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!