Lazy Days

What is the summer holiday for if not for indolence?  OK, the concept of summer holiday is perhaps a little inaccurate for me, but it serves its purpose to get me to September and the New Life (again) that retirement (again) brings.

That by way of exculpation for the lack of writing that should have been filling up the space on the Internet.  The fingers are willing but the neural impulses are weak!

Our last summer guest has left and we feel a little bereft!  It does, however, give me the impetus to get down to the reading and writing that is necessary for the last TMA in this particular OU course.  This is the longest of the pieces that we have had to write and the one which is nearest to a conventional academic essay.  As soon as that is out of the way then my mind must turn towards the demands of the examination which is now just under two months away.

Whatever the outcome of the exam and TMA I have to admit that I have enjoyed this course more than the previous one.  I may have been more out of my comfort zone, but that, I think has given me more challenges which are what the whole idea of doing another degree was supposed to have set me.

There is an overlap with my next course and it will be interesting to see whether “Creative Writing” will challenge me as much as the present course.  Obviously this is a higher-level course, but it is still the entrance level that most OU students will encounter before moving on to level 3. 

In keeping with the dictates of the way that we do things in the OU I have bought myself a little red book (as opposed to the Big Red Book for the course) in which I am writing fugitive thoughts; interesting conversations; apposite phrases and writing ideas so that I am at least partially prepared for the opening of the Course Forum on the 25^th of September. 

The course proper will have started in early October so I will be revising for the exam and doing in the introductory work at the same time.  I suppose it is a way of feeling sympathy for my ex-colleagues in Wales and Catalonia as they rush forward with cries of joy to meet the new term and the challenges that it will inevitably bring.  I too will be able to say with real feeling that I am “overworked” – though I suspect the sympathy from my erstwhile fellow toilers in the unyielding fields of education might be a little sparse!

On the material front my third (!) pair of bone conduction swimming headphones have arrived and, so far so good.  After a worrying moment when the tracks did not appear to load and the computer refused to recognize the Finis Swimp as a separate drive, things settled down and I have loaded a typically extravagant and eclectic selection of tracks and firmly placed the random switch on to ensure a bewildering succession of musical entertainment as I plough my lonely furrow intimidating small children out of my way.

I have very carefully kept receipt and packaging, as headphones like this tend to have a fairly limited life and I have paid too much for them to get only six of seven months of use out of them.

This time around I have made sure that “The Green Berets” is not one of the tracks – though I fear that the mere typing of that ominous title is enough to guarantee that the bombastic tune and nauseating lyrics will echo round my head for the rest of the day – and its only 10.45 in the morning!

I have also bought two more box sets of incredible value CDs, both of which are filled with reissues of records that I could not afford when they first came out and which I now cannot afford to let slip by at the cost of a couple of euros a piece.  The DG (with HVK as conductor) set also have reproductions of the original covers together with the information on the back of the cover in tiny poorly reproduced print which I can only read without my glasses on!  It is still an absolute feast of music and I must fly to Gava and MediaMarkt to get the next set of CD cases so that I can listen to the discs in the car.

At present I have been relying on the Catalan Classical Music Station which, while very good, is not really at its best when you are trying to listen to it without an aerial as some bastard has unscrewed and stolen it from my car.

Now the glorious sound of the Berlin Phil with DG clarity and the strict conducting of H von K will flatter me that I am now (at last) one with the Classical Music cognoscenti of forty years ago!  Better late than never!

Having just typed that, I relaxed for a moment and then caught myself tapping out the rhythm of “The Green Berets” on the arms of the chair in which I am sitting.  Never let it be said that I cannot undercut my own pretention!

After a rather muggy start to the day, the sun is making valiant attempts to assert its supremacy and justify the hordes trying to make the most of the link Bank Holiday by paying the inflated prices imposed for parking by our local den of PP politicians.

What used to be free parking along the sea front now comes with a hefty price and the effect has been startling.  There are spaces where there were none last year.  There has been a definite reduction in the number of cars in the area and, while this is good news for we residents, it can hardly be good news for the businesses and restaurants who rely on the summer season to make their profits.

Ah well, the people of Castelldefels have only themselves to blame as we are unique in this area as having voted for PP – and nothing that bunch of self-seeking, avaricious, selfish, unfeeling swine do should surprise.

On the national level the constant bombardment of the higher levels of the party and therefore government with accusations of corruption has become a badly scripted soap where the writers cannot stop themselves piling shocking revelation on top of another to try and engage with the jaded appetite of a viewing public already sated with excess!

On a more positive note I am sure that some aspects of the sad story of Spanish political life can be used as raw material for my next course.  Though, thinking about it, some of the material that we have been regaled with on the television might be consider a little too far-fetched for serious creative writing!

Resumed . . .

Alas!  What must my reader be thinking as day follows day and I write nothing.  It is not as if nothing has happened as our second British visitor of the summer arrived and left and we are preparing for the third.  But nothing.  Sad.

So – dinners and lunches; excursions and sunbathing; seaglass collecting and lamp building; TMA writing and grade getting; exhibition visiting and photograph taking; reading and studying; telephoning and talking; walking (!) and swimming; speculating and arguing; holidaying and working; laughing and cooking; spending and dissimulating . . . and I could go on, and usually would but there is the next part of a James Bond film to watch and, after all, I am only human!

Talking of frailty, I went to the Apple store.  I know that I was wrong, but I was with Suzanne and I begged her to watch over me and prevent me from signing over my life to that unfeeling money Hoovering organization.  To be fair I had a reason to be there.  A slight one, but a reason none the less.

From time to time I forget to plug my phone in and I find myself hoping that the sliver of power that is left is sufficient to work when I need it.  Obviously this was, and is, an unsatisfactory situation.  Never let it be said that I was not aware of the appropriate gadget to make life easier.  I knew that there was a device which would plug into an iPhone and give a power boost when you need it.  I also knew that with a touch of Protestant delayed gratification I could get such a device at a reasonable price from the Internet.

But I was in the Apple store in the centre of Barcelona and, rather than paying a reasonable price later I could pay an extortionate at once and not only get the device that I needed but also get a cord-pull closing, pseudo metallic plastic bag with an Apple symbol on it.  There was no real choice.

I now have an integrated case and battery booster and a woeful gap in my current account!

And another more shallow gap in my knee.  This is as a result of an attempt to get an ice cream at night and being thwarted by one of the depressions around the trees in our little Ramblas.  My fall was spectacular, but disappointingly unbloody.  I was resolutely macho about the whole thing and even managed to salvage my somewhat squashed ice cream and eat it with something approaching equanimity.

For the last week there has been an organically fascinating multi-coloured scabbing of the injury and now the consequent itching as the new skin forms.

And all the while thunder is growling and harrumphing in the background with an absurdly melodramatic light show of multiple lightning strikes and now, at last after an almost impossibly muggy day a welcome storm.  At least it will get some of the dust off the car!

And tomorrow, normal service in the writing area should be restored.

Back to the heat!

Back in Catalonia it is even hotter than in the UK.  This surely must be the only time that I can remember that I can say something like that and not be bitterly ironic!  The weather in Wales was wonderful and it continues this side of the Pyrenees as well.

As always there is an odd sense of dislocation as I re-enter the world of Castelldefels and realize that the round of friends that I ate, drank and chatted to is now a cramped flight away.  But not too far away and one of them will be arriving soon to stay for a week.  And next month Paul comes to stay.  So I will have plenty of opportunities to do what I did over the last few days!

Meanwhile the OU work (which waits for no sluggard using the excuse of journeying to a foreign country) continues and the pace has stepped up.  I have at last written the second piece that I was supposed to have and have edited right, left and centre.  There is still a lot to be done, but it does look doable!

The moneymaking scheme of charging for erstwhile free parking has swung into operation today.  No resident’s ticket of course, but new information pointing out to us that a new (and expensive) headquarters for the implementation of this PP inspired money grab was open and ready for business.

Equipped with various documents and Toni we drove off to the office acutely aware that we would be parking on fair game spaces.  The office looked thrown together and was staffed by one harassed, though outwardly calm Spanish speaking lady who was having to try and placate people who were fearful of being submerged by a flood of tickets because of the lack of the magic card proving that they actually lived there.

No duplicate or copy was available and we were sent away with the wildly unconvincing assurance that we would not be fined.  Not be fined by the squadrons of uniformed children who were gleefully setting out with their portable ticket printers ready and willing to attack anything without the badge that they had not issued.

After much huffing and puffing and muttering dark imprecations against our totalitarian local government we made our disconsolate way back to find nothing in our mailbox.

At least nothing for about ten minutes when scooter mounted post people started ostentatiously stuffing official looking letters through the box.

I now have my vision obscured by a shoddy little card lurking in its cheapo self adhesive holder on the right hand side of the windscreen.  Shoddy it may be, but protection it certainly is.

I am waiting for a call from The Family to get them from the cinema where they have been eagerly waiting to be scared by a late night screening of a horror film.

I chose the OU over the outré!

Company and The Company

Olives, scallops, black pudding, home grown salad, steak and Pembrokeshire potatoes, cheese and apricot tart accompanied by pink Champagne and cool white wine.  The meal was something of a success, but the real delight – as always - was being able to chat with friends.  Now that is something that I really miss.

And talking with new friends.  When a partnership breaks up and a new character is involved in the break-up there is a time for re-assessment and review.  Meeting the new partner for lunch yesterday must have been much more trying for him than it was for me.  Being paraded in front of new acquaintances and feeling that you are being compare with what has gone before must be nerve wracking.  However, the meal went very well.  We went to Jamie Oliver’s and I had a small portion of scallops and squid ink dyed spaghetti that was more than acceptable and left room for the next meal that I was due to have before the evening’s entertainment!

When we left Jamie Oliver’s we went to an adjacent pub where I had my first pint of SA for many months.  I had every intention of limiting my intake of Skull Attack to just the one-pint, but the company and the cooling weather and the insistence of my companions saw me weaken and almost match them pint for pint.  I suppose it is one way to cement a relationship!

Alison was duly met in Barroco’s and we had another meal before going to “Macbeth”.  This National Theatre production was a live broadcast from a deconsecrated church in Manchester where the action was largely set in the nave of the church with the live audience on steeply raked seats at each side giving the appearance of a jousting arena.  This was a widely and enthusiastically awaited production and I hated it.

The direction was shared between Rob Ashford and Ken Branagh and at times I wondered where it was.  I could see no real connecting idea which linked the action of the play and the speed of delivery of lines meant that much of the detail which could have expanded the meaning was lost in a welter of English.

The church setting was referenced from time to time but not enough was made of it in my view and I kept feeling omission rather than accretion as the action progressed.

The relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth was unconvincing and in spite of a few moments of action I felt it lacked passion.  Lady Macbeth (Alex Kingston) worked hard, but her key scene, the Sleepwalking Scene, was performed on a sort of raised stage and looked more like some sort of puppet show with extreme actions and a multitude of voices so that it became something of a farce rather than the chilling re-telling on the whole murder.

Because of the accelerating pace the internal logic of the progression of action was largely lost for me and the declamatory style of delivery emptied the words and lost sense.

It was deeply disappointing, but I think that the idea of producing a live broadcast to a variety of national and international cinemas is a wonderful one and I will certainly be looking out for further productions and hoping that they will be shown in Barcelona.

The drink with Alison (who had found out about the production and who had bought the tickets) was a somewhat subdued affair as I was beginning to feel the draining process myself and tiredness clumped up towards me.

Today is a calmer day with only lunch with Hadyn planned and then tomorrow I get the flight back to Barcelona.  For a rest!

Out & About

The heat continues and people wander about with bemused expressions on their faces and the haunted eyes of those that know that this cannot last.  The Heat Wave has now surpassed previous torrid times and is officially a record of some sort.  They should try living in Spain where such heat is an everyday occurrence, though as I have mentioned previously the Spanish talk about their weather even more than we do!

Dulled by alcohol from last night I was able to find comatose relief on the quivering mixture of jelly and marshmallow that is my bed.  This was after the funeral which went as well as such things are able to go.

The range and depth of colleagues both currently teaching and also those beatified by retirement was remarkable and although the chats were short they were gratifying.

Lucy was visibly encouraged by being surrounded by friends and family and she was able to get through the day with resilience and courage.

I was roundly berated by my godson for my lack of presence in his life and the fact of my not even being there for his christening where I was represented by a proxy.  As my godson is thinking of entering the ranks of the clergy I have to say that the absence of my cynicism and cruel questioning of the tenets of religion has allowed him to “grow up in the faith” – so job well done, say I!

I took Paul back to Port Talbot and left him with the stern injunction to find his way back to Cardiff in the very near future.  That way lays his best hope, as the chances of finding a job in Port Talbot are not bright.  Still, he is going to come out to us in August and Toni and I can work on him then so that he returns to Wales determined to succeed and with a clear plan of action in his mind.

Today has been a return visit to the Culverhouse Cross Tesco where, as the last time I went to the in-store Optician last May the staff were efficient, helpful and courteous.  My eyes have changed and I might have to revisit the doctor in Spain and ask him what he is dong about my diabetes which is part of the reason for the fluctuations in seeing.  However, for the present the prescription is going to be made up, the glasses changed and everything sent to Paul 1 for him to send on to me.

From Culverhouse Cross to Maesteg via the old A48 rather than the motorway thanks to a wrong turning out of Tesco and a nostalgic yearning to re-drive the old route to my grandparents.  It is, it has to be said, a thoroughly pleasant drive and it is easy to see the progressive gentrification of The Vale of Glamorgan as what I remember as slightly tatty, but imposing houses are now restored and augmented.  Even the little valley towns and villages, shorn of industrialization and mines, look quaint and pleasant – though god knows what the level of unemployment is in these towns shorn of their economic purpose.

Uncle Eric was as responsive as ever and regaled me with stories of his chaotic ramblings through northern France and Belgium as a member of the PBI, subject to the vagaries of clueless officers and the usual mystifications during war.  His tale of the peregrinations from Abbeville and back again trying to avoid being killed by the Germans and living on half a tin of bully and two squares of chocolate and going without food for three days and trying to stop tanks with training ammunition and low powered rifles made for fascinating listening!

Eric is now the last surviving member of his 1926 primary school class and when I said that I would see him again the next time I was in the country he intimated that our next meeting would be of an entirely different nature.  I chivvied him with my expectation that he would make triple figures, but his expression of disgust suggests something else.  Still, I value my chats with my uncle and I do hope that they continue for some years yet.

Back to Cardiff and Llandaff to see my aunt and a thoroughly snide and catty conversation.  Her description of not attending a Memory Clinic was refreshingly irreverent and although she is tied to a broken body her mind is as sharp and scathing as ever!

I am now waiting for the next part of my stay in the UK when Diane will come calling to carry me off to Cyncoed for talk and table delights!