Same view - different sense

It is odd when you see close friends who you haven’t seen for some time.  Attitudes snap back in place and everything is almost as it was the last time you were together.  Almost - not exactly.  There is a whole history which has not been shared in the way that experiences in the past were common currency between us.  And children are bigger.  Much bigger!

The talk flowed as did the . . . yes, I’m sure that you have filled in the second part of that sentence: but you would be wrong.  I took of bottle of alcohol-free Sainsbury red wine.  Usually these things are immediately disgusting, but this one was subtler.  There was a faint memory of what wine might have tasted like if all the active and interesting ingredients had been taken out.  It didn’t, of course stop me drinking it.  But it will be a long time until I drink more of it.  Paying for a taxi at least preserves one’s dignity!

Today I go back to the optician to see how the new lenses are settling on my eyes.  I think that there is an appreciable difference in the reading quality of the correction, but it is not the magic solution to my prescription.  I have no idea how much the new toric lenses cost and I am preparing myself for a nasty shock – still, it’s always better than wearing glasses.  Which I hate, have hated and will continue to hate.

Lunch is going to be with an old ex-colleague and then there is the packing.  At least, thanks to Ceri’s demand that I turn up with background music for the dinner last Monday, I do have my newly downloaded Gretry so that I can, in part, re-live my musical experience of packing in University to the insanely jolly music.  It is just a pity that I cannot find a download of the original Gluck/Gretry combination that was the actual music that I used to keep my sanity in times of departure!  I will continue to look.

While waiting for my appointment in the optician’s reception area and old man hobbled into sight whom I immediately recognized as a colleague from the first Cardiff school in which I worked.  He didn’t recognize me at first but we were soon chatting about mutual acquaintances.  It took him no more than twenty seconds before he alluded to his age, and indeed that of his wife, who was also a colleague in the same school.

Each elderly person I have met has told me his age.  But, there again, when trying to book a concert for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales I mentioned to Paul Squared that I had been following that orchestra for over forty years!  I suppose that I have reached the penultimate stage just before I too start adding my age to all conversations!

My contact lens prescription has been changed yet again and I now have to wait until tomorrow for the next six months supply to come into the opticians.  This could mean delaying my set off time for London, but the lenses will be worth it.  I hope!

My restraint is legendary: it took me until today to down my first pint of SA!  Brains Brewery must have looked askance at my continuing presence in Cardiff without my consumption of a single pint of the delectable liquid that is so foreign to the bar pumps of Spain, where the childish larger holds total sway over the degraded palettes of sodden Spanish tipplers.

I had only a very hazy idea of where The Cottage was.  I knew of a bar in town with that name but this one was in the wilds of an affluent suburb of northern Cardiff.  I refused to take the easy way out and look at Google Maps to give me direction and set off in a very determined manner to where I thought it might be.

I took the “back way” from Llanrumney to Lisvane and then made my way uncertainly towards the station and Cefn Onn Park.  This park is justly famed for its overwhelming display of rhododendrons in season and the park entrance is next to a pub whose name is now emblazoned in incomprehensible Welsh.  Luckily there was a roundabout within a few yards and a second pass of the place revealed that it was The Old Cottage (this time in English) and that seemed close enough for me to risk stopping.

The whole place has been done out and, as my colleague seemed to be nowhere in sight I decided to have a cold pint.  SA or “Skull Attack” as it is affectionately known in the lower reaches of Cardiff is a delicious pint brewed locally and, sitting in the glorious sunshine (!) I was able to appreciate the sheer beauty of sitting outside and in the warm with a cold pint inside!

My trusty phone offered me my interminable book and when I looked up at the end of a chapter I saw two colleagues walking sedately towards me.  A delight!  The colleague I was originally expecting arrived shortly after and we got down to the serious business of catching up on any shreds of gossip that might serve to keep the conversation alive.

The menu was, to put it mildly, startling in its offer of haute cuisine delights and the daily menu at £12·95 for two courses looked delicious.  Goats’ cheese on a bed of interesting salad with rustic bread, olives and oil and balsamic vinegar (the last bits were extra), followed by spiced fillet of pickled herring with new potatoes and salad augmented with fruit.  It was all delicious and a chilled glass of white wine made it perfect.

The conversation flowed easily and it was pleasantly engaging to play a part in something which seemed organic, natural and stimulating.  I was still smiling when I arrived home some time later after wistful goodbyes had been said.

I called into PC World with added Currys because it would have been churlish not to.  The ex-colleague working there left two years ago I was informed so I looked at cameras – which have the same hypnotic effect on me as watches.  There is a new Olympus camera with a x24 zoom, but it luckily does not give the operator manual override so my Canon is still a good buy and “this one would be a waste of money” the salesperson told me.

I have to say that this sort of sensible advice has not necessarily stopped me from spending in the past, but this time it did seem to strike a responsive chord in the non-spendthrift part of my brain and I was able to leave the store clutching only a new loudspeaker dock for my Nano.  A lucky and relatively inexpensive escape!

Today is going to be the only day so far completely without rain.  Sitting outdoors in the relative cool of the early evening would be perfect if it were not for the slightly too intrusive breeze – but as a rainless day I am prepared to forgive it.

This evening I plan to have a take-away Indian meal out of which I was cheated last night by the ridiculously early closing of the fast food restaurants in the area!

And packing!

A full day with some forgetfulness!

You win some; you lose some.

In the never-ending story of My Life With Contact Lenses, yet another chapter has been opened.

With all the zest of the most bigoted ex-pat I have used part of my time in the Mother Country (it is impossible to type that without irony, I feel) to go to the doctor and all the other professional personal maintenance managers that I can fit in.

Yesterday was the turn of the optician.

Even though I am and have been living in a foreign country for some time, as far as doctor, dentist and optician are concerned I am still very much resident in Rumney.  As my doctor said when I saw him after a considerable lapse since I last visited, “Ah, a seamless patient attendance record!”  My optician is still under the impression that I am a honest-to-god paying patient of their contact lens scheme.  And I am not about to disabuse them.

My eye test was exhaustive and I was glad to see that the obnoxious puffer test had been made a little more sophisticated.  For those of you lucky sods with perfect vision, one of the little tortures invented by opticians is to put your head in a sort of iron brace and then have a shot of compressed air directly onto your eyeball.  It goes against every instinct in the human body to keep an eye open when you know that something is going to hit it and the shock does not diminish with experience.  This time I was given a much gentler treatment using a hand-held oblong with two short protrusions on it one of which was placed near my eye and a sort of faint tickling of the eyeball ensued: unpleasant but no shock.

My eyes have deteriorated - subtly but just about on the bounds of noticeability.

As is usual when I visit to have my contact lenses checked, yet another optician makes yet another attempt to find the compromise that will allow me to wear contact lenses for distance and reading.  This time (yet another) new lens on the market which compensates for the astigmatism in my right eye has been tried and I go back on Thursday to see how things work out.  I have to say that although reading is not easy with my contact lenses it is better with the new one.  Or there again it might just be wishful thinking and the optician’s version of the placebo effect.  Who cares as long at it “works”!

My eventual emergence from the vaults of the optician galvanized me into a series of visits which I had promised myself.

The first was to Ceri’s studio where I was able to see work in progress.  There is a beautifully finished charcoal of a waterfall where the seemingly effortless depiction of falling water would send Toni into paroxysms of envy.  As the charcoals are studies for the tempera paintings I think that this one is going to be truly spectacular.  I think that I will have to get my pennies together and treat myself to that one.  And yes, Dianne, that is not a casual statement slurred out through drink – which was my expression of interest in the first Ceri painting that I bought!

There were a couple of small pen drawings which I noticed: one of water running over rocks and the other of a landscape with rather scary brambles in the foreground which are going to look wonderful when framed up ready for sale.  I think that they will fly out of the gallery and I hope that Ceri does more of them.

However I was not there to snoop around taking photographs for Toni (though I did do that as well!) but rather to get something for delivery elsewhere!

That waterfall is going to look good.  It really is.  Perhaps I should phone now and not wait.

Then to Tesco, not, this time for myself, but rather so that I could buy flowers for the aunts.

My next visit was however to Rookwood Hospital and the spinal section where a friend was eagerly waiting to go home to the adapted garage which, even as we speak, is being completed for his residence with the inclusion of facilities and the raising of the floor to make it wheelchair accessible.  For a man who was paralysed from the neck down, he has made remarkable progress and can now get himself into a wheelchair!  He was looking (as far as the truly depressing surroundings of a condemned hospital can allow) healthy and happy – and early next month should see him out of the place.

Elated by my first visit I progressed to the first of my aunts, who had herself been to Rookwood for treatment and can barely allude to it without a shudder.  However we had a chat and I put the flowers into a vase so, for a time, all was well with the world.

As my aunt is in her eighties she is finding that she is gradually being isolated in her generation as all her friends and relatives die.  She does have family of children and grandchildren but she (as indeed do I) miss her brothers and sister.

My next visit was to another aunt who, though 95! Is bright, sharp, active and intelligent.  The female line in her family is renowned for its longevity, so my single cousin on that side of the family can be assured of a long life ahead!

It has, to my shame, been a considerable time since I last saw my aunt and when she opened the door she stared blankly at the large man holding flowers until I said, “In your own time, aunt!” when she immediately said my name!

Our conversation was sparkling and it was an oddly rejuvenating experience to talk with (not to, as she more than held her own!) her.

All of this visiting completely wiped from my mind the fact that I had promised a friend that I would go and visit the museum and the new gallery and then have lunch.  My blithe ignoring of this appointment meant that telephone calls zinged their way from person to person so that eventually an international element was added when Toni was informed that I hadn’t kept an appointment and there was no contacting me.

Part of my telephonic isolation was because my phone still thinks that it is in Spain and so the international code for that country has to be applied to get to me and I have to use the international code for the UK when I phone anyone here.

When I was eventually contacted the memory of the appointment, made it must be admitted in a wash of red wine, came flooding back and I later had to make a grovelling apology.  Sigh!

Now it is time to visit my uncle in Maesteg.  But before that is the traditional Getting Paul Squared Out of Bed ritual.  His slumber is truly a little death and I feel positively Christ-like as I command him to rise and walk!

My Uncle Eric (a mere child compared with my Aunt from yesterday) was a little slower and a bit more arthritic but he too made me a cup of tea (a nephew’s prerogative) and our chat was as interesting and topical as ever.  There comes a point in a nephew’s life when he realizes that perhaps he should have spent more time talking to his relatives – ah well!

By way of penance I went to Llandaff Cathedral and asked to speak to the verger.  I was escorted to his room by a very obliging person from the gift shop area and was then a little bemused by his attitude of beratation (a word which does not exist but should) while he abused me roundly much to the bemusement of the lady who eventually asked, “Do you two go back a long way?” before going about her duties.

This unexpected visit (on the part of the verger) may have bought me some credit to help expunge (fat chance) from his mind my unforgiveable forgetting of my luncheon appointment!

By way of contrast I went to a Chinese restaurant on Llandaff High Street in a period cottage and sampled, or at least tried to sample the two-course meal for just under nine quid.

I was shown to my table and given the menus.  When the lady appeared I had not decided and asked for a little more time.  And was then ignored.  I thought that I was being punished for having the effrontery to demand extra time, so I took out my mobile and continued reading the obscure Conan Doyle novel which I only read in snatches when I am delayed or at a loose end.

Eventually another Chinese woman saw me and asked if everything was alright and having given her my order I then heard peals of Chinese laughter as my isolation was discussed.  The original girl herself came around the screen giggling hysterically and sort-of apologized.  It was very difficult to be angry in the face of such hilarity so I just settled down to enjoy my food.

Spicy spare ribs and spicy chicken with egg-fried rice were well served and tasty – but I didn’t feel full in the approved way that is natural for Chinese food and I kept thinking about the similarly priced menus del dia that I could get at home.  With wine!  I was steely in my resolve not to add anything to my menu so left wondering if the half a Belgian Chocolate Cookie from Tesco was still in the fridge at the Pauls’.  

But it wasn’t.  Which makes my resolve even more praiseworthy.  Or something.  

I did notice the mature Cheddar in the fridge that I bought still pristine and inviting!

Play Hard!

When I eventually found a parking space near the museum, in front of the old part of the University, I clumped my way towards the intimidating flight of steps topped by the stout columns behind which the unrelenting stone of the façade was enlivened by a studded bronze door – which was firmly closed.

Mondays are not the days which you use to visit our National Museum.  I clumped my way back to the car and was relieved to see that I had not been clamped as I had blithely assumed that parking such a distance from the Museum would have to be free.  I had not noticed the elegantly spaced payment machines and the discrete signs warning any drivers that payment was essential to park in these isolated positions.

Although culture was denied, it did allow me to progress seamlessly to the centre of the city to indulge in a little light shopping.  My aim was to find a shop in the Capital City of Wales which might be able to provide me with a copy of some of the ballet music from Gretry’s oeuvre as I though that appropriate music by which to dine.  What I hadn’t realized was that the email to me asking me to bring along such music was also supposed to extend to the other people attending the dinner at Ceri and Dianne’s house.

No CDs were to be had, even for ready money and I had cause to bemoan the closure of the Virgin Superstore and the small but select Classical Music Department hidden away from the vulgarity of all those styles of which I know nothing.  I can imagine “Lounge” or “Kitchen” or “Parlour” or even “Bathroom” music – but I do draw the line at “Garage” and other musics appertaining to extraneous parts of a dwelling.

I did, for old times’ sake, buy a few things from the shop that was taking up the premises of the old Virgin Store – and so began the inevitable slide into the wanton distribution of liquid assets to those around me.

As it is a hard and fast tradition with me to buy a new watch every time I go on holiday I was strangely drawn towards all shop windows (and there were many) which made a feature of beguiling displays of timepieces.

Suffice to say that a combination of classical severity of design with the impetus of a half price offer soon made me part with far more money that I had really intended and sport a new watch on my wrist.  Of the six essentials that I need for the perfect watch, the new one had five so I was satisfied – and it is a damn sight lighter than its predecessor.

By this point in my progress through the fantasia of shopping centres that make up the centre of the city I had bags within bags within bags: the sign of a real shopper.

I do feel it is a clear and potent sign of the coming Armageddon and the Fall of Civilization as we know it that you can get your feet nibbled by voracious fish for a tenner in a quite ordinary shopping arcade.

As I seem to grow hard skin as easily as other people misspell “Charades” I felt that it would be no more than an act of gastronomic kindness to let the finny fangs of famished fish feast on my feet – especially the heels.

It was a strangely unsettling feeling to have ones ankles begird with a fringe of chomping exclamation marks making me look like a sort of Piscean Morris Dancer!

The tickling sensation was not unpleasant, but neither was is calming and, at the end of the session I observed that it wasn’t particularly effective either.

As I was having culture denial symptoms I decided to visit the fairly newly opened Cardiff Experience Centre which gave a kids-orientated but still fascinating glimpse at aspects of the city.  This exhibition utilizes part of the old Central Library building and takes my oft-stated idea that the whole of the Central Library should be turned into a “taster” annexe of the National Museum of Wales a step further to realization.

By the end of my meander through the exhibits here it was time for lunch and I ventured under Saint David’s Hall to have the two-course lunch for just under a tenner.  This was excellent value and its quantity made me wonder if I had overdone it considering that I was going out to dinner in some six hours.

I managed to go for a swim in the Eastern Leisure Centre where I had swum every day before school before I deserted it for the more refined setting of the David Lloyd Centre.

Refreshed and exhausted by my swim I felt ready to go to dinner.

Which was wonderful. 

The creamy yet surprisingly light prawn soup was followed by a spectacular marinated lamb (which melted in the mouth) with couscous and piquant vegetables.  The sweet was a chocolate roulade with fruit and cream which was light yet did not deny the calorie-laden delight which made it so tasty.

Food is only one part of a good dinner so it was the conversation and company which provided the extra ingredient which made it memorable!

And so to bed replete and happy.

Talk and Tranquility

It is amazing what sort of sumptuous spread you can produce if you go to Tesco with an open mind and never closed wallet and buy nibbles for an exciting evening meal.  I was determined that Paul Squared would not have to cook anything for the get-together of our friends and this I managed to achieve.

The only cooked item on the menu was a collection of chicken legs which were something of a centrepiece of meat for an other wise largely vegetarian array of interesting dips and constructed savouries. 

By the time we had finished setting the table the results looked more than delectable. 

Part of the effect was made by defrosting a large packet of smoked salmon and augmenting its appearance with various forms of cooked prawns. 

The cheese board looked particularly inviting, especially with the artfully positioned grapes, which I have been long taught are essential component of any real cheeseboard lurked on the periphery of the gleaming wedges.

The number of people who arrived in the evening together with their “variety” was a perfect combination.  It was a delight to see people who I have not seen for a couple of years and to see again those who have been over to Castelldefels in the more recent past.

One can tell the success of any social gathering in which I am involved by the length of time it takes me to get some food into my mouth.  Everyone had eaten something and the table was beginning to look like Miss Haversham’s wedding feast (without the cobwebs, but with the destruction of the food) before I picked up my plate.  A success!

Toni would have been proud of my abstinence, though from a Catalan point of view I lived up to my British heritage!  I even remembered to drink some water before we finally went to bed in the early hours of the morning.

My lie-in this morning had the advantage that I missed the rain, so that my depression with the climactic vagaries of my country did not get into gear until I was told that the unenviable record of dampness had extended itself for another day.

The Cardiff Festival of Food in The Bay was our destination for the afternoon.  This annual extravaganza takes over the space in front of the Millennium Centre with a series of tents showcasing local and national producers of various types of food.

It was packed and it was difficult to fight your way through the crowds to get the miniscule free samples on offer.  We eventually gave in and bought a lamb burger to save off a hunger which had no right to be there after the Tesco flavoured excesses of the night before!  However, the single burger was largely insufficient (though delicious) and it was joined later by another bap containing most of the ingredients of an English breakfast.  This too was delicious – though the combination of the two did mean that I took to my bed for a little rest when I came home.

However the main even in our version of the festival was to see Angela Gray demonstrate her cookery skills in the John Lewis Partnership supported super tent.  It was brilliant to see the other half of the partnership, as her husband had been in the party last night.  She, we were told, was comatose with weariness on the sofa after two solid days of demonstration.

She made a seafood starter, followed by marinated Welsh lamb with salad, finishing with a sort of cream/fruit indulgence that she had made for some French countess when she was a teenager. 

As usual everything was delicious and she knew that she was playing to my weakness when she handed me a sample of the butter-drenched delight that was the starter!  I did attempt to get the recipe but they had all been grabbed during the previous days demonstration and I will have to go on the Internet to find out how to try and emulate her effortless expertise. 

The end result justifies a little effort though.

Tomorrow I shall mix a little art with an ECG – although thinking about it that sounds like the sort of thing that one of the galleries in Barcelona would regard as a bread-and-butter exhibition uniting the two cultures.

The National Museum of Wales has opened a new gallery and I need to see it.  The Welsh Proms are also on and I am inclined to patronize them – in all senses of the word.

I am fighting against the tendency of all travellers to limit their activities when they find themselves in a place for an extended time.  It is the old idea that if you are in a place for a day or so you get to see everything; whereas if you are somewhere for a week you start thinking that “I can do that tomorrow” and you end up doing little.  I have to attempt a judicious mixture of the laid back and the driven to enjoy my time in the UK!

I will evaluate (I have to get used to the word with what is going to happen in the beginning of the next term) my success at the end of tomorrow.

Which is another day.

The rain it raineth every day - true!

One does not, of course, wish to labour the point – but I have been here since Wednesday the 6^th of July and on Wednesday the 6^th of July, Thursday the 7^th of July, Friday the 8^th of July and Saturday the 9^th of July it has rained.  Rained spitefully, viciously and coldly.  And it is July.  As I might have mentioned.  In passing.

Friday (in spite of the rain) was the sort of day during which I heard the siren call of the shops. 

I felt that I had to go with Paul Squared on a mission of mercy to release commodities from their imprisonment on the other side of the counter; but he was still firmly held in the half-nelson of Morpheus and we were expecting Hadyn at some point in the morning. 

Consequently I was reduced to reading one of Conon Doyle’s novels on my phone tangentially featuring the fearsome Professor Challenger and explicitly justifying a more liberal approach towards Spiritualism and the contacting of the dead.

And drinking cups of tea made with pure Welsh Water!

I had forgotten just how pleasant it is to drink water straight from the tap without having to remind oneself that however disgusting the liquid tastes, it is, allegedly safe.  The amount of calcium in the water in Castelldefels makes one astonished that it is actually flows out of the tap in liquid form rather than cascading out in chunks. 

One only has to look at the amount of chalky residue in the kettle to make one wonder just how furred up the pipes leading to dishwasher, shower, and washing machine must be.  In the Barcelona area you have to add the financial burden of replacing water-using machinery on a fairly regular basis to your assessment of the cost of living!

I have now made appointments with the doctor and optician as a sensible part of my time in the UK.  My dentist is unobtainable until August and I was told that he doesn’t work on a Friday so that bit of my Master Plan to Get Everything Done will not be working out. 

The rain has now changed from “shower mode” into “driving mode” and is making my venturing out less agreeable by the minute.

Clarrie has phoned up to check that the arrangements are all in place for the celebrations on the 16^th when I will have left Wales for London and Reading.  My timetable is sorting itself out.

 

“Well,” said the lady in Tesco at the checkout, “I do hope that no one else of your size comes into the shop today because they are not going to get very much are they!”

I must admit that I have behaved like women in M&S at Christmas time when I have observed the female of the species at its most indiscriminately materialistic, sweeping swathes of substances from shelves and into trollies as if everything were free, gratis and for nothing.

I too have been liberal in my acquisitiveness and my largely empty suitcase is now over the limit and I may have to battle my way through the EasyJet website to buy a larger allowance!  But my clothing needs are now satisfied for another season - though I still won’t have very much to wear in winter: another trip perhaps?

The appointment with the doctor (I am still firmly on the system there) was as much social as medical.  I have a great deal of respect for my doctor in Cardiff and will be everlastingly impressed by the way that he got a professor in the Heath to see me individually and not on his usual consulting day during the progress of dealing with my high blood pressure!

 

My blood pressure is a little high, but as I have a highly developed “White Coast Syndrome” I will have to wait and check the readings at home rather than with a doctor watching to get some sort of accurate reading.

I pitied the people whose appointments were later than mine languishing in the waiting room as our talk in the consulting room ranged from the wonders of the British Museum to the life and works of Mervyn Peake with much laughter and a little medical attention along the way as well.  Things appear to be generally satisfactory but I am going back for a scan so that he can have more information to add to my file.

Toni will be appalled, but not surprised to learn that I have bought a couple of books (though remember I bought nothing in London in spite of great temptations) one of which is a series of lists of the “10 most and greatest” so that we had a pleasantly raucous charades aided quiz of the ten most popular pop hits of the 70s and 80s where the amusement felt by all might have had something to do with the amount of alcohol consumed.  I drank the least and confined my imbibing to a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape because I could.

I am now typing in an eerily quite house as I am downstairs and the others are snoring behind closed doors.

Tonight is a little get together of a few old friends so at some time when the sleepers under the hill have finally roused themselves we will have to go back (once again) to Tesco to get the food and drink.

Sunday will probably be a visit to Cardiff Bay because there is a Festival of Food and Drink there and Angela has a part in the proceedings demonstrating her cooking.  And you never know, we might even have some sunshine to tempt me out and about!

London or bust!

Our basic thinking was on the right lines.  Early July; kids would still be in school; holidays would not have started; mid week was a quiet time – the visit to the British Museum would be accomplished with minimal fuss and in the spaciousness of empty galleries.

On every count we were wrong.  The entire youth population of Spain was thronging its way through all the galleries we visited.  British school kids were visiting in phalanxes as an end of term treat.  “Thursdays,” as one taxi driver commented, “are some of our busiest days!”  We couldn’t get a table for lunch.  We couldn’t get anywhere near the Rosetta Stone.  The Egyptian Mummy Room was a nightmare – and I am not referring to the decomposing dead but to the all to lively living who stuck to the glass cases like Amazonian tree frogs!

But in spite of everything it was a successful day.  After misgivings about the willingness of the rail system to accommodate the disabled we were treated with care and consideration not only in Cardiff but also by the incomparable staff in Paddington.  Ramps were provided and porters pushed Louise up them.  In overcrowded trains our seats were, with an imperious flick of a guard’s finger vacated.  Thoroughly tiring but very satisfying sums up the day.

We did not get to see everything that was on the list, but we had a damn good stab at completion and saw a few extras, which were not on the official schedule.

The meal in the museum restaurant was, to say the least, leisurely – it took over two hours for two courses to be served!  But we managed to chat our way through this lacuna and managed to consume a bottle of wine as well.  Louise’s eyelid drooped visibly even when encourage to gloat over the possession of the Elgin Marbles, saved from the hands of the feckless Greeks.  After all, if they can’t run a viable economy they are certainly not to be trusted with some of the greatest cultural artefacts from the Classical World!

Sutton Hoo, the Lion Hunt and various pieces of silverware, not forgetting the Ram in the Thicket and other treasures seen passing through galleries to find the items on our list meant that at the end of the day we were both physically and culturally exhausted.

The taxi drive back from the BM to Paddington was made all the more circuitous because of the road closures to ensure the success of the premiere of the last (positively the last) part of a schoolboy’s adventures in wizardry.

I could have done with a little bit of magic when I was faced with getting all my gadgets fed.  Leads are snaking all over the room as the essential accessories to any attempt at sophisticated living demand their allowances of electricity.

Any nocturnal wanderings will be fraught with peril as I myopically try and negotiate the 3D labyrinth of random wires which would give an athletic bat problems!

But now sleep.  Sleep.  Sleep.

Procrastination, thy name is packing!

I have, scornfully, thrown a few scraps of clothing into a large case and considered the major part of this loathsome occupation done.

The more interesting packing of all those gadgets without which civilized life is impossible still awaits and the depressing pile of uniformly black leads and plugs demands attention.  Which I will delay until the last moment.

My packing is a prime example of “the book for the bath syndrome.”  I sometimes take an age to choose the appropriate book to read in the bath, sometimes taking more time over the choice than the time that I am going to spend in the bath.  Once chosen the book usually remains unread: but it is there “in case”.  The stuff I take is quite literally “in case” usually festering away in the bottom of the luggage and not used at any point in the trip.  But I would not like to be without it.  It is a comforter; a dummy; a pacifier!

Now I really do need to make a move and pack the remaining items.  It will then give me a chance to sit down and suddenly remember an essential that I have forgotten.  Like my spare pair of glasses or the contact lenses that I always vow I will wear instead.

In the airport.  I have just has as gratuitous a revolting meal as I have ever had to suffer in an airport in Britain.  The meal deal in the café in the maelstrom of a holding area for all the paupers travelling with EasyJet was disgusting.

The “caliente” bocadillo of cheese and bacon was made “not cold” (anything more would be a grave misappropriation of any words to do with “heat”) in a filthy piece of equipment which looked as if it has been once an essential part of the persuasive equipment of some particularly vicious Spanish Inquisitor.  After a few (more than two and less than four) seconds this item of the culinary art of Catalonia was deemed ready for consumption.

The tastiest parts of this abortion were the charred remains of previous disasters.  At least the cold lager in the cheap plastic cup was acceptable as was the small packet of crisps that made up this meal deal.  At €8.95 this has to be the worst value that I have had so far in my time in Barcelona.

This holding area is full of grotesque caricatures of British low-life abroad.  Shaven headed thugs in sports shirts and trakkie bottoms abound.  As my seat is en route to the toilets I have seen whole families, none of whose members look as though they could aspire to what Huxley in “Brave New World” termed epsilon semi morons.

One particularly repulsive plump scion was a shaven headed ginger dwarf-like oikish child dressed in cut off sleeve Estoril sports shirt with a (surely not!) tattoo of a dog going to the toilet on his left arm.  His leprously freckled face was almost hidden by what appeared to be a large plastic bomb from which he was drinking via the fuse!  Some things you just can’t make up!

As I am next to the escalator I can view new batches of freaks that are constantly arriving to boost the number of characters which are rapidly forming something worthy of the combine brushes of Bosch and Brueghel at their most nightmarish.

The grotesques have now all lined up to board a plane, I have just discovered, for Belfast.  I rest my case.

It is about now that I go to the board and check my flight and then retire to my seat in cold fury as I find that it has been delayed and I have to sit on the specially designed pieces of discomfort for yet longer!

The plane left on timeish.  And we got into the UK in the scattered rain on timeish.  Even the entry into the UK was not too bad, as the usually sullen faced denizens of the checking of the passports seemed unusually receptive and human.

The drive from Bristol was fraught with fear as I passed each of the recognized stop points at each of the traditional points in the road where stoppages were expected.  Even the horror point of Newport (that vile “city”) was passed with relative ease.

Apart from the completely unnecessary intrusion of rain into my re-introduction to my native land, I have had a more than pleasant evening in Wales.

Now bed so that I can be bright and fresh for the journey to London tomorrow.

I take back everything that I have said about the delivery companies in this part of the world: this morning a gentleman rang the bell and proffered an Amazon box filled with Art books.

I think that I went slightly mad with indecision as I rescued each volume from its snug nest of crushed paper in the box and didn’t really know which one to devour first.  They are all wonderful and fully justify my unjustifiable assertion that I had “only bought them because I needed them for school”.  Toni is very sceptical about my use of the word “need” in all its forms and tends to be downright dismissive when it comes to considering my well-supported and convincing case for each new purchase.

Each book was more exciting than the one before by the time I had stopped gloating and actually got down to looking at them.  They are full of fascinating information which will soon be winging its way to those to know me and to those that pay (in one way or another) to be known by me.  Beware, O beware of my starting a sentence with “Did you know that . . .” or “It is a fascinating fact that . . .” unless you are really and truly interested in the history of modern art.  I am slightly resentful that I will have to leave these heavy and profusely illustrated books behind as I journey to the UK, though I have made room for one reasonably small book on “-isms” which will keep me going – and provide most of the curriculum that I will need to teach for next year!

No day with a delivery of books can be a bad one and even the irritatingly scattered cloud gathered itself up and departed to produce another stunningly sunny day.

Toni returned from his “fun” day with the nephews in a theme park: fourteen straight hours of hyperactive youth.  How unfortunate that I was not able to accompany him!

I have, resentfully, got down to some sort of packing: few clothes but strings of leads, power packs and gadgets.

I have told myself that anything I lack I will buy.  As if I needed an excuse.

Tomorrow the UK and the start of something which really can be called a holiday

Day One-ish! Of many!

The first real day of the holidays and already I have to hang my head with shame as I have committed an Unspeakable Act: I have returned to school of my own volition during the holidays!

In my defence I have to say that it was occasioned by an act of kindness for an erstwhile colleague; though it also has to be said that, had I remembered to complete this act when I was in school, this desperate expedient would not have been necessary.  Anyway, in spite of the opprobrium of all right-thinking teachers whose well-deserved etc. has started, I have defied augury and done the deed.

To accomplish this I had to use the photocopier and was seen in my cringing progress by the entire management system of the school – wearing I have to admit expressions of amazed incredulity.  How are the mighty fallen!

Still it is only the 4^th (and not the 3^rd as my wristwatch stubbornly maintains) and I have the best part of two months to regain my reputation by staying away from the place!

My progress to the School of Shame was momentarily delayed by my finding a parcel from Amazon carelessly thrown into the front garden.

This is the most efficient of the ways that parcels from Amazon are delivered.  Usually the parcel has to be collected from the central depot because the delivers have been “unable to make contact” with the addressee.  It is my personal belief that some parcel delivers only deliver the notes telling you to collect your parcel and the item in question never leaves the depot.  


In one case I actually found the note before the time that they had written on the note as the time when they attempted to deliver the item – if you see what I mean.  Liars and deceivers is what they are, but one can say nothing because their way at least I eventually get the parcels – who knows what they might do if one actually has the temerity to complain!  I hate seeing book mistreated and I cannot but assume that they will be literal grist to the mill in one of the dark corners of the depot if a voice is raised in protest.

The parcel contained the lids which fit the saucepans in the Tefal Ingenio range of handleless and knobless items that make up the cookware.  Even the lids are flat having a magnetic knob which is released via winged flanges.  Four saucepans and a frying pan together with the lids are now all stored in a small handy space.  I have almost thrown away the vulgar and difficult-to-stack lids which are now redundant (surely someone somewhere wants them) and impossibly clumsy compared with my slimmed down cookware.

I realize that enthusiasm for pots and pans is not something for which I am noted, but this range of saucepans and frying pans is such a good idea that I think it actually qualifies as a gadget and therefore something about which I have a right to express a view. 

Once you have seen them you ask yourself why this hasn’t been done before; it’s one of those inventions which are so-bloody-obvious only once they have been invented!  Though perhaps I am just showing my ignorance and the motorhome fraternity have been using such things for generations.  


I certainly remember rectangular camping pans when I was a kid with folding handles which fitted into each other.  But they were not Teflon™ coated and therefore can be dismissed from the pantheon of gadgets with ease and contempt – and they certainly didn’t have a little logo in the middle which indicates when the pan was ready for frying!

The portable vacuum cleaner was broken out of its packaging in the boot of the car because of an explosion of bits of the shellac-like coating of chewing gum being liberally distributed over the passenger seat as a hasty movement of my hand sent the container of the gum bouncing away.

Chewing gum is an essential part of the way I live.  It is one of the most effective ways I know to get the taste of school out of your system.  I use its sharp peppermint or spearmint flavour in the mouth in much the same way as a squirt of alcohol heavy eau de toilette under the chin can revivify a jaded attitude towards life!

As everything has its price, the pieces of the (sugar-free) coating look like particularly aggressive dandruff on the seat.  The vacuum cleaner was bought specifically for in-car disasters such as this and therefore it was with a certain degree of smugness that I helped the cleaner free of its fiendishly snugly packed box.  And found that the machine only worked after it had been charged from the mains.  Defeat of stout party!

The wretched machine is now charging (for 24 hours according to the instruction booklet) and will have to live at home (much like Spanish men) and have an occasional jolt (much like Spanish men) and then be set to work (unlike Spanish men at the moment with “admitted” unemployment figures of 40% for the young and over 20% for the population as a whole).

Today has been an odd one as Toni has been accompanying his very young nephews to a fun park some way down the coast.  This was a “present” for him – thus giving a new meaning to the act of giving!  As it is now 10.30 pm I can only assume that the “fun” goes on and on!

Meanwhile my umpteenth generation I-pod is proving to be a very intelligent purchase as it is so small that using it is nothing more than fitting the earphones into the ear and enjoying.  The eclectic mix of music that it serves on its shuffle setting is constantly unsettling – which is a good thing.  Isn’t it?  Well, it works for me.  Mozart has just given way to Britten – and why not!

Tomorrow is packing day, and consequently a day replete with misery.

Monday is Not a Threat - this time!

Today didn’t start off as a convincing Sunday; it was quieter than normal in the early morning without the moronic baying of the cretinous dog next door – though it did later revert to form and perform its sad litany of staccato barked protests against its incarceration in an outside pen under the house of our neighbour.

Although the weather has been intermittently cloudy it has been very warm and exactly the sort of weather to tempt me to the Third Floor and try out the new luxurious comfort of the recently installed sun loungers and, well, lounge.

It seemed almost criminal actually to lay oneself down on the pristine smoothness, but when the sun shines we devotees of our nearest star can do nothing but worship in our own prone way.  It now looks lived in and has lost its fashion plate look.

Toni has installed another light on the Third Floor and we have bought one of those blue light insect killers.  I have to say, tempting fate, that I am not usually bitten by the flying stingers; they prefer their own and go for the natives!  Toni also has a sort of electrified tennis racquet with which he is adept at eliminating all flying pests – and they make a fascinatingly satisfying phisszing sound as they depart this life for their particularly pestilential future one.

Now is the time in a traditional Sunday when the clammy hand of the Monday Yet To Come descends on the normal teacher and sucks out the pleasure of the end of the weekend.  It some ways is it almost worth going though this weekly misery for the delight when it doesn’t happen in the holidays.  One must take one’s pleasure where one can find it!

The only active thing that I have done today is to collect our lunch from the local chicken restaurant.  

Driving through the seaside part of Castelldefels one is yet again amazed at how bloody-mindedly thoughtless the parking of our visitors is.  

A seriously conscientious policeman could single-handedly make our little town one of the richest in Catalonia.  But policemen are singularly and glaringly obvious by their sheer absence.  I have never, in all the time that I have been in Spain seen a single policeman give out a ticket to a badly parked motorist – though I have seen hordes of policemen pass without giving a ticket to the most horrendously parked cars.  Plus ça change!

I have now started my holiday reading with Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks which has been lurking on a bookshelf hidden by lots of spectacularly unrelated books for some time.  It is a reminder of my intention to bring order to the amazing surrealistic arrangement which obtains at the moment.  

There is a skeleton of organization in some of the cupboards and there are runs of similarity on some shelves; it is now a question of putting shards of order into a complete library!

The task of the summer!

It is truly amazing how difficult removing small spots of paint left behind on tiles after sloppy painting of a wall can be.

I was given an invaluable opportunity to discover this for myself today in the continuing saga of the Preparing of the House for the Summer.  This project is following a schedule laid down by somebody other than myself and is driven forward by Another.  I follow meekly, lazily and without apparent enthusiasm in the wake of the fury of cleanliness and order which has tornado-like swept through my erstwhile calm household.

Today, in honour of the visit of one of my colleagues, it was the turn of the Third Floor.

Bleach was to the fore as everything that could be covered with corrosive liquid was duly coated.  Sun beds had hidden corners searched for hardened accretions of dust which were duly blasted into liquid oblivion by a well-wielded mop.

Inexplicable stains which we inherited having proved themselves impervious to previous cleaning assaults held out well against the bleach-reinforced attack this time.  They might be a little fainter, but they are still there, and I for one am prepared to admit defeat and accept them as part of the design of the floor tiles.

To compensate for the lack of success in one area we have reinforced another by changing the cushions on the sun beds.  They look expensive and elegant mainly because those two adjectives sum up their essential qualities.  They have a little built in head cushion which adds that professional touch.

I confidently expect the weather to change at once to dull, overcast and essentially sunless days.  One really shouldn’t tempt fate.  And the sun beds are now bright red.  Though I am not quite sure about what that adds to the equation.

However the Third Floor is now Summerized and looking pretty good.  We have not yet lain on the beds, as we do not feel entitled to do so: they simply look too good in their pristine state to be sullied by an actual body.

Bit by bit the house is taking shape with minor change making major differences. 

Next in line to be “done” is the garden and I need to buy some week killer because of incursions of unwanted vegetation from neighbours’ gardens.  When I get the poison I shall dedicate my activities to Sir John and Slough and I shall try and enact the line “swarm over death”!

My multi-level cactus garden looks pretentious and unlikely while the addition of my bejewelled peacock adds just the right touch of the bizarre!

The pica-pica which accompanied the extended chat with my colleague was excellent and we eat everything which was on the plates in a casual almost absent minded way which may have had something to do with the easy consumption of wine which accompanied the conversation.

Even though today is Saturday and there would be no school tomorrow there was a different feel to the ease of talk that comes with knowing that school is more than two months away!

Roll on the holiday!