Patience!

OK, I didn’t have the receipt and that was a fault – but I did have my bank book and the exact date on which I purchased the multi-function printer which had refused to print and that should have been sufficient.

I remember with real horror and not a small amount of guilt that I was once shown on a PC World computer the horrific extent of my spending in the store over the years.  I had not realized (it was that long ago!) that firms keep a computer record of what individual customers spend so that they can do their commercial version of Big Brother and show remarkable perspicacity in the way that they target you.

Every purchase that I had made on my cash card was listed in terrible detail.  I therefore expected MediaMarkt to be able to do exactly the same especially when I was able to give the full date etc of the purchase to allow them to find the individual item on their computer system without any problems.

Foolish boy as I was!  I was told that I had to go to the bank and get a stamped authentication of the printed statement in my bank book.  Why?  What in the name of the living god would that add to the information which was already before them?  Nothing.

However, if nothing else, I have learned not to expect to succeed in trying to circumvent Spanish bureaucracy, even when it rears its ugly head in a mere commercial outlet.

I duly went to the bank and emerged much later with a dun coloured photocopy with a stamp and a signature on it – the sort of sheet which makes the little Jobsworths in this country positively wet themselves with administrative ecstasy.

The offending part of the printer is to be sent back to Epsom and god alone knows how long that it going to take.  I mean I have been told that it will take fifteen days, but fifteen days in commercial terms can mean absolutely anything.

On the positive side my first tranche of Olympic stamps first day covers has arrived.  The Philatelic Bureau has taken a certain number of shortcuts to ensure that they have produced the stamps and covers.

The inner stiffening cards of the fdc’s are all the same, they have not taken the opportunity to print details of the individual gold medal winners which was a pity as I had decided to exhibit those together with the fdcs.  However, given the ridiculous time restraints that they had given themselves by printing the stamps to be available the day after the medal had been won, I do understand that they couldn’t do much more.

There are no names on the envelopes and the stamp is not an individual one but a six-stamp miniature sheet which I am sure made it much easier to produce fdcs in bulk.

My thoughts about the success or otherwise of this enterprise can wait until tomorrow as I am still evaluating the individual items.

I am now looking forward to the arrival of the Paralympic stamps which should not be too long in getting here.

As there is no real information in the filler cards I will probably put all the Olympic and Paralympic stamps together in one album.  We shall see.  I have considered getting information from the Internet and making up little biogs of the gold medal winners myself but that may be one geeky effort too far!

It was warm enough for me to lie out a little on the Third Floor this afternoon without feeling that I was doing something extraordinary.  I have noticed however that I am the only man (of my age) still wearing short-sleeved shirts, shorts and sandals!

Toni continues with his racking cough and I await the inevitable transmission of the virus to me.  With the vicious gloating of the ill, Toni snaps his head towards me every time I clear my throat and asks with the faux sympathy which never fails to irritate, “Cough?  Cold?  Sore throat?”

Given one of the symptoms of this perverse virus I feel like echoing the French knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and farting in his general direction!

Tomorrow a little whimsy of mine should be ready for collection.  Something that the visitors next year might wonder about if I can place it somewhere innocuous yet eventually noticeable.

The employment situation is getting more interesting by the minute with more people being involved and consultations taking place at the highest levels.  That is not strictly true but things are getting more, structured, shall I say and that is something which can have unexpected developments.  Watch this space.

My swim this morning was take with one other swimmer, a lady who has a determined crawl, but I am slightly quicker and so I am able to pace myself by giving myself a certain number of lengths to lap her.  There is another lady swimmer who sometimes is in the pool and I have to work like buggery to stop her lapping me.  And still she does.

My instinctive revulsion towards inchoate humans was in evidence yet again as my departure from the pool exactly coincided with the arrival of small noisy persons.  This is getting quite creepy as I do not get out of the pool at a set time because my arrival is not a fixed event.

The most disturbing aspect of swimming in the pool is the parking beneath the trees in the pseudo-car park which exists only during the working week.  Most of the spaces are fairly tightly constrained by the trees and the sometimes slightly inconsiderate parking of other people.  And yes that is meant to be ironic.

The lure of the Open University is beginning to beguile me again, especially as Toni will be doing an IT course in the New Year and I think that we could support each other in an attitude sense during our respective studies.

I have been thwarted in the exact course that I want to do, but there are other standalone courses that I can do while I wait for the one that I want.

Tomorrow I phone up again and find out if I can do a second level course as a stand alone, and if I can I will.

Education continues in one way or another.

Reading is right!

Literature beat exercise today when, rising earlyish this morning, I made an executive decision and set myself down with a cup of tea and made a determined assault on my Kindle novel.

So “The Islands” is now fully read. 

A true phantasmagoria of a novel (an adjective which is emblazoned on the front cover of my copy of Catch-22) a mixture of fantasy, stream of consciousness, literary reference, detective story, political comment and a whole list of other approaches which instead of being a confusing mess actually produces a compelling narrative – even if the narrative is not strictly linear, sequential or indeed sensical!  But enjoyable.

It was interesting to read the author’s thoughts on the publication of the English translation of his original.  Carlos Gamerro noted that the original was one hundred pages shorter than the English translation.  He put down some of the explanation that he put in the Spanish which were entirely unnecessary for the later English version.  He also has been involved in a stage play version of “The Islands” and felt that some of the dramatic innovations were worthy of being incorporated into the English version. 

I like the idea of a constantly evolving novel.  Perhaps I will be able to read the novel again in another ten years on the fortieth anniversary of the loss of Las Malvinas.  Any writer who reminds me of Borges has my vote!

Toni has had a significant day and after an interview it seems that there is a chance of employment – but final decisions are delayed until much later this month.  So fingers crossed for the next three weeks!

A Sunday without fear!

The sunshine today was almost sufficient to dry out the sun lounger cushion that I inadvertently left out in the lashing rain yesterday.  Almost, but not quite.

I suppose that we should be grateful that the vans came around on Saturday and picked up the mounds of pine needles which have accumulated on the streets given the time of the year.  If those had still be on the pavements and in the gutters the rain would have had an even more devastating effect as they block drains and cause more standing water to remain for longer.

The only time that I ventured out on Saturday was to buy something in the late evening and the rain was exacerbated by the fact that some sections of the roads were without street lighting – making driving in driving rain a much more exciting prospect, especially as I was surrounded by people who appeared to driving in bright sunshine.  Very frightening – and I was glad to get home and make my self a comforting cup of tea and settle down with my Kindle!

I was alone, yet again, as I ploughed my lonely furrow in the pool this morning – which is fine by me, but does make me wonder about the financial viability of the centre if things are so poorly supported.  Though as we pay a monthly rate I don’t suppose it matters if people do not get their money’s worth!  I do!

I am now over half way through my Kindle book “The Islands” – it mixes sex, Surrealism and social comment in equal measures and links everything together in a detective story format.  I intend to cut this typing short and get back to it.

Toni has an important day tomorrow and he has to get shot of his present illness in double quick time to ensure that he is at his best.

His rip to Terrassa was to see his nephew play football but the lashing rain meant that the match was cancelled and all her has brought back is a present from sister and nephew in the form of a virus whose symptoms are a sore throat and flatulence.  Ex Africa semper aliquid novi – as someone said in different circumstances! 

Unfair and unreasonable!

I do relish the feeling of accomplishment that comes with doing something which takes very little effort.

Effort is what it took to get up early on a Saturday morning – though the intrusive rumble of Berlin Airlift numbers of planes swooping low and loud over my bed, together with morning boy racers who use our one way road as part of an F1 circuit, and not forgetting (what would we do without them) the crack of dawn squad that empties our bins by squealing to a halt to clank up the bins and then squeal off – all of that did make it somewhat easier to rise from my bed!

The water in the pool is getting progressively cooler.  I don’t mean the communal one in the garden; god knows what temperature that is now, but rather the one which is supposed to be heated.  At the moment it might be described as “refreshing” – which means that most of my whimpish friends would refused to put even a toe into the water.  I just wonder what the temperature is going to be like when the outside temperatures are much less congenial than they are at the moment.

And the rain.  We must have had the total of the last three month’s rainfall over a single day.  The full fury of the storm waited for me to finish my swim and then, as I made my way to the car, the heavens truly opened.

Things always look so depressing in the grey light of a rainy day that I was disinclined to sit under sodden trees and have my customary cup of tea and decided to go home directly and promptly took the wrong turning.

And this, if you have been thinking about the opening thought, is where I achieved something.  Not much but something.

Most people have something which they say they are going to do and somehow never quite get round to it.  It may be visiting the Grand Canyon or learning Spanish or writing their novel or reading Paradise Lost; something life changing or challenging – something.

I have one thing: visiting the Church (if it is a church) on the hill above St Boi.  Attempted this summer and failed miserably as no roads appear to lead there.

However Toni and I have a joint something – which is visiting a hotel that we keep passing and saying we must pop in and have a cup of coffee.  We have been doing this for years and the car has never slowed down.

Until today.

In the pouring rain I suddenly had an impulse of achievement, found a parking place and with trusty RSC umbrella fully unfurled I went in for a hot drink.

I’m not sure what is going on in Castelldefels at the moment but the serving area of the place was filled with what I took to be residents having their breakfasts.  Which, if nothing else, shows you how early I was having my swim.

Having stomped in through the tempest I felt that I had to stay and so enquired about having breakfast myself.

And good value it was too.  I took mine on a sort of terrace protected from the lashing rain and ate my way through what passes for breakfast in foreign lands and had two cups of strong tea while reading my mobile phone in a final attempt to finish the interminable sci-fi story that has been a sort of descant to my life for far too long.

I even got fifty cents off the breakfast because the lady in charge couldn’t be bothered to find change.  A good start to a day.

Which has also seen me finish the mobile phone book and I can now concentrate on getting the other one on the Kindle read as well.

There has been precious little else to do given the unreasonable amount of precipitation today.

Tomorrow is forecast as being somewhat better and Monday better still.  It better!