Release!

Although I count the moment I stepped through the Green Door and left the school the day before yesterday afternoon just after 2.00 pm as the first start of the holiday and yesterday, Saturday as the second start of the holiday, I consider the first would-have-been working day (or the fourth start of the holiday, don’t forget Sunday) as the real beginning of the vacation. 

My joy has to be tempered by the fact that the Easter Break is also the time for the Scumbags to move into their “holiday home” next door for the period up to and including Easter, so the next couple of days will see their much hated dysfunctional personalities (if that is not too flattering a description of their execrated presences) noise their way into our lives again giving us valuable limbering up time to cope with their lowering, extended visit in the summer.

Still, lunchtime on Saturday and they had still not broken the tranquillity with their shrieks, clumpings, arguing, singing (!), smoking, smashing, crashing, entertaining (!), talking over, talking through, talking mindlessly and with the simple fact of their existence.  All of which is objectionable and vile.  But they were not there yet and we were enjoying the delay, no matter how short it might be.

I started the holiday by paying a visit to the local pool and did my lengths.  As I have no glasses (or at least no glasses that I am prepared to wear) I am reduced to using my contact lenses.  The battle between my eyes continues with my brain stubbornly refusing to play ball and read through one and use the other for distance as the optician intended when I was given the new set of contact lenses.  I understand that other people’s brains are well adjusted to this sort of juggling – well, mine isn’t and I have always failed to budge it when I have attempted this in the past.

This time I am going to be a week or two without glasses and so I will, of necessity have another period in which The Change can be attempted all over again.  I have no lively expectations of success, but I will manfully persevere and then admit elegant failure in the usual way!

I think that I will try and wear contacts next term as well and see how they cope with study in my next course. 

Which can’t start soon enough for me!

It is now Sunday morning and the Scumbags moved in yesterday afternoon to general gloom and despondency.  

It would appear that the full range of dysfunctionality is not yet assembled with the younger element not having yet made her appearance – probably still sleeping at home.  She is the catalyst which sets the others off on the rants for which they are infamous as they try and “reason” with her to get up, go out, stay in etc.  

So far, so quiet but this is very much the lull before the storm.  

Soon the television will be blaring in the outside seating area so that we can have the full benefit of a commentary on the F1 races; the mother will be smoking by an open window so that the smoke comes directly into our house (the stub ends will, of course, be flicked into our garden); the father will start singing; the daughter will refuse to get out of bed and the aged relative (they always have one or two hanging around) will be the sole voice of reason as the family disintegrates for the umpteenth time.  

Still, holidays wouldn’t be the same without our favourite hate figures concentrating and sharpening our fully justified ire!

And it’s a sullen start to the day with unreasonable amounts of cloud forcing me to have my tea inside rather than on the Third Floor.  But this is Spain, and there is a whole day for the weather to improve. 

And I have faith!

"Sea View” is a much-misused tag.  

How many times have hapless Brits gone abroad expecting a view of ocean or sea and had to end up not with the expansive vista of rolling waves, but rather a small patch of blue which could only be seen by standing on the toilet seat, hanging half-way out of the window and using a small pocket mirror.

Our “sea view” is just as problematic.  

Dianne has a simple rule of thumb about this elusive perk: if you can’t hear it (i.e. the sea) it doesn’t really count.  We can hear it, but seeing it is rather more elusive.

It is only from the Third Floor that our proximity to the Med becomes clear.  We used to be able to see a sort of triangle of blue if you looked down directly to where the sea should be.  On a calm day you simply had to take on trust that the colour was actual “sea view” and not some part of the sky.  If one pushed the definition of the term there were also a few (well a couple to be absolutely truthful) scraps of sea that could possibly count, glimpsed between buildings and trees, but pointing them out was more embarrassing needy than any possible compensating kudos that could be gained.

The growth of the native pines that infest this part of the world even threatened to slim down the recognizable triangle of water and make us visually land locked.

All this has changed. 

I think that there has been some fairly radical pruning of the light-denying evergreen (or unbelievable lack of observation on my part) with the result that we now have a view, not only of the blue but also of the waves and even of sand.  And not just from one direction!  No, from where I am sitting at the moment in the Toni-created “Tea Room” on the Third Floor I can actually see the beach, waves and sea.  Admittedly it is through a small funnel of a sight line where the branches have momentarily parted to allow it, but nevertheless it is recognizable.  Small, but there!

Our triangle has now changed into some heretofore-unknown geometrical construction and that too gives small, but unparalleled vistas to the paseo, road, beach, waves and sea!

Result!  

Though again, with a brisk wind vegetation usually gets in the way and makes even more problematic what is tenuous at best!  Still, even a glimpse of the (audible) sea is better than none.  And at some point in the holiday I fully intend (climate permitting) to place my body on the beach and soak up some sun.  Throwing myself into the foaming deep – or at least what passes for that in our generally calm, domestic waters – will have to wait for another more congenial month.

This morning I actually put on sun tan lotion for the first time this year!  

I have already used after-sun, as sitting in the playground on Friday morning without a hat was not a good plan.  I now have that summery smell of lotion about me and I feel much more inclined to be positive about the world.  This is in spite of the fact that it has rained in a petty and spotty sort of way today.  I am holding faith with an imaginary weather forecast that I have in my mind that promises golden sunshine for the duration of the Easter Week and beyond.  And I am thinking that the holiday proper starts on Monday – this weekend was merely a run-up to the main event!

The Scumbags have been well behaved so far.  

That may well have been a foolish thing to say, as all the laws of schadenfreude will now come into play, but it is a Sunday and the well-known “Holiday Sunday Effect” is in full swing.  This is the changing of a day of grief that is a Sunday in term time (it being the day before a Monday and therefore another full week of misery) is magically transformed into a day of delight, not only because it is a holiday, but also because the curse of work-related foreboding is banished by the heady vista of freedom!  It is difficult on a Holiday Sunday therefore to be truly miserable because the casual remembering that tomorrow is Monday and It Doesn’t Matter keeps giving little bursts of happiness each time realization hits!

It has, however, rained again.  And heavily.  And it’s raining now!  Again, again!

But tomorrow, as all the best films say, is another day – and frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!

There at last!

It is always encouraging when the highest forecast temperature in my native city is what I experience first thing in the morning as I get into the car to go to work.  The sun has now fully risen and it looks as though it is going to be a glorious day – well, for latish March anyway!

Today is the last day for the sending in of the final essay for the OU; the final day for the Book 3 posts and the first day of real revising for the exam.  And, much, much more importantly, it is the penultimate day of term!

Without a real half-term holiday, and with Easter being where it is this year, the term has dragged on and on.  To say that my colleagues are ready for the holiday is the sort of understatement only matched by averring that Cyprus might have to face one or two tiny questions about its financial future.  January of this year, when, apparently, this term started, seems like a time more akin to the Late Pleistocene than a few “short” months ago. 

The only thing that has kept us going recently is the staunch belief that “next term will be shorter.”  Though I have to admit that the statement relies on wilful self-delusion to be true.  It is strange that, no sooner do I write about the concept of “the saving lie” in Hard Times that I find myself eagerly clutching the idea to my bosom as if my very sanity depended on it!  The summer term is like that though.  We always believe that it will be easier and then write off the stressful inconvenience of truth by pleading special circumstances in the collective intellectual gallop to the end of June.  If we had to go to the end of July there would be collective hari kiri in staffrooms throughout Catalonia!

At the end of school yesterday I scuttled out of the place as if there was a meeting waiting to start.  As indeed there was.  It was only when I was half way home that a telephone call reminded me that I should have picked Suzanne up.  Airily assuring her that I would be there in a mythical “ten minutes” I desperately searched my memory banks for the slip roads which would get me off the motorway and back to school.

A fairly frantic few minutes later, and travelling along roads less frequented, I managed to get back going the other way and arrived more or less as I had assured Suzanne I would – a little more rattled than if I had done what I said I was going to do in the first place, but there!

Toni accompanied us to La Fusta where tapas and red wine were consumed in excess and delight.

The particular accent of the evening was established when I cleaned my glasses and one of arms broke.  The arm is thin and exceedingly expensive and I have to go to Sitges to get them repaired.  O joy!  Just the way to start the almost holidays.

I have now resorted to contact lenses and I am waiting to see if anyone notices.  They usually don’t.  I am not 100% sure that I have got the right lenses in the right eyes nor am I convinced that they are the right way round.  But I can see something so that is a positive advantage and I do have a steam-driven pair of glasses to use in absolute emergency.  However awful and old (and heavy!) they are, they will get me back home if I am behind the steering wheel!  And on the last day of term that is passingly important!

We have had pieces of paper with various duties written out on them which will be an indication of what They hope will be the organization of the last morning.  I am only here for the morning and then I depart in faith, fear and a fast car for a truly well deserved holiday.

There was the usual organized chaos in the morning, though the Fun Run (sic.) went off without a hitch and only a few cuts and grazes.  The al fresco breakfast for the kids after their run was good and I even sampled some of the fruit, nuts and chocolate-coated biscuits that were lavished on our young charges.

The real activity of the morning was a series of sporting events which were organized by the students from some local sporting college.  They included such things as macrobailar or large dancing which to my untutored eyes looked like a fairly basic aerobic routine to some sort of Brazilian mixture of dance and martial arts which had a name sounding like a cocktail.  There was of course the usual football to end up the morning during which I had a goal dedicated to me by one of the players – a joke, perhaps, but I did find it oddly touching!

I maintained my reputation for staunch non-participation by ostentatiously taking a chair with me wherever I was posted and sitting on it with a terrible finality.

It has been a beautiful day and I took every opportunity to position my chair firmly in the sun which of course meant that I was nowhere near my Spanish colleagues who fled to the shadows as soon as the sun showed itself. 

My head has retained the heat of the day and I am absolutely delighted to report that I have had recourse to Lidl’s best “after sun” lotion, which means that summer cannot be far away!  Hopefully there will be opportunity enough during the holiday for me to escape to the Third Floor to use another of Lidl’s preparations as well!

A quick visit to Sitges to take my glasses in to be repaired and an opportunity to take some taramosalata home from a Greek restaurant that Toni spotted.  I ascertained that they did take-aways and I was soon in possession of something that I have missed in this country.  At the price that I paid, I am likely to go on missing it after my indulgence this evening.  It was good, but not that good that I am prepared to pay a premium on what I would pay in Tesco!

Over the weekend the fact that I am on holiday will sink in and then the Pauls will arrive and the delight will be complete – right up until the realization that I actually do have to go back to school hits!

But that is far, far in the future at the moment. 

Enjoy the moment!

Getting there

Damp, overcast and depressed – and that is only my mood.  And the weather?  This is supposed to be the first day of spring?  It is only listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 and laughing at the weather forecast in Britain that I keep my sanity!

However, the simple reality of today is that it is the ante-penultimate day of term and I have just ascertained that the last day will be taken up with a “Fun” run and other sporting activities – which would seem to indicate to me that my academic expertise will not be needed and it therefore follows that . . . I wonder just how unobtrusive I really can be!

The day has started with an English class being given over to the kids to work in groups to perfect their presentations and use their statistical results to produce pretty graphs.  Whatever.  It does mean that I am, yet again, sitting at the front of a class doing something else.

What I should be doing, of course, is revision for my forthcoming examination, and I do have electronic copies of the books from which to plan my final note taking – but it is too early and I am far too lazy to get down to such serious work when there is a subdued air of festivity about.

I met one of my jollier colleagues at the school gate this morning and she was bemoaning the fact that she has yet another meeting to look forward to tomorrow after school.  At present the School on the Hill is trying its best to emulate the slogan of The Windmill – “We Never Close!”  Perhaps not the best of comparisons: a strip club and an educational institution, but you only need to ponder for a few seconds before the parallels become telling!

As a piece of sheer self-indulgence I have bought a ten-disc set of Nielsen’s Orchestral Works.  The number of versions of the symphonies that I now possess is rapidly approaching obsession, but listening to bits and pieces of the music which is now safely lodged on a corner of the hard disc in the iMac I was taken over yet again by what I heard.  I am not sure that the sound quality is quite as crisp as some of the other interpretations in my collection but it is another example of a way of understanding the music which I welcome.  It is also about time that I left the tried and tested path of the symphonies and started to learn some other music by this composer.  He may now have overtaken Sibelius in the number of discs of his music that I have.  I must do something about that!  My original favourite must reign supreme!

With Sibelius it is easier to own discs which trace the tradition of his music being played from first generation enthusiasts in Britain like Sargent, Barbirolli and Beecham up to the young conductors of the present day.  You have a greater choice with Sibelius because he has always been relatively more popular than Nielsen, so the discography is more extensive.

The day tailed off into little more than baby-sitting and in desperation I turned to a Swedish detective novel that has been lurking in my Kindle for some time and it allowed me to pass the time while the kids allegedly got on with their project work.

Two working days to go!