It's all money!

The delivery people actually did their stuff and I am now the proud possessor of three new box sets of previously (well, forty odd years ago previously!) unobtainably expensive recordings.  Admittedly not all of them are that old, many are fairly recent issues, but there are certainly old favourites among the 150 CDs that I now have!  A box of Teldec, Erato and Das Alte Werk with treasures in all of them – and of course some discs that I may not even listen to once.  But that is where my swimming comes into the equation.

The little memory inside my swimming device is set to ‘random’ so that I get what could be described as an eclectic selection of music to accompany my stokes.  Half of it (or more if I am truly honest, although it comes from my collection) is made up of music I don’t know.  

Perhaps some bits are taken wildly out of context and one has to make allowances for the noise of exhaled breaths and the splash of swimming to lessen the quality of the musical experience.  There have been times when I have wondered what the music was and then gradually disentangled the tune from the watery obstructions to clarity and realized that it was very well known to me.  So, the listening experience is experiential as well as entertaining.

But the random switch does mean that I get to hear parts of my collection that other devices do not reach!  And to make sure that this voyage of discovery continues I am assiduously loading the discs into my computer so that when I come to change the music in my swimming device there will be a whole range of new material to delight!

The car crash saga continues with a voyage to pastures new to see the garage that the hittor wants me, the hittee to use.  I am prepared to do this, but never again, after trying and failing to find the building in which the hittor worked.  When we eventually found it, it turned out to be the flashy headquarters of a pharmaceutical company in the same town where Barça have their equally flashy (though not quite so tall) out of town forcing academy and extensive playing facilities.  Indeed while sitting on the tasteful sofas in the entrance hall we saw a star of the team appear.  It turns out the Piqué has founded a computer games company and has his business in part of the building!

Things have been arranged so that the car (and a replacement for me for a couple of days) will be done starting next Thursday.  Fine by me as long as it is done.

The day has not merely been composed of futile searching for large buildings and eating an extraordinarily expensive compensatory meal.  Which, interestingly was composed, for me of crystal bread with oil and tomato and a plate of some form of potato with fried eggs sprinkled with a fierce sauce and overlaid with elvers – that isn’t the interesting part, what is fascinating is that I felt absolutely stuffed after it!  I am daring to trust that my stomach might actually have shrunk a tad.  I say this because it doesn’t really look like it – but I have a touching faith in the power of words!  No indeed this was not the only notable occurrence today.

Spanish roads are not know for their sympathetic layout.  Or their signage.  Or the quality of their upkeep.  Or the quality of their lighting.  Or – but you get what I am trying to say.  I was beguiled by a straight road to continue in a straight line and therefore bumped into an intrusive kerb.  A truly horrible sound.  With worse results.

I must have looked like the archetypal pseudo maiden in distress.  I couldn’t find the spare wheel at first, so I had to get the manual out of the car and start looking things up.  I eventually found the bits and pieces but only after deconstructing the boot of the car in a way in which I am not confident of ever getting all back together again!  My distress must have been so palpable that a stockily competent lady accosted me in a torrent of Spanish from which I understood that the corner was a notorious accident spot, multitudes of drivers had suffered what I had experienced and the police, contacted on a number of occasions had done nothing!  (Their being, of course, inside the bars.)  So far so interesting, but she also reminded me that I was within screaming distance of a mechanic and garage!

Scream, well, walk and ask, I most certainly did and had to drive the car a horrific distance to the garage because the guy was by himself and couldn’t leave the premises even though the car was within sight.  Given the one way systems that are de rigeur in all parts of Spain I had to drive four times the distance to get to the garage because I couldn’t get there by reversing or driving directly.

The garage man was either generous or canny or both, but he changed the wheel for nothing.  The wheel which is my spare is completely different from the other wheels and is described as ‘compact’.  It is the same diameter you understand, but about half the width.  I assume this is because there is little space in the boot as the batteries take up a lot of the spare room in the car.  I now have to replace the ‘compact’ wheel with a real one.

Easier said than done.  We went, after our epic journey to get the details of how the car was going to be sorted, to a place which looks to my untutored eye most like the change-while-you-wait places in the UK.

Wait was certainly the operative word.  I detest garages because of the condescending nature of the employees there.  They ignore queues with a lofty indifference that puts one in mind of the excesses of behind-the-golden-curtain Chinese emperors, in their more autocratic moods!

Anyway I stomped out in a huff and drove to the next commercial centre down and there, behold, we were ignored again!  This time by people gazing with adoration at their computer screens, so actual human customers were more of an irritation than a guarantee that their jobs would continue to exist!  Toni however calmed me down and, given the general run of these sorts of characters, the one who dealt with us was of a higher quality than one is used to.  Although he didn’t actually have the tyre that I needed (of course) he did guarantee to get it by tomorrow and we could leave the damaged wheel with him and it would be ready to place on the car by the time I called in tomorrow morning.  This I have to experience to believe but at least he didn’t ask for money and so I am going to go with blind faith!

Toni is having study deprivation and fell back on his computer with a disturbingly voracious appetite to make up for time lost!

The OU course continues with people becoming a little more critical in their analysis, which is good.  There is little point is giving some sort of bland approbation for stuff which needs work.  A new critical pair of eyes is essential to improve standards.

As I type I am listening to a version of the next opera in my series, a Handel opera called ‘Agrippina’.  I have been dreading Handel: the operas are Wagner-long with idiotic stories and are full of recitative.  But the music is by Handel and there is something compulsive about the whimsical logic of his sounds.  And they are something you can listen to for the first time and feel that you are getting something more than just a first experience for another dozen listenings before you ‘get’ the music.  This is the sort of music that calls for an imaginative approach to give the ever-suffering member of the audience to look at while the plinkerty-plink music is going on.  I wait to be amazed by the experience!

The more I listen to the music the more it seems to suggest that I have heard it before.  I know I haven’t and I further know that I am responding to style rather than anything else, but that is a stage in getting to know and love.  That might be going a step too far, but I think that I will be able to get through the three hours without too much pain!

And while I type and Handel plays, the Turangalila Symphony is loading into the computer to join the three or four versions that I have, though not possibly in the computer memory yet.  The last year has seen me hoover up all the disc bargains that have been around so that I have more than a lifetime’s music waiting to be listened to.  O the joy!  I think I will leave the Bach until last!

I am looking forward to the weekend because Sunday or is it Saturday is the day when we go to Irene’s for our long, long delayed Eastern Meal.  Unfortunately spiced down for Spanish and Catalan taste, but it will be something different and if I am in a good mood I will donate a tin of my stuffed vine leaves that I have been hiding away as a treat for when I deserve it!  Even I can share when necessary!

Deprivation!

Yet another reason to hate the French. 

Their bloody supermarket, which dominates this part of the world, sells something which purports to be cottage cheese, but in reality it appears to be a particularly pernicious form of yogurt.  I have used this concoction in my cooking this evening – which, incidentally used some out of date meatballs which Toni steadfastly refused to eat. 

I am not sure now whether the date was a ‘use by’ (devised by Al Capone: I really must look that up, I have been stating it as a fact and it would nice to know that there is some basis for my assertion) or ‘sell by’ (or was it this one that dear old Al invented, sounds more convincing this way round) – anyway, whatever, I refuse to be intimidated by the fear of food poisoning and so I cooked them all with a sauce of mine own inventing, low calorie of course.  Though, thinking about it, that didn’t go for the meatballs which were and are probably packed with the most evil of fats.  Ah well, I must have some pleasure in what I eat – if only as compensation for returning to the tasteless horrors of cottage cheese in its truly awful foreign forms!

I downloaded a free book from the Internet for my Kindle about fallacies concerned with slimming.  The book has a naff cover and a faux matey style of delivery, but the content is shockingly sensible and realistic!  The writer of this disturbingly uncharacteristic book is one Mirsad Hasic (a sometime footballer) and the title ‘Why Can’t I lose Weight Like Others’.  For nothing it is a real bargain!  It takes the form of 40 short chapters about how to avoid the ‘biggest pitfalls’ in dieting.  Well worth reading and even getting if you have a Kindle.  I think that my response was so positive because much of what he suggests I am already doing or know is the right thing to do.  Not quite the same things!

I posted my writing about the ‘split’ personality of Soldier/Innocent that I generated by looking at photographs of strangers on the Internet and I have discovered that I now have picked up a personal nemesis on the course – a lady who praises my writing and then ever so slightly kicks me in the balls.  This time round it was a quibble about the differences between innocent and naïf (though she didn’t spell it like that, of course) and then a descent to ‘clueless’ about my carefully crafted soldier.  I was particularly proud of the battle honours that I was able to list, questionable the lot of them, including the battle in which Earl (sic) Douglas Haig (sick) tried to kill my grandfather and failed – twice.  Irony can go no further.  The portrait is one of my finer works of cynicism!

Now is the time of year when I used publically to moan about the proliferation of Christmas decorations in the shops before December, and privately looked at all of them and wanted the lot!  Every year I buy one or two new decorations, even if I don’t get to put them on the tree that I also sometimes don’t get to put up.  This buying was originally to compensate for Rhys and Gwen choosing a decoration each from my big tree.  Every year I tried to get them to take something major so that I could buy something to replace it, but they were (are) always well bred enough to go for something modest!  This year I have a Plan A and Plan B.

Plan A is to put the full tree up in all its splendour with new lights.  Though where exactly we put it is something to discuss.  Plan B is to use the mini light tree (bought from the What! Shop on Newport Road) that has been on the specially constructed shelf since last year and deck it out with white decorations - three new ones bought this evening.  There is of course a possibility of Plan C – do both!

There is also the question of the Belen (the Nativity Scene) replete with a virtual town of characters, which takes ages to unwrap and set up, though I do remember that I have a set of battery operated blue lights that could add a note of necessary extra naffness to the whole affair!

Although I have seen superb examples of tasteful Christmas decorations and wonderfully decorated trees, that is not really my style.  I like excess and the essential vulgarity that is surely nearer to the historical festivities at this time in December than the prettified legend of the overblown birth of some obscure Palestinian that was grafted on to an much, much older celebration!

Unfortunately the over-kill of decoration availability is not yet quite as well developed as in the UK and some of the prices for really quite ordinary decorations are eye-wateringly easy to reject.  I will, however, be assiduous in my search for reasonably priced essentially white decorations to complete successfully my vision of Plan B.  At least.

The story of my car crash gets more involved.  This was a driver stationary behind a vehicle trying to park and then, on a whim and with no indication, turning into me as I passed.  She was very apologetic and admitted liability in a way in which we are all urged not to do under any circumstances.  Her husband is German and the car is not registered in Spain and you could see her worried mind working overtime as there was very little damage to my car, but clearly noticeable damage to hers.

Unsurprisingly she wants the damage to be repaired privately and that is no problem, as long as it is done properly and I have a car for any time that mine is being done.  She is going to phone me tomorrow.  We will see what progress she has made.  This could run and run!  She sounded very harassed on the phone this evening pleading many things on her mind and kids as reasons for her not phoning.  A sexual expletive comes to mind.  Learn to drive if you don’t want problems!  Harsh but true.

Tomorrow the doctor for Toni for the results of his scheduled blood test and me on Thursday to the dentist for the fitting of my grind guard.  Talk about getting your money’s worth.  Though some autonomous regions are finding it increasingly difficult to pay their pharmacists, so god knows what is going to happen in the near future, let alone the distant!

Meanwhile music plays in my ears through remote headphones while Juventus and Real Madrid appear to be playing to a draw in the cup league.  Though in the last few minutes it is traditional for Real Madrid to score, though a penalty if necessary!  Three minutes left plus injury time and Juventus are using their final sub, I think.  Though what do I know!  What I do know is that my new CDs should be arriving tomorrow, although this is via the infamous non-delivery service that Amazon favours in this part of the world.  I live in hope.

And tomorrow I have to decide with all the meatballs that I couldn’t eat this evening.  And with what?  Pasta, rice and potatoes all banned!  I will have to try and find more of the lumpy cottage cheese – where all prospects pleases, and only man is vile.  Or something.

At least I am eating more fruit!

Now for a cup of relaxing tea composed of god knows what scrapings and weeds.  God knows what that unholy brew will do with the solid weight of meat balls firmly encamped in my stomach.  This is one case where it is very true to say, time will tell!

How long, O God!

Thing have reached a pretty pass when I actually make an effort to find out what cottage cheese is in Catalan!  This was prompted by the fact that I put one kilo back on last week.  Cottage cheese is simply not very nice, has not been very nice and will never be very nice – but it is better than nothing.  And I have spices, they have to make some sort of difference, for the better I trust!  I have bought an exploratory tub of something white and lumpy and will experiment with it.  A rapid sprinkling of my bottle of spices for tomatoes (it exists, I have bought it) and it became not very nice but with some sort of taste.  Presumably that is what I have to look forward to for the foreseeable future.  Happy days!

Tomorrow or the day after should see the arrival of my new boxes of CDs, forward to which I am certainly looking.  You really have to be of my generation and to have been interested in classical music, been at college and not been able to afford the records that you wanted to fully appreciate the delight in now owning all the unobtainable, of our your range, music.  And at a bargain cost.  For a couple of euros, no less, and in a format which is a damn sight more rugged than the original discs!

We have just come back from Terrassa where we went to celebrate a joint Name Day.  We had the ‘celebration’ in a local café and I had one bottle of fizzy Vichy water and a cup of coffee with ice to drink.  I am beginning to ask myself if what I am now living is in any way linked to what might loosely be called a ‘life’!  A whole bloody year of deprivation and it still won’t be enough!  I am not sure if my strength of will is up to a campaign which is going to last a whole year.  Though there again, the alternatives are less than acceptable if I am to have any chance of emulating my Uncle Eric.

Meanwhile the waiting for examination results and the return of the first TMA continues.  We have been told that our tutor will return all the assignments at the end of the marking period, in other words she will take the full ten working days, which actually means that the time can be over two weeks.  We have been told to concentrate on the chapter in The Big Red Book and do the exercises written there.

The present problem in writing concerns the asymmetrical nature of the human face.  We have been told to look at faces and make an assessment about each side of the face and give a description for each.  So, for example, after looking at a series of random faces on the Internet I have come up with a whole series of linkings such as, Judge/Whore; Murderer/Hostess and the one that I am working on at the moment Soldier/Innocent.  In keeping with the impulses of the course, I have done a certain amount of research and now know more about the basic issue gun of the British Army and the history of the Royal Welsh Regiment (or any variants of Royal Welsh, Welsh, Welch etc) than I have ever known before.  Did you know for example that the goat mascot was given by the Queen, had a surname of Windsor and had an official rank in the Army?  Just think how your life has been enriched by such knowledge!

Anyway I have written a monologue, which I have wisely left for revision tomorrow, which purports to be by a character who is both a soldier and an innocent.  I will have to read it again and more critically to discover if this is actually conveyed by the writing.  And there are more splits for me to give words to.  Much more writing to do!

The lure of a further gadget is getting to be almost irresistible, but my indolence has done nothing about getting the money together to buy it so it remains tantalizingly out of reach.  I am hoping that time will blunt my purpose and I will be able to look at adverts without convulsively looking for a shop.  The Shop.  Lurking at the corner of Plaça de Cataluña.  I know where it is and I know that to enter that beautifully designed place of consumerism and planned obsolescence is to fall.

For only the second time since my final retirement, I wore jeans and socks and trainers.  Most unpleasant, but even I cannot go on pretending that the weather has not changed.  It is autumn and there is no getting away from it.  Much though I would like to.

Tomorrow chores as well as writing.

Always writing

My Morning Pages today were only just; I blame The Guardian and a nice hot cup of tea, though the tea was a cup of hot water with squeezed orange and lemon with a spoon full of honey.  So, it was only fifteen minutes before midday that I started writing.  I am being fairly religious about this aspect of my writing course and I have thought of a way to make some use of it while I am waiting to integrate it into my writing.

I have painstakingly gone through my daily scrawl and have identified phrases and sentences that I think might be worth developing later.  I intend to put a small selection of these on our forum and then ask other students to do the same while asking for ways in which they could be used to develop ideas for other work.

Some people have already shown themselves ready to comment and contribute and those must be encouraged because they are going to be the backbone of the course.  I do my bit, but I need other people to respond.  For me the tutorial was always more useful than the lecture.  That may be obvious, but I really need to talk something out if it is to say in my mind and develop into a useful idea.

Irene phoned today and we have arranged to go out for dinner tomorrow.  This is another example of our both needing to talk – as well as eat!  We have been collecting various bits of electronic hardware for Irene for her to cope with her bad back courtesy of Lidl.  She deserves to be cossetted, especially during the winter considering the altitude at which she lives!

My swimming continues at what I now realise is a leisurely pace.  Towards the end of my swim, during which I had been pacing myself against a man in the next lane who looked while swimming a form of crawl as though he was about to die, I decided to beat him more convincingly and discovered that I had a considerable amount of power in reserve and cut through the water with commendable dispatch!  Which means I suppose that I should use some of that power before I feel the urge to stop because my allotted time is up.

But now some extra writing demanded by chapter 5 of the Big Red Book – our course bible – imagining a character that possess or makes use of a list of ten items. 

It’s like being back in school. 

But better!