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!

Do something!

Today is Friday.  That has been going through my mind all day.  As has the fact that I am not in school and that today, today is the first day of the holidays!

As is traditional on the First Day, I attempted to get at least one of my tasks done.  I deliberately chose one of the easier ones: replacing the fetid cushion covers for the sun beds.

This is not quite as simple as it sounds as, unsurprisingly, this country boasts a whole range of covers at variously unattractive prices.  We eventually settled for a local supermarket own-make affair of seductive thickness and reasonable cost.  The proof now is in the lazing!

The second task was getting the car serviced.  The local dealership is characterised by arrogance and demanding vast sums of money for everything that they do so I was tempted by a colleague’s recommendation of a garage that did the manufacturer’s service at a fraction of the cost.

As time is limited until I go to Britain I was confidently expecting to be offered a date some time when I wasn’t in Spain – I was certainly not expecting to be asked if I wanted the thing done at once!  However, when I had recovered from my shock, I agreed with alacrity and then contemplated the few hours that we would be stranded in a shopping centre.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing half so much worth doing as simply messing around in shops.  Buying things has a greater high-octane rush than going from 0-60 in two seconds!

My purchases ranged from the aforementioned lounger cushions, through CDs and outside lights to a book on posters from the Spanish Civil War and wheel trims.  I may be a spendthrift, but at least I inject variety into my obsession!

The CDs reflect nothing on my musical pretentions.  Driving to work requires music to get me there, the more hummable the better.  As if in answer to a prayer a whole series of CDs under the inspiring title of “Best 50 . . .” have appeared in supermarkets with 3 CD sets at a cost of about €2 a disc.  I have bought ballet, Baroque, Chopin, Romantic, Opera, Beethoven, Cello, Violin, Puccini, Bach – and anything else that gleamed through its plastic case!  I now have enough music to last for years.

To be fair the selections are not as banal as the title might have you believe and there are some inspiriting tracks – which means there are some things that I have never heard of!  Some of the music is recognizable, even if I couldn’t easily put a name to it.  So, some learning and a lot of complacency in store on my daily journey to Barcelona!

This evening a meal with Irene and a chance to chat.

YES!

With a cruel irony today (the Last Day) dawned overcast, dull and depressing.  But with a pleasing justice the day developed into a gloriously sunny day by the time I had to leave!

Only in this country would the powers that be end a long, long year with a two-hour meeting.  And only in this country would benighted teachers of a foreign persuasion talk enthusiastically (!) right up to the bitter end.  I was driven to read my mobile phone to stave off insanity!

Eventually (a much used concept in my experience of school life) this too ended and after saying goodbye to various colleagues I was free to join the heavy flow of traffic clogging up the motorways of Catalonia around Barcelona.  But who cares when two whole months of holiday stretch ahead!

Lunch today was in a restaurant in Gava that we hadn’t tried before: fideua, rustic chicken and a delicious chocolate cake and the usual red wine and gaseosa and all for €9.  Sitting outside in the sun and no school tomorrow. 

Life just doesn’t get better!

I see the promised land!

The penultimate day!

There are few phrases more heartening to the ears than that.  Obviously “The last day!” or even better “The last day was yesterday” have an even better ring to them.  But at this stage . . . 

I am prepared to wait.

Another vaguely unsatisfying day characterized by a meeting in which we were told that nothing had really been decided.  I love occasions like that – and thank god that my Spanish is insufficient to understand the detail of what is going on!  Sometimes even the most general of outlines evades me; it’s how I survive.

Our school is beginning to pay a little more than lip service to the concept of Project Based Learning – three little words that can strike terror and confusion into the hearts of most seemingly secure teachers in the profession!

As I am friendly with the Evangelist for this approach (indeed I team teach with her) I have been dragged into the maelstrom of approaches which characterize this approach.

Under her fanatical guidance and rabid inspiration I have even been encouraged to do some “planning”; to write rubrics; to consider outcomes and other things which are entirely (or used to be entirely) foreign to my nature.

Of course, our school being our school, I don’t know my timetable for next year; we do not have class lists; I don’t know what courses I will be teaching; I don’t know the dates of the terms.  Still, we will have a week of half days in September before the kids arrive, so it can all be sorted then.  Probably.

With the absence of this somewhat vital information, I have done what I can as far as my new found enthusiasm for planning is concerned and created the folders which are going to contain the information that I don’t know.

More astonishingly, I have registered with the Buck Institute for Education – a known hotbed of Project Based Learning, and have downloaded some of their forms to organize the subjects for next year.  This can’t last, of course – but it’s good fun while it is unreal and not actually in practice.

I have weakened and bought some books and lids.

The lids are probably part of a good idea.  As space in the house is limited I have invested in a set of Tefal saucepans and frying pans with detachable handles.  They are like those Russian matrioska dolls and all fit inside each other; so three frying pans and four saucepans only have the “footprint” of the largest frying pan and the height of their collective bases and one saucepan.  The glass lids are flat with a removable knob.  It’s all very sensible.

Which is more than can be said for the book purchases which are mostly self-indulgent art books bought with the facile justification that I might need some of them for my course of “Making Sense of Modern Art”.  It is a good thing that nobody who knows me has the opportunity to hear me pontificating about paintings – though, there again, who would be surprised!

The other book has been purchased on the half-understood but seemigly enthusiastic endorsement of a friendly Catalan teacher who saw some of my kids’ work on logos for my Media Studies course.

All of the books have been bought virtually sight-unseen from Amazon (post free) with only a picture of the front cover for guidance.  

Buying from Amazon, especially with the one-click option, is such a beguiling way of throwing your money into the gaping maw of a vast organization that I can rarely resist once I get on to the site!  

I think the devil was a bit unimaginative in his temptation of you-know-who with his reliance on the old-fashioned "whole world" technique.  Now if he had offered "one-click purchasing" on Amazon the whole history of theology might have been different.  Or has it all worked out in exactly the same way anyway?

Tomorrow we start the last day with moving our departmental book store to a new location in a different building and end the day with a two-hour meeting.  I hope to god we are let out early for good behaviour!

The end is in sight!

My run of good luck continues with two meetings not needing my presence today!  One cancelled and the other only a threat of possible attendance.  This freedom will eventually catch up with me but I am enjoying this tension-free period while I can.

Another gloriously hot day whose effects are modified by the air conditioning working overtime.

Today has been an unsatisfactory day in school with an insufficient amount of real work being done.  One starts something and then there is another call on one’s time which means that what you started is not finished and . . well, you get the idea.

As a remembrance of times past I did a small amount of book counting – not as much in my last real school but enough to let me re-live the delightful experience of doing low-grade clerical work around which so much of teaching is based!

Today dragged much more than yesterday and at one point I found myself sitting on a junior child’s chair in our book room reading a Jacqueline Wilson book about a wimpy boy and his large friend Biscuit and the rough and tumble girlfriend and the bullies and it was set in Wales.  Gripping stuff, and I have brought it home to read the last few pages.

The book has moments of genuine humour and some insight but it is written for young children and the pleasure in reading it is limited.  I still lost myself in the narrative; I forgot that I was sitting in a small room in a school in Barcelona and that I should very probably be doing something else – I was reading.  It’s what I do.

Our lunch today was not as good as yesterday: tomato juice; scrambled egg with asparagus and prawns; salmon, rice and vegetables.  It sounds better than it ate, but still reasonable value.

Domestic painting continues apace, and indeed continued while I had a very lazy swim.  Today was hotter than yesterday and even I felt the need to come into the shade!

I have been looking at books to buy for some of my courses next year.  In theory I should be able to get money back for some of them, but I don’t hold out much hope.  I think I am using my courses as an excuse; though, naturally I don’t see anything wrong with that!

There really is going to have to be something of a sort out of the books this summer, together with a determined attempt to put them into a logical order.

Honestly!

It gets easier!

In keeping with one of my mottos, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” I did not look at the timetable for the remaining days of term.  Which was just as well, as having read it would have ruined my mini-holiday over the extended weekend: two meetings top to tail during the day!

Having settled down into a mood of terminal grumpiness, imagine my ecstatic delight on finding out that my sullen presence was not required in the first (and shorter) of the meetings.

With an elation that is not a common adjunct to the task I then set myself, I started clearing out my staff room cupboard. 

Half an hour later and a whole sack-full of paper placed in the bin - nothing had changed, there was still no space for anything. 

I think that I will have to use my other cupboard in the other staffroom to store some of the literature that I have adapted for school use.  When I say “adapted” I actually mean eviscerated.  No matter how great the writer; no matter how delicious the style – I can make the storyline almost understandable to learners of English.  Luckily students of literature are unlikely to read my blasphemous efforts so my reputation is secure.

I am now in a meeting which is discussing the fates of pupils in the lower school.  I wonder what my colleagues think I am doing typing away here.  Everyone is talking at the same time about kids who are not worth the effort.  Some of reasoning being employed by colleague would have done credit to some of the less scrupulous members of the Society of Jesus!

Perhaps it is tempting fate, but we are making good speed through what can be a meeting of coruscating boredom.

We have now reached a pupil with few redeeming graces; she is lazy; sulky; disruptive and a thorough waste of space.  Horrifically it is being suggested that she be kept down a year thereby destroying the normal working of yet another class.  God help!

The meeting went on and on and I ran away for the last quarter, giving my proxy vote to a colleague with whom I team-teach.

Lunch, an ordinary menu del dia made up for the misery of the morning: a tapa of delicious tortilla with pepper; a starter of puff pasty filled with sea food; a main course of chicken with a creamy mushroom sauce and a sweet of copa de crema which you have to eat to understand.  All washed down with a respectable red wine unrespectably diluted with gaseosa and a café con hielo - €13 the lot!  And we ate outside under flawless blue skies and school had finished at 2.00 pm.  Life is sometimes good!

The pool is now becoming a very important part of normal everyday life with the water retaining the heat of the day to maintain a very pleasant temperature.  Unfortunately the equitable conditions encourage people other than myself to impertinently use the pool.

I resort to my usual tactics and swim in purposeful straight lines, using crawl my nails glint in the sunshine ready to slice anyone who gets in my way, switching to breast stroke my frog like kick maintains a cordon sanitaire around my surging form.

 

Tomorrow we have a computer course.  My memory from last year was of a similarly innocuously entitled course which lasted for four straight hours.  No break.  No respite.  No pity.  And in bloody Spanish!

The one tomorrow at least has one break and I intend to take supplies and an electronic book to keep my equilibrium in place.  I have also bought an iPod Nano (7th generation): one of those impossibly small tactile squares which can store music, podcasts, photos, films and other things which are clearly against the law of god.

 

It seems to have been designed specifically to assist in the maintenance of sanity of hard pressed English teachers surrounded by machinations of those not of his nationality!

Still, and I am counting, there are only three days to go!

Holiday: A Taster

FRIDAY 24^th JUNE 2011

A definition of “pleasure” for me is constantly to remember that today is Friday and not the weekend and that, more importantly, I am not in school!

Last night outdid the 5^th of November by the sheer perseverance of people throughout the night, the whole night and continuing into the morning, of setting off fireworks whose raison d’etre was to produce a bang.

When I went to bed, amid flashes, explosions and distant sounds of revelry, I lay my head on the pillow and wondered, “How am I going to get to sleep?”  I was about half way through that sentence when Morpheus claimed me for his own.  And I slept peacefully through the cataclysm that is St John’s Eve with a tranquillity which thoroughly irritates lighter sleepers.

As a concession to ¡Fiesta! I actually stayed in bed till ten this morning; which is three and a half hours later than I usually get up!  I am not very good at the “lie-in”, I never have been.  It is something of a duty paid to holiday that I do it all – but even during the long holiday I never become acclimatised to wasting the morning!  The afternoon, yes, but the morning never!

Toni continues to paint and things are looking somewhat brighter.  It is hardly surprising that wood, this near the coast and the salt laden sea breezes rots fairly quickly.  Paint at least delays the inevitable destruction and makes the old and worn out look bright and superficially acceptable!

After the triumph of the Garden Peacock, I am now turning to the multi-level cactus garden.  The latter will incorporate discarded elements from a disassembled water feature and a certain amount of new buying.

The evening was spent in Barcelona in Les Caracoles – a restaurant just off the Ramblas where my cousin and a group of friends were meeting for a meal.

It was an excellent meal and the company was stimulating.  I came into Barcelona by one of the slowest and most frustrating buses in Catalonia which stopped at every bus stop to pick up the single person who was placed there just to irritate me.  It also stopped at every single bloody one of the traffic lights (and there were many) which impeded my progress.

On Toni’s advice I booked a cheapish hotel room opposite the Liceu rather than try and make it back to Castelldefels after a late meal.

The room in the Hostal Paris was basic; my miniscule room had a shower and basin but no loo.  The bed was rather short for me and the air conditioning was programmed to turn itself off after a short period of operation so that there was no appreciable diminution in temperature.  It was on the third floor and there was no lift. 

But it was in the centre of the city, within an easy walk of the restaurant and it cost €35; it made sense to me at that price and it might be somewhere to consider if I have to go to operas during the weekend in the next season.

SATURDAY 25^th JUNE

The thin and short bed did not invite lengthy occupation and the only thing which kept me in it was the time of the first bus back to Castelldefels.

This time the trip back was with the quicker bus and so we were able to begin our rounds of the supermarkets to get what we needed to continue our process of mild transformation of the house at a reasonable hour.

Finding the fitments for the mirror was impossible, but the wood and cacti with other bits and pieces were easily purchased.  Wandering round overpriced garden centres was just like old times back in Cardiff.

As indeed was the eye-wateringly high cost of a collection of parsimonious water using weeds and a few stones!

Toni continues his anti-mosquitoification of the house with more and more inventive ways of securing our insect free peace.

A peace which has been rudely shattered by our obnoxious neighbours on one side entertaining a degenerate section of their unspeakable family; on eth other side by the moronic dogs; further down a man who can only communicate at a shout having a party for some unformed human and culminating in the screaming dogs at the end of the row!  There is plenty of material here for any Grumpy Old Man to have a field day!

SUNDAY 26^th JUNE 2001

The Cascading Cactus Garden is now complete with the peacock standing proud on its plinth in the centre.  Words fail me - as I am sure they will not fail visitors when they view the Designer Corner of the demesne!

I don’t really know what Japanese knotweed looks like, but I think that our little garden is riddled with it.  I say this because we have a species of creeping plant which is like something out of a science fiction story.  From extensive casual listening to Gardeners’ Question Time on Radio 4 when there was nothing else worth listening to, I know that Japanese knotweed is a pernicious pest and spreads.  On those two criteria we have it.

I remember being told that a Bizzy-Lizzy was totipotent, so that any part of it stuck into dirt would produce a plant.  I used this attribute to produce multiple plants which I fed with Plantoids™ and fabricated a generation of spindly, sick-looking plants that would have done credit to any of those in-bred drawling families of the decadent Deep South!

At least you got flowers with those, which is more than you get with the insidious growth of our ground-covering pest.  Like some of the more flamboyant lizards’ dismissive attitude towards their rear ends, it seems quite prepared to sacrifice whole visible strands of itself in order to protect the essential areas of growth – which are usually nowhere near where you are doing the damage.  And I am convinced that any part of the bloody thing once it touches anything remotely approximating to earth seizes the chance to propagate itself and spread like “innit” in so-called Modern English Usage.

Today is gloriously sunny and very hot and the inevitable hordes have descended to shatter our coastal idyll.

I have driven out to the supermarkets (closed) and the town shops (closed) to try and get a few bits and pieces that are necessary for the tidying up of the house.  The only places where anything other than a beer and a coffee can be bought are in the Chinese Shops (open) where I have been prepared to compromise on what I wanted to buy and come away with reasonable alternatives.

The centre of Castelldefels in front of the church has been cordoned off and a massive piece of Papist art has been constructed or drawn in what looks like coloured sawdust.  As a concession to the secular, much of the design is floral and the central motif comprises doves in flight.  On the dais, which is the sort of open-air stage for community events, an altar has been set up the backdrop for which is a representation of the chalice with the wafer with the name of Christ “IHS”.  There is a massive hanging of the same image on the façade of the church and I assume that the congregation will ritually destroy the art as they assemble to hear mass.

There are various flower festivals in Spain where incredibly intricate patterns made up of flower heads are constructed along the streets, are admired for a moment and then destroyed by tramping feet.  Presumably it is yet another version of the transitory nature of life highlighted by the church to encourage the “faithful” to book a place in the Eternity Hotel before it is too late.

The centre of town was relatively quiet but the beach part is anything but.  There are queues of cars waiting to get to the sea and start their hopeless pilgrimage around the Via Doloroso of parking areas before finally settling on places which defy comprehension. 

There are people parked on pavements, thereby reducing the width of the road to one uneasy, and very narrow lane; there are people parked on zebra crossings; on areas marked with do-not-park lines; on roundabouts (!); in driveways; double parked next to rubbish bins; There are droves of people who, when they finally get back to their cars will realize that they should have put their wing mirrors in before they left!

There has been a Great Cleaning today, and I have been told, in no uncertain manner, that This Is How It Is Going To Be In The Future.  Everything In Its Place.  Dream on!  But I have to admit that things look good – it’s a pity that it takes so much effort to keep it looking like that!

Because of the deadly parking today I have gone to our local ‘pollo a last’ and we have had a superb meal with grilled vegetables with the same sauce that they use on calçots: delicious!

Now we have the final task of the holidays: putting up the mirror.  Given the difficulty in finding the fittings to secure it to the wall, getting it straight should be downright impossible.  Then there is the position on the wall, not only in terms of height, but also in where to place it.  Toni’s plan it to have it centred on the table, but I can see it all coming down to a battle of wills!

Tomorrow the week of half days (minus one) begins which take us to the end (hallelujah!) of term at long last.

There are other meetings lurking somewhere in those four days but with any luck, I should not be involved.  My task, rather, is to find out exactly what I am teaching, even if the idea of actually having a realistic timetable at this point in the year is something beyond the wildest dreams of Catalan educationalists!

Counting is fun!

Today is the Day of the Course; and I am determined not to be overly cynical.  Not overly – but one does have certain standards that one has to keep up and I do not feel inclined to be too sympathetic to a man who is going to encourage me to be self critical when the term is virtually over and all the kids have left.

I cannot imagine that anyone actually wants to be in school and the idea of thinking coherently and theoretically about education is anathema at most times, but at the fag end of the year it becomes whatever word is that which is stronger than “anathema”.

 

The reality was that we were subjected to three solid hours of the course without a break!  Words fail me.  At least it wasn’t for the full five hours that we were supposed to be in school. 

Only five hours – rather than the usual eight.  We were able to leave at 2.00 pm.  That was when I had completed the recuperation marking that I had to do form the pupils who failed their summer exam.  Never a dull moment!

Today is the eve of the festival of Sant Joan (Saint John the Baptist) and is the night on which Catalans throw sobriety to the winds and stay on beaches throughout the night letting off fireworks and drink like the Brits!

I have just come down from the Third Floor where I spent many happy minutes watching with untrammelled delight the hundreds of thousands of euros disappearing in the twinkling of an eye.  Fireworks are truly one of the most satisfyingly unjustifiable transitory delights ever!

As it is traditional to drink Cava and eat cake whose name sounds disturbingly like the slang term for cocaine – a good time was had by all.

And it can all be slept off tomorrow – though in the evening I have to go into Barcelona to meet my cousin for a meal – and it will still not be the weekend!

O the joy of four-day weeks!