Life is hard in its details

Some things are worth suffering in the short term so that you can luxuriate in the delight of their not happening in the long term. For most people.

Toothache, earache and headache are all nasty experiences which show you the true bliss of an ordinary existence without them. Someone once remarked that that with microbes, viruses and other nasties lurking all around us it was not surprising that we had occasional illnesses but it was truly remarkable that we were ever well!

Swimming pools are repositories of all sorts of unhealthiness on which is it not pleasant to dwell but one must place one’s trust in the right quantity of chlorine being placed in the water and one remembers to shower at the end of the swimming experience. In that way one is generally safe; or at least safe-ish.

Over the last few years I have taken to wearing ear plugs and have therefore saved myself another irritation. Yesterday however, in the rush to the person-less pool I omitted this simple precaution and plunged in with ears open to the elements.

The result was a water filled ear.

This usually responds to the ‘wet dog’ treatment whereby a vigorous shaking of the head (alas, not accompanied by a Timotei like ballet of wet hair in my case) usually clears out the excess water. This didn’t work. Neither did the ‘plunger’ technique of the index finger.

The time honoured way of the water is of course to wait for that delightful moment when a warm trickle from the ear presages the return of sharp hearing.

I have now been waiting for a day and that pop of audio clarity has been denied me. From time to time as I make a sudden movement there is that click of something happening in the ear which is just short of the water leaving it.

I think I shall have a small celebration when the water finally evaporates or gushes forth!

And yet again a normal life will be celebrated by the absence of minor irritation.

Now if only our irritating neighbours could go back to wherever their main (god how that grates) house is we would be fine!

A confusion of days

Tempted by Emma to luxuriate on the beach has necessitated the liberal application of After Sun. And I thought that I had acclimatized so well to Catalonia that such unguents were no longer necessary.

As further balm we went to see the pictures in MNAC that Emma didn’t see during the last visit.

The earlier paintings in the collection were rejected outright by Toni because they were contemptuously dismissed as ‘church’ pictures, and he watched with growing impatience as Emma and I bounced or way from wall to wall through the galleries.

It was only when we came to the nineteenth century and landscapes that he relaxed.

The one artistic experience that we all agreed on was the exhibition of the paintings of Vlaminck in one of the galleries of La Caixa Forum – one of the times that you don’t mind your money being used to the greater glorification of a bank! I still have to transfer the rest of my money from the Worst Bank in the World aka BBVA to La Caixa. This has to be done in a certain way so that I do not pay transfer fees to BBVA. The kind gentleman in La Caixa pointed out to me the various ways in which BBVA would try and squeeze the final cents out of me if I dared to change!

Today to Sitges. If I ever need to hear my native language then all I have to do is walk down any street in old Sitges and I can hear English – possibly with a particular lilt, but nevertheless English.

We had a lunch of a selection of tapas in a chiringuito next to the beach and we were royally ripped off for the privilege. Our meal later in the night in a restaurant in Castelldefels was much better quality and 50% cheaper and that included the excellent sangria that we quaffed.

Sitges is making the exploitation of tourists rather obvious but it has improved the appearance of some of the smaller beaches dramatically with increased pedestrianisazion of the areas behind the beach. Very impressive!

But it was still a relief to get back to the quieter pace of life in Castelldefels.

A walk along the paseo back to the area in which we used to live showed that the flat is still not being rented. The owner is going to be very fortunate to find people prepared to rent out the flat at the same rate that we were paying. Because we had a contract we were guaranteed our tenancy but we were also subject to a government limited rise in the rent each year. The owner will now have to start this process again, and, given the financial crisis he is unlikely to get the same rate. His refusal to return my aval has cost him dear – I hope!

Emma’s last night (difficult to follow the time scale of this blog sometimes isn’t it?) so we had paella followed by an internet search for the weather for Cardiff for the next week or so. This was a mistake.

A big, wet and cloudy mistake.

It's quite simple really!

I have been taught many things in my life. And I am deeply grateful for the knowledge that I have gained.

I have been taught to tell the time; it took a combination of school, my parents and the Cubs to drum the principles into my brain but it did eventually happen. I was taught the highway code; this knowledge did not prevent my being knocked down by a car the first time I went to Sunday school by myself, but then cars were supposed to be “all clear” at some point and the stream of vehicles seemed unending so I made a dash for it. At least I knew that I had not obeyed the code which I should have been following and the spectacular bruise that I developed helped instil the knowledge of the code into something which had to be obeyed – even if the cars did not seem to be playing their fair part.

I learned to read; taught by my father who held my writhing body in something approaching a full nelson to keep me on his lap and prompt my tearful responses to the pointing finger on the hateful pieces of card detailing the mundane adventures of Janet and John.

I was even taught how to solve quadratic equations by the graph method, completing the square and by the formula method. This knowledge is admittedly mostly lost by fragments of knowledge tremble at the tip of my pencil when I invigilate a maths exam and I am tempted to actually try one of the problems for myself. I do at least know the formula for the ‘formula method’ and thanks to Catkin Llama I now parrot the “ALL over 2a” when I come to the end.

I( have been taught and I have learned enough Spanish to tell a teenage ruffian friend of a very social underage neighbour that he and the rest of his and her crew are making too much noise again this late at night.

But in spite of my range of dilettante facts about a bewildering array of subjects I still feel that my education has been cruelly neglected.

This lack has been highlighted by a simple problem: how do you make crushed ice?

My solution of course, is to buy a gadget of some sort to do the job ‘properly.’ This seems a particularly attractive proposition when other methods have been tried and have failed.

The first attempt usually takes its inspiration from the name of the commodity that you are trying to create. One feels that there must be some sort of clue in the adjective ‘crushed.’

Inspiration leads inevitably to a hammer. One has a simple sequence in mind: hammer plus ice plus force equals crushed ice.

Wrong.

Using a hammer on a plastic bag full of large ice ‘cubes’ does not produce crushed ice but produces ice shards which fly through the plastic bag which has been punctured by the application of a hammer. The ice shards immediately start to melt so you have a room full of damp spots.

Varying the method by taking the ice out of the plastic bag and putting it in a tea towel and smashing it with a hammer while it is lying on the floor is neither effective nor hygienic.

Other methods become progressively more desperate and disproportionately humiliating as each successive attempt to break frozen water into smaller particles seems more and more unlikely.

Eventually, of course you resort of having chunks of ice in the drink (ah! I’ve now admitted the sybaritic reason for the demolition) and saying that it is fine.

Which it is certainly not.

So, anyway I bought a machine which had a little power pad of buttons each one of which was identified by a clear graphic. One graphic was of ice cubes and was clearly identified as the ice crusher.

And it didn’t work.

What possible use is an education system which does not give you the necessary knowledge to use a bloody machine to make crushed ice?

Risking a dislocated wrist I prodded the recalcitrant chunks of ice towards the whirling, pulsating blades to little or no avail. Toni was crushing the limes and adding the sugar and had the bottle unscrewed and all he needed was the crushed ice. Which in my case I did not have.

Much frantic improvisation and increasingly dangerous use of a wooden spoon later I was able to excavate a humiliatingly small amount of the hard won ice and deposit the same in the waiting glass.

But, as Toni took the opportunity to point out to me in case I had not noticed, “It doesn’t work.”

I didn’t of course read the instructions. What, I argued, was the need when the button had a little drawing on it!

What didn’t work would work because whatever else I had not been taught, I had been taught to think. And so I worked out a possible solution (there is a pun there!) put it to the test and got what I wanted.

I have now read the instructions and they read as follows: “To crush ice-cubes, place them inside the jug and fit the lid on. . . . Switch on by pressing the [ice graphic] button.”

This does not work.

The more astute of you will have seen that I have inserted the old three dots device to indicate something missed out. And what was missed out would have given me the clue a little earlier of to how to get crushed ice - if I had bothered to read it.

The missing sentence reads: “There is no need to add any liquid.” This is a lie. All you need to do (as indeed I did) is to do the opposite and you get crushed ice.

A cup of water added to the cubes and a press of the “programmed impulse speed” button of the ice graphic and there it was. Admittedly it had to be scooped out of the surrounding water fairly quickly but I did get a more than satisfactory drink at the end.

There is a good reason why it is never advisable to read instructions as the warm glow which paradoxically comes from my two crushed ice drinks clearly indicates.

Cheers!

It's a beach of a life!

This is the sort of weather that flays.

Bright sunshine with a brisk breeze little short of a wind. The beach (god, lying next to the sea is a potent, habit forming drug!) was fullish, but not with the whitened sepulchres of British bodies, but rather Iberian folk who were already sporting a more than respectable tan. Although this is common in Spain, Catalans are a varied bunch and do not always (or even usually) follow the dark, swarthy stereotype which forms in the mind of a Brit when asked to think of a Spaniard.

Castelldefels is the resort of choice of the day tripping Barcelona dweller so, although I am assured that there is a sizeable British contingent in Castelldefels, they rarely make their presence felt and the beach is the preserve of Spanish and Catalan.

I am sure that in the more cosmopolitan setting of Sitges just a little way down the coast there are going to be a generous amount of fried skin whimpering under cold showers this evening!

My concern with the weather is not just to give myself the opportunity to have a cheap gloat at the expense of my fellow countrymen still resident in my fellow country, but rather to worry about what weather Emma is going to have during her stay with us. For the last couple of days with Dianne and Gwen the weather was cloudy with occasional sunny periods. I am sure that would be acceptable given the vicious weather that August has seen fit to visit upon the British, but I am hoping for better.

At the moment I am looking out of the window at flawless blue skies with the harmony of the moment only shattered by the incredible inconsideration of our neighbours. They have a sizeable portion of the ‘Owner Syndrome’ which affected some of our fellow dwellers in the flat.

This syndrome (well attested in the medical literature) has symptoms which are easily visible. If a person owns (rather than rents) their accommodation they have to show that ownership in what has been described as ‘Ownership Behaviour.’

This takes the form of talking loudly at all times of the day and night; having a television blaring during the day which has been set up outside the house; colonizing areas of the swimming pool; having a daughter who . . . but there I shall draw a discrete veil. It is the typical behaviour of the obnoxious nouveau riche who has to let everyone know that they have made it.

I do realize that the preceding comments may appear to be almost unbearably, well, snobbish. But, I should care!

Emma has arrived and we have eaten and drunk. Isn’t that what a holiday is about?

'Read' the books!

Our preparation for our next British visitor has been relaxed not to say complacent. We are already feeling like a professional accommodation agency!

The danger is that Emma will be arriving in Barcelona at twenty to six in the evening, so we feel that we have the entire day to ensure that everything is in place. This, as any teacher with “the entire weekend ahead” will know, gives an entirely false sense of what time is available to complete essential tasks.

The bed coverings are all washed, but not yet on the bed. The boxes of books have been cleared away and the books placed on shelves, but the emptied boxes are still littering the garden. We have bought goods, but a few commodities are still waiting to be purchased. Nothing is going to take too much time, but we are going to leave it until there is not time to complete everything – in time!

I don’t think that being fully prepared for guests is actually playing the game. Too professional an approach to guests is surely a form of arrogance. Part of the pleasure of a visit is that your regimen is disrupted and you have to accommodate disruption to normal routine. Which all sounds like a justification for inaction and blind panic when you realize that time has in fact run out!

The boxes that I have opened today have revealed new treasures: the Somerset Maugham volume of short stories that I was looking for last term; catalogues from art galleries when I was in my relentless ‘doing art in Europe’ period; a box of my gloriously melancholy poems; ‘Lord of the Rings’ in my well thumbed three volume paperback set; programmes from significant and thoroughly witless productions; my volume of Charles Rennie Macintosh as a Designer of Chairs (which at one time I thought was my most esoteric purchase, and I bought it long enough ago for it to be so!) and on and on. How can I throw any of these away? Every book has a history; for many of them I can remember where I bought them and what bargains they were. I can remember the book sales; the plundering of various second hand book shops in Cardiff and Swansea and Kettering and London; the remainder book shops; the expensive ones; the unexpected ones; the gifts; the acquisitions – and some of them for which I have no memory whatsoever.

I am finding books that I have always told myself that I would read (like ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’ which I have now read) and other books that I feel I should read but probably won’t.

On Wren’s tomb it says (in Latin) something like for my memorial look around you. I suppose that I could change that a little and say for my autobiography look at my books.

Everything is there. Jumbled up with little sense of order. But everything that is important in my life is reflected in volumes brash, cheap, disturbing, classic, thoughtful, challenging, religious, tawdry, expansive, fantastic – and whole range of other adjectives that would have to be used to encapsulate a life.

I suppose one good thing about the fractured jigsaw that forms my book room is that the sheer incoherence of the array allows virtually any interpretation of what I am like.

A safe ambiguity!

The problems of paper

A cloudy start to the day.

One has to have faith (based on experience!) to believe that the sun will make an appearance. I don’t mind it being a little overcast as long as our nearest star is shining gloriously on Wednesday for the appearance of Emma – our next British visitor.

Already the new washing machine is (quietly) preparing the sheets to be laid and perhaps this time we might get round to splashing a bit of paint around.

Before Dianne and Gwen arrived I was determined to touch up the more glaring examples of grubbiness that we were presented with when we took over the house. The state in which we left the flat could not have been more marked when compared with the condition of the paintwork in the house.

Toni has attempted to repair some of the ravages (by a dog we suspect) to the doors which lead out onto the balcony on the third floor. The paste which he was using to restore the woodwork was probably more suitable for filling in cracks than replacing generous chunks of the framework: still, I am relying on the magic that ‘a lick of paint’ will do. To adopt what seems like a fairly racist slogan, “If it’s white, it’s alright!” It is, I suppose, an advantage that the interior of the house has been painted a uniform white making reparations (supposedly) easy.

Our good intentions to spruce up the living room came to nothing when I couldn’t find the paint brush. We know they exist because we packed them. We are unpacked. They are therefore somewhere in the house: the only problem is finding them. Situations like this can aid inaction for months. I hope!

Today, whatever else happens, I am going to get more boxes from Bluespace. Ten more boxes will probably fill all the remaining shelves in what I shall refer to henceforth as The Book Room. With bookcases along two walls and four bookcases forming an island in the centre of the room it has the look of a professional stack. The lights along the top of the wall based bookcases (installed by me!) are still working at a click of the remote – which still gives me a child-like pleasure each time I use it!

¨The far less pleasant task that I have to look forward to is the winnowing of the books now in place. I have decided that the number of bookcases already in place have reached the reasonable limit of what the house can take. You will note that I used the word ‘reasonable’ – this is to differentiate this house from the one in Cardiff where virtually every available empty vertical plane had a bookshelf of some sort against it.

Hard decisions will have to be made and I foresee a considerable amount of heartache as ‘84 Charing Cross Road’ meets ‘Fahrenheit 451.’

Still life is about hard decisions. Allegedly.

Bon voyage!

Our first British visitors take their leave with clouds rather spoiling the sunshine but perhaps preparing them for the weather of their native land. Though to be fair we have had a message that today has been one without rain in my native land. Lies of course!

Our minds should now be on our next guest but are more focussed on security and the question of when we get our new bikes and how we foil the rascally thieves which obviously infest this area!

Toni continues his one man efforts to convert our living space into an impregnable fortress. I can see myself in the near future weeping tears of frustration as I frantically search for the requisite key to let myself in, out or around our estate!

One of our present concerns is the temperature inside the house. The threat of mosquitoes is enough to close windows, but there is a corresponding rise in the thermometer which is not conducive to sweet repose during the nights. Our first response was to buy a remotely controlled (of course, this is me we are talking about) tower fan. This was suspiciously reasonably priced and has revealed the secret of its tempting pricing by breaking down twice. Unfortunately we had already bought two of them so we still have one on our hands.

The other fan was rejected by us and a new and more interesting (i.e. expensive) one was purchased.

This fan (allegedly) delivers cool air which has been charged with negative (or possible positive) ions. To achieve this, the machine has to be charged with water, ice packs and (although we have not done this) actual ice cubes. There seems to be a fairly heavy handed clue there about how the low temperature is achieved!

Although unimpressed with the first night’s cooling propensities we are going to give it another chance; charge it with ice cubes; pack it with frozen ice packs, and put it on full strength. We’ll probably end up with frostbite.

Tomorrow we have to prepare for our next visitor and, more importantly, I have to get more of the boxes from Bluespace.

One has to get one’s priorities right.

Every day and in every way I am getting poorer and poorer!

Our bikes are stolen!

I take is as a sign from whatever debased deity might be chuckling about the affairs of human kind that I am too young for an Old Man’s bike.

Our visit to the police station today was the usual farce of paperwork taking the place of action. Our bikes are well and truly gone.

I had not realized just how much I have become suddenly sensitised to foot propelled transport when I found myself eying with deep suspicion a young boy who was using a foot propelled scooter. Every bike which passes us is checked to see if it, in any way, bears the slightest resemblance to what has been stolen.

My bike is (sorry, was) so distinctive that if I see it, it is probably mine!

We are undoubtedly at fault in that we did not put them well away from covetous eyes which pass on the road. It must have been the work of a moment for the miscreants (two of them we suspect as they only took two of the three bikes which were there) to walk in from the street and take them through an open (sigh! I know) gate and away into the night.

I have decided to be upbeat about this incident, though it has fed the latent paranoia which Toni only suppresses with effort and we now live in what is rapidly become something of a fortress. Doors are being firmly locked and fencing is being reinforced. I can look forward to a growing insistence that anything which can be closed should be.

I am determined to buy another bike, though a cursory glance in the shop in which I bought the first showed me that its exact replacement is not there. The windows of the shop are festooned with signs saying that there are substantial reductions throughout the store. Everything is cut price. Except of course for the bike I want to buy.

One has to search for any positive lessons to take from this admittedly pretty poor experience. Apart from increasing the security in which we live and attempting to get reasonable insurance for the contents as well as the building, I take comfort from the fact that I liked the bike and found it (relatively) comfortable.

The crucial aspect which will be an improvement is that the bike that they have in stock is silver and therefore a little more distinguished than the black model that I had previously! A rather high price to pay for a different colour.

To add to the misery of the day I have not been feeling well. Again searching for the positive in the startlingly negative I would say that the pulsating ear ache from which I have been suffering is one of those maladies which are worth having so that you can appreciate their absence.

Allegedly.

I look forward to a more positive day tomorrow.

And another thing . . .

Today is the last day on which we can make a list of faults that we have found with the house. Given the odd dictates of our contract, after 30 days any faults that we find are our own concern and not those of the owner – whoever he she or it is. We have accepted that there are many aspects of ‘decoration’ in the house that we are going to have to rectify (including re-puttying windows) but some really do seem to be the responsibility of the owner and his agents. We will have to see how the agents respond. Our experience of these creatures is not good, but you never know, we might have found the only reasonable firm among the lot of them. And yes, that was an example of irony.

Our guests have settled in, though they didn’t find the fan in their room until this morning and so had a hot and sticky night.

I have, at last, actually got around to starting reading a book from the multitudes now exposed on my shelves. My choice lit on one which I have been meaning to read for some time: ‘Confederacy of Dunces’ by John Kennedy Toole published a decade after the author’s death by suicide. It is disturbingly funny and quirkily compulsive. I am enjoying it immensely – and I have a lot of reading to do if I am to complete my normal quota for this holiday!

With Dianne and Gwen we have discovered a new restaurant which provided a selection of tapas which were of outstanding quality – a place to which we will return.

Tomorrow, Barcelona: shopping for the girls and guilty wandering in bookshops for me!

That's the way the wind blows

The weather map shown on television last night was one of those time lapse things which show weather fronts on the move.

Every nasty thing that lurks in the Atlantic seems to make a bee-line for Britain. The edges of the nasty weather fronts hit the north-west corner of Spain and dissipate over the Pyrenees leaving Barcelona with artistic cloud fragments and sun.

That, at least, is the general picture and one which I hold to with passionate intensity.

For the next few days it has to hold good as I am about to pick up the girls from the airport. They have already made enquiries about the availability of parasols on the beach so their intentions are clear, as indeed I hope the skies will be for the duration of their stay. Luckily their predilection for shopping does offer an alternative strategy should the unthinkable happen and rain fall!

The last shelves are now being fitted to the last empty Billy bookcase and that will starkly show the real limitations that are going to have to be faced when I try and fit in the contents of some thirty Pickford boxes in the space for eight. Ho hum! One of life’s little problems. At least this visit will give a pause to my book spreading propensities and perhaps leave a moment for thought and some way of squaring the circle may present itself.

But there are books not yet unpacked that I cannot do without. Really. Where is the rest of my Complete Short Stories of Somerset Maugham? Where is my Firbank biography? Great Expectations? The rest of the Eighteenth Century: Pope, Swift, Smollett, Fielding? I have said that the books will fit and I have also agreed that any new book will mean the jettisoning of an old to compensate for the new, but . . . Well, the story of how I manage to make ends meet in the Battle of the Books (and where is my copy of that?) will be the subject of a future blog.

Our first British visitors have arrived and are settled in. Gwen and Dianne are just about to test the reputed comfort of the new beds. Their faces tomorrow as they prepare for a hard day of sunbathing will tell the true story of their night.

I can also report the safe delivery of a ‘moving in’ present which came with them. It is now in the garden nestling at the base of some truncated oleander trees and winking roguishly as a rather beautifully realized butterfly gently alights on a neighbouring toadstool.

I feel that the more perceptive among you will have worked out what the present was. I feel it adds a touch of class and looks thoroughly at home!

Thank you Ceri.

Count to ten!

The legend surrounding the Gordian Knot is one of those powerful stories whose power lies in the fact that the story embodies an essential key to the human psyche.

This thought occurred to me when I went onto the beach today . This was a momentous event as, since I have been in the house, I haven’t ventured onto the sands at all. I think that it was a sort of temporary aversion put in place by my unconscious to ensure that I did some work on the house before the start of term.

Anyway I set foot on the sand, plunged into the sea and instantly wondered why I hadn’t been lying in the sun for the past three weeks. The damage has now been done and my visitors better be prepared to be supine sun worshipers because the beach is where my temple is going to be.

I noticed a boy on the beach, standing by himself and working at some intricate activity involving string. At first I took him for a fisherman mending his nets (which shows what a romantic view I have of the seaside resort in which I live) until I realised that he was trying to disentangle what I assume was a kite string for his younger brother.

He was patience personified. He was holding what looked like a dripping stalactite of pale spaghetti which was the chaos of string that he was attempting to unravel. He studied the mass, he turned it this way and that and gently drew threads, sometimes tracing them carefully through the mass. You mustn’t think that I was staring (which I was) but the whole time that I was on the beach, whenever I looked up, he was there unmoved (physically and mentally) working in isolation at the three dimensional problem with which he was presented.

When I was younger, my patience for such unravelling was almost zero. My technique was to look at the twisted mass, select an ‘end’ and tug vigorously in the hope that, rather like a conjuring trick, the knots would magically disappear. This was a technique not without merit because it sometimes worked (especially with shoelaces) but more often than not (yes, the pun was intended) the force of the pull rendered all the knots sleekly impossible to undo.

With age (and the accretion of electronic leads and earphones) I have dredged up reserves of patience and now work the problems through with a minimum of teeth grinding. There are limits to this patience and the Alexander solution with the Gordian knot is never far from the surface of my attempts.

I remember when trying to sort out my mother’s jewellery after her death that one of my friends offered to untangle all those tiny linked gold chains that ladies seem to accumulate. This really does test the patience and I am sure that some firm somewhere (probably Microsoft) uses a box full of tangled thin chains as part of their selection procedure.

The Knot does separate people. There are those who make no attempt to undo; some who make only a cursory effort; those who try and try and then give up; those who try and try and then throw the thing away as if it were a snake; and those who go on and on and even ‘put it by’ to have further goes later.

I am sure that there have been studies on the relative persistence in untying knots in different groups of the population – and I am sure that it was money well spent.

I am still virtually prostrate after getting Carles’ ball back from the next door garden. As the gentleman who lives next door is of the French persuasion I assayed a conversation in that language. I am still trying to interpret the look of blank amazement that he gave me as one of joyful recognition of a fellow speaker rather than wondering who this evangelical speaking in tongues was.

One of his friends was so impressed with my French that he immediately started speaking English. Result! I should think.

The book situation is now becoming acute as shelf space is rapidly running out and the number of full boxes still in Bluespace does not seem to be diminishing. However, I am trying not to think about reality and am instead thoroughly enjoying the ‘discoveries’ which come with every opened box.

The nineteenth century is now filling the shelves and some of my more excessive reference books are now proudly flaunting their spines inviting my itching fingers. Unfortunately with so many boxes yet to be ‘released’ I have no time to read. But sometimes it is impossible to meet an old friend who has been in the lock up for three years without doing him the courtesy of showing some interest – but it does slow me down.

Three more boxes before I can call it a day. A librophile’s work is never done! (And yes, I do know the more orthodox word.)

Shopping is Hell!

Our visitors will be delighted to know that we now have bedding for them.

This was purchased in a supermarket in Sant Boi which I prefer to Carrefour. This positive preference was not matched by my experience there. Alcampo, the supermarket that I was in, is the only place which demands that you use a 50c coin in their trollies. All the others offer a selection of coins to release the vehicles, but not Alcampo. I did not have a 50c coin, needless to say. The change machine was out of order. I was in the wrong part of the store to go to the information kiosk.

I had started my shopping by assuming that a plastic wheeled basket would be sufficient. It wasn’t. Not only wasn’t it commodious enough, but I took a corner in an aisle too quickly and everything that I had in it tipped out.

Abandoning my basket in a convenient corner of the store I went in search of a trolley. I bought a lottery ticket for 1.50€ using a 2€ coin: never let it be said that my ‘O’ level in Maths did not come to my aid in times of commercial crisis!

I always thought that there was a sort of money grubbing logic to the way in which supermarkets are set out – but the logic which informed this layout of this one defeated me. To be precise: where the bread was.

Bread is a key commodity in a supermarket. Everyone buys it so where you locate it and what you place it next to is a key component in the commercial structure of the shop. I asked four employees all of whom (except for the one who said that he had no idea and I should ask Information) gave radically different instructions about how to find it. The fifth one was able to indicate with a wave of the hand and I saw the familiar cellophane encased sticks rising above a counter.

Then paying. My photocopied credit card sized version of my passport which has served me well in many transactions in spite of its illegality was refused. I therefore brought out the creased and venerable NIE (my identification document issued by the Spanish Government) that too was refused and dismissed as a photocopy. I am proud to say that I had a stand up row in Spanish and fluent splutter.

The sales assistant did give in and stomped out of the store feeling aggrieved but linguistically victorious!

Tomorrow a meeting in Barcelona with the two employees of ESCAAN to decide on future plans to get The Owner.

A meeting I think that I will enjoy.

Our great achievement for today was putting up Ceri’s big charcoal. As this picture has to be screwed into the wall because of its weight I fear that its ‘straightness’ is going to be a bone of contention for some time to come.

Those discussions, however, are going to be nothing compared to the differences of opinion about how to get it on to the wall in the first place!

Still, such efforts were good preparation for building yet more Billy bookcases. I am convinced that purgatory is full of people making IKEA furniture while hell is full of people making IKEA furniture with missing bits and faulty diagrams.

Supervised by Margaret Thatcher.

Present day horror

Was it not W C Fields who said (and if he didn’t who cares) that anyone who hates dogs and children can’t be all bad?

Live where I live and you will see and hear living evidence that the Great Man was expressing a universal truth rather than a bitter personal opinion.

I have written before of my disgust for the predilection of Spaniards for various forms of supine rat-dogs which they (mistakenly) think fit well in a flat. These repulsive genetic scrapings of in-breeding; these caricatures of an noble animal descended from a wolf; these rickety pieces of fluff on spindly legs belie their size when their ‘territory’ is invaded by more respectable mammals and they give voice to their incessant and penetrating yipe – the perverted version of the wolf’s howl.

We are surrounded by a whole kindergarten of canine children substitutes and when one starts its inane parody of a bark then the whole grotesque zoo of shadow dogs add their high pitched irritation to the general cacophony.

There are two spaniel-like creatures at the end of our street who manage to produce a sort of twisted bark which is a mixture of squeal and scream. I have seen these two aged, bleary, sleep filled eyed plodders and the only reason they make any sound at all is that they are secure behind the firm bars of their garden gate.

One longs to hear a full throated bark which indicates that it is being produced by a real dog like, for example, a Labrador – but such animals seem too large and macho for a nation which prides itself on its masculinity. To hell with all of the precious rat-dog owners: they are pathetic and inconsiderate and should be fined for each high pitched yelp their pampered rats emit.

And then the children.

There are other quotations by W C Fields about children which are amusing but are something which a teacher can only take a guilty pleasure when laughing at them. To be a teacher is to care for kids. But to care for them in their place: in a professional situation in a school.

I see enough of kids in my professional life to want to see more of them in my home environment.

In my experience Spanish children are spoiled to a ridiculous extent. Virtually anything they do is excused – not only excused but admired and applauded. Their behaviour in public places is appalling, as indeed is that of their parents as they ignore or encourage a level of behaviour which would have had me publically executed by my weeping parents if I had even remotely approached the standards of depravity that Spanish children inhabit.

Not only are we surrounded by children of various ages but I suspect that, in a terrible twist of fate, I have rented a house oppose a nursery school!

As children find it impossible to communicate in anything less than a scream you can imagine my chagrin during a normal day in the holidays! The adolescent next door: a charming young lady with a string of repulsive pseudo-macho hangers on spends most of her day laughing that piercingly false laugh which is bread and butter to the soul of the budding male.

As they spend most of their time around the pool smoking cigarettes I think bloody thoughts and present a positively Buddha-like calm from the upholstered luxury of my new chair.

I will need that mystic calm for tomorrow when I go (again, oh god, again) to IKEA to buy yet more Billy Bookcases. These will be the apocalyptic bookcases as they represent the final number of shelves for whatever books remain in Bluespace. These are indeed the Final Days when the Books Will Be Counted.

Give me strength!

Keep the books comming.

A day that can almost be classified as normal!

Apart that is from taking back a tower fan to Gavá – and it providing another instance of how it is possible to say almost anything with a very limited vocabulary in Spanish.

There should be a compendium of my witty, apposite and concise sayings in foreign tongues when forced into a tight linguistic corner. I have never looked back since I engaged in a conversation in French about the novels of Marcel Proust. What was the sum total of my insights into the French Master’s prose works given that I had studied his novels (well, the first two) in university? “Each word is well chosen.” Given that the man abjured normal society and locked himself in a cork lined room to write, not such a bad thing to say I would have thought!

My attempts in Spanish have sometimes surpassed even that inspired concision. Given that I have denounced banks, asked for technical documentation, changed, exchanged and complained – all in my limited Spanish - you can imagine what depths (or shallows) of language abuse I have plumbed or paddled!

I now have an established default position in the house. I sit in my new chair, my legs slightly elevated with my back to the television looking out of the window at the loungers by the pool while at the same time fighting off the dreaded tiger mosquito. I would usually have my Sony e-book reader in my hands but am devastated to relate that there is something wrong with the screen of my device.

I am fairly sure that somewhere along the way in the move I have dropped or knocked the thing so that the top right hand corner of the screen is faulty and does not display print. This is not a catastrophic difficulty, though I do feel a little presumptuous guessing the words of great authors to fill in the blanks.

I could regard this as a signal from the god of consumerism to upgrade my present machine and go for one which can link automatically to the internet and download books without having to link to a computer. The temptation is almost overwhelming but I fear that I will find that the one I have already got is as good as you get.

As a person waging a one person war against the Crisis by pledging himself to consumerism, I sometimes feel that Capitalist Society does not always play along with my life-long addiction to shopping! I am after all a devoted follower of ‘planned obsolescence’ as long as I am given a new glitzy and blue light studded version of what I already own on which to waste my money.

Meanwhile the library.

There is the equivalent of eight shelves left for books and a damn sight more than five times that number of Pickford’s packing cases left in Bluespace.

The obvious solution is to create an ‘island’ of four bookshelves in the middle of the library. I must say here that the ‘library’ is not a big room and the two walls which are not window and built in wardrobe are lined to the ceiling with bookcases, so space is limited. On the other hand the space is Bluespace is expensive so something will have to be done and done quickly or I will be paying yet another month’s rent for the space that I shouldn’t need.

Both Toni and I am suffering from ‘Constructional Fatigue’ and are almost at the stage where we will pay twice the price as long as whatever it is we are buying is fully constructed and ready-to-go at the point of purchase!

We had lunch in a Galician restaurant which comprised a series of tapas. Toni’s favourite is pulpo a feira galega which is a special dish of pulpo sliced and sprinkled with paprika and served on a roundel of wood. It is an acquired taste and the offering that we had today had an odd flavour. I have to admit that the best that I have tasted was produced by Toni’s mum and every other attempt at this dish has had to live up to her standard.

Our first British visitors arrive on Wednesday which is concentrating our minds somewhat.

The television is showing the usual spate of fires which light up the night sky of Spain at this time of year. There are fires in Tarragona and closer to us in the Garraf parts of which form a national park which surrounds Castelldefels.

But, as usual in this part of the world, things like that just pass us by: crisis, what crisis and fires, what fires tend to be the philosophies that guide us here!

Spain, as they say, is another country.

Invasion!

What does a visit from very small children and the Nazi party have in common?

I realize that most parents with historical flair will be able to give a whole thesis devoted to this comparison (and probably the grandparents will be able to supply footnotes, appendixes and a bibliography) but I am thinking in more restricted terms.

Lebensraum is just an historical concept until you have seen what happens when two youngsters arrive. Suddenly you are invaded by what seems to be a whole army of kids who arrive shouting and screaming. They are followed by the baggage animals (parents and immediate relatives) who look haggard and are weighed down by the supplies that one child of one and another of four need to survive a visit all of 30km away from their home base.

Within minutes the portable DVD player is put on charge for the journey home. Base camp is established on the plastic outdoor table which is immediately covered with immediate supplies like nappies and wet wipes. Clear plastic sacks of various essential toys are deposited within easy reach. There is one load of toys for the beach and another for the home and another all purpose sack for any other conceivable situation.

A small house is established in seconds using the technology of those throw-them-in-the-air tents which are fully constructed by the time they hit the ground. A plastic basketball net is built. Three balls appear covered with cartoon characters. And inflatable beach ball starts rolling in the breeze and a forlorn balloon bumps along the gravel.

Then there are the clothes. Each young child now appears to travel with a wardrobe that even Paris Hilton would consider excessive. Shoes sprout up everywhere – and where there are shoes there are tiny t-shirts and other more horrific parts of a child’s wear.

Food does not follow the plate, implement, mouth path for young children just as the sit-in-one-place to eat your food does not seem popular with the under fives. In a way which would do credit to certain brands of butter, food is spread liberally in places where it is unlikely to be digested by a human over the age of four.

And the noise! Children communicate in screams that would not be out of place is some opera houses – and it is a continuing wonder to me that windows in our area stay intact when they are bombarded with high decibel high frequencies.

But then they go. Their parents reluctantly fit them into the car and you realize why some headaches are necessary just to show you how delightful it is when they aren’t there.

One advantage of having a family visit you is that nowadays it is inconceivable for a family of four to travel in anything less than what would have been considered a charabanc when I was young. What it does allow is that, when the family has been settled into their newly colonized space complete with housing and sporting facilities the ‘car’ can be used for useful things like collecting Ceri’s large charcoal and boxes of books.

It is fairly obvious that the remaining books in Bluespace are not going to fit into the Billy Bookcases newly built to receive them. This is a problem which will have to be faced in the very near future. I am not looking forward to Toni’s reactions!

Meanwhile preparations for our first British visitors continue apace.

We might even be ready for them when they arrive!

Big is not always beautiful

What a glorious load of old Grand Guignol rubbish ‘Turandot’ is. A guilty pleasure if ever there was one! The production which I saw last night in the Liceu directed by Núria Espert (in spite of the interesting possibilities suggested by the photograph on the cover of the programme) did little to illuminate what is, after all, a fairy tale.

The first appearance of Turandot with the massive idol in the background breaking in two to reveal a backlit Turandot wreathed in CO2 looking like an alien was impressive if corny. The crowd scenes were large, populous and highly mannered. “So what?” I hear you ask. It is, after all, a piece not noted for its verisimilitude!

I’m not sure that any singing in live performance of ‘Turandot’ is going to match expectations, but I am left vaguely dissatisfied by the whole bunch of singers in this production. I thought that Liú (Norah Amsellem) had a disconcerting vibrato until I heard Turandot (Georgina Lukács) and for me, Amsellem eventually produced the most satisfying performance in the show.

Calaf’s first notes did not encourage confidence and he never rose above the competent. The production of The Aria was mystifying with poor old Calaf in shadow for most of the song. But at least he did whack (and with real enthusiasm) a real gong when signifying that he would attempt the three riddles.

Is ‘Turandot’ really as ‘empty’ as this production makes it? There is spectacle a plenty but no substance that I can see. The appearance of the Emperor was especially impressive emerging from behind the idol on a truck moving downstage flanked by two immense Chinese dragons and a suitably ghost like array of councillors. But apart from looking good, what did it really do?

The eponymous villain of the piece deserves some comment. Her first notes reminded me vividly of my response to hearing Rita Hunter in the WNO production of ‘Turandot’ many years ago: total horror. I simply cannot respond with any degree of pleasure to the level of vibrato fuelled scream which characterized most of Lukács’ performance.

The orchestra under Giuliano Carell did not seem to have their usual poise and there was a marked lack of coherence and fluidity in some of the ensemble pieces and many of the entrances were not as ‘clean’ as I would expect from an orchestra of this quality.

The feeling that I was left with was that this was a posturing and safe production that swapped depth for spectacle. This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it. The ending which seemed to have Turandot kill herself for love showed that there was thought but no follow through. A missed opportunity I thought.

Emerging from the Liceu after an opera performance onto a crowded portion of the night time Ramblas jostling with pimps, prostitutes, chancers and foreigners looking for a good time while holding my programme like a passport to middle class respectability is not a pleasant experience. It is something of an abrupt transition from high art to low life in a few steps, and I scurry my way through the crowds to my ludicrously expensive parking space and start the drive home.

There is nothing which encourages my contempt for my fellow man as driving along the two narrow roads that flank the Ramblas.

Night time pedestrians do not seem to have grasped the simple fact that they are made of vulnerable flesh and cars are made of metal and that contact between the two usually results in the pedestrian coming off worse. But no, gaily chatting on their mobile phones and looking neither to left nor right they march into the middle of the road with the propriatorial air of Macadam himself!

As this is Spain one must (how can one?) not forget the suicidal antics of cyclists and, especially, motor cyclists. It is now my passionately held belief that, in any accident involving motor cyclists their broken bodies should be swept to the side of the road and left there to rot – much in the manner of ancient punishments where criminals were kept in cages pendent from the battlements of castles as a warning to others.

Rather harsh?

Drive in Spain for more than a couple of days and you will share my feelings and be amazed at my moderation!

And the next please!

One case against The Owner of The School That Sacked Me done; the next has now begun.

With the delicacy of touch which characterizes The Owner’s attempts at personnel management she told one member of staff, on the day before her annual long summer holidays that her hours would be halved when she returned and that her job would be different!

My advice was to contact the Union at once (a union I might add that I encouraged my colleague to join) and take legal advice.

The result at first was one of those instances when you have to tell yourself that you are in Spain and not in the UK. The first response that she was given from the union was that nothing could be done because the school holidays had started and no one would be in place until September!

Our joint shocked reaction and a return phone call ensured prompt action on the part of the union and the instant provision of a lawyer. Needless to say, the information from the legal gentleman that what The Owner had done was illegal did not raise a collective eyebrow, so the process has begun to make damn sure that my colleague is sacked.

This may seem rather odd to British ears, but in Spanish terms it is much better to be sacked from a job than to leave it. When you are sacked in Spain an automatic process is started whereby you get very generous unemployment benefit for what seems like an inordinate amount of time.

As long as you are sacked.

Being sacked can be used by an employer as a considerable inducement to encourage a person to leave a place of employment with a smile on the face! It doesn’t make sense but it is what is done. So I am helping a friend to ensure that she gets sacked.

The worrying part of this process is that she will not be sacked but will be subject to what I would describe as a process of constructive dismissal – where her life in The School That Sacked Me will be made even more intolerable than it is at present. I keep telling my friend that all she has to do is be seen in public in Sitges having a cup of coffee with me and her dismissal would be instant! With compensation to leave immediately!

I am tempted to write another letter to The Owner commiserating with her on her recent financial loss in compensating her ex employees for the disgraceful treatment they have had at her hands and asking that she short circuit the legal process and tell me the monetary details about the Readathon for Burma that we held last year in the school that I have been asking about by letter, email, telephone call, police report and court order since the money was handed in – those details that no teacher, pupil or parent has been told about.

Or do you think that it would be a little too callously obvious? One wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings, in spite of the carefree way that she plays with other people’s lives.

On the domestic front another concerted effort has been made to bring order (or ‘yet more’ order from my point of view) to the kitchen. With an enthusiasm born of lack of knowledge of that particular room, Toni has dictated a ‘tidy’ policy which has resulted in some re-arrangement. Actual use of the kitchen will, of course, destroy this artificial overlay of order, but I didn’t have the heart to point this out to Toni as diktat’s kept flowing from his mouth about where to put stuff.

The only point on which I was adamant was that the nappies (don’t bloody ask!) were not going to be kept on top of the wine rack. One does, after all (and in spite of everything) have standards!

Talking of which, tonight I’m off to see Turandot. This is one time that I am hoping that some trendy director has taken a radical view and produced a version set in a Communist gulag or in Harvey Nicholls in Leeds or something other than costume drama China. I know nothing about this production so I am a tabla rasa waiting for an imprint.

One lives, as you can tell, in hope!

Partial Justice!

Result!

The Owner of The School That Sacked Me has been forced to pay almost 20,000€ to two teachers in the school who were sacked by that unfeeling, unprofessional and basically illegal person.

In an unreal reworking of one of those marvellous sketches by Daumier of huddles of lawyers gathered in small intimate groups outside the court rooms deciding the fate of their clients, The Owner pushed the final outcome of this case to the wire. The usher was actually calling the case as yet another consultation was held to see if something could be worked out.

The lawyer, colleagues and I met under the Arc de Triumph in Barcelona not only because it was a good metaphor for what we hoped to achieve but also because it was very near the courts.

The Owner, of course, did not turn up. Instead we saw her minion, haggard of face with a trio of lawyers. She gave a visible start when she recognized me but passed off the moment with a truly ghastly smile. This sidekick has made a Faustian bargain with The Owner and does all her dirty work. She did not look at all well and I felt not a scrap of sympathy for a woman who deliberately lied to me and who has only survived by suppressing any moral feelings that she might have about what she had to do on a daily basis.

After a deal had been done we all shook hands with lawyers on both sides and kissed The Owner’s creature. When she kissed me she said with a wry laugh, “Mr Rees. You can go!” It wasn’t said viciously and I have no real idea what she meant. Toni said that it was the equivalent of telling me to get lost; but he wasn’t there and I’m not sure that it was anything more than sheer exasperation. In which case I am more than satisfied. Also the news that I was there will get back to The Owner and cause her displeasure. Another bonus!

Once out of the court (into which we never actually got!) we had a celebratory cup of coffee and went our separate ways with the Dutch lawyer saying that we had to arrange a time to meet next week to consider who to continue my efforts to bring The Owner to book.

A most satisfactory morning.

The evening was taken up with a visit to Terrassa for a family birthday. It went as these things usually go but will be remembered for a truly spectacular cream birthday cake with the flavour of Crema Catalana. The floor show was provided by the one year old (his older brother have succumbed to sleep) who stole blatant finger loads of cream and then put a tiny hand over his mouth in a gesture of shocked guilt.

It doesn’t sound like much; perhaps you had to be there to find it amusing. And his fingers not be in your portion of cake.

And the Cava was nice too.

Screw fixing!

I think that the future financial standing of certain shops in the Castelldefels/Gava/ Sant Boi area are directly dependent on our continuing efforts to make the house ready for our first guests in late July. There are certain hardware stores where we are greeted as old friends.

Toni has bought a new Bosch drill with which he rather ostentatiously parades around with a Bond-like demeanour and a startlingly sardonic smile. He is, even as I type, repairing the front gate. This metal and wattle construction is linked to the entry phone and has already been ‘repaired’ once by the jobbing trouble shooter employed by the estate agents. We were impressed with the alacrity with which our request for attention was received, but the final result is that we (or rather Toni) have to correct.

It turns out that the ‘wrongness’ of the professionals’ efforts means that it is difficult to produce a satisfactory result without grinding down two metal plates. So I am told. And I don’t mind being told as long as I don’t have to do!

Things are not quite as frenetic as they have been and we are now satisfied with completing a few domestic tasks rather than, say, producing a complete garden. We are, at last, at the refinements stage rather than establishing. It is, believe me, quite different with entirely different stresses. It is now possible to consider the logistics of having guests calmly without the Munch-like horror with which the prospect was previously greeted!

More pictures have been put up and now the house is something like a gallery and very comforting I find it too. There is the question of the Lost Paintings. I realize that not only is Toni’s favourite Ceri painting not where we thought it to be, but also one of my Young Artists in Habitat silk screen prints is missing. This is not exactly an inconspicuous piece being a large abstract mostly in browns. The artist’s father described his first ideas for his piece as looking like an ‘extended turd’ – needless to say the picture that I bought was a later version and a little more acceptable than that! These (and probably more) are part of the Lost Paintings cache which must exist somewhere.

Their reappearance will, however cause a certain amount of readjustment to the selection of paintings on display at present.

Our more immediate problem is a cat.

It is well known that these pests have a habit of using other people’s gardens as their loos. We have such a cat. It has walked on our outside table and has excreted in Toni’s immaculately laid volcanic rubble boarder. I suppose the cat must have assumed that it had arrived in kitty-litter heaven when it saw square metres of available toilet.

As a dog person I am all in favour of laying poison and mounting armed guard to nail the beast but I have been persuaded that this feline filth has some sort of legal right to life which precludes my very reasonable yet pleasantly Draconian solutions.

To those who aver that cats have souls I can only say that their mercenary souls are of such a quality of selfishness that make Satan himself look innocently generous – and I`ve owned a Labrador.

Anyway I have decided that a water-pistol will be my weapon of choice if I see any quadruped making its way with bathroom eyes onto my property. The blow to a cat’s pride of an expertly aimed jet of water from a child’s cheap toy may, with any luck, prove fatal – even without this happy outcome the deterrent effect should be worth the expenditure.

Meanwhile we have thrown away detritus from the previous occupant without a second thought and the play is becoming a clear (if disturbing) reflection of our joint personalities.

Tomorrow a possible visit to court to see the outcome of a hearing against The Owner and her medieval employment policies. It is too much to hope that she will turn up herself but even a quarter of a chance that she will be there is enough to guarantee my presence. For old time’s sake.

What a nice person I am!

Art for design's sake?

Some of the paintings are up on the walls!

Apart, of course, from books, there is nothing that contributes so much to making a house a home than paintings. And, of course, they are just as revealing as anything you might possess. Interpretation of possessions is always a tricky process because most homes are amalgams of accident and intent.

I still have the remnants of the furniture from my grandmother that furnished my first flat in the days when the rates of interest were in double figures! Some furniture is pure compromise when what you wanted was at some absurd price and what you could afford was nothing like what you wanted. I would hardly like to be judged on the number of IKEA Billy bookcases – and in some cases not by the volumes inside either!

My collection of paintings (some of which unaccountably do not seem to have survived the trip to Spain) are an eclectic bunch of works. Few are actual purchases from galleries while some that I value the most were bought directly from the artists. One took months to buy while the artist decided whether or not to sell it. The decision to buy another was taken during a drunken evening with the artist: the artist’s wife clarified the intention the next day when sobriety had returned. One was bought while an exhibition was being taken down. One was bought during a spending frenzy when SQB and I went berserk in town one Saturday. One was a birthday gift which wittily exploits my admiration of the penguin. They all have histories, but not everyone shares my pleasure in their appearance.

One of my favourite art objects is a bamboo pen Chinese ink drawing of an old stone archway in Merthyr by John Uzzell Edwards. I bought it while I was in University for a price which I am ashamed to admit. No one who has seen this drawing is neutral about it. Some share my liking, but most find it disturbing or sinister. This may be because of the severe linear depiction of the ground which some say has the appearance of a weeping woman. Who knows; but it remains a minority taste.

It will be interesting to see how the dynamics of the house are affected by the display of art.

It will also depend on what else turns up in the continuing excavations in Bluespace. As far as I can see the only art work remaining in storage is Ceri’s large charcoal drawing which I was unable to fit into the car today. We have decided where it has to go, though I do have some misgivings that it might be too large. Never mind we can always trim a few inches from the top or bottom to ensure that it fits.

Only joking, Ceri! We will rebuild the house to accommodate your work.