Grow, damn you!

There comes a point in every houseplant’s life when you have to say enough is enough.  Or, there is the strategy of accepting that a dozen leaves on a couple of stems is as good as it is going to get and that is OK.

I do remember that the plant on the dining table used to have flowers.  They were not wholesome British-type flowers with visible centre bits and radiating petals of a bracing and straightforward colour.  No, this plant was more of the cheaper end of the orchid-like plants; possibly a weed from one of the more exotic locations where temperature encouraged growth and depressed wages.  Who knows.  I chose it because it was vertical, cheap and had interestingly linen-white flowers of simple convolution.

But the flowers are very much a thing of the past and the leaves of the plant are of that evergreen-looking stasis variety where it is difficult to tell if they are alive or dead.  I do however push a few drops of water (and the odd cup of cold tea) its way from time to time to show that I care. 

There is a drooping, crinkled offshoot of a more virulent green - part of which looks as though it is literally unfolding – which would seem to suggest that there is something botanical stirring which might be worth tying to the slender stick which keeps the main part upright.

I do remember that Ingrid always had the knack of making any plant that I took down to Devon have a life well beyond the expectations of the shops in which I bought them!  One orchid I bought her became more of a hardy perennial than the delicately elusive whiff of strange beauty that is was for others.

I am inclined to think that the plant is merely taunting me with non-death rather than suggesting that it can bloom again.  But I will persevere and who knows, in the near future I may be using my Grown Up Camera to record its splendour!  Floreat flower!

Toni is now in Terrassa watching, so I am informed, his five-year-old nephew play his first game of club football as a striker.  I am in Castelldefels.  There are some things that . . . And watching five year olds play football is one of them.

Lunch was a sort of bolognaise with fresh pasta with what felt like chicken paste but which cooked up into something approaching mince.  Very nice it was too, through there was far too much of it and I felt that I had done a Paul or a Clarrie and cooked for too many people who were not there.  In a fit of economic intelligence I have saved the remains and will add curry powder and rice to make an entirely different meal tomorrow!  And I will add garlic, which I now realise I ignored completely in my gastronomic spurt!

Revision is not progressing with anything like the rigor which exists in my mind.  I think the basic trouble is two-fold: firstly, I am far too interested in what I am supposed to learn and find myself getting carried away in the reading of it rather than the learning; and secondly with the Disaster of the Third Essay I am now unable to gain the highest grade for the course.  I didn’t fail you understand, I was 33% higher than a fail mark, but I was 6% away from getting the grade I wanted for the writing.  And if you don’t get equal excellence in writing and examination then you merely “pass” the course.  Ah well, it is not as if these first level courses count for the final class of degree, so there is time to get my mind back into the OU groove and follow the instructions in the way that I know that I should have done.  

And revise thoroughly.

I am sure that it is in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” that kids get sent to a house owned by a professor/relative and guarded by a protective Housekeeper who tells the children that they need to be quite because a Grown Up is working.  When I read this (only child, always reading) I felt that this was totally unfair to children who, obviously, did not make that much noise and the “seen but not heard” slur was totally unjustified.

I am British.  I now live in Spain.  I am that Grown Up.  And the purchase of a high-powered rifle with telescopic sights seems more and more attractive as the howling, wailing Banshees who live in the houses two pools away cry aloud for destruction!  As they are Spanish children they all follow their national stereotypes and scream at each other simultaneously.  What their parents do, apart from fill their ears with liquid wax and weep, I do not know – but they certainly to do not restrict the decibels in any way, shape or form. 

God rot them!

Though they have now, it being dark, gone in – and the silence is wonderful.  Isn’t there a heresy that posits that good must be counterbalanced by evil and that as they are co-eternal and co-created one cannot be assumed to be better than the other, in the sense that evil needs to exist so that we can appreciate good?  Probably the ever-loving Roman church preached a crusade and extirpated such heresy with sword and fire, but only in the name of love.  Perhaps those revoltingly obtrusive kids were necessary to make me appreciate the finer delights of silence.  It is the concept of necessary evil!

Tomorrow Toni stays in Terrassa and that is supposed to be the ideal opportunity for me to get Iconoclasm nailed, so to speak.  I fully intend to write an answer on this theme as long as I can get the spelling of the fourth reformer (i.e. not Luther, Calvin or Zwingli, but the one beginning with M) firmly in my memory.  And did I know that Calvin was French?  Always learning!

And now I think I shall have recourse to my iPad not only to download the new operating system which I like on my iPhone, but also to indulge a little in the BBC programmes that are available at the monthly subscription that we distant Brits have to pay. 

One should always try and get one’s money’s worth!

Reality bites!

The essay is back!  With a mark not quite what I wanted. 

Our tutor has managed to stick to the working day limit for return of our work in spite of the fact that she was bereft of phone and wi-fi and therefore blind, deaf and disabled in modern OU terms! 

We have a mark and a short summative comment but no detailed response to the essay, but it at least marks closure on the written part of the course and I am now able to concentrate fully on revision.

I collected my new course material from the Post Office where I waited in a queue with a suspiciously large number of people collecting their undelivered packages as well!

At least I now have the stuff well before the opening date for the Forum for the course and well, well before the actual start date.  The Big Red Course Book is sitting on the table as I type, together with a Study Guide and various DVDs.  And I must resist temptation and wait until the requisite time before I start indulging myself!  I have my work to do on the present course working up to the examination on the 10^th of October and my collaboration with the new course from the 5^th of October will, of necessity be limited to “off-duty” moments when not revising.

The rain threatened for today has not yet washed the streets so I am considering throwing caution to the wind and rejecting a coat for by drink with Suzanne.

And I am not going to resist temptation, in spite of what I have just written and I am going to glut myself on the study guide.  So there!

What I actually read was the assessment guide.  A dose of reality to get you going!  The nitty-gritty of what will get marks and what will regarded as anathema.  The OU at its soulfully soulless best.  Kind words with hard edges.  But you know, deep down that it is all for your own good.  Enough.

Back to the present reality.  My returned essay was fifteen marks lower than the other two – which were high enough to give me a comfortable cushion of marks to allow for some aberration, but not for the fifteen marks miss that I managed to attain.  My own fault of course, even as I was writing the essay I was thinking that I was doing “original” research which was not what was being asked for.  And, sure enough one of the (fully justified) points made was that I didn’t concentrate enough on something which was not overtly mentioned in the essay title.  I took that as an opportunity to do my own thing, conveniently ignoring the more explicit instructions in the “advice” given to essay writers!

How many times have I said to a class that anything that the examiners “suggest” that they “might like to think about” should not be taken as an invitation but a direct instruction!  And then I ignore my own edicts!  That’s life.  But I still think that my essay had elements that would not have been found in others, up to and including an honourable mention of The Welsh Arts Council and writing about the “War” exhibition of 1970(?) which was a museum changing moment for me, and an experience that has had an on-going effect on my artistic appreciation ever since.  Whether those apercus were worth fifteen marks, well, put it down to experience and I am writing it down here to remind myself that I ignore my own rules about ignoring the rules of the OU at my peril!

Now that I have got that our of my system I can more fully devote my time to revision.  There is an outside chance that I might be able to recuperate my self-esteem on the examination, but that will take a damn sight more effort than that which I put into the last exam.  Something to aim for!

And something to start doing now.  If not sooner!

It's only money!

There is nothing more irritating that getting into a shop with an itchy credit card waiting to have its scratched soothed by the spending of money and finding that the shop assistants don’t really seem over-bothered to take your cash from you.

I am presently in the market to get a replacement chair as mine is disintergrating.  A combination of avoirdupois and sweat seems to have done for the thing.  I do not think that having a “relax” version helped at all, as the lounger element has never been entirely convincing and worked out to be just something else to go wrong.

Getting a replacement is not easy.  The cost of furniture in Spain is markedly more expensive than in the UK for reasons which are not in any way clear.  Our best bet is to go to a place in Sitges (well, a bit outside really) and see what they can offer.

What I really want is a high-legged, high-backed, cloth-covered chair, something like the chairs that they have in hospitals but not looking quite so institutional!  I fear that what I want is not readily available and what I am going to be presented with will be ugly and expensive.  Still, I am an inveterate shopper so even failure will be interesting!

With the prefect sense of timing and helpfulness which characterises the Spanish Post Office, I returned from my swim to find that they had “called” and found that we were “out” and so were unable to “deliver” the parcel sent to me.  I do not believe they attempted to deliver anything and, to be fair to them, they didn’t even write in a fictitious time – just a few crossed lines.  One has to admire the honesty of their duplicity.

The Forums in the OU have many students commenting that the various delivery services that are supposed to deliver the study materials do nothing of the sort and merely pop a slip through the letter box telling the putative recipient that they “failed” to deliver.  One writer on the forum was insistent that you should never be complicit in this form of anti-service and always demand that they pay a return trip to deliver.  I know where he is coming from but this is Spain and not the UK and I am going for the easier option and giving in!

Disturbingly, the package is described as a “sac” or bag, and that is only used when the original packaging has been damaged in some way.  I do not want to have a battered collection of learning materials.  OU stuff is printed on fairly heavy paper so there is a real weight to the total delivery, but if it is not pristine then I am going to write to the University and demand replacements.  Or perhaps I am being unduly pessimistic and all things may be fine.  But speculation never waits for reality!

I have also discovered FutureLearn which is a newish company whlly owned by the Open University but dedicated to mass free learning utilizing the expertise of partner universities and giving access to short courses which demand an input of 3 hours work a week.

Not knowing anything about it apart from thinking what little I did know seeming to be a good idea, I have registered for a course on commercial Brands and their influence and importance.  Starting in October.  Just like my OU course.  Not the one I am doing now but the next one.  I am sure it will all work out.

Friday is the day when I expect to have my essay returned

Tomorrow Suzanne and stories about the beginning of term. 

I must remember to take my little red book to jot down any ideas for Creative Writing that I can glean!

Water begone!

It turns out that all my fears about a water damaged augmented iPhone was based on a faulty plug.  Never let it be said that I did not assume the worst.  I think it comes from a Protestant expectation of justified retribution (as opposed to the wildly generalised concept of guilt that keeps Roman Catholicism going) for obvious mistakes – like leaving an iPhone out in the rain.

Yet again, it would appear that my source of luck has come into play and squirted another dose in my direction!

I must admit that I have been using my phone in a somewhat compulsive manner since it was magically restored to me: reading, playing, consulting, but not of course using it as a telephone.  Perish the thought!

I’m well into The Reformation at the moment and relishing the details of iconoclasm and the disturbing characters involved in it.  This is one of the chapters on which we have to concentrate as it will be the basis for at least one of the questions in the examination.  I have read through but will have to revert to old techniques and start making the revision notes that are necessary to get the detail firmly in my mind.

I am remembering to revert to tried and tested advice (by me!) to stick to what the OU tells you about something and use their vocabulary in your descriptions.  It is my ignoring of these simple rules in my last essay that is giving me pause for thought as I wait for it to be returned.

My jaunt to the swimming pool was most satisfactory, though this time I came out for my cup of tea and found myself confronted with a whole group of teachers from the school next door.

Our leisure centre is becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the school next door.  It is the educational and leisure equivalent of Lesotho – almost completely surrounded by another institution!

I think the most disconcerting element was a parting comment from one of my ex-colleagues who said (in response to my assertion that I was not working and was fairly averse to returning to the classroom) “You will help us out when we need it though?”  Hmmmm.

The weather is definitely getting cooler and although it has been bright today so far, it also looks as though it could rain before the day is out.  There is a distinct end of year feel to the climate, though I am delighted to report that each time I close the window because I feel it being a touch cold, I have to open it again because it is too hot. 

This is a situation that I would be perfectly happy to see extend itself well into the cruel months of the start of next year. 

I can always take the cold; it’s the wet and grey I can’t stand.

On the news Barcenas, the ex-treasurer of the ruling PP and who is now in prison is again splashed across the media because pictures of him inside prison have been smuggled out and sold.  Obviously the pictures have been taken on a mobile phone and one section of film shows Barcenas in some sort of religious service in which there are very few participants and so it is going to be very easy to work out who the photographer was.

On the positive side this does show a shocking lack of security for a very high profile prisoner and, as the odious Barcenas’s lawyer has suggested, the responsibility for this grave lapse of security is eventually the Minister of the Interior.  Who should resign.  Together with the rest of this thoroughly discredited government.

I think we are getting near to corruption overkill.  No one to whom I’ve talked expects anything like justice from this sorry catalogue of money-grubbing arrogance on the part of the government.  No one expects the King, his daughter and his son-in-law to get anything approaching justice as their various forms of financial “mismanagement” are considered, debated and then, presumably, conveniently delayed, sidelined and forgotten. 

What is going on at the moment in this country is truly sickening and it is to the continuing shame of the Spanish people that their so-called government continues as if nothing has happened or can happen to topple them from their completely illegitimate control of positions of power.

I am now reading Christopher Hitchens’ autobiography after glutting myself with two volumes of his essays and reviews.  His breadth of knowledge is astonishing and he wears it medium-easy.  I like his confrontational style and the confidence with which he writes.  His autobiographical writing is much like his other writing – and indeed many of the anecdotes are garnered from his other pieces.  It is not particularly revelatory, but I do find that it reads itself.  Compulsive!

It is now half past eleven at night and it is pouring with rain.  Raining at night is civilized and more than acceptable – it is when the dampness extends into daylight that I get upset and fidgety.

Tomorrow revising Luther and his mates and their less than positive reaction to artistic things in churches. 

What are you going to read about tomorrow?