Back again!

It is always sad to record the death of a friend after a long illness because, although one had become accustomed to the possibility of death, when it comes there is always the shock of deprivation and loss.

Being a few countries apart adds that element of frustration that distance from what has gone on gives and also that inevitable sense of guilt that lack of actual contact encourages.

John had a distinct outlook on life and his insights were direct and no-nonsense.  He spoke what he thought and his comments were both astringent and approachable.  He will be missed.

The news of his death came when Alison was staying with us for the first time for almost three years.  The shock of that realization gave a vivid impression of the passing of time, a process which inevitably takes a human toll as John’s death showed.

I am positive that John would not have liked depression to take the place of the pleasure which the visit gave, but it was impossible to compartmentalise the loss, but we did try and celebrate life rather than bewail its absence.

In the determined way that Alison has we “did” new things on our trip to Barcelona and for the first time I visited Palau Guell; went up in the cable cars to the castle in Monjuic and last, but certainly not least, a lady gave up her seat to me on public transport! 

Over the last few years I have developed a hardened attitude when travelling on buses and trains and feel that with my arthritis I am entitled to keep my seat unless there is a pressing case in front of me and EVERYBODY else seated around me obviously outranks me in the give-up-your-seat stakes. 

If there is a youngster (of whatever sex) then I feel that my early years of springing to my feet with an alacrity that even my mother cannot have failed to approve have given me the right to stare pointedly at the child and will it to do the decent thing.  And if they don’t well, times being what they are . . .

Fussy Eaters (i.e. anyone other than myself) are not the people to take on a Ruta de Tapas.  What with Toni’s aversion to cheese and Alison’s allergy to milk products added to her simple dislike of “squishy” things like eggs with runny yolks, oysters and most forms of shell fish and body organs, choosing a restaurant to visit was not without its problems.  Added to which when a decision was finally made and the map was eventually worked out and we triumphantly arrived – more often than not we found the bloody place closed and recriminations are rarely fair and never nice!

We settled for one of our favourite restaurants and had a set meal from an extensive range which satisfied us all.  And gave me another opportunity to sample the white chocolate cheesecake of which I am inordinately fond.  Success all round!

A week has gone by in which I have been here and there, bought this and that and done various things.

Reality, which I usually assiduously avoid as being unnecessarily gritty, will hit tomorrow when Part XIV of the Financial Master Plan is put into operation by the visiting of the local Labour Exchange to find out if my selfless giving of myself to the dictates of education and lavishly endowing the state with largess in the form of pension, taxes and other monies ill spared from my meagre earnings with redound to my favour in some small emolument (on a monthly basis) while the said office vainly (I trust) attempts to find me a job to fill up the empty years until I am 67 or whatever other fantastic age the government has stipulated as being needed to be filled with gainful employment. 

Even if I work every second of every day left I will still not get anywhere near the 15 years you need in this country before a pension is dangled above your empty wallet!  So keep your fingers crossed that there might be Other Ways to get what Winnie the Pooh called “a little something” from the State.  I have, I must admit, no healthy expectation of success, but if you don’t try you don’t get, so it’s worth a short trip to Gava to find out.

I will probably be back in Britain next week, assuming that the funeral is gong to be held then, so I really need to knuckle down to my OU work and make sure that I am ahead of the game.

Toni’s mother is also scheduled to make an appearance for her Annual Holiday Without the Kids next week and then Emma will arrive soon after the end of the British term.  We are still waiting to see what the Pauls have worked out now that they are separated – but we are hoping for one variety at least in the middle of August!

The truth of Sartre’s dictum that “Hell is other people” is nowhere shown more true by the unutterable variety of folk that is attracted by our swimming pool.  Shouting, laughing, screaming, crying, laughing (again) and jabbering – they pile up towards the end of the day and drive us to thoughts of wholesale slaughter!

To lessen the impact of their objectionable presence I have purchased a swim-proof mpd player with earphones which are pads which relay the music to your ear through your cheekbones!  I know this system works as I had an early form of it years ago, but it is only with my Finis Neptune system that I have found the sound to be anything more than barely acceptable.  This system works even when the head is out of the water, so I am very satisfied.  Time, however, will surely tell whether my enthusiasm is justified.

The eating goes on

A generally uneasy night as the dreaded earache did not diminish in an acceptable fashion – though continued application of the doctor given drops has made some difference and I have been less sulky today.

Although we have had a swim today it has not really been true July weather and Toni only lasted a minute before he had had enough.  I am made of sterner stuff and did a gentle breaststroke so as not to submerge my head and aggravate whatever is going on in my left ear.  Most unsatisfactory.

Far more satisfactory was our journey out on the next stage of the Ruta de Tapa after the usual acrimonious discussion about which of the fifty remaining tapas we should try!

Our first port of call was El Punt de Casa Pac in C/Major, 23 where, the weather being balmy we decided to sit outside on the decking next to the road.  I placed my posterior on one of the metal seats and started a slow but disturbing slide to the ground.  One of the legs of the chair had been placed by my good self expertly just on a weak joint in the shoddy structure on which we were sitting.  Luckily there were posts with ropes at the edge of the area and they allowed me to rescue some degree of dignity from my decline!

The reaction of the bar staff was gratifyingly concerned and it resulted in our being gifted our tapas.  Which, if you think about it, was bloody cheap because if I had been of a litigious frame of mind who knows what money I could have got out of the situation!

The tapa itself was creamed scallops covered by a cod “brandada” with broad beans and a savoury sauce.  It was good, but it sounds better than it tasted.  But, hey! for nothing, who is questioning it!

Spurred on by the freebie we went to a tried and trusted restaurant, Bar Olave Plaza, c/Onze de septembre, 1 cutting our way through swathes of children who, quite unnecessarily walked, ran, jumped and cycled, scooted, meandered, screamed, strolled, played, breathed and generally existed in MY space.  But I think I managed to control my feelings and show nothing of what I felt.

The service in Bar Olave Plaza was efficient and slick.  The tapa was a dish of tallarinas de Castelldefels and they were delicious, but as a competition tapa it lacked structure and was just after all a plate of shells.  Taste excellent, but it aint going to win.  The Cava was excellent.

After minimal persuasion we decided to take in a third tapa in Bar Frankfurt Castelldefels, Av. Constitució 244.  This is somewhere where we have never been before and given its location next to an English Language School it is probably not the sort of place that we will frequent during term time!

The tapa was a kebab of veg and meat on a stick with a side potato salad with a mysterious sauce.  The bald statement of what the tapa was gives no idea of how delicious it actually was.  In my view it is the best that we have had so far, in spite of the fact that the Cava was rather cheap and over-sweet for my taste.

So this ruta is living up to its reputation for surprises and giving us new venues to consider.

Almost time for my drops and the hope of a better night.  I will also sleep easier having spoken to friends back home and consider that they seem to be doing well and are both speaking positively about the future.  I hope I get to see them some time during the summer.

On the OU front there is a limited response with one other person seemingly directly on my wavelength and another offering the possibility of serious difficulties in the next couple of weeks.  Ah the delights of long distance learning!

Tomorrow more academic work and a little light gardening!

A route to eat through!

My earache got steadily worse, or at least it didn’t get any better and spasmodic pain a few times a minute can be amazingly wearing.  So it ended up with Toni and myself visiting the doctor separately today.  Toni to give in a sample for analysis and me to get something for my ear.

When I got to see my doctor he ignored my plaintive bleating about my ear and concentrated instead of getting up to date with my medical situation.  In no time at all I was given a date to have yet more blood taken; an instruction to visit the nurse immediately after I had finished with him, and another appointment made to discuss the results of the analysis.

I did also manage to get a prescription for some ear drops out of him which have had, on their first application absolutely no effect whatsoever.  However, I live in faith and am a great believer in the placebo effect and one or other of those must have some effect.

More importantly than all of the preceding, today is the first day of the new Ruta de tapas (tapa and drink only €3) and, in spite of my not feeling 100% we have done two.  Toni has instructed me to write about each of these “events” so that we can refer back to them in our dotage!

The first was in Restaurant El Mussol, Av. De la Pineda, 24 and was an Owl Burger.  Not that a protected bird was used in its manufacture, but simply that Mussol is the Catalan word for Owl.  

This mini-burger in a sesame seed mini-bun was excellent with a burger that actually tasted as if it had been made of real meat.  It was served with caramelized onion, tomato, lettuce and goat’s cheese with a BBQ sauce.  Fresh, hot and delicious with the sauce not overpowering everything.  We were also told that they do Mex-Tex evenings and, on the strength of this sample, it might well be worth a future visit.

That surely is the worth of this Ruta de Tapa, it should be something delicious enough by itself to get the customer to consider staying for something more substantial.  This is certainly what happened when we had the tapa at El Elephant and I look forward to this happening again during the course of the Ruta which is from today, the 1^st of July to the 15^th of September.

We did not mean to go to the restaurant we ended up in, but our geography was slightly wrong and we didn’t mind making do with what was in front of us.  In a similar way we experienced the luck of incompetence with our second “choice”.

Wherever we meant to go we ended up sitting down outside Dehesa Santa Maria, Av. Santa Maria, 27 in the centre of town.  The tapa when it finally arrived (the single waiter was a little slow) was an elegantly structured edifice all held together with a rather fetching long stick with a red painted circular fiddly bit towards the end.

The base was of flatbread with a squirt of mayo on either end, on top of that was red pepper and on top of that in the centre was a rolled slice of jamón ibérico flanked by two halves of a mini-chorizo.  On top of the jamón was an olive, and resting on that was a gherkin; gherkin, olive, ham and bread being impaled by the stylish stick.

This was a tapa which was impossible to eat in one go!  And when you did manage to get most of it into your mouth it was a somewhat confusing though pleasurable mixture of flavours.

Two excellent tapas to start off our ruta.  Bring on the other 54!

Guests should be warned that they WILL be participating should they chance to visit us!

Good study . Bad football

I can feel smugly satisfied with what I have done today, Sunday, as part of my OU course.  The groups for the Wiki have been decided and work ought to start straight away.  However, getting a variety of characters across Europe to coincide to produce a complex piece of written work is another problem.

Based on my experience on the last course it is necessary to get going at once so I have taken the bull by the horns and produced a few pages of mechanical information which might help production.  At the moment one other person has actually responded reasonably positively to my posts. 

I have tried to find a twist to the general theme to give extra “sophistication” as demanded by the tutor.  The next few days are critical to the success of the enterprise and if people don’t join in then the two of us who have responded so far can take it further.  A bad sign is that there haven’t been more people posting today as there is a boost on weekends usually and that certainly hasn’t happened today.

On the football front Spain has just missed a penalty and they are languishing three goals to nil against Brazil.  They are playing spectacularly badly and all the fight appears to have gone out of them.  Best not to dwell too closely on what is happening, as none of it seems good.  And I have earache.  And Piqué has just been sent off.  Game over.

Tomorrow, or rather today is the first of July and the first of our guests for the summer will be arriving in little over a week.  It will be interesting to see how the conflicting demands of the OU and visitors work out! 

Though I have a sneaking suspicion that sybaritic will win out over academic!