Always something new!

The inaugural trip of The Beast was successfully undertaken this morning.  I do not count the tripette to pick up Brian and Hilary yesterday evening minutes after I had taken delivery of The Beast and was a little less than confident about how the thing worked.

At least I can feel smug as I drive along because, not only am I saving money, but also I am helping the environment.  In the sense that I am not as polluting as the other cars and my carbon dioxide emissions are not as great.  So, to be exact I should probably say that my damage to the environment is not quite as much as others who speed past me and who do not have a hybrid engine or whatever it is that I have.

Having such an engine means that one can turn ignition on (or press a button in my case) and have the car leap into action in total silence.  One pulls away from the curb in a quite sinister lack of noise sort of way, and it can only be a matter of time before some unsuspecting pedestrian is mowed down by the Silent Avenger.

For the first time in my life I now possess an automatic – but there seem to be just as many options for driving The Beast than if it were manual.  The actual gear lever is simple: forward and reverse; but there is an extra setting for going down hills.  The actual drive forward has three options of total electric, eco drive and power drive – all achieved by pressing a handily located button. 

There are two brakes: one conventional and the other another button. 

Reverse, unsettlingly, has a beep like a reversing lorry and there are sounds the car makes which I am not used to in my normal driving.

All these things will appear normal and ordinary in a couple of days and I will have lost my fascination with the little illuminated picture on the dashboard which shows whether the petrol engine or electric motor is powering the car at each moment!

As with all new cars nowadays there is a continuing process of discovery as for example a questing finger unleashes a cup holder provoking it to lurch forward from the dashboard.  My mobile is now connected (allegedly) to the GPS and my automatic road toll payer is now established firmly on the windshield.

The most importantly (with Toni’s help) I have managed to link my iPod to the music system of the car and, at last, my full music library will become available to make the minutes stuck on the motorway in the mornings a little more endurable.

The pure mechanics are becoming a little easier with the difficulties in a fully automatic car being more in my expectations than in any hard to acquire techniques.  My hand still searches for the ghostly gear lever and my left foot seeks for a clutch which is not there; driving is a fully existential experience at the moment!

I must admit that I am enjoying driving at the moment and the linking up of the music system is about to make it much better.  It is good to have something to think about as you watch colleagues unravelling around you.

Please let me not give the impression that the cloth of my character remains unfrayed.  At this stage of the term adjectives like washed out, shabby, shredded and patched seem more appropriate metaphors to describe how I feel in what appears to be an unbearably, unendingly inexorable period of time that we have to stay before we are given time off for good behaviour.

Before we get to the Easter holidays we have the Meeting Which Dare Not State Its Day, to be followed in a sort of encore which Edgar Allan Poe would have been proud to drag from his diseased imagination of two consecutive days of after school meetings of the sort of pointlessness that makes a concept like “vacuous” seem positively crowded.

Today saw external examiners from the Cambridge examination board come and give our kids their oral examinations.  We are actively preparing for the next set of examinations, so that we can enter the next set of figures which seem to have a totemic significance for the powers that we, which is just as well because they have bloody little significance for anyone else!

Still, begone fond thoughts of education, and welcome thoughts about new gadgets which might be found in the car.

Another trip to school tomorrow and who knows what I might discover – and all to the music of an eclectic collection of music being played tune by tune in astonishing juxtapositions.

Times are changing

In the slightly pathetic way that one scrabbles around for the positive, I positively assert that it is getting lighter in the mornings when I am ready to leave.  I am still getting up in darkness, but it is undeniably lighter when I get to the car.  This means that it is getting nearer to the summer, and in the spirit of warm (nay hot) days I have now put on my first short-sleeved shirt, having discarded my unnatural wearing of jumpers, as a gesture of belief in long sunny days.  Roll on summer.

However, we have not yet got to the Easter holidays and the end of June seems a very long way away.  We have eight and a half working days to our long weekend; and the half day has already been reported to the International Court of Human Justice in the Hague – but enough of that, I swore that I would forbear to mention The Horror until the Day itself.  Then after we resume school after our long weekend, it is another nine working days to the Easter Holidays.  Then, after that brief respite, it is an altogether unbearable 49 working days to the end of the course for the pupils.  Not the end of the year for teachers, mind you!  That is another date entirely.  Sigh.

Another night out with Brian and another night of frustration as places chosen as suitable for eating were ruled out because of their ostentatiously closed doors.  We ended up in a beachside Argentine restaurant which, bless it, provided the necessary steaks and pepper sauce which made our visitors squirm with pleasure.

My own spaghetti had a distinctly odd flavour though it certainly was not unpleasant.

Toni did not join us for our repast as he felt that his presence was essential in front of the television watching Barça trounce some foreign team with Messi getting five goals.  The game was playing in the restaurant but alas the television screen was too distant to make out what exactly was happening.

An excellent visit is now over and the obligation is now on our making the voyage south to repay hospitality.

And I have bought a new car.

At least there's chocolate!

The six period day is over. 

Eleven lessons have already been taught this week.  And it’s only Tuesday.  And even more horrifically than that, having wound the lead around the plug for my computer I then left it at home. 

In school without a computer!  The horror! 

On the positive side I did gain a free period during which I started doing some marking, until I found out that I was actually doing somebody else’s!  It does pay to look at the names on the papers that you mark on automatic once you have started the mill going!

I did carry on marking until the tedium got to me and I attempted to get to terms with something else which was far more stimulating.  And then back to the marking.  Which I did complete, so at least I will have the latest results ready for the next meeting. 

I wonder when that is.  I wonder.

And Chocolate Week (incorporating cakes) continues with members of staff shamed into contributing their own offerings to extend a week into a fortnight.  

I hope.

Positive out of negation

My anger over the Saturday pointless meeting ignited spontaneously as soon as I set foot inside the staffroom this morning, more from the quiescence of my colleagues than the absurd imposition of the meeting on such a day in the first place.

The ethos of this place, such as it is, seems to invite total acceptance of one’s lot, with not even the token grumbling which is a healthy sign that members of staff have at least some resistance to the dictates of management.

The meetings qua meetings are bad enough, but when these impositions take up a healthy chunk of a sacrosanct weekend they are truly intolerable.  Except we will tolerate them and I, at least, will feel ashamed that I am knuckling under to what seems to be a malicious gesture of professional contempt.

Right.  That’s it.  I am going to spend the rest of the day moaning and then I am going to shut up.  As indeed I will on the Saturday when a stony faced silence is all that management can expect from me!

I suppose that I should have expected it after the cloudy and dull afternoon that we had yesterday, but this morning dawned bright and sunny with flawlessly blue skies.  So I am sitting typing this with my back to the view with the sunshine streaming around me but, apart from the heat on my back, I can ignore the bright invitation to leave the glumness of the school and return to the spaciousness of Castelldefels and the endless beach and the sea.

It is now that I need to think about the day totals that we have to work until various key holidays and we are even getting to the stage when it is allowable to work out the exact number of days to the end of the school year.  Again.

Today or tomorrow we should hear from Brian about his arrival in Castelldefels and we will have to work out which of the many restaurants in our town is the most suitable for our celebration.  I am tempted to return to El Elefant because that one allows for spicy (which I know he likes) and traditional-ish Spanish which will cover everyone else!

As his visit may cover a few days we will have to have a range of restaurants ready to cater to a variety of tastes!  What fun!

Well, Brian arrived and we started in the Basque restaurant and laced our conversation with Basque wine and an excellent selection of pinchos.  A delightful evening when we were able to catch up on a whole range of news.  We look forward to the next episode on Wednesday when we will go out for another meal!

Today has been remarkable for the fact that, due to an unexpected free I was able to get down to some creative work and do something that I actually enjoyed.  I managed to squeeze in some stimulating work in the middle of my marking which I was able to delay while I waited for confirmation of my mark for a piece of work which would then provide the clear indicator for the level of the other pieces of written work that I have to mark.  This is not an overwhelming amount of work to get through, but I don’t think it is going to be completed tomorrow when I have six periods to teach and therefore a limited amount of free time!  To put it mildly!

Chocolate Week (incorporating cakes) continues apace with two teachers contributing delights today.  A home made sausage like construction with nuts, biscuit and a delicious amount of chocolate was a huge success and a more delicate cake direct from France was equally appreciated.  And I hope that we can look forward to more!

Now to get some rest so that I can get through a hard day.

Anticipation officially starts.

A fine morning but a mediocre afternoon.  Luckily the cleaning of the Third Floor took place in bright sunshine and, for the first time this winter/spring I shed my jeans for a pair of shorts.  (Though I have to say that

As is typical for a sunny weekend, the entire population of Barcelona (and surrounding districts) to come to Castelldefels and leave their city ways of driving and parking at the town boundaries and revert to a far more feral mode of motoring.  Doing a little light shopping before the purchase of lunch for our usual barbecue place was the perfect way to undergo the baptism of fire on the roads!

A modicum of order has been imposed on the terrace of the Third Floor and even the adjoining room has visible patches of floor space!  Tidying up can go little further than that!

The week to come has been poisoned by the fact that we are going to have one of our almost completely pointless meetings.  On Saturday.  Why we are having it on Saturday is beyond my comprehension.  And why the teachers are allowing the management to suggest, let alone actually have this meeting on a weekend is truly beyond belief. 

I have tried suggesting to colleagues that they ask the requisite members of staff to change the absurd day but they have been less than enthusiastic than I would have liked, so I spoke to the head of the appropriate section of the school and his response was one of exasperation.  He agreed with me that it was not a good day to have the meeting, but suggested that, in spite of his representations, the management were insistent that it be kept on the Saturday.  Why?  No answer.

As far as I can tell, all the work for this meeting will have been done before it.  Comments will have been sent to tutors electronically.  Marks will have been entered electronically.  We then waste time looking at projections of what we have done and decide nothing.  A complete waste of time.  In a meeting which does not stick to timetables and one which never has an agenda.  Unprofessional rubbish.  On a Saturday.  Un-bloody-believable!

To keep myself sane I have worked out that there are ten working days to our “long weekend” when we have a Monday off.  There are nineteen days to our next proper holiday at Easter and then I did not have the courage to work out the number of working days to the end of the year. 

It is sort-of true that as soon as we are into the summer term there is a perceptible running-down of things, and we do finish the course for the kids a week before the end of term.  And then I am off to France.

This is how one gets through a year: working one’s way slowly from event to even to retain one’s sanity.

I am looking forward to seeing Brian, that will give the beginning of the week a boost.  And perhaps make me forget the crime which is waiting to be perpetrated at the end of the week!

Ah well.

A fine day

A three hour lie-in is such a luxury, eventually getting up at 9.30 am to make myself my first cup of tea at such a late hour!

The real luxury of course is settling down with the “late” cup of tea and immersing myself in my electronic copy of The Guardian.  It reminds me of my more intense days, years ago, when I read The Guardian (in its newsprint form) with a sort of air of defiant liberalism feeling myself part of a small, select community of right thinking people whose main job was to worry about people in the world who were not doing the right things.  Like reading The Guardian!

I could easily get used to a rather more spacious approach to living than getting up at 6.30 am and throwing myself onto a series of major motorways to get to an educational institution on a hill, albeit with spectacular views of the city.

Lunch was a return visit to a restaurant near the railway station on the beach which we quite liked when we visited it for the first time a few months ago.  This was the Marisqueria Casa Gallega situated on the Avda. Republica Argentina.

We had the same starter of pulpo which was unusual for a menu del dia as it is far more expensive than the usual starter.  It was reasonable, but I have tasted far better. 

My second course of paella was delicious and Toni struggled with his, which was a Spanish version of a mixed grill with a truly obscene amount of meat on his plate! 

It was the sweet which brought us back to reality and was easily the least impressive part of the meal.  Indeed I had a café solo to take away the cloying taste of the ersatz strawberry and cream confection presented to me. 

Overall though, excellent value, with wine, bread and a selection of olives included, though the service could and should be quicker.

We are, at present, going through a rather traumatic game of Barça.  The guys went in after the second half with a one goal advantage.  They came out for the second half and within a minute Piqué was sent off.  That, in itself is bad enough, but it is much, much worse when you are sitting near a thoroughly paranoid Barça supporter who is convinced that all the referees in Spain are out to ensure the league victory of The Team in White. 

At the moment the Barça coach is coming in for a fair amount of stick from the critic on the couch, not only for his choice of team to start the game, but also for his lack of decision in changing the arrangement of players now that Piqué has gone.

Even I know that a draw at this stage of the league is a disaster given the number of points that they have to make up to be in anything like real contention at the end of the season. 

Sometimes it almost sounds like I care, doesn’t it!

Tomorrow is a day to which I am not looking forward as Toni has decreed that it will spent making the house presentable for the visit of Brian which entails Great Cleaning and even more momentous tidying. 

If our visitors are to be shown our sea view they will have to go to the Third Floor and to get to that they will have to go through the room which, at present is not exactly presentable.

The room is also subject to the “quart in a pint pot” syndrome and I think that the tidying is going to be more along the lines of rearrangement than anything else.  But at least the path to the doors which lead out onto the terrace should be cleared!

Barça (with ten men) have now scored twice more so the score is 3-1 to us and there is only a minute of normal time left.  Although, to chime in with the conspiracy ethos which reigns in this house, the injury time allowance will be unduly high to allow the opponents of Barça to try and salvage something from the ruins of their hopes!

However, in the end, we are now only (!) 7 points adrift and The Team in White have some very difficult games ahead of them before they meet Barça – at home in Barcelona. 

It will make for a very interesting end to the season.

Would you believe it?

Never let it be said that I was ever a champion of banks, but credit where credit is due my bank has actually done something in 20% of the time that they threatened to take over doing it!  Admittedly the task that they had to complete could be (and was) actually accomplished in an electronic faction of a second, but the fact that I, a mere customer had the results within a day was truly amazing.

This feeling of puppy-like warmth towards the banking system lasted but moments as I was confronted with a possible €500 charge for transferring money!  My yelp of infuriated disbelief was quickly covered by garbled assurances that there were other ways to complete this transaction.  One of the other ways was The Writing of a Cheque.  I capitalize it because I am not considered a right and fit person to have a cheque book of my own.  You know, that cheque book that one had as a student but in Spain is served exclusively for bank managers!

The cheque (to be written by the bank manager) had a charge of €60 – which was €440 more reasonable than the other method.  Another yelp of outrage and a quick reassurance from my manager that the charge had, for some reason obviously not connected to customer satisfaction, been reduced to a mere, a paltry, an insignificant €5.  One thinks instinctively of the great humanitarians of the past trying to find an equivalent for such generosity.  Five quid for a bloody signature when I have written my own cheques for ten times as much for nothing!  And bankers wonder why they are hated with a bone-deep loathing!

I have a vague sense of unease that I should be going to a test at my doctor’s medical centre and I do know that I have lost the small scrap of paper which informed me of the appointment, but a phone call to the centre did not illuminate my future meetings so I am rather at a loss.  I fear that I will have to call the doctor and find out exactly when I am supposed to turn up.  As he threatened a somewhat invasive procedure to liven up our next meeting I am less than enthusiastic to be in contact with him and afford him any opportunities!

Last night Brian phoned and informed me that he is going to be in Barcelona early next week.  It will be another case of odd juxtapositions as somebody who is clearly associated with Cardiff is suddenly out and about in Castelldefels.  There is always a sense of transferred dislocation when people are seen in different locations from all the ones which link to your memory of them.  Most enjoyable!

In the happenstance that is Chocolate Week, one of the major participants was ill today but, as luck would have it, another unexpected player entered the game and produced some “low fat” (sic) chocolate crispies made with Special K and sugar reduced chocolate.  Allegedly.  I don’t really care, as they taste dangerously wicked which gives me enough energy to continue until my final lesson.

I have gained a free period which, of course, has been promptly lost by my having to substitute for someone who is taking what would have been my class, which has been amalgamated into one large amorphous mass for the purposes of yet further examinations!  The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.  The only thing you get for nothing in this school is, as usual, nothing.

I have spent virtually the whole of the lesson (which was a supervisory lesson for studying) talking about the First World War and trying to explain what the War of Attrition of 1917 was all about.  Well, it was better than trying to get some sense of order into the class to get them to study.  I have to admit that I am impressed by the fact that many of the kids in this class gave up the chance to watch a film (admittedly in French) so that they could get more acquainted with their books.

If I am a little more realistic then I would suggest that the so-called “study period” that they are being allowed is the whole of the time that they have set aside for the revision of the exam.  As one child admitted to be after a particularly poor performance in the exam he had just taken, “I did 15 minutes of revision.”  Which I sometimes think is par for the course given the number and frequency of exams that these kids have to take.

Still, when this lesson is over my day is largely done with only two other lessons to complete; one of which is a reading lesson and the other a discussion period in which I am not the main speaker.  Well, that is something which I attempt, but it doesn’t always end up like that!

Yet another glorious day.  We are just about at the stage where there are going to be serious problems in the summer if we do not get the rains at this time of the year.  I do not give a toss about that, I am merely rejoicing in the continued absence of rain.  True, being stuck inside is rather frustrating – but we have had to put the shutters down to restrict the sunlight and that in itself is a delight!

One of my two classes has changed itself into another supervision and I now have four lies of kids in front of me working away at an examination paper on Modern World Science: well, it’s better than teaching!  That leaves just lunch and one class left and the weekend can start!

Chocolate Triumph!

Vast acres of space have now been released in the fridge because the Mighty Triple Chocolate Cake has now been relocated (“brought” seems far too inadequate a verb for such a transition) to the school and, uneaten, the awe-inspiring majesty of the display of sheer calorific excess has excited general incoherence.

It was difficult enough getting it out of its spring-form tin but, with the help of a colleague, this was eventually managed.  I had used a small plastic coffee stirrer to loosen the top surface and licking that when the removal was complete was an almost overwhelming taste experience – so god alone knows what eating an actual slice is going to be like!

At the moment colleagues are arriving and shying away from the cake like startled horses and, of course, no one has had the courage (or probably at this time in the morning, the inclination) to cut such a masterpiece and eat some of it.

In all honesty I cannot say that the chocolate dragon picked out in little mini spaghetti pieces is 100% successful, but the general idea is clear and it adds that final point of calorific overkill (I use the word advisedly) that makes the experience all the more unbearable – in a good sense!

Today, Thursday, the banks actually deign to open at a time when ordinary workers might have an opportunity to get to them, so I am making something of a regular pilgrimage to my branch to pick up my replacement bank card to replace the one which has decided to find a different owner.  I am also going to ask for a cheque book.  That should be interesting as cheque books here are things which are not normally given to average bank customers.  The only time that I have written a cheque in this country I had to get it written and signed by the manager and, knowing BBVA (aka The Worst Bank in the World) I probably paid through the nose for it as well.  It will be interesting to see the reaction of my newish bank to such an outré request!

The cake continues to impress with many requests for the recipe and it has been joined by some superlative Chocolate Brownies made by a colleague a day before she had planned to do so, having been caught up in the frenzy of creation which is the be all and end all of Chocolate Week.

I must admit I have my mind on more financially mundane things linked to my forthcoming trip to the bank while realising that I really do not have the requisite vocabulary to make the visit a linguistically (or financially) satisfying event.  But it will be stimulating as, yet again; I am understood in spite of my obvious disadvantages.  I remain a perpetual enigma to Toni as he listens to my Spanish and wonders how the hell I get things done in a language I self-evidently don’t speak! 

Thank god for non-verbal communication!

All plans fail!

I am in a foreign country!

It is the smaller things that tell me so.

Yesterday I attempted to buy marzipan.  Ah yes, you who are older and wiser may smile at my simple minded optimism that such an exotic commodity could be found in what is, after all, an exotic country.  I went to three supermarkets of increasing magnitude asking for marzipan and was met with barely concealed astonishment that I could find it in myself to ask for such an obscure item!

This means of course that my Plan B for my triple chocolate cake is now almost officially dead and I will have to think of Plan C and probably Plan D – or Plan E, which is to avoid all the other plans and do without what I was thinking of in the first place.  That one looks increasingly likely!

My first impulse on being frustrated in something that I want is to spend money.  Which is what I did yesterday; not only then and there but potentially as well.  Ah well, I am not one to deny the therapeutic value of commercial activity!  And at least with this particular purchase I can say that I am actually saving money in the long run.  The very long run!

Though, I am reminded of a comment by my accountant (ah, happy memories when such a thing was even a partial necessity!) who told me in no uncertain terms that, “You should not spend money to save money!”  Sound advice, which I have systematically ignored throughout my life, using the tissue-thin excuse of saving money to justify all sorts of expenses.  It works for me!

We are, amazingly, gearing ourselves up for another round of examinations.  Why we are doing this, even given the warped logic of this school, I know not.  A picture of a typical student from our place would be a child clutching a sheaf of notes being ardently scanned (the notes not the child) and wandering aimlessly among other similarly desolate young humans!

I have given up trying to find marzipan.  I have visited my last supermarket in the search and am fed up with being met by frank disbelief that I should be trying to buy some at this time of the year.  At least in this place they made an attempt to look for it, even though they had told me it didn’t exist!

So I bought a half price garlic crusher instead.  And a spare single cup coffee plunger thingie.  And a half price special tea thingie which a special button which drops the tea into the container.  I know that isn’t well explained, but take my word for it that it qualifies as a sort of gadget and that makes me happy!

Tomorrow the cake and now the final touch with the umpteenth plan just about to be put into effect.

Sweet and sour

The second day of Chocolate Week started with a scare: the non appearance of the colleague from the UK bearing M&S goodies.  The fact that another colleague had seen fit to enter into the spirit of the occasion by placing a bar of Lindt chocolate in each staff room was a bonus, but did not compensate for the apparent loss of deliciousness from that fabled store.

We needn’t have worried, just as we were consoling ourselves with a morsel of first rate chocolate the two small barrels of delight arrived and the week picked up a gear!

The weather is so fine that I have discarded my jumper and rolled the sleeves of my shirt up.  This is a statement.  Probably more to do with my longing for the summer holidays than anything else, but I really am longing for those lazy days lounging in the sun on the Third Floor.

The Third Floor!  It hardly exists in our house at the moment except as a place of doom and destruction where, in the absolute chaos of things, just one thing that you want but cannot find might, just might be lying around to the common gaze.  Of course it isn’t, and that is why the Third Floor is a place of painful reflection and uneasy existence at the moment. 

But come something more nearly approaching the summer and much of the lumber which takes up substantial space (like cushions for loungers) will be in their proper place on the terrace and there will be space to look around.  There is also the arrival of guests who enjoy the terrace and we would like them to have serene thoughts as they have a drink outside rather than gulp it down as an antidote to the trauma after making their way through a grotesque Curiosity Shop of possessions!

As is usual I make my annual profession that this year I truly will rationalize my books; put my books in a rational order; clear certain impossible cupboards in the kitchen; visit the small church on the top of the hill in Sant Boi and get rid of some of the clothing which I have not worn for a couple of years.  I do so swear!  We will see.

The opera last night was difficult.  Not the production, but simply getting there.  And of course I was not incommoded by something as mundane as a traffic jam.

My bank card is missing.  This happens periodically and I have learned (or I thought that I had learned) to cope with it.  I have been extraordinarily lucky and for each loss (which is usually the card being mislaid) I have suffered no diminution in my funds.  So, it was the same this time.  A wild panic when I discovered the loss and then a nervous trip to the bank to push my bankbook into the slot to find out if the card had been used since my last remembered transaction.

The next problem is to get to the bank to have my card as the replacement is sent to the local branch and I never get time to go there; their opening times being restricted to part of the working day for other people.  I can still get money by using my bank book as a card and so everything is almost normal.

It was only when I tried to pay for spices that I had bought in the market in the centre of Barcelona that I realized that I did not have enough cash to pay for the car to get out of the car park at the end of the opera.  As I had driven in directly from school, and as I realized fairly early in my time in Barcelona that I was without my card there was, theoretically, time for me to go home, get my bank book, get cash, drive back into Barcelona and, eventually, go to the opera.

I got back home without incident, endured the withering scorn of Toni and set off again armed with my bank book.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when a man is in urgent need of swift cash from a hole in the wall, the person on the machine in front of you will be attempting to finance a take over of a major multi-national from that particular cash machine.  The man in front used more cards, produced more sheets of printed paper from the machine and paused, checked, computed, consulted and computed again before he finally left the booth.

I took as usual a few seconds and I was off.

I had an hour and a quarter to travel a distance which at any other time of the day than 6.45 pm would take less than twenty minutes.  The snarling knotted snake of a road that is the Ronda littoral was my bête noire.  I have been stuck in this elongated car park weeping with frustration and banging the wheel a number of times and, on one occasion, I was ushered into a small viewing theatre in the Liceu because I was too late to be admitted to the performance.  I therefore had no lively hope that I would get there for the start of the production.

The first part of the journey was deceptively easy with traffic flowing with relative smoothness.  I was not beguiled by this and knew that it was only when I joined the coast hugging motorway that my real problems would begin.

As a way of dealing with the inevitable stress that this road induces I have worked out a system whereby I can find out if I am “doing well” before the traffic stops moving.

The first point of stress release is when the car makes it to a point parallel to the first piece of rising ground that forms the lowest slope of Montjuic; the second point is a particular sign for something I do not understand and the third is being opposite the burial vaults on the hillside.  I made it to the third of these at cruising speed and then stopped.  At that point, going on past experience, however bad the traffic was, it was likely that I was going to make it.

And make it I did with time to spare.  So much time in fact that I decided to have a meal.  A cheap meal of tapas, pizza and ice cream was overshadowed by a half (½) bottle of wine that was 150% the price of the meal!  It was on The Ramblas and I was expecting a tourist rip-off but even I was taken in by the English speaking suavity of the waiter.

I was so shocked at the price of the wine that I lost a little of my sense of time and I had to rush towards the Liceu to get there before the performance started.  I only just made it, I had barely taken off my coat when the curtain went up.

The opening moments of the production perhaps sum it up.  The curtain rose on a traditional evocation of the garret of the Bohemians, but the music only started when one of the characters wound up an old fashioned record player and put the needle on the record.  A gimmick and rather pointless.

The first notes from Rodolfo (Ramón Vargas) were disappointing; a fairly rounded voice, straining in the upper register but woefully inadequate in terms of fullness.  Although I admired his voice it was not the voice of Rodolfo and it never became that voice either – most tellingly at the very end of the opera when the emotional kick was far less than I was hoping for.

The set was impressive.  And it is telling that this is the element of the opera I am choosing to comment on after the two principals.  The garret was impressive and atmospheric and at the end of the scene, instead of the duet of voices being heard “downstairs” the two singers moved front downstage and were in a spotlight while darkness descended.  During the darkness the whole of the garret was trucked out of the wings stage left and the Café Momus came downstage.  Lights up and the whole of the chorus with kids were frozen for an old fashioned box camera with phosphorus flash.

The scene itself was “busy” beyond belief: a tightrope walker; two jugglers; two stilts walkers; the whole chorus; a children’s chorus – and an impressive set in which the singing principals were lost.  There was another coup de theatre when the edge of the Café Momus was trucked from stage right to fill the stage.  Impressive, but empty.

The gate of Paris scene was atmospheric with barrels of real fire and Christopher Maltman as Marcello – a magisterial performance, and nice to see him again after his fantastic performances in Cardiff Singer of the World, which is when I saw him last.

I warmed up to the performance of Fiorenza Cedolins as Mimi, but she was not my idea of the character and the final scene lacked the magic that I wanted to experience.

For me there was always a feeling that the production did not trust in the power of the music, music which was played superbly by the orchestra under Victor Pablo Pérez.

A production with ideas but in spite of the gaudy dressing lacking the power that this piece deserves.

Another production to store in the memory banks.

And a quick trip back home with no traffic jams.

Roll on the next one!

What a way to start a week!

Chocolate Week has arrived and was greeted with admiration and smacking of lips as my calorie-stuffed chocolate brownies had the colleague taste test.  I had to reiterate the absolute golden fact that what they were eating was so low in calories to be virtually calorie free.  Tell people what they want to hear and they will follow you to the end of the earth – or at least until the cakes have run out.

So a success.  I now have to build up to my piece de resistance (I can’t be bothered about the accents; if Word can’t correct far be it from me to interfere) and in the desperate search for yet another Internet web site to give me the simple recipe for fondant icing I chanced upon something which may well be a solution to my difficulties.  Marzipan!  Not only do I prefer it to icing but also it is easily rollable and can (if I understood the instructions from our resident Catalan cake and biscuit maker) take the necessary red food colouring to add the final note of horror to the finished triple chocolate monstrosity I have created.  I can hardly wait.

As I am going to the opera this evening to have a good cry, I could perhaps precede the waterworks with a productive visit to the market in which everything I can possibly want exists.  God alone knows what these things are called in Catalan or Spanish and I am far too indolent to look them up and have too much of a laissez faire attitude to actually remember the words even if I stumble across them.  I rely, as always on good luck and bad Spanish to get what I want.  I can’t wait to see what I pull out of the linguistic bag to try and mind mustard seeds for the Jamie Oliver lemon pickle that I am still waiting to make when I finally get all the necessary ingredients together.

The last period of the day is me stuck in front of my recalcitrant class of Year 9 kids with a resentful few of an absent colleague’s kids there as well.  Although I don’t blame them really as they have been being educated since 8.15 this morning they were restless and unsettled and difficult to get into their appointed seats and get down to the task of formal letter writing that they knew that they had to complete this afternoon.  Most of them already have notes that they made last Friday and so this should be a compilation exercise for them and a chore rather than something which needs their active imagination. 

How I used to hate things like that myself!  History questions like “Why did Britain lose the American War of Independence?” and “Why was Mary Tudor unpopular?” seemed to be set for us endlessly.  That was especially so with the latter question which followed me (in the exact wording) from “O” Level through “A” Level to First Year University.  What a paucity if imagination on the part of the examiners that showed!  Thank god!

This is the last tedious lesson of the day and, although I sympathise with them for the length of their ridiculous time in school I also have to think of myself and demand that their behaviour is unnaturally good.  I, after all, am a much more expensive resource that they and consequently must be protected with more care than a mere child.  So they work in silence – and it says something for the mark related work ethic of the school that they are doing just that at the moment.

This will last until they have completed the last word in their exercise when their pent up activity will express itself in a barely containable chattiness.  Although not as vicious as their British counterparts, they are natural chatterers and, as the day does not give them enough time for their natural conversation they always talk over each other when they have the opportunity to do so. 

To a British teacher they never seem to listen to each other, so intent are they on giving word to what ever fleeting thought brushes their brains: no sooner a neural impulse than the vocal chords are humming with activity in response.  It is a great pity that the ear drums of the pupils are not as sensitive! 

It is impossible with these kids to get an entire class to understand what they need to do by the simple “Triple Repetition” rule.  Repeating something only three times merely ensures that you have the better students able to understand what they have to do.  The underclass will merely look at you with touchingly innocent faces when you enquire why they are not doing what you told them to do!

Tomorrow the Second Day of Chocolate Week sees our absent colleague return from the UK bearing tasty gifts from M&S. 

That at least will take away some of the pain of an over crowded day.