reasons that I live in Catalonia!


-->

Castelldefels, one winter’s day

Light touch weather,

fleeting, not to stay.

The hills greyscale in mist.

The ‘snow’ a gesture of thrown flakes:

they’re countable.

The kids’ gloved hands,

are raised in

supplication to the skies

to catch the drifting cold.

The stark-pruned spikey canopies

await the promised picturesque.

Lo!  They come again!

Rain’s ghosts!

Zigzags to blot

in spots so slight

the cold evaporates.

Beach side

no flurry fell.

White rain is for TV

and not for us.

And all too soon

the mundane wet will come,

and then, the sun.

Better tomorrow?

-->

 

There is something infinitely galling about having you flu jab and within a week being gifted a stinking cold from your nearest and dearest.

At least mine is not as bad as his and with my judicious doctoring (i.e. going to bed to sleep it off) I think that I am well on the road to recovery.  I must admit that today has been a lazy day (for purely medicinal purposes) and I did not shower until later in the day; have only worn a tracksuit and have taken to my bed twice!  I have not been outside the house at all today and I have rejected the idea of going for my daily swim!

I have not been completely slug like and have completed a poem called ‘Misophonia’, the inspiration for which was found (or rather heard) on a metro station in Barcelona when I was returning from a demonstration demanding the release of the Catalan political prisoners held by the right wing minority Spanish national government.  And yes, I do know that the government makes out a case for their being nothing of the sort, but rather like northern Cyprus that is only recognized by the Turks, so the government is the only one persuaded by their fatuous arguments.  Anyway, all that political agitation and I write a poem which has nothing to do with the reason why I went up to Barcelona in the first place!  Ah well, par for the course!  If you want to read the poem it is at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es/

I have also been reading Mark Twain, the 1872 book “Roughing it”.  It is always a delight to read something that is generally regarded as a classic and discover that it really does deserve that accolade because it is so good to read.  Twain’s language has a freshness and he writes with such an ironic eye that you are captivated by his descriptions.  The pace of the book is also helped by the fact that this early semi-autobiographical episodic approach to travel writing is set in the high and dangerous days of the Wild West and includes epic journeys on stagecoaches, silver exploitation, violent death, Mormons and easy racism.  Twain’s approach to Native Americans and African Americans may well be ‘of his time’, but it still makes for uncomfortable reading - but that is also part of the literary history of America and must be dealt with.  I have not yet finished the book, but it is well worth reading.

The Spanish lesson yesterday was sparsely attended.  I suggested to the teacher that was because we were going to tackle the subjunctive and it had struck fear into the hearts of her pupils!  I think that was only partly a joke.

She took us through the basics of the subjunctive with the aid of a printed handout and seemed to find some inspiration in our faces as she explained.  I think that I maintained an air of frightened acceptance throughout the lesson and I am not sure that I was substantially more informed about when to use the subjunctive with confidence than when I had contemplated it as a esoteric unknown concept last week.

The teacher sought to encourage us by suggesting that we would not find many more references to the subjunctive in the rest of our course and that it would not play a substantial part in our examinations.  This is fine and dandy, but it does not tie in with the undoubted fact that the Spanish use the subjunctive much more than the English speakers do in their language and it is much more common than with us.

Tomorrow I have to essay the homework that we have been given which is to insert the correct form of the subjunctive in sentences.  At least I can do this armed with my trust “501 Spanish Verbs” book, the textbook, the Internet and the handout.  And if all else fails the answers are at the back of the book!

There is always a way!

Jabs, art & politics!

When you feel smugly self-satisfied that you have started the day well by popping into your local health centre and having a flu jab - then there is possibly something wrong with the way that you are looking at life!

I even told myself that going there on my bike and having a swim afterwards was exactly the way to get all the goodness from the injection coursing around my veins or whatever.  I was in and out of the nurse’s office in a couple of minutes and that included a greeting, an enquiry after my general health and a hearty goodbye.

I have, courtesy of my ever-generous partner, already had one bout of sniffling, coughing and phlegminess.  It was an extended and miserable experience and had the disturbing feature of my getting better, having a sort of day off for good behaviour and then the illness returning with a vicious sneer of misery.  If the jab can keep a repetition of that unpleasant experience away then all well and good.  And, I might add, its efficacy is about to be put to the test because my partner has started sniffling again in what I can only describe as a professional manner.

Still, I have a “school trip” to look forward to!  I expect that you are expecting me to state that this will be the first school trip that I have been on as a student since the dim and distant days of my grammar school.  But wrong!  This will be my third school trip with my Spanish class.  The first trip was a tour of Gothic Barcelona; the second a much more satisfying visit to a Cava producer (with sampling of the produce) and tomorrow’s trip will be a guided tour of the houses of Los Americanos in Sitges.

 

These houses are the prestigious dwelling built by Catalans who went to the Americas and made their fortunes and then came back home to show off their wealth.  You should bear in mind that one of the famous brands of rum was founded by a Catalan - think of bats and you’ll get the one I mean, and there is even a museum in Sitges devoted to it.

The houses are built in a Catalan version of Art Nouveau and Sitges is particularly rich in these architectural pieces.  I have been on a guided walk around Sitges to look at them before, but this time the commentary will be in Spanish and will therefore not only challenge my knowledge of the language, but will also be a test of my memory of what was said in English the last time to help my translation.  It is so much easier reading Spanish rather than hearing it spoken by a native speaker, but that is the reason for these little trips, to get us to experience something approaching normality in the use of what we have been studying.

I have finished reading through the second volume of the textbooks for the Open University art course that I am not taking.  Buying the book is only (!) a hundred quid, rather than the two and a half grand for the actual course itself.

I have to admit that the book read itself.  It was an absolute delight.  I was going to stretch my reading by trying to limit the chapters I read at one time, giving myself, I reasoned, a decent period of time to let the new ideas sink in and perhaps do a little light research around the topics introduced.  Fat chance of that!  Once started I found myself allowing myself “just a little more” until it was more of a gorge than a measured read.

The contents of this excellent book taken from the course description on the OU site are:

Block 2: Art, Commerce and Colonialism 1600-1800

You will explore art and visual culture of a period in which the major European powers competed with each other for global dominance. The influx of ‘exotic’ goods, above all from Asia, transformed European taste and artistic production, including seventeenth-century Dutch painting, and gave rise to the vogue for ‘Chinoiserie’ in eighteenth-century Britain. Art and architecture were exported across the Atlantic to Latin America, where some of the most spectacular works of the Baroque era were created, as well as to North America, where Thomas Jefferson built his ideal classical villa, Monticello. Local circumstances and cultural traditions helped to shape the transfer of art works, and artistic models from one context to another. A key theme for this book is the relationship of art and visual culture to slavery and the slave trade.

The one great thing about art books is that they have pictures!  Though there is also the point to be made that ‘reading’ the pictures sometimes takes up more time than a comparable block of text!  On the OU website for the course there is probably opportunity to load up the pictures on line and to search them by expansion so that hard to see details in the illustrations become clearer.  I compensate for my lack of access to that resource by wielding a rather impressive looking magnifying glass and looking, as Toni pointed out this afternoon, like an obsessive Sherlock Holmes - or is that tautology?

Anyway, I have a lot to think about as the book has made me re-evaluate some of my assumptions and has given my a whole series of associations to consider.  In that respect it is something like “Guns, Germs, and Steel” by Jared Diamond - a book I whole-heartedly recommend.   

The volume is subtitled “The Fate of Human Societies” and its descriptive sweep of human history and pointed questions that arise from his observations force recognition of why history is as it is.  I can remember my first reading this book, and the fact that I had to put it down a few times because the import of what I had just understood struck home!

Part of the excitement of reading Art, Commerce and Colonialism 1600-1800 is that it is obviously a base from which you need to expand.  There are suggestions and questions in each of the sections that beg for further study.  There is a “Reader” to go with the course that is rather harder work with smaller print, more pages and fewer illustrations (and only in black and white) and has critical, historical and primary sources to widen the inquiry.  This is where the web site, course guides and tutors, as well as the other students make the study come alive.  Still, I am supposed to be studying Spanish and not Art and its Global Histories.  So there!

The situation in Catalonia continues not to improve, mainly because of the almost criminal intransigence of the national government as represented by members of the right wing, systemically corrupt minority government of PP and its depressing Prime Minister Rajoy.

What did bring a smile to my face was watching the interview by Tim Sebastian of the foreign minister of the minority government, Alfonso Dastis.   

All credit to Dastis to go on a programme and speak in English, something the prime minister could never do.  His performance, however was execrable and his bluster in response to Tim Sebastian’s well researched, well supported and well put questions was depressingly familiar to those who have heard politicians go out to speak to the media when they are under prepared and have a poor case to put.  The interview can be heard here 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7Wupp5IcL4

                       and is well worth listening to at length, although when you consider that this is real life for us rather than a politician making a fool of himself, it does get really depressing.  And he is one of the more impressive members of the government!  God help us all.

But tomorrow, school trip.  Take your pleasure where you can!