A Resolution?

 

NEW LOCKDOWN: Day 9, Saturday.

 

An unsettled sleep, not because of cheese eating too late at night, but rather because we were awakened at 5 am by raised voices and the flashing lights of police cars. 

 

 

 

It turned out that an empty property next door but one had been occupied by a person who was homeless and the alarm system had alerted the police.  Given how loud the altercation was I was amazed by how uninterested our neighbours were, or perhaps by how soundly they were sleeping!

     Eventually three or four police cars were involved and a white van which had the locksmith.  So, after the shouting had settled down and the man was escorted away from the premises, we then had to contend with early morning drilling as the lock was changed and the outside gate was made ‘safe’.

     All the disruption allowed/forced me to look at my mobile and to gnash my teeth with frustrated impotence at the unchanging nature of Biden’s Electoral College vote.  And it was raining.  Which made my eventual earlyish morning bike ride a damper and more bracing event than usual.  Though I think that I have now worked out how to get my new watch to note my exercise and download it to the accompanying app.  Usually.

     The generally sullen climate and cloud covered skies forced me to turn on the newly installed (by me) light on the bike and I therefore blazed my way through the puddles and other stretches of standing water along the paseo.  The heavens only really opened as I got near home, so thought I was wet by the time I locked the bike up, I was not soaked and a few minutes in the tumble dryer was sufficient to get my shorts dry and warm and a quick towel was enough for other extremities.

     Considering how dull and unfriendly the conditions were, there were plenty of runners, joggers, striders and dog walkers.  We bike riders were definitely in the minority, but from our privileged position we are better able to observe the looks of dull, apathetic acceptance that runners and walkers possess when they are going about their voluntary exercise.  You don’t see many smiles from those on foot; you half expect to see electronic tags around their ancles ensuring that they complete their punishment.  There is nothing like freewheeling to show that you are living a life apart from the foot sloggers!

     So, after my ride, damp and self-congratulating, I yet again checked my mobile and then started to work out where the US of A must be in time relationship to us.  When you start that computation by saying to yourself, “Well, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so when it is lunchtime here, they must be waiting for lunchtime there” you realize that the accuracy is going to be limited.

     And, anyway, the glacial counting of ballots by some of the states is obviously being governed by a completely different time system altogether but, with the wisdom of past assemblies in my mind, “This too will pass” encourages patience and eventually even the Byzantine electoral system of that wondrous collection of states has come up with a result and, to the general delight of all my friends, Biden is going to be the 46^th President of the United States of America.

     And this is a time to rejoice and be exceeding glad, because One-Term Trump is dumped; or at least in our reality that is what has happened.  In a scenario that surely cannot be true, and yet with Trump anything is possible, he is scheduled to make some sort of speech in the Four Seasons Total Landscaping which is situated next to an Adult Bookstore.  You can’t make these things up!  With Biden at 290 Electoral College votes and counting, Delusional One-Term is not only claiming that he has won, but that he has “won by a lot”.  It is more than likely that the frivolous litigation will be blown away like the insubstantial shadows that they are and then we will be in for a most unedifying period from now to the January inauguration of the new President.

     How will Trump ‘play’ the transition?  I cannot imagine his being gracious in facilitating a smooth hand over of power!  And I cannot imagine many of Biden’s appointments to governmental agencies even wanting the half-wits that Trump imposed to pretend that they know anything useful about their positions.  Can you imagine Betsy DeVos having a meaningful conversation with a Democratic replacement about any aspect of education after one has listened to her embarrassingly revealing confirmation hearing?

     It is a long time from November to January, and during that time Trump will be president.  He still has the capacity and the wilfulness to create mischief.  Trump deliberately ignored briefings during his transition period to bring him up to speed with the workings of government: apart from the civil servants in government, who is there in the Trump ‘Administration’ who is capable of giving a meaningful briefing to incoming politicians!

     And can you see Trump sitting quiescent in the audience behind the new President in the company of other past presidents as the inaugural address is being made?  Carter, Clinton and Obama are Democrats, and Bush loathes him.  He is going to feel very isolated, especially if the other presidents are welcoming and civilized in the way they treat him.  Trump could usefully spend the months until January practicing his “naughty boy sulking, hands between his legs, tie dangling” stance that he adopts when with any other leader who momentarily takes attention away from himself.  Will he turn up?  Will he be able to bear it?

     Or will Trump take the opportunity of the next few weeks before the inauguration to stir up his base and encourage them to come to the ceremony with the intention of disrupting it?

     It is perhaps a sign of my desperation that I take encouragement from TikTok and brief videos that show young Trump supporters folding up their Trump banners and posting messages of support for the President Elect.

     Perhaps, after everything, reason will prevail and healing can begin.

Not quite my scene

Our evening meal was taken outside a bar in the centre of town just by the railway station.  Considering its central position, as Laura noted, it was airy and tranquil, with the pots of sturdy greenery giving an illusion of a stunted dell.  Perhaps Laura’s comment was a hostage to fortune as almost immediately a deranged looking man staggering along the street with a plastic beaker full of what looked like liquid mud, lurched up to the entrance of the bar and asked the Chinese waiter if he could have a fill up of water.

The good-natured waiter complied with the request and the man went on his way muttering to himself and spilling quantities of his evil looking concoction and lurched his way into the open square space in front of the station.

Then the dogs started barking.  And went on barking.  And then there were sounds of an altercation with raised voices above the threnody of yelps.

Like the aristos in ‘Dr Zhivago’ looking out at the protesters in the snow from their warm and secure privileged position behind falsely secure windows, we, in our leafy bower watched developments, while I sipped my end of meal cup of tea.

Sirens heralded the arrival of the first police car and as the ‘trouble’ veered towards the pedestrian underpass through to the station car

parks someone shouted out to the emerging policemen, “He’s got a knife.”  From behind the safety of a couple of pot plants, we felt the thrill of proximity to danger and were determined to make our post-prandial beverages last the distance!

More police cars arrived, their flashing lights giving not only a suitably lurid setting for the excitement, but also marking a similarity to the ‘festa major’ fair that had been established at the far end of the car park - I do like an element of the serendipitous in my evenings out!

An ambulance then arrived, shortly followed by a second.  And we settled in for a suitably gory finale to the evening’s entertainment.

As we were finishing our meal it had the temerity to start raining, not convincingly admittedly, but still water falling from on high in August!

This soon stopped, as indeed did the drama as, one by one the police cars and ambulances drove off with nary a corpse or villain in sight.

The rest of the family were frankly sceptical about my explanation of the whole event being part of a street happening as part of the ‘festa major’ of our town – though Toni’s sister did applaud me politely at the end of the little drama and congratulate me (because surely I had something to do with it?) for finding a way to pass the time to the next event on the horizon.

This was a free concert.   

Now I have been to a totally memorable free concert next to the beach here in Castelldefels that featured the student orchestra of the University of Southampton playing a spirited performance of Sibelius’s second symphony, this concert, however, was not like that.

The entertainment, that had started by the time we got there, was of a Catalan group who sang, very loudly, in Catalan.  There were no seats.  But I soon discovered a fringe group of the elderly and infirm and the opportunistic who had found a limited number of metal chairs from somewhere.  I soon found the somewhere and Carmen and I were soon part of the group.

The disadvantage of our position (seated, with the rest of the audience standing) did mean that our view was, to put it mildly, limited.  But the very professional light show that accompanied the singing, together with a liberal amount of stage smoke, did ensure that the lighting effects were clearly visible ell beyond the confines of the stage.

I did attempt to take some photographs, where my mobile phone (disconcertingly) recognized that I was taking pictures of a ‘musical event’!  How did it know?  [I really wanted to use an interrobang at the end of the last sentence, but I don’t know how to print one.]  The end results were patchy, but taking pictures at night at x5 zoom on a handheld phone, I am not sure what I expected to get!

A long (for me) walk back to the car, bidding ‘bye’ to our second set of visitors and bed.  I slept as though drugged and snoozed more on the beach this morning!

It’s a hard old life, but someone has to live it!

Tomorrow Barcelona, and the start of my serious research in the library of MNAC to find out more, much more about the life and times of Adam Elsheimer.

Questing continues!