More sun!

Here in Castelldefels we have been afflicted over the past few days with the Five O’clock Cloud Syndrome.

This refers to the continent sized cloud which appears at the stated time each afternoon in an otherwise flawlessly blue sky and blocks the sun’s rays to the terrace of The Third Floor.  Having established its presence it then breaks up into an archipelago of island sized clumps which then taunt the sun seeker by giving a brief glimpse of the burning star and then hiding its light as another island, trailing a foam of hazy rolling breakers, sweep into place to block the vitamin giving rays.

At least here in Catalonia the cloud does move and not, as I remember from my youth, stubbornly stay in place vindictively keeping you in shadow while taunting you with the view of unlimited sunshine everywhere but where you were.  Or was that merely the view of a jaundiced, very young sandcastle builder, I wonder!

This is the last day of what was laughingly called our Easter Holiday.  The “holiday” consisted of seven working days of which two were Bank Holidays, so the school has actually allowed just five working days for the “holiday”.  I am not sure what that shows, but I think it demonstrates a woeful lack of rest time for hard working teachers.  I am just glad that I did not realize on the Friday afternoon of the start of the Easter “holiday” period that the time off was so limited.  The way of ignorance kept me blissfully ignorant of my lack of space while I enjoyed a specious spaciousness of apparent freedom!  Sometimes ignorance is the only thing that keeps us sane!

After being told that our OU work would be returned to us “at some time” during the weekend one of my fellow tutees wrote in a guileless question on one of the Forums asking if she had been overlooked for the return of the material.  Our tutor has responded by saying that the work will be returned in two batches of which the first will be up “soon”. 

She should realize that she is not dealing with happy-go-lucky students in the relaxed environment of a university but crazed monomaniacs who centre part of their paranoia on responses from distant academics!  She is living dangerously – though I have to admit that we who live in the far flung parts of continental Europe are hardly likely to make the trip to the North of England to confront her! 

Still, I too would like my work back so that the part of the course which takes in TMAs can be safely put aside and I can concentrate on the forthcoming examination.

The miserable rituals of professional preparation are now complete: my shoes are polished; my shirts set out; shocks and pants are checked; trousers are hanging; my Munch tie is ready to be worn and the bloody alarm is set.

The onset of Summer Time means that I will be getting up in the dark again, but each new day should be that little bit lighter than the last and waking up to the light means that the end of term is drawing inexorably closer. 

And we all know what that means.

In spite of widespread scepticism, I am determined to turn my back on full-time education for ever and look towards the shining example of my Uncle Eric who, as I never tire of telling people, has now been retired for longer than he was teaching!  Sigh of unmixed admiration!

At least I have got my proper glasses back.  A telephone call at quarter to eight in the evening informed me that the glasses had been returned to the optician in Sitges – and I was also informed that the shop closed at eight-thirty.  Needless to say I immediately sprang to the car and retrieved my glasses well within the opening time.

The replacement of the very thin arm which had snapped cost €75!  Dear god!  Yet again I realise that I chose the wrong profession.

Talking of which – time for bed, because I have to get up so early in the morning.  For a whole day (!) of work.

Roll on the weekend.

Memory lasts

A short visit from old friends gives living meaning to the term oxymoron.  You slip back easily into the old routines of ritually shared responses and memories and the comfortable intimacy of lazy allusion – and then it is all snatched away as the plane takes off.  Bitter sweet, indeed!  And the telephone is no compensation!

Still, August will see them back and a longer stay will soften the blow of departure!

The sun has come out again to emphasise what Brits are missing and even the blustery wind of the past few days has died.  As indeed, as each quiet morning reminds us, has the dog next door.

The trauma of seeing the little body in the pool has not lessened, though the unreality of it all has tempered the emotion.  We should feel some guilt as we have been praying for the death of the yapping monstrosity on a daily basis.  If you had been irritated for as long as we had by its moronic baying then even its crippled state would have failed to move you when gazing at its watery tranquillity.  And it is that tranquillity, that precious silence that we now savour.  This morning it was the alarm that woke us up not the serial irritation of a doggy dawn chorus!  And that is something for which we have been longing for years!  Obviously we regret the manner of the dog’s death – but the fact of it is something that continues to delight us.  Silence is indeed golden!

Toni has done some cleaning and it is as if the Pauls have never been here – which makes the opening sentiments feel all the more poignant.  There is a tasty reminder in the fridge however: the remains of the Spanish Chicken.  This was a success (though not, according to Paul 1 as much of a success as when it was made in Britain) and packed a hefty spicy punch to go with meat falling from the bone.  That’s our lunch taken care of!  Well, as it turned out, my lunch taken care of

Tomorrow lunch is in Terrassa, then a pre-school day and a mid-week start.  And then it is all downhill to June.  Which seems in the far distance.  And indeed is!

Lunch today, Monday, was excellent with home made meatballs and disgraceful cakes of unlimited calories.  The Cava seemed positively frugal compared with the displays of ostentatious confection with which we were surrounded.

The kids had demanded and got their custom made Easter monas by their long suffering aunt painstakingly making cartoon figures of each of the kids holding a football trophy – and all edible.

They had other chocolate constructions of which the most flamboyant was dedicated to FC Barça and, given that a pathetic piece of chocolate with an unconvincing mini image of Messi was €20 in Carrefour, the one the kids were given must have cost three figures!  It looked impressive with conventional cup, football ground, Barça badge etc, but it was just as well that I wasn’t told the price because I want to go to sleep this evening and not spend the night brooding about how deprived a childhood I had!

There is something soul numbingly horrific about a family getting out photo albums when that family is not really yours, with photos relating to a time when you didn’t know a single member of it.  Even with the safety net of a smart phone with readable books on it, it's a fragile sort of patience that one holds on to.

The wedding video was an added extra about which I want to say little, except that it was interesting seeing people who are no longer part of the family playing an integral part in the festivities.

The camera work was individualistic held by one who had apparently recently been informed of the invention of a process which could take likenesses of things.  The main intent of the camera person seemed to take out of focus images of people who were not the main participants.  By that criteria it was a resounding success!

The journey home was strangely quiet as I suppose that the bulk of people had already arrived home as most people are back in work on Tuesday.  We have an extra day (which I was informed was illegal by Toni’s brother in law – sour grapes!) that will be used to get clothes ready and tell the agents about the dead dog.

And where are my glasses?  I hate the ones that I am wearing at the moment, they feel like lead after the lightness of the optical example of “less is more” – much, much more that my old glasses represent in their wispy costliness!

And, further and, I have not had my last OU TMA sent back and it was promised for the weekend.

Just one damn thing after another!

Tell us how to do it?

The sun slunk out this afternoon to show the Pauls what the weather could do if it felt like it!  Although there was a brisk wind it was hot and very un-British.

Today it is Paul Squared’s opportunity to cook for us.  We had a more than satisfactory lunch in St Boi but the real event is to be “Spanish Chicken” cooked by Paul.

You have to admire someone who comes to a country and then vaunts his culinary prowess by asserting that he can cook an eponymous national dish!

The ingredients were collected by Paul and myself from the Carrefour in Prat and we were beguiled by items other than the ones that we had come for and it was only with a real effort that we remembered that we needed chicken for the dish!

The real problem was the paprika in its smoked variety.  The first person I asked for paprika in the supermarket reacted as if I had suggested I hook up with her mother in some sleazy threesome rather than asking for a fairly run-of-the-mill spice!  I eventually got the help of an eager little old man to help me in my search.  Unfortunately his enthusiasm was only matched by the fatuity of our efforts.  Nevertheless, other spices were bought and they will do.  Probably.

My enthusiasm about the improving weather and the prospect of a delicious meal is limited because of the terrible realization that I have to go back to school not on Monday the 8^th of April – but rather on Wednesday of this week.  In a mere three and a bit days’ time; let’s be precise, from this exact moment in time I am 84 hours from having to get up to go to school!  Holiday virtually over!

Still, June the twenty-somethingth is getting nearer by the day when blessed release will be granted!

I don’t suppose that I should, but I am very tempted to count the number of weeks left!

But I won’t.

Barça are playing a bottom of the table team and only drawing.  They are playing dreadfully and the poor goalkeeper had to save two successive shots one from his own team and the other from the opposition!  At least they are equal starting the second half.  I trust that they have had a pep talk and will do very much better than during the first depressing forty minutes!

Nothing from the OU Tutor today, hopefully I will have my work returned tomorrow and then the revision work via our Tutor Forum starts.  I must admit that I am looking forward to the exercises to stimulate me to something more interestingly productive than tired re-reading and trying to spot key OU-ish words to use in the exam!

The Pauls are off back to the UK tomorrow after a truly flying visit.  Still, they are coming over during August for longer and we will hopefully have more sultry weather to encourage them to visit the beach and even throw themselves in the sea!

Monday will see us revisit Terrassa to see the Monas made by Toni’s sister and to watch the kids demolish them.

I must also remember that I have little eggs to give the assembled boys tomorrow morning.  Such vicious fun!  And I am already practising my very best guilelessly innocent tone of voice asking, “And where is mine?” and then the pathetic, whipped dog face when it appears that nobody has thought to get me anything. 

I love it!

What?

“There’s a dead dog in your swimming pool,” is the sort of statement that people say that they have found in a foreign phrase book.  When will you ever use such a phrase?  Never.  Or, in my case, this evening.  Not by me, admittedly, but by a bemused Paul.

I treated the comment as mildly humorous and went to the Third Floor more as an unthinking response rather than in lively expectation.  And there was nothing there.  But a little movement to one side and emerging from the shadow of the tree, there it was looking more like a slightly twisted doll than anything else, but unmistakably a dead dog doll.  In the swimming pool.

Investigation was called for and I hot footed it down from the Third Floor to Ground Zero to be met by two rattled friends still reeling from attempting to get a closer view and being attacked by a ferocious dog launching himself towards them only being repulsed by our flimsy bamboo fence.  Toni moved away quickly and Paul fell backwards – luckily onto our gloriously artificial grass and was no more than shaken.

All was made clear.  Obviously the ferocious cur that attacked Paul Squared and Toni was crazed with fear that his heinous crime of offing the poor crippled dog (I jest not) moving gently at the bottom of the pool had been discovered!  Guilt screamed from every leap!

It is easy to reconstruct the events. 

The dogs having been left (yet again) respond by escaping from their pens.  The gate to the pool is flimsy and the plastic “fencing” recently propped against the gate totally insufficient to prevent a large, determined dog from getting out. 

Having made his egress the smaller dog, crippled in both back legs is well able to follow.  Once at the side of the pool any movement with the unsettling weight of dead legs could have caused the dog to topple in.  Or perhaps a boisterous bit of play by the larger could have pushed the smaller in. 

Whatever happened, once the small, old, crippled dog was in the water there was no way that he would be able to get out again.  It was only a matter time before the inevitable. 

And I hope all of the preceding works in the mind of the owner!

When I approached the fence the hysterical barking and the accompanying wailing from Paul and Toni dissuaded me from venturing beyond the limits of my demesne.  However, the sight of the cadaver from a more advantageous viewpoint emphasised the reality of the fact that there was indeed a dead dog in the swimming pool and that was not something which could be tolerated.  Even if I had no desire or intention of doing anything to remove it.

My first impulse was to phone the RSPCA and get them involved with the express intention of bringing home the guilt for the death to the inadequacy of the measures to keep the dogs safely within the garden of our neighbours.  Dogs will be dogs and their human owners need to take responsibility, and when they don’t then they must be made to pay.  And pay heavily.

I am quite sure that the telephone call from the police that our neighbour received informing her of the death was deeply upsetting and her grief is sincere but I do hope that she realizes that her own negligence is the cause and she must live with it.

Meanwhile the little realities of the event meant that I actually spoke to our neighbours on the other side and had a conversation longer than anything I have had with them over the last few years!

I am not sure what we can do to match or surpass this little tragi-comedy for the next day of the Pauls’ stay, but we are now going out to eat and that should be a much calmer experience!