Cold and weight!

Today is cold.  Not British cold, but cold for us here in Catalonia.  And I begin to wonder if my medication (Clexane twice a day via injection for ‘thinning’ the blood) has anything to do with my heightened perception of temperature.  For the first time in my life, my feet are often cold when I go to bed.  I do realise that this is a fairly common occurrence for many people, but it hasn’t been for me.  The comparison between hot water bottles and me has often been made by those who are near and dear to me, so not to retain the calorific qualities of yesteryear (or indeed yestermonth) is something new to cope with.

Today, Sunday is weigh day, when the weekly ritual of standing on the cruel machine that gives our weight is duly noted.  Bear in mind that my diet is now a low fat and no salt one.  I eat chicken, turkey and fish.  I garnish the meat with pulses and green vegetables.  I do not drink alcohol.  I have one cup of tea a day.  I drink water.  I am, as is clear, a good boy.  And if I have a tendency to deviate from the strictness of my regime then I have a pair of eagle eyes watching me and articulating prohibitions before my backsliding becomes reality!  In other words, the weight should be slipping effortlessly from my frame.  Admittedly I am sedentary – not by choice, I might add.  But still 

So it was with a certain degree of light confidence that I stepped onto the scales and found that I had indeed lost weight.  600 measly grams!  A little more than a large bar of chocolate – a cruel comparison, and I can assure you that chocolate has gone the same way as the occasional small glass of red!

I tell myself that I must take comfort from the fact that the trend is still downwards.  I have lost 6 kilos in total and it is inevitable that weight loss will slow down after the initial confidence boosting loss of the first couple of weeks.  But, 600g!  The compensation is that we have never eaten so healthily in our lives – at least not over such an extended period.  Admittedly eight days of appropriate diet was enforced on me from being in hospital, but we have been fairly rigorous in our application of the suggestions for a suitable diet for my condition.

It is a sobering thought to think that I am still between 15 and 20 kilos away from what might be my ideal weight, so, if weight loss continues to slow down then I am looking at the best part of a year to get to the weight that matches my height.  In some ways, it is better to think of this ‘project’ as something as long term.  If I think of reaching my goal in February 2019, then that length of time will allow for the odd week when the trend is bucked, and, more importantly it will allow for placidity as the weight loss is thought of over the longer time span.

I have read through the working drafts of my first ‘Hospital’ poems for inclusion in the chapbook that I intend to publish about my experience, and I am reasonably satisfied with the progress I have made so far.  With any luck, I will work up my notes for another poem today into a working draft and begin to think in more detail about the form that the chapbook will take.  I am inclined to make this chapbook into a prose/poetry production, but I have not yet worked out the practicalities.

There is also the production of my next book, The eloquence of broken things, which is now severely delayed, and I have to admit that my hospitalisation and period of recuperation have not helped.  Its initial publication was for the autumn of last year, but that date has been put back through production problems.  But that is something that I am working on and I hope that the draft of the book will be ready for the printers in the next month or so!

Don’t forget you can read my previous poem drafts at:

http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es

Now, to work.

Pay-back time?

I never really know whether to be jubilant or deeply suspicious when Official Government Bureaucracy works in your favour. 

            The fact that I was able to park immediately opposite the front door of the Social Security Office in Gava was unsettling in itself, and I actually drove past the parking space at first because, obviously, it couldn’t possibly exist – it was far, far too convenient to be true.  But I backed into the space like a guilty thing and marched with a determined step towards the fray.

            I didn’t even get through the door.  The queue snaked out into the sunshine and a glimpse of the inside showed a serried rank of glum looking petitioners sitting waiting for a free official.

            I had come to the office to find out what an inscrutable official (stamped) letter meant.  It was important because it concerned my state pension – of which more anon.

            To make things simpler there is a machine at the entrance to the office that takes you identity number, links it to an appointment and spews out a numbered ticket.  You take it and wait, staring at an LED notice board watching for something approximating to your ticket.

            The machine was surrounded by a vociferous crush of people who were treating the ticket dispenser as if it were the sort of electronics that required a PhD at least to make it work.  I mean, I have to say it’s not rocket science: you press a button, type in your number, push another button and take your ticket.  Old women of all possible sexes were looking at the instructions on the machine as if they were written in Glagolitic and were building themselves up into a frenzy of incomprehension.

            My own situation was a trifle more complex as I had come on spec. as it were, in the vague hope that “just a little information” would not necessitate the making of an official appointment.  I was, in other words, trying to short-circuit the sacrosanct procedures of a Government Office!

            As the harassed woman from the information desk made her way back from trying to sort out the chaos by the number machine I waylaid her and in impeccably bad Spanish, but with an irresistibly winning smile!

            What followed is, I have to admit, a refutation of the mythic stories of unhelpful officials.  She explained what the document I was waving at her actually meant; she took me to a computer station; she sat me down, brought up my details and explained further; she printed out a new document for me and, most importantly, stamped it.

            It seems that I am entitled to a Pension in Spain!  This was completely unexpected and I could hardly contain my enthusiasm.  She was delighted at my delight and told me that usually people were pissed off with how much they were going to get.  As I had expected nothing, anything was a triumph.

            It’s not much, a couple of hundred euros a month, but, coming in is much better than going out and even after tax, it will pay for a few lunches a week.

            Like my official state pension from the UK, the actual amount is nothing to write home about, but my pleasure at receiving it is out of all proportion to how much it actually is!

            I have not, you understand, got a single solitary penny of either pension yet, so I am writing in a state of pleasurable anticipation.  This will last for a couple of months when something should be paid into my account.  The satisfaction will last for a few months more, right up until I find out exactly how much tax will have to be paid, then black depression will descend as I see exactly how much the states (Spain and the UK) think I can live on!  At least I know what to expect and so I can put aside a sum to pay the taxman in the New Year.

            My state pension from the UK is tax free as I don’t live in the country, but I understand that Spain will claim the right to rake in the cash – and don’t worry about my writing this and “letting them know” the UK and Spain have already contacted each other and my status is known by both countries.  No escape, in other words.

            Still, a Spanish Pension!  I was so delighted I wrote a poem, which I print below.

Pension bonding?

To those so young,

and dreading years ahead,

where work dictates the Moments of a Life,

or it apparently does so,                 

I might say               

                       there is

a rite of passage,

not anticipated ‘til,

it’s inadvertently revealed.

And it is this.

There will, I promise, come a time

when, out with friends, or at a meal,

you’ll chat, and when goodbyes are said

you will discover that there’s been

just one, sole, topic taking up your breath.

Some years ahead, for you, maybe,

but talked about with passion

or with pride – or fear.

A life-target that,

so long as you’re alive,

you’ll make.

I’ve reached the age where

what was said some

“not-so-many-years-ago”

is now a near enough reality.

And I observe

a process that involves

a bouncing to and fro

between two states

that claim me both.

I’ve always said I lead a double life,

as here in Spain, what is in Britain

just a letter placed between the

‘fore’ and ‘sur’ of my two names,

becomes a patronymic force and

Señor Morgan suddenly exists!

And I found out today,

(I have the printed sheet

and the official stamp)

that ageing Brit’s entitled to

a small (but welcome) sum,

paid monthly, right into his bank.

That illustrates more surely

than my bad Spanish can,

that one belongs, one is a part.

For nothing is more real

than the cement of governmental cash.

For those who are interested my latest drafts of poems can be read at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es and I will be happy to respond to any comments you might make.

Meanwhile I continue to get up early to go and have my swim, though I will have to do more if I am to lose the extra weight that the nurse demands I do.  And today a good swim was not matched by a good and restrained food intake.  And next week there are visitors and it will be churlish not to respond to their desire to eat well.  Perhaps I can limit the “drink well” part and feel smug and justified – though the scales are impartial and glacial when it comes to their view of reality!

Work continues on the anthology “Together Apart” with discussions continuing with the printer about what, exactly we can afford.  I think I see a resolution and I will have to contact my fellow poets to keep them in the loop.  I hope that publication will still be towards the end of next month.  I am, in spite of the darkness of some of my poetry, essentially an optimistic person.

Honestly!

Too many new words!

This is my last weekend of freedom before my various courses start in earnest.  To be strictly accurate on has sort-of started and the other is lurking in the near future.  I have received all the books for one course and half the books of another.  Usually, of course, the receipt of printed material would encourage me to break out into my “Libros! Libros! Libros!” song (believe me the lyrics do not get much more sophisticated) which greets any package with pages, but my jolifications have been somewhat more muted for these offerings.

            The reason is that the two (count them) courses that I will be taking this academic year are both a belated attempt to improve my woeful Spanish.  This means hard work, rather than the usual voluptuous sinking into the printed word.  It means rote learning and forcing my memory to accept a whole new vocabulary.  Given that each new word in English (let alone Spanish) only lodges in my mind after the mental equivalent of using high explosives to make a space for the new information, I shudder to think about what my calcifying brain will have to do to accommodate and entire language!

            Still, the effort must be made, especially as my convincing display of verb-less fluency in the tongue of my adopted country makes most people who don’t speak Spanish think that complete proficiency is a mere nuance more in my efforts to become a consulting member of the Spanish Academy.  It would be somewhat satisfying to construct a sentence with all the grammatical parts in place rather than slurred in the Impressionistic approach to communication in a foreign tongue that I affect.

            The faux-fluency (see above) means that I am in the second level of classes for my course in Castelldefels, rather than where I deserve to be in the class of rank beginners.  This is all fin and dandy, but we had to complete an exercise on (gasp!) verbs, today, in the second lesson – and my woeful inadequacy was shown up in a series of tentative, rubbed out, unconvincingly rewritten, rubbed out again and then copied answers!

            My plea to the teacher to be instantly demoted to the class of the more comfortingly inarticulate was greeted with a blank refusal and an encouraging smile.  The way, seemingly, is now set for a true linguistic via dolorosa for my bleeding pilgrim feet to follow from now to next May.

            On the other hand this course is as cheap as chips, with the local council subsidising the cost of materials and tuition.  I cannot believe that the €50 that I have paid is for anything more than the first term, though even €150 for a year’s classes of two two-hour classes a week seems something of a bargain.

            Especially when you compare it with the other course that I am taking which is with the Open University – and which is well over ten times as much.  I am hoping that these two courses will run in something like tandem and get me to the level of A2 in Spanish by the summer of next year.

            The designation I am aiming for is not an arbitrary one.  A2 is the minimum standard necessary to apply for citizenship in Spain.

            Given the implications of Brexit and my determination, short of expulsion, not to give up my access to Mediterranean sunshine and free health care, I feel that I have to be pro-active about what might happen in just over two years time.

            I might add that I have absolutely no intention of giving up my British citizenship.  Whatsoever.  No matter what bunch of self-seeking, idiotic, self-serving, selfish bigots are actually governing (ha!) the country, it is mine own.  Like Prospero with Caliban, we are indissolubly linked.  But, on the practical side, once the UK is out of the EU (and I certainly do not trust any of the Conservatives past, present or future to look out for me and mine) I will have to shift for myself.  And one of those movements might be to apply for joint citizenship.

            The language is only half the challenge.  Another part of the examinations to become a Spanish citizen involves a test of knowledge of Spain, the Spanish People and Its Institutions.  Having just come back from an exhibition in the Museum Nacional d’Art de Catalunya of the work of Lluïsa Vidal – Pintora del Modernismo I do feel that that box is ticked.  It turns out, however, that the test will not only be on High Art, but also the so-called popular arts of pop singing, and probably even bull fighting!  I have to admit that, apart from the excellent group Mecano, I am not exactly ‘up’ with yoof culture in Spain.  I look forward to the “All You Need To Know About Spain” book for budding citizens!  I can’t wait to see what they say about Government and Justice, especially as both concepts are little more than farcical jokes at the moment in this politically benighted country!

            Just as with a range of Catalan artists that I have come to know and now can recognize and enjoy their art, so too I hope to find a whole new way of looking at this country as I make a determined effort to become au fait with its geography, history, religion (ugh!), politics (ha!), bull running (ugh!), architecture, film stars etc etc etc.

            I did take a look at some of the questions that applicants for British citizenship were asked and, if the Spanish equivalent is anything like those, then there is no way that I can feel jocose about my present knowledge being deep and wide enough to get me through!

            Last night I went again, after a lengthy absence, to the Barcelona Poetry Workshop.  It was, as it always is, a delight to be with people who do not sneer when you try and write poetry, and are respectful (or at least quiet!) when you recite it!

            The theme for the evening was poetry and paintings and I was encouraged enough to draft out some ideas based on my experience of the Rothko Room in the Tate Modern.  The poem and some ‘explanation’ is available at smrnewpoems.blogspot.com and is called, imaginatively enough, The Rothko Room, Tate Modern.

After I discovered that swimming with your mobile phone in the pocket of your bathing trunks was not a good idea and looked around for a replacement, I settled for something which was not (under any circumstances) an iPhone and would keep me quiet until I found something which would truly replace my Yota phone which, uniquely in my phone experience had two ‘faces’ with the back one being the equivalent of a Kindle!  Ideal for me.  Well, after one Yota phone stolen and the other drowned it seemed like the communicative gods of commerce were telling me to look elsewhere.  And look I did, until I fell under the spell of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7.

            This phone is, I imagine, a thing of beauty: big, blue, with screen to the edges, a pen to write with, waterproof (see above) and with a decent camera.  It was of course (I am after all Marion Rees’s son) eye-wateringly expensive – but, I thought to myself, soon the untold wealth of my State Pension is going to come tumbling into my grasping hands and, anyway, I do not smoke and therefore it is OK to splash (unfortunate word in the case of my phone) out.

            Unfortunately, although paid for, I do not have this exclusive piece of ostentatious materiality in my hot little hands.  Hands that could be hot because the one thing that people know about this phone is that the battery has a habit of bursting into flames when it is being recharged.

            That, of course, is a gross simplification.  There have been just under (?) 30 cases out of a million or so units manufactured that have malfunctioned, but that number is more than enough to create absolute chaos.

            The Note 7 was the flagship phone for Samsung; its release date was days before the new iPhone and it was backed by an intense advertising campaign.  Utter, complete disaster.

            I should imagine that the release of the Note 7 will be a key element in business schools around the world as part of the How-Not-To-Do-It class in the course.  It will be there with “New Coke” and “The Edsel” as horror stories to frighten neophyte businesspeople.

            The financial repercussions for Samsung were catastrophic with an unbelievable sum of money being wiped from the shares.

            As far as I can understand one battery manufacturer is at fault.  Perhaps.  The units sold in China are fine, the ones elsewhere might explode!  As part of the general hysteria I have read of a newspaper in Samsung’s home country suggesting that part of the problem has been used by the Americans to further their own company’s fortunes!

            My attempts to find out what exactly was going on after the release was abruptly cancelled and units started to be exchanged was frustrating.  Helplines were anything but, and I only got some sort of reasoned response by phoning a sister company in the UK and speaking to a very helpful young man who shared my exasperation as he had purchased the same phone for his parents and even he, working for the company, had been unable to get his hands on any.

            You might ask why I am still allowing people to hold my cash when they haven’t delivered the goods.  Well, that is difficult to answer, but the phone does look good (in pictures) and it does do what I want it to do and it is waterproof.  So I can wait a little longer rather than compromise.  Again.

            We in Spain have been given a date of the 7^th of October for the phones to appear.  I will wait and see.  And decide what to do on the 7^th.  But, it is very pretty, so . . .