I am what I am
Try as I might by laying in the sun for inordinate periods
of time, I have to admit to myself that I will never look Spanish. I might get a little browner than the people
I have left at home, but I will never blend in with the local population.
People
speak English to me because they assume that I am German! Which tells you a lot about national
perception.
Toni also
does not look Spanish, so when we go to a restaurant which is not one of our
usual haunts we are regarded as guire
(foreigners). Usually this makes very
little difference, but when it comes to being ripped off, we are obviously fair
game.
Now it
could be that it was a genuine oversight on his part, but today’s waiter
brought us only the a la carte menu and omitted the cheaper and better value
menu del dia. When questioned he brought
the other menus immediately, but it left a bad taste in the mouth. Not a good thing when you are looking forward
to your meal.
To be fair,
I would have to say that this exploitation is rare in Castelldefels which, when
you think about it, makes all sorts of sense.
Castelldefels is a seaside town and relies for a chunk of its revenue on
the tourist trade. We act for Barcelona
in very much the same way that Barry Island did and does for Cardiff; a seaside
resort within easy reach of a big city.
We expect people not only to come, enjoy themselves and spend, but also
to do so on a continuing basis. Not
giving the right menus to customers (whoever they are and wherever they come
from) is short sighted and mean spirited.
We will not
go back, even though the other waiters were quick, friendly and efficient. We have, as Toni’s blog points out, plenty of
options for a decent meal and we do not have to give second chances.
Giving blood
This title was both literal and metaphorical today.
My annual
blood test happened at 8.00 am this morning and I am glad to report that I
cycled to the surgery to give my two ampoules.
I managed to time it so that I arrived with four minutes to spare before
they opened the doors.
Perhaps I
ought to explain. Blood testing takes
place on a Thursday and happens as soon as the door opens. This means that when you get there a motley
crew of the unwell are waiting like something out of a Bosch painting. There are people there who Want To Be First
In, and lurk with intent ready to press their way to the front of the queue.
This
attitude is fun to watch because as soon as the assembled multitude is inside
an authoritarian figure in a white coat points to the wall outside the office
which gives you the little sticky labels to put on the ampoules and starts
reading out the names. As soon as she
(it was a she this time) calls out a name the owner of the name is expected to
scurry towards the wall and get in line.
This is also fun as some of the patients have long ago lost the ability
to scurry, and indeed to hear properly – so there is a certain amount of good
natured (ironic) confusion (chaos) before the action starts.
Some folk
revert to school attitudes and bleat their recognition of their names while
being severely ignored by the relentless white coat.
I was
‘done’ relatively quickly and painlessly and the pleasure of passing so many
people waiting for their extraction lasted right up until I got to my bike and
realised that I had left my bathing costume at home. As my plan was to go straight from the
doctor’s to the swimming pool and then return home, I felt slightly miffed.
I made the
best of a bad job and went a different way home, collected my bathers without
waking Toni and cycled back the way I had come for my swim.
I have now
made an executive decision, now that I have a watch that can do that sort of
thing, to swim a measured metric mile each day.
That almost worked today, but the watch decided to stop counting the
lengths after just 50m. I still have not
worked out why it works sometimes and not at others. I will just have to check after a few lengths
and see that it is counting.
I have
resigned myself to the understanding that cutting edge technology always needs
a helping hand. Just think of
printers. No, thinking about it, don’t
think about printers, it’s not good for your stress levels!
Poetry please
The meeting of the Poetry Group in Barcelona last night was
excellent with a slight change to the way that the evening is usually planned.
I read out
my latest poem, Lessons? and was
pleased by the response to the last lines, but found myself explaining the
references. I think that I need to
insert a few lines before the present start of the poem to make it clear. The references are solely British and perhaps
I need to open the poem out a little and make the conflict which produced those
holes more explicit.
You can
decide by reading the poem as it is at present at http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es/
your feedback will be greatly appreciated!
I’m not
sure if the freewrite that we did during the evening or the ‘exercise’ we
completed will find their way into poems, but I throw nothing away. I am constantly amazed at how the most
inconsequential jottings can sometimes suggest productive avenues to explore.
Email amnesia
The contrast between emails and letters have been discussed
at length over the years, but I want to concentrate on one aspect that seems to
effect me.
I check my
email most days and I try and do my ‘housekeeping’ fairly regularly; in other
words I read, delete and save religiously.
But I have noticed that I have a large conceptual blind spot.
When I read
an email from a friend or colleague that needs a reply I have two ways of
approaching this task. The first is
fairly straightforward, I type an immediate reply. The second is more complex and altogether
more worrying. In this approach I
‘assume’ a reply but don’t actually type it out. Perhaps there is something pressing that I
have to do and I tell myself that it will be done ‘soon.’ Too often that soon goes into another day. I have read the email and so it no longer
registers as a number waiting to be read and it no longer appears in the list
in bold asking for my attention.
By day
three I assume that I have actually sent it.
Embarrassingly
this has happened with Irene. I even
told Toni that she was going to be visiting on Saturday. Unfortunately I didn’t convey this information
to Irene as an actual response to her.
Please,
someone out there, tell me that I am not alone in this approach! I am hoping that recognition of this syndrome
is a major part of the way towards its cure!