Right triumphs!

Before dismissing Old Wives’ Tales or so-called “received wisdom” with the contempt it usually deserves, one should always think of the bread poultice. 

Why would anyone put a piece of bread on an infected part of ones body and then allow the preparation to go mouldy in the fond hope that it would somehow help? 

Yet, and yet, that mould contained a primitive form of raw penicillin which may well have played some real part in making the ill better, in spite of the homely quality of the advice.

Today, the inheritor of the Old Wives’ shawls is the mighty Internet (Microsoft insists that I spell it with a capital “I”) and I have to pay my obeisance to this all-powerful dispenser of knowledge and publically thank it for telling me about insect stings.

The second head of English with whom I worked has since retired and has become, for me, a nodal point for the distribution of jokes, pictures and wisdom from his many contacts via the Internet to me.  I then resend them to a chosen list of lucky recipients.  I do a little light censorship and some messages (for various reasons) stay with me and end their electronic journey here in Castelldefels; others wing their wireless way o’er land and sea spreading joy and irritation in equal measure.

One of the more informative messages recently (and appositely) sent to me concerned insect bites. 

Relief, almost magical in quality, was promised if the bite was immediately treated by the application of a small denomination coin pressed to the puncture point and held in place there with a plaster or piece of Sellotape for 15 minutes.

The affirmative evidence from relieved suffers was so similar to all those patently false endorsements for questionable articles in even more questionable publications that one felt that this was an elaborate and rather pointless practical joke.

However, some mosquito bites are so painful and so compulsively itchy that I have known people (well, me) actually consider cutting out the infected portion with a penknife - as pain is preferable to irritation which cannot be satisfied with any amount of scratching.  So, putting a coin on the wound seemed like a worth-a-try form of non-invasive self-help.

And, by god it works!  It really does!

Given a choice between Toni and my good self, the mosquitos behave courteously towards a visitor and bite the native.  Toni can be punctured like a pincushion while my skin retains its unblemished sheen.  A couple of nights ago, however a rogue and racially insensitive insect bit me in five places down the length of my vein from the base of the thumb on my right hand to the inside face of my elbow.

The telltale itching soon raised five sizeable blotches of blistered flesh and sleep was impossible.  With the light on the damage looked much more impressive than the fingertip exploration had indicated and I decided to Take Measures.

I stomped up to the Third Floor and then, armed with my trusty tape dispenser I stomped my way down to the kitchen and raided the Oxfam bottle for coins which I then taped (artistically) down my arm and waited for 15 minutes.

Apart from feeling like a very badly made-up character in some sort of fancy dress party who had decided to go as the financial crisis as a man down to his last pennies, within 15 minutes when the coins were removed the itching had gone and by the next day there was no visible evidence that I had been bitten!

I think that I will have to put Sellotape around the house with a coin in place looking rather like votive Tibetan prayer strips so that guests can use them when and where to lessen the insect incursion!

My delight is directly proportional to the efficacy of the “household hint” – I haven’t felt this satisfied since someone pointed out that you could freeze cartons of milk.  The usefulness of that particular hint was related to the UK before I got used to UHT milk.

You can get “real” milk in Spain but it is not as readily available as the UHT stuff.  I have now reached a level of adaptation where I can drink the fat-free UHT stuff (I hesitate to call it milk) by itself – even when it is not ice-cold!  A degree of acclimatization that I never thought that I would achieve!

I now vaguely recall an e-mail about the cucumber which listed all the remarkable qualities of this vegetable which Dr Johnson dismissed as something which “should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing” – on the evidence of the usefulness of the coin for insect bites perhaps I should look again at the information about the cucumber and take it to heart!

No sooner said than done!  A swift search and this site listed a few of the qualities of this obviously amazing and under-rated vegetable!  http://food.sulekha.com/recipes/post/2010/04/cucumber-some-amazing-uses.htm

We had a night in with tapas provided by Toni, though we will be going out for a “proper” meal on the last night of the Pauls’ stay this evening.

The intensive sunbathing continues today with the Pauls’ realization that they only have one full day left to change the colour of the epidermis from what Paul 1 laughingly described as “60s white” (as a homage to Delongi Nespresso) to a more appropriate form of second decade beige.  Or not.

They have been fairly dutiful in their going to the beach and have lain like sacrificial offerings on the sand, even venturing into the sea from time to time.

Lunch was tapas with a few glasses of beer and this evening is our last night out having a “real” a la carte meal in the restaurant next up from our normal eating-place.  Ceri had an excellent steak there and I think that the Pauls are looking to emulate that meal.

Well, we didn’t make it to the restaurant.  That isn’t strictly true, we actually did get to the restaurant and were not able to sit outside and had to go inside and, in spite of the open walls of glass allowing the cooler evening air in, it was unpleasantly hot.

And none of the waiters seemed to care a damn about taking our order.  One of them actually passed us and said, “¡Hola!” and then walked on!  We waited ten minutes and apart from the screaming kids and the chattering, over-talking Spaniards and Catalans we were alone and were left alone.  So we left.

We almost decided to go in to the centre of the beach area but, on further consideration we decided to go to a restaurant not far from our house which offered a rather more professional service.

And things went well for the first two courses, and very tasty they were too.  Even the sweet course went well.  Everything went well right up to the bill.

The bill came to €129 and Paul (god bless him!) in a magnanimous gesture decided to pay.  He had taken out €200 from the cash machine and in an excess of generosity and a lack of arithmetic he put the whole of the €200, in four €50 in spite of the fact that he should have put only three of those notes to pay for a bill under €150.  But he didn’t and when his change came back it was from a total of €150 as the amount offered. 

Paul had been robbed of €50.  When the stunted dwarf with a moustache who had taken the money was tasked with theft he stoutly denied that he had seen the €200 which Paul had counted out onto the bill.  The stunted dwarf had overlooked a simple but important fact: although there were three Brits in the party our fourth member was Spanish.  His protestations of innocence were more than met by the vociferous replies from Toni.

Eventually the Stunted Dwarf capitulated and said that he would return the €50 and “half your meal will be free!”  I can’t help feeling that if he had right on his side there is no way that a true Spaniard would willingly give up €50 and I fear it was more to do with being found out because he did not know that there was a fluent Spanish speaker rather than hapless foreigners to deal with.

We went on a triumphant march to the nearest bar and had a very satisfying drink toasting the linguistic victory of Toni against the grasping hands of unscrupulous restaurant managers.

A very satisfying end to a decent evening.

Regained Days

We have managed to visit a few more of the tapas restaurants and get some more stamps on the sheet.  I have now reached double figures and am almost half way through the 30 participating establishments.

Yesterday the three of us went out on the town and walked to one of the restaurants listed on the ruta de tapas and were told in no uncertain manner that as it was August and the height of the season there was no way that a mere tapa was going to be served when full-meal customers were available to be fleeced.

In spite of my showing the gentleman who was refusing to serve us that the printed information stated clearly that the tapa would be served until midnight, our requests were refused and I hereby mark the name of the restaurant with a black mark in the best traditions of Julius Caesar – “Thus with a spot I damn him!”

The succeeding visits were more successful with some very interesting tapas including tuna with caramelised onions; an elaborate construction on ryvita using orange marmalade, apple compote, Spanish ham and blue cheese with a tiny olive and flavoured with balsamic vinegar; scrambled egg with cod (my personal favourite) and lastly a rather strange mini pastie.

We used the occasion to visit bars, ostensibly so that we could keep tabs on how Barça were doing in their match with hatred rivals Real Madrid.  We also drank.  A lot.

By the end of the evening we were wholeheartedly into the game (which started at the unearthly hour of 11 pm!) and I noted with some amusement that the Pauls were joining in the shouting and outraged exclamations of contempt at the antics of the Real Madrid players with what I can only describe as a strange sort of “foreign” overlay on their native accents!

As is traditional in our joint forays into the unknown (to me) night-life of Castelldefels we were royally ripped off in the last watering hole we frequented and were grossly overcharged for our final drinks of the evening.  Though, I suppose it is fair to say that we were in no real condition to evaluate the exact relative charges!

I must say, on past performances, that I was justly proud of the fact that I had safely in my wallet at the end of the evening the information about the ruta de tapas together with my collection of almost 50% of the stamps necessary.  The fact that I had this important paper, together with possession of my wallet was something of a triumph!

The next day was something of a non-event with a late start coupled with an extended siesta leaving room only for a lunch (with fizzy water!) and later at night an Indian meal.

Today, as the saying goes, is another day – and this time I have got up early to ensure that I gain the benefit from a full day’s holiday!

Out and about

This morning, instead of the baying of the dogs, we have the rather more plangent sound of the pool being dredged with the outsized net capturing all the pine debris that accumulates over time.  From the starter chopstick-like needles to the disturbingly larvae-like seeds it is all cleared away and with random handfuls of god-knows-what chemicals the pool is pristine for a few hours until various unsavoury bodies immerse themselves in the limpid waters.

Our visit to Sitges will afford an opportunity for Paul 1 to get himself a pseudo-identity card to replace the need to carry his passport to act as surety for his cards.

One of the few tangible benefits to emerge from my stay in The School That Sacked Me was one of my excellent colleagues telling me that she had an official-looking card made from a colour photocopy of a couple of pages in her passport.  I have used the resulting card to accompany all my bankcard transactions and, generally, it is accepted as proof of identity. 

I do also have a tattered A4 page of Spanish manufacture which gives my Spanish identity number.  This is also accepted, but each time I unfold it, it gets a little nearer to total disintegration – and I have no idea how to replace it.  And, as this is part of the Madrid government’s paper chain I shudder to think of the bureaucracy involved in its replacement.  The only document I have which is in an even worse state than my Spanish identity paper is my driving licence which is in such a poor condition that even the DVLC made an attempt to stick the thing together again on one occasion with official document quality Sellotape!

Sitges seemed to be hotter than Castelldefels, though that might have been because we were on a beach protected from breezes and unwelcome gusts.  The sea was a calm as a swimming pool and the water, therefore, clear.  There is a long walk through shallow water until you are out of your depth – but with such a shallow shelving seabed the water is pleasantly warm.

Lunch was not the disaster of our last foray into restaurant meals.  This was in our sure and dependable restaurant to which we always go in Sitges and for the princely sum of €9 we had an excellent three-course meal.  The wine was red, but in an open bottle without a label and was suspiciously “light” – but at the price who could complain!

Our return home was the excuse for a siesta and our waking was an excuse to indulge in our berating of the excesses of the neighbours!  A summer-long hobby! 

From Meal to Mozzies!

It is not every houseguest who weeds at five o’clock in the morning.  But I think that Paul Squared has blazed the way for the behaviour of future visitors.  I will post a little list of soulless tasks to be done in the kitchen and trust that future guests take the hint!

Yesterday evening after their arrival and the customary visit to the local restaurant we spent the rest of the night sampling the quality of the house wines in various establishments and went to a well deserved rest at some ungodly hour of the morning.

The beach regime has been adhered to and health immersions in the sea have added to a feeling of wellbeing.

This feeling was completely dissipated at lunchtime when, with our first choice restaurant closed for the summer holidays we unwittingly made a major mistake of going to an adjacent alternative - which had been more than OK when we last patronized it.

Without doubt we given the worst menu del dia that I have ever eaten in Castelldefels!

From the tepid arroz a la cubana which was eventually brought to the table after an interminable wait for the menu to the so-called tuna steaks which were dry and inedible and the potato chunks were hard and tasteless the whole meal was a disaster.  The waiter seemed incapable of the simplest tasks and amongst other ineptitudes he managed to overturn three bottles of beer.  When he finally told us that there was no sweet included in the menu we were ready to give up.  He offered us coffee which at least seemed a safe bet.  Café con hielo came with one stingy piece of ice that was incapable of chilling the drink adequately.  To cap this culinary disaster we found when the bill arrived that we had been charged for the coffee.  We left no tip!

Paul Squared’s suggestion that we should have a barbecue in the evening was greeted with enthusiasm, especially by me, as I had not eaten my main course in the so-called restaurant.

A barbecue also seemed like an excellent excuse to replace the somewhat rancid equipment which had been gently rotting in its own ashes for some time.  Toni remembered seeing a rather elegant machine in the Bauhaus supermarket (how they get away with using that name I do not know) which is our version of Do-it-all.

After a memory-cleansing swim in the pool we decanted ourselves into the car and set off for Gava to buy the new barbecue.  We had been wondering at the number of punters on the beach and on the streets in Castelldefels and we now wondered at the paucity of people in the car park of the supermarkets.

The one time you can guarantee that DIY stores are open in the UK is on a Bank Holiday when the population driven by some strange inner necessity flock to these shops and on Rumney Common bring the entire traffic system to a grinding halt.  Spain is not Britain.  All the shops were closed.  It was a Bank Holiday – which explained the jigsaw parking and the blanket coverage of the beach with bodies and parasols.

The meal (using the old barbecue which we thankfully had not thrown away) was excellent and even the mozzies did not attack with their usual venom.

When the inevitable rogue insect did strike then the bite was treated with the “penny against the swelling for 15 minutes” technique that we had recently learned from the Internet and which is astonishingly effective.  It really does work!

A relatively early night to prepare us for the trip to Sitges tomorrow.

The clock is ticking!

It is a truly horrible thought that there are just over two weeks left of the summer holiday.

Admittedly there is a little bonus of the days from the 1^st to the 12^th of September being without the kids – but this is merely an excuse for our school to go quietly berserk and suddenly institute meetings the import of which is to change completely the expectations that we were left with at the end of the previous year.  This is disconcerting to say the least and it makes the period without students a little febrile to put it mildly.

I have not yet had my timetable and blithe assertions that it “will be like this year’s” only made me wonder about the equivocal meaning of a word like “like”!  I have done no schoolwork apart from buying a few books and looking at the pictures.  This is not as facile as it sounds, as they were art books related to the History of Art course that I might be teaching next year.  Or not.  Who knows?

The same thing goes for the Media Studies course which may or may not exist by the time September comes around.

And how, precisely, are the new computers (tablets?) for the 1ESO going to be used?  How will the time leading up to the IMUN conference be shared?  Am I going to have a Proficiency class this year as I didn’t have 1BXT last?  The wording and the designations may be a little different, but the basic paranoia is the same for all teachers working up their enthusiasm or fear levels which peak at the end of August.

I, however, am not going to think about such things as I have three lots of visitors before the reality of the students impinges on my consciousness.

The Pauls are on their way delayed by hot air balloons and The Red Arrows; such one-upmanship – I always have prosaic delays with planes being in the wrong places!

The Pauls have chosen an evening and a time to arrive when the concerns of all right thinking Catalans are not on a flight from Bristol but rather on a stadium in Madrid where Real Madrid and Barça are to have one of their cataclysmic meetings. 

Toni is not accompanying me to the airport.  He had to stay and watch the television; the team cannot win without his constant support.  He will be wearing a Barça shirt. 

What more can I say?

tonight

Fire!

Our fuegos artificiales (the Spanish is definitely better than the prosaic “fireworks”) lasted precisely 10 short minutes.  Ten minutes of delight!  There are some things that stay with you from childhood and never let you go: fireworks are my memorium pueritiae!

Linked to this fascination has been a long-standing desire to take one, just one, decent photograph of a firework exploding.  Through successive cameras I have tried to persuade myself that I am getting closer to that illusive shot.  On some shameful occasions I have resorted to downright trickery and taken a small detail in a shot and blow it up to make it appear as if the explosion of colour thus captured was a result of careful composition.

Friday’s attempts produced shots which were as inept as anything that I have ever produced.  A triumph for consistency at least!

Never let it be said that I cannot find beauty in perversity; so some of the shots have an almost abstract attractiveness while other shots make it seem that our modest display was something akin to the foundation of the universe.  There are one of two photos where the end result is recognizable as an exploding firework and, while the lines of colour are a little sparse, they show the way to better pictures.

I would not call my efforts a total failure but neither were they the opulent success that I seek.

I struggled to the beach this morning weighed down with a full Lidl fair-trade bag; a new towel; sun lounger and self-inflatable airbed.

I think I can fairly say that when I was finally established on the beach my lounger/airbed/towel combination put me at the “high-end” of the comfort zone – and rightly so.

I am still reading the Kindle copy of The Guardian that I bought days ago: I have even read the Sports section, and even further the cricket reports! This is not healthy.  And I have read precious few real books this holiday as well!

The Family arrived at lunchtime and we had a pollo a last from La Pava: decidedly sub standard and the chips had to be tried to be believed.  The croquettes seemed to have been made with pointedly tasteless sawdust, but the chicken itself was moist and tasty.

As we are well into our Festa Major we went into town in the evening and failed to hear the singing in the main square, as it had not started on time.  To compensate we went for a drink: a small beer and miniscule tapa for €1.30 which is excellent value – but please note that I used the adjective “small” to indicate the amount of beer in the glass.  After god knows how long after the last molecule of beer had finally evaporated from the desiccated glass I decided (alone) to have another.  The rest of the Catalans were quite happy watching the world go by behind an empty glass.  It is unnerving to find people who are so easily satisfied with one paltry drink.  I needed another one just to steady them.  The nerves that is.

Our walk back to the cars was enlivened by my sighting fireworks (!) in the main square and so off I rushed accompanied hand in hand by one of Toni’s nephews.  The poor boy travelled rather faster than he anticipated and also suffered something of a whip-lash effect as I wove my twisty way through the crowds with the hapless child flapping along behind.

When we got to the main square I had to lift the kid up so that he could see.  And I was unable to take photographs!

Luckily his father soon joined us and placed his son on his shoulders and I was able to shoot away at the rapidly vanishing group of revellers who were waving fireworks on sticks at the crowds.

It is a tradition of people to dress up in sacking and, looking exactly like characters from some medieval woodcut prance around with lighted fireworks.  Hardy (or stupid) members of the public are invited to dance with them under the fiery rain of burning sparks.

There is also a dragon.  Each town has its own mythic beast which, bedecked with fireworks, makes its way through the streets burning passing citizens.  This is fun.  Officially.

There is a vague nod towards Health & Safety in the form of procession marshals and some barriers but the whole thing would have been laughed to scorn at the initial planning stage in the UK.  But, as I am so often told, “Remember Stephen, this is not Britain.”

The “firework” setting on my camera was far too sensitive to take pictures at close range and with the incidental lighting from the street lamps and merely produced the sort of white-on-white shots which would have gladdened the heart of any self-respecting Russian Supremacist painter.  Rapidly adjusting the setting I managed to get one or two shots but nothing as good as I got when using my old Canon with the real viewfinder!

Still, two lots of fireworks in two days can’t be all bad.

And Sunday marks the arrival of The Pauls!

To go to the beach (which is at the end of the road) I need to take the following: a portable sun lounger; factor 20 sun lotion; my Kindle; a large (yet never quite large enough) towel; my x-generation i-pod; my mobile phone; an elegant waterproof watch; a hat; my goggles; my ear plugs; my keys; a T-shirt; colourful yet restrained shorts; sandals and money - because, if nothing else, I am my mother’s son and the idea of going absolutely anywhere without money is something which all my maternal training revolts at.  And contact lenses of course.  Thus casually prepared I am ready to hit the sand.  And a camera.  I forgot that.  

I have two photographic aims in life.  The first is to take a decent picture of fireworks and the second, and much more difficult with our irritatingly unruffled sea, is to take a stirring picture of a wave.

I also forget that my mobile phone can take pictures.  But the pixel rating of the mobile phone camera is witheringly low; I am not convinced that my real cameras (note the plural) can take photos at that low a resolution!

Toni is unnecessarily dismissive of the sheer amount of stuff that I need to lay (Oh, and a bathing costume, I forgot to add that to the list) simply and demurely in the sunshine within a stone’s throw of the house.  Well, I like my creature comforts and I know what I need, so there!

Toni is, however also the cause of my probably taking even more “stuff” to the beach.

On a visit to Sitges we went to Lidl (A German supermarket, my lord, where the advantageous prices charged are a brave attempt to get looters to consider paying for their consumer durables rather than acquiring them to the sound of tinkling glass) and he noticed “self-inflating airbeds” which would be easier to carry to the beach and make lying on the sand so much more pleasant.

To me, “self-inflating” would be pretty far along the “against-the-law-of-god” scale.  Anything that useful could not possibly work; and if it did work then the Black Arts would have to be fairly heavily involved.  Surely!

Cheerfully ignoring our moral scruples we bought one each with the stated intention of “taking them straight back if they don’t work” to justify their purchase.

These things come rolled and, unrolled they look like very thin, very flat airbeds.  They have valves on one corner which when turned anti-clockwise produce a very, very subdued whoosh (if such a thing is possible) and very, very gradually the wrinkles on the surface of the “bed” disappear and it magically inflates to its full one and a half inches of comfort for the sleeper.  It does work.

We have worked out that there must be some form of honeycombed foam inside which compressed is without air and when allowed to expand draws in air to fill its structure, air which can be trapped by the turning of a valve.

We haven’t actually tried them out yet, as the instructions state that it is advisable to allow them to lie with the valve open “overnight” to give the foam a chance to expand to its full potential.

I have to be fair and say that I am sure that it is going to be more comfortable stretched out on the “Fun Camp” (sic) self-inflating bed than on a towel directly on the sand.  But the extent that it is better and more comfortable remains to be seen.  So far, we are merely amazed by it doing what its USP indicated!

I think that I will be taking it as well as the sun lounger, thus with all my “stuff” making me appear more like somebody coming to colonize the beach rather than lay on it!  I can always run my patriotic shorts up the flagpole and claim the beach for Wales!

Lunch was in town and in a restaurant which had toasted bread, garlic, tomatoes and aioli on the table.  All of which was charged for in the final bill.  We only had one course because the menu del dia has been suspended because today is the start of our Festa Major or our annual celebrations and fiesta.  One course and a drink and we ended up paying something like €13 each!  Such a rip off – even if our food was excellent!

Significantly at 11.00 pm tonight we have my photographic bête noire, fireworks.  I will, of course, try again and attempt to take a decent picture.  I am at a great disadvantage because my usual approach to seeing fireworks is to gape, open mouthed in wonder and take no photographs at all.  I shall do my best.  And use the new camera which does have a “firework” setting – though in my experience these settings do little or nothing in helping take an adequate photograph.  

Still I am ever the optimist and I always believe that “this time it will be different”.  Bless!

London's . . . . . . . . well, you've finished the phrase!

Try as I might, and I have tried hard, one cannot get away from what has been going on in London.

The Spanish news agencies are revelling in our troubles as it certainly takes attention away from the “economy” which is the term for the sick joke that the Spanish have constructed since the implementation of the euro to deal with financial affairs in this country.  Any attention paid to Spanish Debt or Spanish Unemployment or Inflation or anything to do with the economy and hollow laughter is heard throughout the land!

So the behaviour of Thatcher’s Grand-Children in their all-out dedication to consumerism or die comes as something like light relief for the hard pressed merchants of doom who nightly avoid all of the most pressing economic problems in this country.

Spain’s answer to our Blitz-like riots was a disturbance in Lloret de Mar in which foreign revellers fought with police.  Spanish police should not be confused with British police.  Spanish police come out metaphorically all guns firing.  Indeed, as far as plastic bullets are concerned, literally with all guns firing!

I remember a Spanish television programme about resorts in the night.  In one the police were dealing with one thuggish British boozer when his drunken chavish girlfriend decided to weigh-in and started berating the arresting policeman and bad mouthing him and attempting to drag her boyfriend free.  The policeman’s response was an full open-handed slap across her face.  She behaved and promptly dissolved into sobbing disbelief.

I do not for a moment condone such behaviour by the police – but a small but significant part of me felt a little jump of delight that someone had their justifiable comeuppance!

I was reminded of this occasion when I listened to a BBC recording of an interview of three girls who had participated in the riots.  They were drinking a bottle of rosé (in itself a crime) and voicing their thoughts.  The riot was “good” because it showed that “we can do what we like” and it was justified because it was “against the rich” who were defined as anyone who owned a small local shop or business.

Like the girl just before she was slapped, what one senses is a lack of moral and social responsibility together with an expectation of immunity from the consequences of those faulty actions.

I downloaded a copy of The Guardian to my Kindle today for less than two dollars: I don’t really want the news I want the Guardian comment on the news to comfort me with pseudo convincing sociobabble!

As my knees have still not recovered from the forced march yesterday, I declined to accompany Toni on his stroll along the littoral in search of the elusive black sea glass.

The new lounger encourages lounging in a most satisfactory manner which I did while downloading and then reading the Guardian by the side of the sea.  Such is modern technology!

Keep it coming!