In my own language, I am an articulate, responsive
and witty speaker. In Spanish I am
enthusiastic early Tarzan and in Catalan epsilon semi-moron. As someone who loves language and the
speaking thereof, my inability in any other tongue than mine own is baffling.
Of
course, you could point to the fact that, apart from the lessons, I do
virtually no other work. My expectation
that language will work by osmosis, though patently not working in my case, is
still firmly a methodology to which I adhere with monomaniac fixation. Well, it beats methodical working and
revision!
Even
though I am something of a past master in blagging my way through Spanish, I
have even less basic linguistic information with which to work in Catalan. And we are now getting close to a crunch time
as, in the middle of next month (which, horror of horrors, starts tomorrow) I
have an examination.
It
makes no difference how many times our present teacher assures us in his class
than the examination, nay, not examination, more of a test, really, is simple
beyond belief – I still know that with my level of ability ANY bloody casual
(let alone searching) examination of my knowledge will lead to hot-faced
humiliation.
At this
point, the more incisive reader might wonder about my typing about these
concerns, rather than actually doing something about them. If so, you haven’t read the previous short
paragraphs where I freely admit my lack of effort in acquiring or attempting to
acquire another language.
The one
positive point about this next ‘test’ seems to be that it is vocabulary heavy
with an unnatural concentration on the direction and existence of accents on individual
words and, in any choice between the two, ‘vocab’ is an easier option than ‘grammar’. So, you never know, if I play to my strengths
of being able to cram discrete points of information for the duration of an
exam I might even be able to scrape through.
Though,
I do admit that scraping-through in the language of the country in which I
actually live is not a very inspiring (or indeed worthwhile) goal, but it is
what I am working towards.
And you
never know, now that the date of the examination has been set, it might (just
might) encourage me to make a start on the tedium of vocab learning this very
weekend. There is, after all, nothing
quite so self-satisfying in doing a minimal amount of work sufficient to
engender the feeling of complacency in knuckling-down to something worthwhile. Obviously.
It’s all about the far end lane. Of the swimming pool I mean. Of those hardy folk (or nutters depending on
your point of view) who turn up at 7.00 am when the pool opens, the one thing
motivating their early appearance is the claiming of an empty lane for your
lonely furrow.
There
are five lanes in our pool, and they fill up quickly. Lane one is usually taken by a sedate looking
retired lady who makes stately progress up and down the pool. Lane three or sometimes four is taken up by
two ‘youngsters’ whom I call the twins who are dedicated and athletic and look
as though they are training for a triathlon.
Lane four is taken up by a recent arrival to the family of a snorkeler
who rushes into the pool to try and get the Crown Jewel of lanes: lane five.
Lane five
is the lane to get. Why? Because it is slightly obstructed by the metal
access ladders. The way the ladders
slightly jut out into the pool space means that two swimmers in a lane is
somewhat awkward. Therefore people go to
double-up in the other lanes before trying the end lanes. Lane one is for the slower swimmers and the
periodic exercisers; they rarely go to lane five. So, if you bag lane five early enough you are
almost guaranteed to have it to yourself for the whole duration of your swim.
The
problem with this is, no matter how early I get to the pool, even if it is
before the pool has officially opened, one man, the same man, always seems to
get there before me. So I am reduced to
going to one of the other three lanes (remember lane one is given over to
slower others) and hoping that it remains uncluttered with extraneous swimmers
for my metric mile.
If you
are an early morning swimmer then the intensity of possession in the highly
charged first hour of opening is something that will not need to be explained
to you; if you have not experienced the rush of claiming a lane and swimming in
a savagely elegant style to keep it to yourself, then I would suggest you think
about the last time you went on a train or a bus and looked for a double seat
for yourself and the looks and hopes that kept people away from you as a guide
to how we feel.
This
morning, for example, I was, yet again beaten to the fifth lane by my friend,
but I managed to claim the fourth lane and keep it to myself until almost the
end of my swim when I had to share it with another swimmer for a few lengths
until my friend left the fifth lane and indicated to the other person in my lane
that he could take over the vacated fifth lane.
Now that is courtesy and civility of a high order!
Some poems write themselves, in so far as the structure is concerned, the skeleton is roughly assembled and then the hard slog of fleshing-out takes up the real time. In the present instance, I only have fragments of bone, meaning that my construction of meaning in my writing is more palaeontology than poetry, but it is getting there, or more accurately it will get somewhere sometime. And there is no title yet, either. Working on it, working on it.
The daily crash-bang-wallop of reformation in the
house next door continues unabated and is now producing a steady stream of
rubble which is filling bags which are taking up parking spaces on the
road. One of the (industrial sized)
rubbish bags has been in situ for over two weeks. This is not satisfactory and ‘steps will be
taken’. I have already asked about them
and the workmen have shifted the blame on to the company that should have
picked them up. As I recall, there are
usually by-laws about leaving household rubble on the street and on Monday I
will make a trip to the city hall after my Catalan class and find out the legal
situation. I will also take photographs
(they like photos) to illustrate their wicked deeds. Our city hall is generally helpful, and I
look forward to being armed with the Regulations of the Righteous to smite the
rubble makers hip and thigh – if necessary with the jaw-bone of an ass. And I wonder how many people nowadays will
pick up that reference!
So, lots to do this weekend: planning, scheming,
writing and lino-cutting – never a dull moment.
