Costly domestic fountains

 

A curtain of falling water is a most attractive feature to grace a garden – but when that feature is obviously leaking from the first-floor kitchen then its beauty is rather limited.

     Entry into said kitchen was also entry to a sizeable paddling pool, surrounded by electro domestic items that do not do well in standing water.  Displaying remarkable technical knowledge, I turned the water off at the mains and then, with even more technical ingenuity used the dust pan to scoop up the flood and deposit it in the sink.

     The problem was our water heater and, as this is gas fired, I always have an added element of fear when things go wrong with machines of this sort, so we turned it off.   

     Unfortunately, with the heater turned off and the water stopped so that it did not continue to pour out onto the work surface, we were then without any water at all, except that we had in bottles.  As it was the weekend (of course) the idea of getting anybody out without paying a king’s ransom to get them to the house, was unthinkable.

     A weekend without water, except for that in bottles.  We did discover that the outside garden tap was still operational and so Toni traipsed up and down stairs to bring water in buckets to use for essentials.  Cleaning one’s teeth and washing one’s face with water from a bottle of mineral water might have an air of the exclusive and indulgent about it, but it is practically, um, difficult.  And I prefer not to talk about the practicalities of the toilet!

     Monday was a day for phoning around and finding someone, anyone, to come to the house and work the technical magic to get the bloody thing operational again.  Hopes were raised, only to be dashed, but eventually we found someone who promised to come out the next morning.

     He came, he did his stuff and asked for 400 euros!  It is at this point that I should mention that our house is rented.  You would therefore be justified in asking why we were doing anything about something that was clearly the responsibility of the owners, and not, emphatically not, the concern of the tenants.  To ask such questions, merely shows hat you do not rent accommodation in this part of the world!

     God knows, Estate Agents do not have a good press, in these parts they are held in even less esteem than The Press and Politicians!  If you can imagine such a thing.  

   To say that our estate agents have been less than helpful is a woeful understatement – they are militantly unhelpful.  Anything that you might think would be the responsibility of the owners, here isn’t.  All they do is take the monthly rent and do virtually nothing to justify the rake off that they get.   

   In a twist to the usual tale, our estate agent is actually the owner of the house that we rent, but it is done via a Company that we are supposed to assume is an entirely different entity, but the owner of the estate agency is also the director of the company.  We find ourselves in an almost Dickensian situation where the poor estate agents tell us that they are hamstrung by the demands of the evil company – which they also own! 

     Even though we know about their machinations there is little that we can do about it.  The contract we signed indicated that we had responsibilities (a bloody sight more than the bloody estate agents) towards things like sinks, toilets, taps and the heater that one would usually assume is the responsibility of the owner.  Assumptions do not pay bills, and the 400 euros is gnawing away at my very being – that is 25% of the cost of buying a new heater!

     But, enough of moaning about legal thievery.  Let one story stand for the whole despicable lot of them.  When we first arrived in the house, we obviously checked things to make sure that we were getting what we were paying for.  In the kitchen we noticed that there were fitted kitchen cabinets, but, when you opened them the lack of shelves limited their usefulness.  When we told the agents that there were no shelves in the units, they simply shrugged their shoulders and did nothing!  Unbelievable, but an unbelievability that applies to many other stories about the callous disregard of estate agents in this part of the world.  400 euros!  The more I try not to think about it, the more I do.

We have just had a phone call from the company that sent the guy to fix our heater.  It appears that the guy got his figures wrong when he made out the bill for the VISA machine and transposed two figures, so that we have underpaid.  They want their extra money.  I wonder if they would have been so eager if the sums had worked out in their favour?  Doesn’t the parallel meaning of “Let the buyer beware” referring to the seller, obtain in this case?  I am sure that it does, but I don’t think that I am going to be the beneficiary of the mistake.  It somehow makes the paying of the money even more difficult to take!

At least the sun is shining and I have done a little light sunbathing.  We are both taking ‘Sol’ capsules, bought from one of the supermarkets, that are supposed to aid tanning.  The capsules contain carotin and copper and various vitamins and are quite cheap so we have decided to give a month’s worth a go.  They are not artificial tanners, but are supposed to ‘aid’ the process.  I have taken a picture of my skin against a sheet of white A4 typing paper and I will take another photo at the end of the test period.  I will have been out in the sun during this time, but the depth of tan will be the key to success.

     While I am regarding this as little more than a half-joke, Toni – with his proverbially white skin – has rather more invested in this experiment than I.  Perhaps all that the capsules do is focus the mind, and that directed thought will ensure exposure and therefore a tanned skin.  We will see- but as the price of the individual capsules is about 13 cents, not much is invested in the success!

 

Next week, Opera, La Boheme – something to hum and cry along with.  Our production in the Liceu (if it is the same as the one I saw last) is rather showy, but good fun.  I have two criteria for success for a production of this opera: firstly, I want to see people actually eating real food in the Café Momus scene; and, secondly, I have to cry at the end.  Usually this is a cast-iron delight, whatever the production (as long as the voices are half-way decent) and there has only been one true disaster of a performance in my experience where “Your tiny hand is frozen” aria was greeted with stony silence at the end!  I left before the first act had ended.  I expect much better on the 14^th of the month when I go to my isolated seat in the stalls.

     Last month the scheduled performance of Tannhauser had to be Covid-cancelled, so I have been having opera-deprivation symptoms and, let’s face it, La Boheme is something you can wallow in.

 

 

Now you listen here!

Unsettling violence and raw sexuality mark Shostakovich’s opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk”, it certainly resonated with the contemporary audience, as it was a popular and critical success.  After two years and hundreds of performances the fame of the piece reached the attention of the most powerful man in the country and he decided to go to a performance.  He was appalled by what he saw and heard and left before the end of the piece.  The next day, what had been an overwhelming success was denounced in the newspaper, and the authorities began monitoring Shostakovich’s activities.

The man who had come to see the opera was Josef Stalin, and his dislikes had a way of being fatal.  Shostakovich had to do something, so he started writing his 5^th Symphony and when it was completed he subtitled it, “A Soviet Artist’s Response to Justified Criticism.”

Whatever the moral and artistic justifications for the subtitling, you have to admit that the 5^th is a fantastic piece of music.  What was it?  Cowardice?  Self-preservation?  Subtle defiance?  Capitulation?  Irony?  Who knows – but it kept Shostakovich alive and he continued writing.  He was, after all, dealing with one of the greatest mass murderers in the sad history of mankind’s inhumanity.

I thought of this piece of history from the 1930s when I was watching the television news and they played a part of Felipe VI of Spain’s speech at Davos, that comfortable gathering of the rich and privileged in a little Swiss ski resort.

The part of the king’s speech that grabbed me was:

“With all this in mind, I don’t wish to conclude this part of my speech without addressing the recent crisis in a truly fundamental part of Spain’s soul and diverse identity: Catalonia; where we have seen an attempt to undermine the basic rules of our democratic system.” [My emphasis]

Let us forget about the location of this speech for a moment, though the people there certainly forget about democracy on a regular basis, but concentrate firstly on the person speaking.

Filipe VI is the son of Juan Carlos I, the man personally selected and groomed for kingship by the Spanish Dictator Franco.  Juan Carlos eventually abdicated after a number of scandals including going on an all expenses paid hunting trip after a television performance where he sympathized with the economic lot of the struggling mass of the population; his various paternity cases; Royal spending and the usual corruption of the very rich.  His abdication to become “King Emeritus” and the coronation of his son Filipe was a political solution via a stitched-together deal between PP and PSOE.

So this hereditary monarch, Bourbon de Bourbon, whose house was reinstated by a Fascist dictator, has the temerity to talk about democracy!  There was a referendum in Catalonia about Independence; there was an election in Catalonia to form a new Parliament – I can’t remember any referendum or election regarding the slipping on an eldest son onto the throne of Spain!

Bourbon de Bourbon talking about Democracy is like Rees-Mogg campaigning for a statue of Marie Stopes to be erected in Parliament Square.

After what Bourbon de Bourbon’s family has taken from and done to Spain over the years, it is difficult to take his mouthing of platitudes as anything more than calculated insult.

Meanwhile the “undermining of the rules of our basic democratic system” continues apace with the farcical scattering of the police around any entry point, though not all, to Spain just in case the dangerously elected politician, and our President, Puigdemont might make it to Parliament where he is the only candidate slated for the investiture of the office.  The ever-absurd Zoido (sic.) the burly cartoon character who has been inflated to be Minister of the Interior bustles about the place trying (and signally failing) to look ministerial, or at least competent, or even credible. 

We have had television pictures at the border crossings with France where the police are searching cars for our exiled President and also searching handbags!  I don’t know whether these boys in blue (or whatever) think that canny Catalan scientists have mastered the techniques shown in The Incredible Shrinking Man and that Puigdemont is truly being smuggled in via a pencil case so that he can be dramatically returned to full size inside the Parliament.  Or perhaps they are just stupid.  To be fair, I think it is more reasonable to suppose that, given a stupid job they are trying to make it appear at least halfway sensible, by searching properly.  Making the best of futility!

Meanwhile my enforced exile inside my house continues.  I am counting the days to when I might actually be allowed to take a short walk!

This morning I actually managed to re-arrange the flowers that I have been given.  Toni brought them to my chair and I snipped and pruned and arranged.  This is something that I have always enjoyed doing.  Flowers add life to a room and well arranged blooms become more than their individual plants.  I cannot pretend that I have my mother’s skill, but I try my best and I am constantly amazed by just how much pleasure flowers can give – especially if you are spending hour after hour in the same chair!

I have also received a get-well card that also has flowers on it with the stamens touched with gold!  It all works for me!

Toni is cleaning the kitchen.  Although a comparison with the Augean Stables would be unfair (though Toni reports far too many surfaces are too sticky for comfort!) in terms of sheer clutter rather than filth it is an accurate image.  

We suffer from the Impenetrable Cupboard Syndrome, where a wall of kitchen thingerie meets the baffled gaze when a door is opened.  We know that somewhere there lurk Useful Things, but to find them everything has to be taken out and then put back again.  When that is the modus operandi it is amazing how much and how often one can ‘make do’ with what one can see.

For example, I know that I possess a melon baller, as who doesn’t?  I have used it, and I know that it works.  It does make a fairly mundane fruit look interesting, but how far is one prepared to exert oneself in the effort of looking?  I think there is a time limit of a couple of minutes and a quick glance in The Drawer Where Things Are – you know, that drawer that contains things that you could not work out where else to put: The Drawer of Last Resort.

What truly frightens me is that Toni is now making executive decisions based on the fact that I am supposed to sit down quietly and rest.  And I am resting in the living room and not the kitchen – where I can hear things being moved around and placed, who knows where, maybe even in the bin!  And breathe, and relax!

This is now Day 6 (by my reckoning) and I have to get to Day 14 before I can do anything as exciting as, for example, going for a walk.  On Day 32 I might be able to go for a short, slow swim.  Something to work towards.

Meanwhile, there is editing, writing and reading.  And I enjoy all three.

To work!