Respite!

Every so often (but not for very much longer) one has a heart stopping moment when the world seems to slip out of your grasp and chaos is come again!  This morning was one of those times when I opened my bleary eyes and saw after a moment’s pause that it was daylight.

Daylight!  Bright daylight!  Late!  The lurch to panicked action was, thankfully only momentary before I realized (or at least I thought I realized) that it was the weekend and I did not have to stagger away and make myself presentable for the pampered darlings of the rich.

Although I sank back onto the pillow with considerable relief, I also had a nagging doubt about the day.  In the deeply ingrained sense of puritan denial that is a birthright of all true Britons I suspected that the concept of the “weekend” might have been something planted in my mind by the Central Protection System of the brain trying to protect me from the ravages of marking.  Or, more likely, it was a cunning double-bluff from the Delayed Gratification and Associated Guilt Centre of the brain lulling me into a false sense of security only to snigger with delight when reality punches you in the stomach.  Either way I lay in an uneasy crouch waiting for what I accept as actuality to make a play for my emotions.

I decided it was Saturday and even felt confident enough about it not to check the day on my newish watch with which, I have to admit I am already bored.  Although the watch is all white leather and metal trimmings and truncated oval and digital, it doesn’t quite have that “summer” look that I was seeking for the next few months.

However I lay in until the demands of age and liquid dispersal demanded my movement and, as I never fail to tell myself lying in bed until 8.30am is a lie-in of two hours for me!

As tomorrow is Toni’s nephew’s birthday, today was waiting for a section of The Family to arrive to buy the youngster’s present.  This has taken the form of a Barça shirt – the new Barça shirt.  This child sized scrap of material cost an astonishing amount of money and, even more astonishingly if we had had the version which had two adverts on the arms it would have been double the price!  For bloody adverts!

I, however, kept my mouth shut.  Where Barça is concerned silence is golden and allows life to continue whereas . . .  So the shirt was bought and a number (at extra expense) was added to the back.

I have to admit that the form of the number was quite stylish and elegant with a small Barça shield emblazoned on it as well – so easily worth the money.  (See above.)

The party for this very young human is going to be held in some sort of farm building in the country.  My mind immediately sprang to the conclusion that this location was to lessen the environmental impact of a whole group of young humans screaming and wrecking in the same area.

I refused to go.

The only reason to tolerate these gathering of feral egomaniacs is if you are directly related by blood to at least a few of the participants in these occasions that remind people of the importance of family planning.

I am not related by blood to anyone there and I am shell-shocked enough as it is with the weight and extent of marking which I drag around with me at the moment without undergoing the further torture of a so-called “party” where shrieking banshees howling their injustices to the world make Goya’s Black Paintings of witches covens look like delicate representations of genteel vicarage garden tea parties.

Toni’s mother tried to persuade me to go by saying that the “party” was going to be held in a big field and that there would be no necessity to be near the perpetrators.  I am not, however taken in my such Jesuitical casuistry.  I know from harsh experience that any meeting of adults is only as mature as the youngest child in the gathering.

I have sat with responsible adults watching with spellbound wonder a small child fail to walk properly.  

The only thing that kept me sane was watching with incredulous scientific detachment the looks of “genuine” interest and satisfaction on the faces of the other grown-ups at this display of uncoordinated ineptitude.  I, of course, kept a smile of innocent wonder stapled hypocritically to my face during the whole “performance” so that no casual glance of a besotted adult would see anything other than radiant satisfaction illuminate my countenance.

A party of a whole collection of neophyte humans acting with the certain knowledge that they are more important than me – not really to be countenanced!

So I have a weekend at home reading and watching programmes on the IPad and reading the Guardian and The Week also on the IPad.

Who could ask for more!

Misery & Delight!

Wednesday morning is an uneasy time for me.  Given the awful traffic on the motorway that I have to take, it is advisable to arrive at the normal time in spite of my teaching commitments starting at 9.55 am.  This means, of course that I am visibly available to a passing member of management for pouncing upon to cover other lessons.

At present the members of the art department are busily putting up the end of year exhibition and are therefore off timetable.  This means that “free” colleagues have to take the lessons thus made teacherless.  As my Wednesday (with the disappearance of the sixth form) is relatively sparse in teaching commitments I have been feeling decidedly vulnerable.

I made it to lunchtime and was looking forward to a teaching and pupil emptied double period stretch during which I was going to attack the rubbish in my cupboard in building one (the cupboard in building 4 having been virtually emptied already) when a colleague brought me the odious news that the single lesson with the 3ESO which we had been told was going to be taken over by someone talking to them about something and therefore did not need our presence there is not as we have been told.

We have to go with the kids and listen to a talk on drugs.  Shit.  And I was hoping to slope off early so that I could go and have a quick swim and still be able to get home in time to prepare the table for the festivities attendant on Toni’s name day.  Foolish boy – I should have drawn on thirty years experience of happy expectations being dashed by scholastic managerial machinations ever to assume that so jocose a plan could possibly succeed!

But, having completed my marking I do feel up to attempting a partial clean up of my cupboard.

That last good intention has only partially been completed because I obviously had to stump my resentful way off to the talk on drugs.  Which was appalling.  When I arrived in the auditorium the kids had already been spoken to for a solid hour and they had another hour of talking to go before they were released.  Considering the inconsiderate format of the “experience” our kids were generally well behaved – perhaps it’s good training for the series of absurdly long and mind numbing meetings that this country seems to go in for as part of a professional existence!

The evening was taken up with Family celebrations for Toni’s name day.  For me that meant calling in to the supermarket for goodies and then (after not going for a swim) having to go straight back out again when I got home because bread had not been purchased.  So, back to the supermarket and on my return The Family had arrived – a seamless journey to total exhaustion.

The meal was eaten to the accompaniment of the European Football Championship just to add an extra nuance of tedium to the situation because with most of these countries I have no preference about who wins.  Although I did find that remembering the marking in the Eurovision Song Contest added a soupçon of vitriol to my seemingly placid viewing.  Just how long is this torture going on!  Roll on the final and at least some respite from the tyranny of football on our television screens.  Not, of course that football is not a good spectator sport – it is – it’s just that I can think of better things to do and silence in the living room with the television switched off is an important luxury as well!

Today, Thursday, should be the last normal day of teaching for the kids as tomorrow the final (sic.) examinations of the year are going to start.  Ironically both of the examinations that I have to mark are being held on the same day and so I have the maximum amount of time in which to mark them.  I sincerely hope that the statement in the last sentence does not come back to haunt me.  In theory I should be able to start marking the 3ESO examination as soon as it has been completed and although the 1ESO exam is last thing on Friday I should have time on Monday to get that started as well and even completed if things go well.

Then there will be the filling in of the results on various pieces of paper and (sic.) in the computer system.  The last time we did this there were three separate (an very large) pieces of paper on which we had the write the same results out as well as putting them in the system.  One is tempted to ask why, but one knows that that would be the wrong question to ask.

My first gained “free” this morning at 8.15 am has been lost (again) and so I will end up having two periods with the 3ESO to start the day.  What a joy!  And people ask me why I am retiring and won’t I miss it!  How jejune can people be!

I will actually have to do some real teaching today, though I think that this will be in spite of my classes demanding time to “study”.

That word is a difficult one to understand in the context of education in this country, but a very simple one to understand from the kids’ point of view.  For them it merely means making mindless notes and learning them by rote.  They rely on a few studious kids to make written notes and then they syndacalise them throughout the year group so, if the originator of he notes makes a mistake that spreads like a disease and marks vanish into thin air!

My arrival in the house at the end of the day was after an extended swim in the pool and a relaxing cup of acceptable tea and, joy of joys, reading a whole sci-fi story on my phone.  It was a life style which appears increasingly attractive as the days slowly (O! So slowly!) creep by towards the date of release.

Anyway, my arrival was met by Toni sitting on the sofa holding something and staring at me in a meaningful way.  I met his meaning with blank incomprehension until Toni rattle the paper he was reading and said the magic word “tapas”!  I then instantly comprehended his previous mute communication and realized that he had the new sheet for the Ruta de tapas for Castelldefels.

For the last three years we have been enthusiastic supporters of this idea.  Some forty cafés, bars and restaurants agree to provide a “signature” tapa and a drink of your choice for the set price of €3.  You are provided with a sheet which contains the names of the participating locales, a map to show their location and a description of the tapas offered.  Each time you try a tapas you have your sheet stamped and, when you have completed 50% of the route you can submit your sheet for the grand draw to win a prize.

Last year with a superhuman effort and the help of friends and visitors I managed to complete the whole route and tasted ever single taps on offer!  A remarkable achievement, especially as some establishments were less than welcoming and amenable to fulfilling their part of the bargain!

The prize was an IPad and I felt that I was in with a good chance.  As well as a chance of winning all people who submitted a completed sheet of visits were given a booklet of tickets to have food and drink at the fair and festival at the end of the allotted time for completing the route.

Not only did I not win the IPad, but also my visit to the festival of food was an out and out disaster.  I was not feeling 100% when I set off for this jolly, but I felt infinitely worse when I got there and, sampling nothing and drinking nothing I made my sorry way home and went instantly to bed where I remained for over 24 hours wallowing in self pity (when I was conscious) and bewailing my state.

This year is going to be different (come hell and high water!) and we enthusiastically started on our camino with a tapa in a new, or at least renamed bar in the centre of Castelldefels.  This tapa was made up of salad, two pieces of bread and pinchos.  Flavoursome and generous it was an excellent start. 

The second tapa was an aesthetic triumph and, unique in our experience, looked exactly like the photographic on the advertising board which each locale has to advertise the event!  A combination of caramelised apple, prawn, artichoke and bread: it looked ravishing but was actually less appetizing than the more ordinary but more satisfying first.

The third was another classy production served on slate, but it disappeared in a mouthful and the glass of wine was a bit stingy too.

But we have started and I look forward to discovering more of the culinary delights that Castelldefels has to offer, as there are plenty of new places in the list this year.

Last year our great “discovery” was the restaurant El Elefante where, after eventually finding the place we sampled the tapa and stayed for a meal – which surely should be the aim of participating restaurants.  This was with Andrew and Stewart whose presence seemed to be a good luck charm as all the tapas we tried with them were exceptional!  The tapa of this restaurant for the present competition (each route follower has to nominate the best tapa they have tried) seems a little ordinary but perhaps they have a twist on the production which will make it exceptional.  Last year I voted the El Elefante tapa as the best and none of the three that I have tried so far matches it.

Knowing that each day will bring a new taste experience is something which helps deaden the pain of the next week when I will have to mark the examinations that the kids in front of me at the moment are sitting.  There is something to be said for touch-typing as I daren’t stop watching these kids for a moment as they take every opportunity of bolstering their future achievement by clandestine opportunistic reinforcement – or “cheating” as we know it!

Their examination paper is thirteen pages long and there are 127 marks to be gained (actually 127.75 but that’s our system for you!) and is one of the longest papers I will ever have had the mind numbing torture of marking.

If things go according to plan, I will start the process today and complete it on Monday, when I will be able to start the marking of the second paper that is going to be sat today which will also end up in my brief case.  This second paper will be even more resented than the first because it may (perish the thought!) cut into my early finish time which is absolutely unthinkable.  I am already planning (if the kids are kept in two classes and not three as is normal) to volunteer to do the early stint so that I can depart on time and not be held back, gnashing my teeth in impotent fury.

There is also the thought that Castelldefels has a “Gourmet” route as well where restaurants offer a three course evening meal for €25.  €50 for a couple or £40 in real money is not such a bargain when you consider that a normal three course lunch (with wine) is about €10 - €14, so the evening meal will have to be substantially better to merit the higher price.  But I am more than willing; in a spirit of scientific curiosity to find out if it is so!

The little patch of blue!

The Great Lie of the teaching world is that the end of the summer term will be easier because some of your classes will have left and you will gain free periods.  Year after year this turns out not to be true and hard faced timetable organizers come and demand your “free” period for something else because you “should be teaching now” and resentment builds on hatred and the bitterness of foiled relaxation takes over again.

I have discovered that the only way to keep your gained free is physically to leave school, and then you only have to worry about some demented timetabler wandering the school howling your name to come and take over a class which is without an adult presence.  That fear, however, is only momentary and can safely be dismissed because even if the person is howling away, it is nowhere near you and the situation will be over by the time you return.

So it was in my generally abortive visit to the tax people; I had surges of guilt when I thought that I might have been used – but they passed and nothing was said on my return.

So, Monday, first thing, told that a “free” had gone and it means that I will be teaching the 2ESO for two periods on the trot: a delightful thought.  They can bloody well revise because I’m damned if I am going to do anything positive with them other than keep them in the room and stop them climbing the walls.

My uncanny luck in having a swimming lane to myself continues and I have decided to regard it as normal in case the situation comes to think of itself as extraordinary and suddenly cease in the screaming rash of brawling babies splashing about enjoying themselves when it is clear that swimming pools are solely for monomaniacs who plough up and down in straight lines ignoring all other pool users.

I must say that I am enjoying the new pool and have now slipped into nodding acquaintance with various users and, even more tellingly I do not have to order my double-bag cup of tea in the café I merely have to appear for the people there to prepare my tipple.

Perhaps fortuitously the “extras” the café has in the way of cakes is so mind-bendingly boring that there is little incentive to indulge.  Yesterday, for example there was a spiral cake which looked unnervingly like a flattened, icing sugar coated dog poo.  Nothing daunted I ordered one and, as a good customer I was given two.  They had the consistency of reconstituted sawdust but, alas without the flavour.  Under the steely gaze of the lady of the counter I ate them both and that, I think, is the end of my experimentation with the comestibles on offer.  I will stick to my cup of tea.

On a far more positive note the working days left with the kids has now fallen to single figures: nine days left!  Admittedly these days are going to be filled with the joyousness of exam supervision and marking but there is something magical in single figure days to the end of my teaching career.  No more getting up at six thirty in the morning; no teaching the absurdity of six periods in a single day; no more meaningless marking; no more listening to the self pitying whining of needy privileged kids; no more education and no more passives, gerunds, phrasal verbs, conditionals, indirect speech, transformation sentences, word formation, sentences to show the meaning of words, inserting words in spaces and all the other soul destroying minutiae of learning English as a foreign language.  Great happiness!

Next week sees the end of the course for the kids and by Friday they will be gone!  There is a simple unalloyed pleasure in writing such a sentence that only a teacher working his way to retirement can truly understand and appreciate.

Keep calm and carry on!

If ever I needed the calming influence of Zen, I need it now.  I have had an extended brush with Spanish bureaucracy and my head is both bloody (with the rush of the red stuff to the brain during my more trying moments) and bowed (with the realization that this is as good as it gets) and I am having, if not the consolations of ancient Chinese philosophy, at least the more tangible and liquid benefits of a good cup of PG Tips.

I had forgotten (which was unforgiveable) the necessity of lots of pieces of paper with which the ever-gaping maw of officialdom needs to be stuffed.  It is not enough to produce a passport; it must be the passport and a photocopy of the passport so that the bureaucrats can feast their eyes on such an inspiring document where the original is no longer there!  I had also forgotten (how could I!) that the photocopy has to be made by you, not the people who say they need one.

I should have recalled the haughty dismissal of my plaintive questioning of the medical staff in our local centre about why they could not use the photocopier (in plain sight) to make any copy that they needed – “Because we are not a copy shop!” – and realized that you should never go under-papered when dealing with the officials who helped make Spain the thrusting, efficient and debt-free country that it is today.

And talking of money, there was the usual traipse over town finding a bank to pay money into so that I could take the receipt back to the police who were issuing a document.  The simplicity of paying into the same office in which one is dealing with the documentation is apparently beyond the imagination of a mere police force.

And the banks!  Spanish banks are a standing joke.  They have no money.  The bespectacled leader of this benighted country is trying to work out a way in which he is not seen to go cap-in-hand (if I am allowed to resurrect the smear that was thrown around in the UK when we had to get cash from the IMF) and beg for the umpteen billions that he hasn’t got to give to the criminally reckless Spanish banks to “save” them and keep the country out of apocalyptic meltdown.

My first choice of bank was crowded and as I was in the bank at the time when the older generation comes to the bank to look at its money and to have a little chat with the tellers, I had no desire to sit and wait in precious time stolen from the timetable.

The next bank I went to was fortuitously empty but our presence was completely unremarked by the girl one the phone behind the only staffed position in the open plan office.  There was another woman working behind some moveable screens who also studiously ignored us.  I went to sit down and let the rude ladies carry on with their obviously more-important-than-customers work.

While sitting there yet another lady came into the bank, gave a cheery greeting and went straight into the manager’s office.  So, three workers in the bank and all of them ignoring the customer.

Eventually, when Toni left to get a photocopy of my passport there was an indication that the girl at the counter was ready to deal with me but when I went up to the counter she started dealing with papers, sorting them and stapling them together and again completely ignored me.  For a bank that is completely broke (and I mean completely) their arrogance in mistreating customers is perhaps an indication of the reasons for their complete failure!

When the bill was paid I barely had the breath left to mutter a version of gracias and she said nothing.  I couldn’t stay inside the place and waited for Toni outside.

Returning to the horror of officialdom there was then, as there always is, a problem with my name.  My middle name is the problem; in Spain it is the surname of the father, while in the UK it is just another forename.  As with the fact that we change our passport number with a new passport so with the names – all is difficult and will not fit into the systems that the Spanish have devised.

However the issue of the name was resolved (or not) only time and the next official letter will tell, but I do now have a pseudo-identity card which is a little more manageable than the tattered sheet of A4 which was my previous claim to a digital identity in this country.

Saturday was the day of Julie’s party and I was duly picked up by Tina and her husband and taken to the wonderful house that she has – not forgetting the elegant swimming pool at the bottom of the garden.

I ate and drank (particularly) far too much but a good time was hand by all – at least in the parts that I remember!

I still have to find my mobile phone and to check it I remembered to bring the chairs back!

I have managed to cope with daylight, I must now attempt the great outdoors!

Limping along!

 

Nothing is slowing down in school and there is the usual air of barely supressed panic motivating all the members of staff to work, mark, fill in, fill out, prepare, mark, assess, set, mark, conflate and confuse and, of course, mark.

We are building up to the final (!) set of examinations of the year; these start on the 15^th and work their way through the next week and then, though I hesitate to breathe the idea, I am truly “marked out” and Poe’s raven can sing its heart out reiterating the single word that can bring unutterable delight to a teacher’s soul: “Nevermore!”

To my utter horror there are still eleven working days left to the fiesta at the end of the course – and then the week without the students.  This is too long and difficult to imagine.  Double-figure days left is more than human flesh can stand!  Honestly.

Each day is slow torture as there is no guarantee, given the time of year, that the day will follow the pattern that you have been used to.  At this time of year anything can happen: sudden trips; collapsed classes; spontaneously generated meetings; films; talks; changes without rhyme or reason; swapped classes - events which swoop onto the timetable like rabid eagles ripping, rending and tearing, leaving the teaching staff gasping and hollow eyed.

OK, perhaps because I am not returning (let me pause for a moment to savour that statement!) these last days are even more intolerable than for the rest of my colleagues who seem to me to be giving a pretty good impression of stir-crazy junkies at the moment as they lurch spasmodically from task to task with the fevered intensity of prisoners working towards their parole!

I have attempted to discover exactly what the arrangements for the final days of term with the pupils are, but with little success, so it will all have to stay as a seat-of-the-pants approach.

My swimming (a much more agreeable subject and one which imposes itself on my imagination when I look out of the windows and see sun streaming down) continues in a more than satisfactory way with my routine almost being established.  I have almost given up trying to describe the taste of the water in the pool, although I suspect that I would have little difficulty if it were an undertone in a cheap red that I was drinking!  The nearest I can come is that it has the memory of something vaguely metallic mixed with a suggestion of light fuel.  It is the sort of taste that coats the tongue but which the brain soon filters out of the objectionable part of the taste spectrum.

I still have not had to share a lane with any other sentient being and I continue to worry about the correct etiquette when it finally does happen.  I have only been using the pool since last Friday so my swim this afternoon will mark a week of daily use.

My cup of tea at the end of my exertions is also becoming something of an institution and both of the people who work in the café know how to make a half way decent cup of British-type tea after my careful instructions.  It is very pleasant sitting outside watching the world go by while drinking a cup of tea and reading my mobile in a fairly desultory fashion.  A calming end to the day.  Most satisfactory.

The “Mafia” who live opposite, in the large and impossible to afford house with pool, are doing something in the corner of their extensive garden which backs onto the front of our house.  To facilitate the work rate the guy deems it necessary to open all the doors of his parked car and turn the music system up to its loudest volume.  This is irritating.  Toni informed me that the music had been going on all day yesterday and as I arrived home the last thing that I wanted to be subjected to was the blaring music of some ill educated oaf.

I shouted some sort of imprecation as soon as I got out of the car indicating my feelings of displeasure at such a wonton disregard for the normal civilities of neighbourly living. 

I got out some of my stuff from the boot of the car and then marched disgruntledly over the road and began stacking the goods that I had purchased near the school bag and my swimming kit.    On my second trip to the car and back again I heard the dog-woman of next door cackle some sort of whimpering moan about the music being too strong.  Barely resisting the inclination to snort with derision at her hypocrisy I continued my transporting.

On my third journey back to the car something inside broke and I marched resolutely towards the big automatic metal gates behind which the open doors of the blaring car were clearly visible.

Taking my courage in both fists I tapped irresolutely on the metal producing a weedy clicking sound.  Kicking the metal car doors did go through my mind but then I heard the unmistakable sounds of man-at-work emanating from the new construction rapidly rising, though all but hidden by the luxuriant greenery, in the corner of the garden.

My first “Señyor!” lacked authority and projection, but my second had command and the right degree of the peremptory to insure a reply.

In Spanish made fluent by fury I indicated that I was a close neighbour, that the noise was insupportable and that it had been going on for too long.  An indistinct reply seemed to indicate some sort of guilt and by the time I had reached the gate there was blissful silence.

The dog woman (the curses of an irascible Cerberus fall on her head and his fangs savage her kidneys) was going through her gate and behind it I heard mutterings of appreciation.  There is a certain irony in the fact that that the woman who cares not a jot that her cantankerous curs bark themselves hoarse in their cells under her house is sensitive to noise!