The day before action

The question of the books has now become part of a psychosis.  I had a strategy worked out: attack Shakespeare first.  Multiple copies of the plays with some of them only kept because their introductions might be useful if I was ever to teach etc etc.  Well, I think that my teaching of Shakespeare days are over and even I can contemplate getting rid of some of the nastier paperback versions without too may qualms.

The texts are so scattered throughout my library that their exclusion will not create the mass of space that I was hoping to use to Begin the Great Sort.

In my experience you need one empty bookcase for every five that you are trying to sort out.  Anything less and you will be heading for frustration, anger and murder.  But one has to work with what one has so I will have to go through the shelves painstakingly and rip chunks of my own flesh off the shelves and get rid of books.

I think that I can keep up the prevention of action by writing technique until the end of the month and then Something Will Have To Be Done.  Or not.

The weather seems to be settling down to a reasonably miserable morning and a glorious afternoon: I can live with that.

Today has been a Festival of Sound.  The morning started off with the moronic monotony of the cursed cur next door.  Its mournful threnody usually brings in the professional wailers of the decaying spaniels at the end of our row and then it is open season with the rest of the rat dogs incarcerated around us.

The day proper begins when the pine needle blowers start up and the kids crawl out of their restraints to start their daylong shout.

To add to the general cacophony there were three or more distinct parties happening around us.  The block of flats opposite seems to have a business of hosting children’s Parties and from what we have heard had complaints about the noise.  They have responded by swapping the party actual to the back of the flats but the kids still scream their way around the front.

Mr Shouty (the Argentinian who lives a few doors away) put up balloons and then yelled himself through the barbecue while unleashing his screaming horde of kids into the pool.

Someone in the flats adjacent to us had a birthday and music and raucous singing added to the general air of sonic chaos.

And all of this without factoring in the added dimension of the deep-throated roar of passing aircraft as they skim the rooftops.

In spite of all this I still managed a comfortable snooze on the Third Floor after lunch.

Determination is one of my qualities.

Fill the day with duty done!

There is no smugness like that of the person who has had a swim as soon as he has risen from his bed.  It may be an outdoor pool but the heat retention of the water makes the initial submersion merit no more than a gentle shudder before the swimming brings the temperature to what I regard as normal.

It is with a queasy sense of unreality that I note that the date is the 23^rd of July and a horrifically large portion of the holiday is behind me!  The fact that I am bemoaning the remembrance of days lost when there are five clear weeks of holiday left (six and a bit before we have to see the kids) speaks volumes for my attitude towards the teaching of the young!

 

Today I fulfil my Lucretzia Borgia fantasies as we go in search of potent poisons.  We have declared war on ants and weeds and are set to destroy both.  I am looking for a good systemic destroyer for the weeds whose roots seem to bear no geographical symmetry with their pollution the surface.  Our weeds are like a schematic representation of the Mafia with the root as the hidden Capo di Capos and the visible vegetation being the dependant criminals who keep the whole plant burgeoning.  I see myself as the Elliot Ness of the weed world.  The day of reckoning is at hand!

My nemesis of choice for the ant world is the disturbingly named “Nippon” ant killer.  I have vivid memories of my mother; a gentle and considerate soul as far as most animals were concerned, shed this cloak of concern for animals with six or more legs. 

My abiding memory is watching her put a drop of the viscous liquid near an ant run and then urge the insects who were fatally drawn to the liquor to “take it home” so that the entire nest could be wiped out.  Happy days!

The other, more positive purchase is a window box for a balcony railing (if you see what I mean) as it has been decreed that vegetation shall sprout for the delectation of our summer guests.  This will not be profusion of colour but rather of spikes as we are nurturing cacti - mainly because of the lack of nurturing that they demand. 

As the cacti we have at present are more neophyte thorn than anything else the display will be more intention rather than reality.  But, taking into account the second of the dictums by which I live of “Anything is Better Than Nothing” (the first being, “Never Refuse a Good Offer” rendered in Latin by our Classics Teacher as “No Repudies Bonam Pollicitationem”) it should add a certain something to an otherwise anodyne room.  Though that is probably an unfair designation of a room with a view of the pool and a questionable glimpse of a fragment of the sea!

The diminutive cactus garden is now in situ and the individual plants are not going to be much bigger by the time the first guests arrive, still one must garden for the future; and given the rate at which these things grow, for the distant future!

Oddly, one of the cacti is blue – I assume that this is produced by dye and that the mature plant will assume a more natural colour.  Or not, which would be good news for another plant which is orange – but I can’t help feeling that the colours were merely there to provoke the impulse buy for which I duly fell.

The weeds have now been drenched in what I hope is an indiscriminately vicious poison and I look forward to the rapidly yellowing vegetation which will be extracted from the ground as soon as it is absurdly easy to do so.  And I have left enough time to give them a second dose before the arrivals start.

I am beginning to make a list of things that I have to do (apart from killing the young child who is screaming her way around the pool at the moment) on Monday.  A full day.

I have just returned from getting our fast-food dinner from the excellent bar near where we used to live.  I took the car.  Mistake.  The driving was as bad as anything that I have endured since I have been in this country.  The parking was worse than appalling and the overtaking and undertaking was little short of suicidal.  The only thing that makes that adjective inaccurate was that I did not see any deaths to make it fully appropriate.  But the night is yet young!

There is a key zebra crossing (out of the scores that make driving along the sea road such a joy) which has the ability to create extravagant traffic jams.  Holidaymakers cross it at a speed which disabled snails would scorn to match and gaze at the queues of infuriated drivers with mild surprise and clear distaste.

Parking was of course impossible and I had to use my full knowledge of where a semi-legal space could be found if I wasn’t to walk half the length of Castelldefels to get to the place.  My eventual choice of parking place was uneasy rather than illegal – and I had no ticket so it was the right choice.

News has come through that one of the sites that we looked at a year or so ago as a possible location for a school has been snapped up by the mother of one of the pupils I had in The Worst School in the World in which I had the pleasure to teach when I first arrived in Catalonia. 

The mother is a trained and dedicated teacher with a clear preference for the more creative aspects of education and is hoping to expand her tiny school to something like 50 pupils eventually.  I wish her and her school all the best, especially as it might take away pupils from the school governed by the unsympathetic (a carefully chosen word) tyranny of the ignorant owner (not so carefully chosen) of the school in which I taught.

Revenge (in whatever form it takes) is a dish best eaten to the sound of trumpet fanfares whenever it offers itself no matter hot or cold.

Back home!

Yesterday morning started in the way whose idea keeps me going throughout the school year: sitting in the sun on the Third Floor taking a leisurely breakfast where only the sound of passing 747s breaks the idyllic silence!

Pine trees may be evergreens but they drop needles in much the same way that Labradors moult.  When I returned from my foreign excursions our street looked like a film set with drifts of needles making the place look as though it had been deserted for years.

We have no pine trees in our front garden but the neighbours more than make up for that loss so that walking up the path is now a pleasantly crunchy experience.  We will have to have a barbecue so that the collected needles can flavour the food while at the same time being disposed of!

No professional gardeners in this area use a brush to clear up the detritus from the trees.  Instead they use petrol powered hand held blowers to gather the needles together.  These are efficient but the noise they make is capable of drowning out passing planes and they are always used first thing in the morning – presumably on the basis that if the sweepers are up so should we.  While I am all for solidarity with the working class I am sure that there are quieter ways of gaining my support.

Yesterday was a Terrassan birthday so the evening was spent there in a quality fast food restaurant with four generations of the birthday boy’s family.

To my totally unconcealed chagrin he was given a tablet computer by his wife and I thought that he paraded his ownership of the same in an undignified, vulgar and totally heartless way.  God knows I have tried to justify buying an i-Pad but with my current ownership of The Machine even I, the acknowledged Gadget King of Castelldefels find it difficult to justify the purchase.  Not, of course that such concerns have ever stopped me in the past.

This is particularly true in the watch department. 

As is my staunch tradition I marked the holiday by buying another timepiece. 

As is well known and universally acknowledged by aficionados of chronology any decent watch must have numbers not markers; day and date; sweep second hand; luminous hands and hour markers and must be waterproof enough to allow swimming.

The present watch is a Seiko and I have returned to a machine with a mechanism that powered a very expensive watch from years ago.  This is a “kinetic” model and its USP was that it was half price in a shop in St David’s Shopping Centre in Cardiff.  I am not one to ignore such a (still expensive) bargain – especially when the only feature that it was missing from the key list was numbered hours.

The model I now have is elegant and minimalistic and it is a bloody sight lighter than the one that I bought in Gran Canaria.  As I have no further holidays, trips or excursions planned this one might well see me into the new school year!

One interesting side purchase made while getting the historical novels for the birthday boy was that of a Terry Pratchett novel for the astonishingly low price of €1.95.  This was “El Color de la Magia” and, as I have already read it in English it might make it a little easier to read in Spanish.  I snatched it up because Stewart had left a copy of “Money” by the same author on the coffee table in the living room of the house and I am not one able to resist Mr Pratchett’s novels when I see them placed provocatively in front of me.

I find Pratchett’s style very congenial to my sense of humour and the blend of irony, fantasy and imagination is something that I find enticingly addictive. 

I have therefore adopted the protective technique which “saved” me from overdosing on science fiction books: only buy one author at a time, second-hand and under 50p.  I went through the entire oeuvres of Robert Heinlein and Asimov in this way.  And when I say the “entire” oeuvres I mean up to and including things like the “Lucky Starr” stories by Asimov written purely for money under a pseudonym for which a light lobotomy is necessary to enjoy their clichéd emptiness.

Were I to give in to my liking for Pratchett I would keep Amazon going for the next year or so purely by my purchasing efforts!

And I will probably be reading without my glasses and contact lenses.  At present I am less than impressed with my new prescription: distance is little problem but normal reading is blurred and my brain refuses to favour the eye with the lens for print.  I think that they might be OK for school with an effort, but I am not convinced.  I will soldier on, but the battle looks like matching the arid attrition of the trenches rather than the glorious successes of my longbow-wielding ancestors.

Lunch was in a restaurant on the Ramblas leading up to the church in Castelldefels and one could weep for what one is able to get for the €10.50 that I paid for a tasty, well-served meal sitting outside.  The weather just about justifies sitting outside, though the sun is noticeable for its absence except for spasmodic beams which let you know that it is still there.

Obviously I am in shirt and shorts because, though the weather is far from what one has a right to expect in July, it is far from cold.

This is the perfect weather to start looking at my books with a view to their complete re-organization.

Simply typing that sentence has reduced me to prostration and militant exhaustion.  I know that I am going to have to steel myself to throw books out and it is something which I find almost impossible to do.  Far better to prevaricate in print rather than take irrevocable Nazi-like actions and throw books into metaphorical flames!

We shall see if actions match intentions.

A collection of days gone!

The damp, sullen skies of southern England met my bleary eyes this morning.  Long trousers for today I think.

My room in Andrew and Stuart’s house is a cruel one: books everywhere – and I thought I was the only one with bizarre juxtapositioning of random volumes.  The range is astonishing with the faded backs of proven classics rubbing shoulders with the most modern paperbacks.  The “who-is-this-person-let’s-look-at-his-books” approach reveals some clear and other more subtle indications of personality and taste!  It is a room in which I could be most comfortably locked up in for a considerable period – and the bed is comfortable too!

Today is the first day to try out the latest prescription for my contact lenses and as the saintly Andrew is driving I need have no fears about worrying about their suitability for the motorist.  I do hope that these new lenses will finally be accepted by my brain and be the solution to the distance/reading conundrum that successions of opticians have been trying to sort out.  One can but hope.  And I do have six months supply (all paid for) which it would be something of a pity to waste!

It is now raining.  It started in that soft, lazy gossamer drizzle which soaks you to the skin within seconds and has now developed into a more straightforward downpour: assertive and depressing.  There is (what is often a deceptive) brightness in the complete cloud cover which, for those British born weather optimists, might betoken more inspiring weather later.

As a key component in the planning of Mary’s party involved The Garden it looks as though it may be more for contemplation and admiration rather than practical use.

I am at present drinking a cup brewed with a Yorkshire Tea teabag that I am informed by Andrew is designed specifically for use in hard water areas.  As the rugged aggressiveness of the water in Castelldefels makes everyone else’s water look like pure liquid sissy, it might be an idea to ask for a few bags and try them out at home.  Admittedly I have partially got round the problem of the water (safe but undrinkable from the tap) by making my cuppa with bottled stuff but a teabag which wages a taste war with calcium might be a cheaper eventual solution.

It has now stopped raining, but still looks as though it is: a particularly British form of climatic irritation.

That illusion soon gave way to the harsh reality of sheeting layers of water belting down on the car as it crawled through the traffic misery that is driving in London.

My dogged, and no doubt irritating assertion that was “brighter in the west” was belied by the soul-sapping drenching that we were getting as we made our delayed way to Reading.

However my irrational optimism was justified by the rains almost ceasing as we got stuck in our final traffic jam inside Reading itself.

The party was a great success.  Mary was overwhelmed by the gifts that she had and most importantly she loved the Ceri print of Venice that I chose for her from the selection that I was shown.  I also checked from Clarrie (who loved it instantly, made a decision about the frame and where it should be hung within two seconds of seeing it) that Mary was being sincere and not merely polite, so everything was most satisfactory.

 

Our own gifts to Mary included a pendant and perfume (both hostages to fortune when deciding for another person) went down well so I was then able to get on with the socializing that such an occasion offers.

Apart from Andrew, Stuart, Mary and Clarrie the gusts were those whom I had never met before or people who I hadn’t seen for years; some for many years!

Conversation was compulsive and, as often happens in parties in which I want to speak to everyone; I had to remind myself to eat.  Especially as I had no trouble in reminding my self to drink the Champagne!

The food was exactly what one would have expected from Clarrie in its variety and presentation.  The beef en croute was spectacular and I never did get to try the chicken terrine, but the prawns (thank you Clarrie) and the salmon were eventually tasted and approved of.

The cake (with an inscription in Irish) was bought it, but the other sweets were made by Andrew: a bitter chocolate tart for adults and a truly wonderful Summer Pudding with luscious fruit and a mesmerizing taste.  I suggested that we steal the remains of this noble dessert but such boorish behaviour was dismissed by the boys.

By the time the Champagne had run out, the Cava had been drunk and we were reduced to drinking Jacob’s Creek fizzy it was obviously time to go.

Slumped in the back seat in a somnolent haze the first part of the return journey past swiftly and I only came back to my senses fully when we hit the Hammersmith flyover.

On our return Stuart took to his bed for a nap and Andrew continued the Russel Meyer Summer School for Stephen which started the day before yesterday with an enforced viewing of “Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill”: a film of which I was aware but had not heretofore seen.

 

The film’s awfulness has to be seen to be believed and, while I can well believe that it has a fanatical cult following its blend of low budget ineptitude, wooden acting, pitiful script, big boobs and crass moralizing meant that I watched much of it with open mouthed amazement.

To be fair there are moments of camp humour, some of the cinematography is stagey but interesting and the female star looks like the creation from the combined brains of Bram Stoker, Edvard Munch and Hugh Hefner.  She uses car, cleavage and karate to create chaos – but never fear all-American(ish) values triumph in the end.

As an extra I was made to watch an interview with the women in the film who now look, amazingly, even more sluttish than they did when “Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill” was made.

Yesterday’s lesson too the form of a viewing of “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” – a film whose virulent critical response I can still remember even though I am thinking of notices from forty years ago!  Although I had no intention of going to a cinema to watch such gratuitous trash, I think that I indulged in a News-of-the-World type of censorious prurience in reading about the filth that I was never going to see!

The film has high production values and is in vivid Eastman colour but it comes as no surprise to discover that the script was made up day by day so the revelation that the Svengali-like male homosexual is actually a woman “seemed like a good idea” to the scriptwriter and was duly shot with no back story to give such a twist any credibility.

It is difficult to know where to start in a critical response to the turgid morass of half-baked acting and ideas that “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” comprises.  John Waters has called this “the best film ever made and will ever be made” and it features in the best 100 films of all time in The Village Voice, but for me it remains what I suspected it would be, a woeful piece of sexploitation.

There is clearly some attempt at parody and the use of music is part of this self awareness of the medium but I don’t think that the film is good enough to be ironic; its humour seems to be sloppiness rather than observation.

An interview of Meyer by Ross brought out the auteur’s interest in women from the waist upwards but said little more about what he brings to the cinema.

I remain a rather sceptical student in this Summer School and will take much more convincing before I become a devotee of the film of Mr Meyer!

Sunday was notable for the gentle introduction to the day that the boys insist on and a later visit (in the rain) to the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

This unprepossessing building houses not only a rather surprising above ground crypt in the middle of the gallery but also a very impressive collection of art.

The special exhibition was of the art of Poussin and the recently deceased Cy Twombly.  Anyone who knows anything about these two artists might suspect that they have little real in common and that would be a point of view which the exhibition does little to alter.

 

Twombly’s work is a series of daubed scrawlings and Poussin is an acknowledged master of Classical order.  The fact that Twombly went and lived in Italy – just like Poussin - does not make for a convincing comparison of shared artistic achievements!

Monday did see me make a halfhearted effort to indulge in some culture.  The weather was miserable and I was conscious that I only had thin shirts and no coat – it being July and all!

I eventually set off on the train to Victoria and then the underground to Embankment which I (wrongly) thought would be within a light step of Tate Modern.  Many, many steps later and in light drizzle I finally made it to see The Money Hanging on the Wall – or Picasso’s “The Dream” as it is called which is at present the most expensive painting in the world to be sold at auction.

 

Of course to see this painting you have to pass a lot of other art most of which is excellent and some of which is the sort of gratuitous rubbish that gives modern art a bad name.  To my horror I saw a selection of empty gestural scrawls of my current bête noir Twombly “gracing” the walls of one gallery.  I won’t even waste my time by describing the vacuous ineptitude masquerading as art that he perpetrated in the canvases that were but a hiatus in seeing something better!

And better there certainly was.  The whole of my Making Sense of Modern Art course for next year was hanging on the walls!

I made an executive decision to go to the National Gallery as well to check up on my two paintings – the Terborch and the Van Eyck.

It is impossible to see these paintings in a limited time without ignoring some of the finest art in the world which, with siren calls, tries to deflect me from my purposes.  And indeed succeeded to some extent.  You have to made of stronger stuff than I to ignore Holbein’s Ambassadors, for example.  Anyway, I just managed to get to the Van Eyck before the stern guardians of the galleries started herding us to the exits.

Dinner was in a local restaurant in Herne Hill and (tempting fate) tapas!  They were delicious, though I think that we might be able to duplicate some of them here in a slightly different form for slightly less!

Packing was the usual nightmare although the expansion of the suitcase did provide a lot of extra space but it was virtually impossible to move when it was filled.

The journey to the airport was circuitous as my GPS decided to avoid “heavy traffic ahead” and so I saw much of the suburbs of south London before I finally ended up in an interminable traffic jam as the powers that be decided to replace a gas main on the approach road to the M23.

I had, however left enough time to compensate for delays and hot and bothered as I was there was plenty of time to check in and wait for the call.

As usual the best value in the airport was the meal deal in Boots at £3.79 and I thoroughly enjoyed my British sandwiches before settling down to the tedium of travel.

The numerical ordering of the gates is designed to confuse those who have never been to the airport before flying with EasyJet.  Suffice to say that I walked confidently in the wrong direction because I understood Gate 57 to be included in Gate numbers 50 odd to 60 odd.  Wrong.  Elusive Gate 57 was alone with a plethora of alphabetical adjuncts, the important one (mine) I could not find.  But I went with the flow and found myself at the end of a very long queue.

It seemed as though my chances of finding a seat with adequate legroom were stymied by my lack of Gatwick experience, but I always have hope when I travel alone as a spare seat is sometimes available as a couple bag two of the three seats.

I stepped inside the plane and imagine my delight when I saw the evidence of lost hope: two men sitting either side of the seats at the entrance with a book, newspaper and pen resting on the seat in the middle.  I almost laughed as I asked innocently if the seat was taken.  Their combined looks of pure hatred could have felled lumbering rhinos, but I merely took the seat and fitted my Nano to fill the ferocious silence from the gentlemen on either side!

The flight was only 90 minutes long and that was almost the time it took the baggage handlers in Barcelona to get our luggage onto the carousel.  When it eventually emerged it was greeted by an ironically ragged cheer.

We went out for tapas almost as soon as I was in the house and an early shower and bed was my welcome home.

Today, after the light tidying of the rubbish I have brought home we went out to our local restaurant for a menu del dia in the bright sunshine.

An excellent two-centre holiday with exemplary hospitality and much buying of clothes for the next year.

Now the reception of guests for the summer is about to begin!

Please let there be sun for my friends!

London is afar!

Sitting by the open French windows and cooled by the gentle cigarette-flavoured breeze from the incessant smoke of Paul Squared, I am waiting for the call from my optician which will prompt me to start the actions of the day.

Assuming that my new contact lenses come into Cardiff on time and further assuming that the obligatory visit to Paul’s sister’s new kitchen will be completed in double quick time I will then be able to set off on the journey to London.

I am having yet another attempt at getting my eyes to accept a compromise in the contact lens department.  Fine-tuning now has been done and I have six months’ supply of new lenses to see me through the summer and well into the cold days of January.

The trip along the dull lanes of the M4 was as tedious as ever, the only point of interest being a fleeting glimpse of Windsor Castle with a flag flying which simply is insufficient to justify the misery of hours of featureless landscape along the way.

London itself was a little more interesting as I navigated most of the city trying to find the bloody River Thames and head south to Herne Hill.  If nothing else (and believe me it was nothing else) it gave me the opportunity to listen to all the programmes that Radio 4 had hastily slammed into the schedule to cover the gaps caused by the strike of the journalists’ union.

The Radio 4 play was one of those fugitive pieces which while engaging the mind while it was going on didn’t say enough to make you think.  Perfect driving drivel!

Few people could have expressed more delight upon seeing the mundane outline of uninteresting shops in Brixton with more delight than I as I at least then knew where I was.  I was able to put the fruitless searching for a major river behind me and promptly miss the turning for Herne Hill.

To be fair to me it wasn’t a real road as the entrance to the carriageway was tiled with fashion bricks making it look like a pedestrianized area.  It wasn’t as I rapidly found out when the main road that I intended to take to Herne Hill turned out to be one-way.  Now I am used to these little setbacks as Spanish road planners take fiendish delight in changing road layouts almost as you watch.  I merely turned (eventually) into a familiar street and passed with a swift flick of the eyes Clarrie’s old flat.  My approach for the second time was more measured and with only one other false turning I made it to my final destination in this two-centre holiday!

Sitting in the sun, sheltered by trees and drinking a decent cup of tea is little short of real, deep pleasure and time became lazy and elastic as chat eventually prompted us to a cool bottle of wine and thoughts of the morrow.

A short walk to Sainsbury (was it always there, I think not) allowed the purchase of wine for this evening a generous selection of nibbles and a decent bottle of Cava for the party tomorrow.

It is a delight to be back in Herne Hill and to be with two friends who go back more years than it would be decent to recount.  I also have to be on my best behaviour with them as they have photographs which in part explain why I have never attempted a career in politics!

There is wine at my knee on the occasional table in front of me and books and music wherever I look so why the hell am I typing!

Good question.  I’ll have a glass of white!

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.