An August Library

 

 

 

 

The fatal flaw in my approach to ‘tidying up’ is the inability to throw things out. 

     I hasten to add that I am not suffering from Diogenes Syndrome: rubbish I can throw out, that is not a problem.  The problem is defining what rubbish actually is.

     I am typing this bathed in perspiration (horses sweat, men perspire, women glow) after attempting to clear a passage from the door to the end of the first row of bookcases, in what I euphemistically refer to as my library.

     Even I (!) am prepared to admit that I have too many books. 

     I should rapidly qualify that statement.  It is not something that I actually believe.  The truth is that I do not have sufficient shelf space for the books that I have, and there is no more room into which bookcases can expand.  Some shelves are double stacked – and in one case triple stacked.  And they are not truly sorted, so trying to find something I know that I possess is sometimes more an act of faith than logic. 

     I keep telling myself that I delight in the serendipitous discovery of long neglected tomes, as I did when recently searching for ‘the other cache’ of Huxley novels that I knew that I owned.  It was an interesting and revealing process, but I would have preferred to have been able to put my hands on them immediately.  The situation was not tenable; Something Would Have to be Done.

     Let me say, straight away, that something was done.  I can now walk down almost the full length of the first aisle, but the second is blocked because, although I have technically ‘tidied up’, what I have actually done is move things about a bit.  As some of that movement involved pieces of winter clothing there is a buffer time zone of a few months before I have to start wearing long sleeves and move the stuff again so that it can be used.

     The temperature on the third floor in my ‘office’ is 32C and that is with two fans running full-time full-power.  The temperature in the ‘library’ would have given the Black Hole of Calcutta run for its money!  (Does that reference mean anything to anyone nowadays?  And isn’t Kolkata the modern preferred spelling?)  Anyway, it was hot, and what with my knees etc. there was only so much time I could allocate to tidying; more self defence than self-presentation!

     But, it is a start, and as part of the Family Wisdom states, “Anything is Better Than Nothing!”

     What the walkable vista has opened up is the amazingly cluttered nature of the shelves themselves.  They hold books of course, it is after all a library, but there is a bewilderingly various assortment of gadgets (and parts thereof), papers, framed pictures, folders, tools, clothing, leads, plugs and things that usually live in ‘that’ drawer in the kitchen because even though one does not know their functions, they look too serious and ‘useful’ to throw out.

     So my tidying is but a partial Level 1 clearance, allowing me access to Level 2, which will lead to Level 3 – and beyond.  At which point I will have lost the will to live, though I might (if I had any enthusiasm left) be able to find the books that I am now too tired to imagine, let alone look for.

     And the true horror, for me, is that tidying the Library is but a precursor to tidying The Third Floor and bringing order to my office and creating a space on my desk larger than a medium sized dinner plate for me to work!

     It is always good to have a goal in life.  No matter how unreachable it might be!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 16 – 31st MARCH

For the first time in two weeks I left the confines of the house and pool and ventured out into the silent street world to take the rubbish to the communal bins.  They are about 100m away and I felt that my excursion was an expedition. I met no one and only one car passed, or rather I passed it as the driver was sitting in the car on a zebra crossing, texting – some things never change in spite of the country being in the grip of a crisis!

     A crisis in which the numbers of infected and dying are still going up in Catalonia.  The lockdown has now been in operation for more than two weeks and we should be seeing some sort of change in the numbers.  This must be the high point of the infection of the virus and we should over the next few days see a reduction in deaths, at least.

It is a sign of the times that I was sent a video that shows someone wandering through a packed Spanish warehouse explaining that the wrapped boxes of essential medical equipment we can see are all destined for France because the Spanish government had refused to pay for them.  This video has provoked a storm of outrage, especially when front line workers in hospitals are not properly protected from the virus.

     It turns out, however, that the video is a particularly despicable piece of fake news from Vox the Spanish fascist party, designed to embarrass the ‘socialist’ government of Spain.  What it has pointed up however, is the ready belief of the citizens of Spain that their elected government would actually behave in the way that the video indicates, that the government does not really care about the ordinary citizens.  This attitude has been allowed to develop because of the tardy approach of the government in the early stages of the virus’ spread in Spain.  And there is still great skepticism about the approach of the powers that be that each new death seems to reinforce.

Yesterday was a ‘wasted’ day for me because I lack self-control.  That accusation was more than adequately justified by my surrender to Facebook, Netflix and YouTube with various other Internet Interludes.  There was a terrible logic of consequence as one digression after another led me deeper and deeper into visually enticing indulgence after indulgence and, after a final binge on Sherlock, it was suddenly two in the morning!  I suppose it is one way to take one’s mind off what is ravaging the rest of the country!

The weather has been indifferent for the second day running and rain truncated my daily wandering around the pool; it is tempting to fall in with the climate and sulk the day away, but there is far too much threatened imprisonment ahead to start slacking and fail to make the most of the opportunity that self-concentration affords!  And will go on affording to those who can take make something of it.   

     And I’m doing my best – apart from yesterday!

Pet Hates

When you are as contrary as I tend to be, ‘Pet hates’ as a title is far too wide-ranging to be meaningful.  So much irritates and annoys me that one has to compartmentalize the discomfort.  So, today I will be concentrating on those elements which disturb my enjoyment of the swimming pool.  Here is the first dozen or so that spring to mind!

My Swimming Pool Hatreds

1     People who do not put their clothes away in lockers in the changing room, but leave them hanging up on hooks over the benches.  These people have what amounts to an ostentatiously proprietorial attitude to a public space.  And they limit space for changing too.

2     Other swimmers in my lane.  I know that it is inevitable that a pool with five lanes, is going to have more than five swimmers are popular times – especially when the two outer lanes are taken up with older folk doing exercises for their health or families with babies and therefore the lanes are not available for real swimming.

3      Children.

4   Single long hairs in the water.  In our pool it is obligatory for all swimmers to wear caps, except for some extraordinary reason in the summer time when the roof of the pool is open to the elements, but it is easy for the hairs to escape.  This is not resentment because I am follically challenged, and I do not really blame anyone for the hairs, it is just the disgust at feeling a hair wrap itself along your face or find its way between your fingers.  Not really logical, but the revulsion is real.

5      Clumsy swimmers splashing me.  I loathe this in a way I find difficult to explain.  The spray from another lane is a constant irritation.  This morning was a more than appalling example, where the swimmer appeared to be digging his way through the water and flinging handfuls on me!  Ugh!

6      Children.

7     Taking up too much of the bench on which towels are place before your swim.  This is a simple case of selfishness and poor consideration.

8     Children (of all ages) hanging on to and pushing the lane float line.  If you have an energetic stroke having your fingers hit the plastic floats is actually painful.  My nail ends are in a parlous enough state as it is without having the abrasion of floating plastic making them worse.  There is also the effect of clunking the buttons of your smartwatch and therefore negating the information being collected on your swim.  Information, I might add, that I do nothing whatsoever with when it is collected – but that is not the point.

9    Invading my lane.  This is mostly having to deal with people who have no idea whatsoever about when to make a move if they want to pass through a lane.  They do not seem to be able to judge speed and proximity.  They should learn!

10   Ambient music.  I am more than content with the sound of the bubbles breaking against my ears and the music of my own thoughts!

11  Men peeing with the door of the toilet open.  Do women do this in their changing room?  I think probably not.  Is this a macho sort of thing?  Whatever.  Stop it!

12  Over equipped swimmers.  Unless you are a professional (in which case you probably shouldn’t be doing your training at our pool) the only equipment you need is: costume, goggles, cap, slip-ons, towel, ear plugs.  Anything else is mere ostentation.  Some people have water bottles, plasticised sheets of their regime, flippers or fins, hand thingies and other bits and pieces.  No.

13  Cold showers.  I’ve done the exercise, I deserve the pleasure of a warm shower not the punishment of something more befitting one of the more vicious old English public schools.

14    Children 

15    Swimmers chatting in the pool at the lane end.  Pools are for swimming not talking.

16    Men who wear anything other than brief swimming costumes.  That sounds more overtly sexual than I meant it to sound.  I was only making a practical point about practical swimwear for serious swimming.  One person this morning was wearing shorts that came down to mid shin!  What next?  Full dress costume and the re-emergence of Victorian bathing machines?

And I better stop there (though there’s more, much more) because you probably get the idea!  And probably too clear an idea of my character!

Far more pressing and disturbing is the fact that our select class of language students was hit with the unwelcome news that we have an examination a week today.  That did not go down well.  Our attendance is patchy.  There should be as many as twenty students in the class, but we have never had more than a dozen at best.  I can’t imagine that the examination will encourage them to creep out of the woodwork for the ritual humiliation that attempting to speak a language you do not know brings.

To be fair our examination is only (sic.) on the first two units of the course book and has some fairly basic stuff in it – but it confuses the hell out of us anyway.  Today, for example we were doing an exercise where we had to add the ‘from’ bits to show where someone was, well, from – and we were hit with the definite article scam.  It is always amusing to hear those of a foreign inclination refer to The Big Ben having been seen on their trip to London.  In our explanations we tell the hapless non-English speakers that “We don’t say that.”  We then explain that The Houses of Parliament but Buckingham Palace; The London Eye and The Tower of London, but Piccadilly Circus and Wembley Stadium.  And we hope that clears things up!

I have now been paid back in my own coin as we have been told that India, in Catalan is actually The India and therefore the way you write things like, “He is from India” in Catalan has to include the definite article, so it becomes “He is from the India”.  O Dear!

 

Well, we have a week to get things organized in our minds before the sudden onset of bits of paper with other bits to fill in is suddenly upon us.  As I always say at this point, this week should be one of revision, of bringing to the surface those elements of language that have been drilled into my subconscious.  Real life is not like that.  There will be a week of frantic learning so that the devastation of the red marker pen is not scrawled too thoroughly on my tear-sodden paper.

-oOo-

In an act of nasty minded viciousness, someone or other has thrown a black plastic bag of rubbish into our neighbour’s front garden.  Cats and other vermin have been at the debris and it looks unsightly and insanitary.

We have no access to the garden, and our neighbours are not in residence, so I took the extreme measure of phoning the rental company to Do Something About It, as they own the building and they must have something like a duty of care.  I was assured that they would at 10.00 am this morning.  It is now 5.00 pm and the rubbish is still there.  I will keep track.

-oOo-

I feel as if I am in an R D Laing poem, where there is something I should know that I have forgotten.  I am fairly sure that there is a part of the domestic shopping list that I have not filled, but I am damned if I can remember what it is.  And there is nothing worse that endlessly going through the litany that my mother used when she was trying to remember what groceries she needed.  She always started the list with “Butter, lard, marge, sugar, eggs . . .”  And that has stayed with me. 

Its usefulness is limited as we don’t buy the first four items on the list and Toni is fully paranoid about eggs and checks the dates and is scrupulous about staying within the time limits.  I, on the other hand, am probably more flexible that I should be with sell by dates and best by dates.  Toni has never really recovered from going through my cupboards and finding items that were years out of date.  And he was insistent on his sharing his astonishment with me at each new archaeological discover that he made.  For the sake of a quiet life I allowed him to bin stuff that I would never have thrown out and would quite happily have used today.  I mean dried pasta is dried pasta – what can go off.  And anyway, some pasta is naturally green!

I have been hoping that typing will prompt my fingers in an unconscious sort of way to suddenly become possessed by the Spirit of Domesticity and reveal the item.  But, nothing!

Himself will soon be home and I am sure that as soon as he steps over the threshold it will come to me with a bump.

I can always aver that my mind is now consumed by the looming examination and I have no time for trivial things.

REVISION STARTS TONIGHT.  Unless there is a decent film on.  NO!  I will dedicate myself to the acquisition of the rudiments of the language.  I will.  I will!  A bit.