Terrible transport

Cars are hateful bloody things.  They are a thorough nuisance when you are without one, especially if you are used to one and therefore have conditioned yourself to be particularly helpless when motorised transport is denied you.  They are also vile when they are working as they constantly ask to be fed with increasingly expensive liquid and finding somewhere suitable to leave them is becoming virtually impossible.

It was therefore with ill concealed fury that, having woken up at an ungodly hour to get my car to the garage for 8.30 am I had to wait while people arrived at the garage before I could walk home.

That anger was as nothing when I heard that the trouble was the clutch which had to be replaced at a vast and fabulous cost!  So much for the season of goodwill.  The clutch costs as much as a mobile phone that one would not be ashamed to use in technologically literate company!  What a waste of money, when it could be spent too much more advantage on flashily showy gadgets.

There is something depressingly quotidian about mere transport which, in spite of its necessity, leaves me quite cold.

So the so-called “extra” pay (which because of the crisis I have not actually been paid, and even when it is it is no all of it) will be lavished on a bloody clutch!

The long walk back from the garage was cold and depressing and convinced me that, however much the clutch cost, it was worth it!

Car-less, we ate locally and tried out a new locale by walking over the blue pedestrian bridge to a motorway café which I have long longed to try.

The menu came in three sorts and we chose the cheapest of the menus at some off price of just under €7·50 which, with tax and coffee came to just under €9. 

For this princely sum I had a starter of spaghetti “mar y montaña” (the Catalan version of “surf and turf” which they claim to have originated) which comprised spaghetti, small bivalve shells, salty mushrooms and some unidentified bits of meat-like substances, all in a vaguely tomatoesque sauce.  It could have done with some grated cheese which I was too shocked to ask for, but it was reasonably good.

The second course was fatty meat (delicious, a guilty pleasure, but delicious) with woodchip like chips.  The sweet was Crema Catalana which was the best of the three courses and home made.  The wine was a very, very young and untamed Rioja made palatable by Casera.  I am sure that this was the sort of meal that, when I first came to this country I would have been bowled over by.

Although relatively cheap and relatively tasty, I am no longer so easily impressed and I think that I would have preferred to have paid a few euros more and had a much better meal.  It was just as well that I heard about the cost of repairing the car after lunch because my jaundiced mood would have made my reception of the meal even less positive!

I have just read one of Rider Haggard’s books after a very long period since I read the last one.  “King Solomon’s Mines” was something of a favourite with me when I was younger and the character of Gagool has remained with me.  I also seem to recall some expressive line drawings in the Puffin edition.

I loved “King Solomon’s Mines” but my reading of the most recent book makes me think that Haggard is something of a pernicious writer.

I know it is very easy from this historically distant standpoint to read someone writing about Africa in 1908 and take a snooty attitude towards the condescension and racism that, even if it is not plainly evident, must be there. 

Haggard goes out of his way to show the nobility of the natives and makes a number of snide remarks about the morality of the colonial whites.  The main character’s father is depicted as a bigoted and dangerously selfish clergyman devoted to the idea of martyrdom at the expense of his family.  The villain of the piece (one of many) is a renegade white “gentleman” who is demonstrated to be a coward who also hits women and has native “wives”.  Need more be said!

The plot is one of the sort which uses elements common to many of the novels of his I have read.  There is a more than generous ladling of magic and fantasy; there is a noble and self-sacrificing native; the main character is a fey, yet goddess-like white woman who rules over the imagination of the natives; there is war and struggle; death and redemption all leading to the affirmation of the power of love.

I read it compulsively as I am sure his readers did in the first decade of the twentieth century!

Now to bed to try and gain the right frame of mind to pay out the vast sums of money this are necessary to get my car back into service tomorrow.

It’s only money.

Catch Up

Today, Boxing Day – or more importantly my Saint’s Day – was notable for lots of things, but, to my mind the most engaging thing was when I looked into the heavens just before I got to Toni’s sister’s flat and only saw the suggestion of clouds out of the corner of my eye.  A sky that flawless this late in December deserves some respect!

Christmas Eve had its own special flavour with the hitting of the log to shit presents with my own excreted gifts including a USB heated drink coaster; a X frame for tablet computers and a very large bottle of aftershave.

My name day saw our having a meal of fideua followed by an experimental chocolate fountain.  My Saint’s Day’s gifts included a book of world architecture; a couple of bottles of Cava and some spa body wash.  All in all a good haul.

What hasn’t been good has been my total inability to get an email plus specially taken photograph to act as a Christmas message to those I should be in contact with.  Each one of the select number of Christmas cards that I have received has been a vicious prod in the area where my guilt complex should reside.  To those who did send a card, I should inform then that they form a neat row under the television and on the printer – and very nice they look too. 

Next year.  Without fail.  Cards of some sort will be sent.  Honestly.

Or not, of course.

Now back in Castelldefels, tomorrow the car has to be taken to the garage, as acceleration seems to be a thing of the past.  My teeth need attention and my cough is still with me.

Roll on the rest of the holiday!

Jesting Pilate

“Are you,” asked a very small child with wide eyes, “the real Santa Claus?”

An impressively complex questions, as I am sure that you admit. 

One which, in many ways, one could say that the whole of my education and experience had been leading up to.  Here was something to tax what I laughingly refer to as my intellect.  Something to push my grasp of ethics.   Something to stretch my concept of morality.

That trusting face, filled with expectation and enquiry, open and innocent waiting for the truth.

The Truth.

I lied, of course.  Instantly and totally with the sincerity which I have laboured to make natural for the whole of my life.

But there again.  With legend, when whatever was once real is lost in the mists of time, interpretation when your representation is a real as it gets.  Perhaps I was telling the truth.

What I thought was going to be a quick appearance, a few waves and a few chortles did not quite turn out like that.

Enthroned on an old-fashioned high-winged bow-legged armchair in boots which had taken me minutes to get on and with a beard and moustache that refused to stay anywhere near my mouth I was trapped for two and a half hours as waves of small people came and received books from my white gloved hands.

Admittedly I only came into contact with the more foetal members of our school, but there did seem to be hordes of them.

They arrived class by class wide-eyed with wonder.  They clustered around me for a group photograph which was only possible because of their teachers’ ability to arrange the kids like a three-dimensional jigsaw in a matter of seconds ensuring that each face can be seen in the final photograph.  Watching them work was a Master Class on how to move small lumps of humanity into a convincing array of humanity.

Each child had an individual photo taken with “Santa” and no present was released into small grasping hands until each child had said, or at least mumbled a convincing version of “Thank you!”

“Santa” was regaled with various songs from the groups.  He was presented with letters.  One child gave him a piece of cake.  Yet another gave him a Christmas card, another a small plastic Santa and one enterprising child (who will obviously go far) gave him a toilet tube covered with crepe paper inside which was a scribbled picture, a small sweet, a plastic silhouette of a bear and a 50c coin.

From time to time Santa’s vigil was enlivened by colleagues arriving and, after emitting little squeaks of admiration or surprise at the transformation, having their photographs taken as well.

The best response however, was when Santa had just got changed and was waiting in the staff room.  One female primary school teacher came in and did not notice the Gentleman in Red until she turned round and then screamed and fell back on a table and then laughed to cover her rather extreme reaction.

Although the reaction of the children was gratifying, two and a half hours of bonhomie towards very small people with a limited command of English was a little wearing.

At the end of Santa’s stint he was supposed to transform himself into a normal teacher and help the Invisible Friends distribution of presents in the equivalent of a Year 8 class.

I am afraid to say that I pulled rank and declined to do anything more and after saying farewell to colleagues he went home.

And collapsed onto a reclining chair and waited for normal service to be resumed.

Within an hour or so Toni returned from Terrassa together with sister, mother and two nephews.

When they left we went out for dinner and had an excellent meal in a new restaurant in which we were the only diners.

An early night was called for.  And was had.

Saturday was taken up with a chaotic visit to the doctor for Toni in a medical centre where the electricity failed as soon as he entered the consulting room.  Chaos continued as he attempted to get a copy of his recent scan.  That is a continuing story.

My own visit was more conventional and my next appointment is scheduled for the 30^th.

And the car needs to be repaired as the acceleration has become faulty and the engine is racing.

Always there is something!

The little patch of blue!

It is always a bracing educational challenge when you find yourself confronted with the loss of your free period on the penultimate day of school.  I find it brings out the best in me, especially when one has a meeting to look forward to after school which will spell out in detail just how much and when we are going to be paid less!

So while I ponder on my possible response to having money ripped from my paltry pay packet I can thank my lucky stars that I only have four periods today rather than the six of yesterday so the free period lost today only brought up my teaching time to a full working day in the UK.   Comparisons are odious and I must keep remembering the sage advice that so often drifts into my bemused mind as I observe the way that Catalonia works: “Remember Stephen, you are not in Britain.”

At lunchtime we had a speculative discussion about what the meeting this evening might hold.  I feel that an across the board reduction in wages when not everybody is directly affected in the same way is patently unfair.  The Byzantine way in which our wages are computed means that some teachers are paid entirely by the Foundation of our school, others entirely by the state and yet others (myself included) are paid by both.  The government is the institution reducing payment so some people should be entirely unaffected by what our political masters say and some only tangentially.  The situation is a mess, but I do not think that penalising those who are entitled to a full payment in the cause of a specious fairness is the right thing to do.

I am actually looking forward to this meeting – in spite of the fact that I do not expect to hear any good news from it.  What I am anticipating is the delight with which I will watch the way in which the school attempts to square the circle. 

Good luck to them! 

Except it is a little difficult to maintain a lofty and smilingly ironic detachment from the discussion when it is your own pay that is being talked about!

Toni has gone to Terrassa for a dramatic entertainment spread over two days in which his nephews are going to have starring parts, or at least they are going to be on stage and in the public view.  Alas!  I am teaching and have to be in school so I am unable to share the delight of seeing a five and a three year-old display their undoubted but nascent thespian skills.

I plan a therapeutic reading session after the meeting this evening.  God alone knows how long it will go on for, but I do know that everyone has something to say when it concerns the magic subject of income.  I trust that I will be able to slip out when the information has been given, and before the discussion about impossible things we might do starts!

The meeting was a damp squib!  True we were told that we would only be paid 80% of our “extra” payment this December, but we were given the partial expectation that we might get the other 20% in January.  This is 20% of a month’s salary as we are paid in fourteen instalments during the year with two instalments in December and June.  If we are to be paid back in January (we hope) then this is a very short term expedient to very little purpose by the government.  Much more serious is the threat of a further cut to salary in February of next year – but our meeting said nothing about that.  All is still speculation.

Meanwhile my cough remains, though I think it is gradually fading – or that may merely be wishful thinking!

I shall have an early night, because it is an early start for me tomorrow and at mid-day I will become magically transformed into the personification of the season.

As I went to lunch today I was hailed by Primary colleagues who asked me if I had seen my seat.  I had not.  And was a little disturbed to see an ornate armchair set up in a rather more public vestibule area than I would have liked.  It all seems to be very serious and getting slightly out of hand!

I am more than a little concerned at the escalation of what I thought was going to be a fleeting visit, a few ho  ho hos and away.

My Christmas ties (yes, I have more than one) have gone down a treat and it is sobering to consider that my person and my teaching may be soon forgotten but my ties will live on in legend!

Where is my puffer?  Live a little, say I!

Little by little!

Time ticks on in this slowest of all ends to a tired term.

The dawns, which I watch from the eyrie of the staff room in building 1 become progressively more spectacular with a great swathe of ochre orange splashed across the sky sandwiched between bands of black and dirty purple lapsing into a military looking blue-grey, until the sun finally arrives in all its resplendent vulgarity.

Today is my six period day giving me no pause for thought to dwell on what the management might say tomorrow in the meeting (after school of course!) to tell us just how much worse off we are going to be in the future.  A future that looks increasingly precarious for the country let alone for a privileged, though for this sector, a fairly considerate school like ours.

Taking my cue from Marie Antoinette I am rising above the chaos all around me by steadily listening to the half price EMI operas that I bought from El Corte Ingles.  “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” yesterday and “The Turn of the Screw” today.  Both of these are splendid productions with excellent voices and a world away from the screeching unmusicality of a highlights of “Turandot” I suffered last week with a cast of consonant heavy eastern Europeans with ululating vibratos whose visual representations would not have looked out of place in a vertiginous ride in a Disney theme park.  One of my more laboured metaphors there!

It may be psychological rather than medicinal, but I do feel marginally better this morning after a few puffs of my new inhaler and I look forward to continued improvement so that I can break the series of Christmas Days when I have been feeling hors de combat.  Our Christmas meals are so delicious it is a culinary crime to miss out on any morsel!

Now that the sky has turned colour yet again and the military greys have become soft violets or mauves I think it is time for my start-of-the-day cup of tea.

The staff room of building one is at least partially removed from the morning scream of children.  We are one floor up and at least two if not three closed doors away from their piercing voices, so the start of the day here is not so trying as it is in the other staff room where the separation of kids from staff is non-existent.

To my mind there is nothing worse than the easy acceptance of pupils entering the staff room.  In this school pupils seem to think that they have an absolute right of entry.  Part of the problem is that the pupils’ “breakfast” is kept in the staff rooms for pupils’ representatives to collect for the morning break.  This should not happen, but I seem to be one of the few teachers who are even remotely concerned about it.  But let it pass, let it pass.  There is the meeting on Wednesday to worry about which puts the appearance of pupils’ faces into perspective.

The last two periods today were less stressful than normal with the pupils shunted into the computer room for the last period trying to analyse the shots used to produce commercials.  Nothing like making the pupils think!

The hours left in work are rapidly (I’m saying that to convince myself) dwindling and the glorious release of the holidays is well within sight.

The remaining horror is the reality of what might be said in the meeting tomorrow when the full extent of the parsimony of the school and government are laid open for inspection.  I still have residual faith in the school doing the right thing – though what the right thing to do is at this time is not entirely clear.

Tomorrow will clarify the position and give me pause for thought.

Something to do

Well, one day down and only three to go.  Though that “only” does not see so insignificant as it might suggest!

My continuing and thoroughly tedious story of low level but mildly decapitating illness has now driven me to a further consultation with the doctor.  This visit was made into a necessity after the depressing day of relentless teaching and a lunchtime duty – oh yes, and a meeting at the end of lunchtime as well.

I called into the doctors after school and asked for an appointment which, surprisingly I was given for ten past six in the evening.

I returned to the surgery after a swift visit home and I was seen first!  Some things do happen properly.

I am now the proud possessor of two inhalers which are going to give me medication for the next month.  It has been decided that my little cough be upgraded to bronchitis with my next appointment being on Friday to see what progress I have made.  At no point in the consultation did I hear the suggestion that “time off” might be part of the treatment.  There is no justice in this harsh world!

My mild inconvenience is as nothing when compared to what is probably about to happen in school.

The government has been suggesting and hinting about their response to the crisis with regard to the teaching profession.  As our school is substantially supported by grants from the Generalitat we are probably going to part of the way in which this bankrupt country is going to try and extricate itself from some of the financial chaos which its own mismanagement has created.

Teachers have already been subject to something like a 5% cut in salary which our own school made up from the Foundation funds so that no teacher had a reduction.  Any further reduction will probably not be compensated for by Foundation funds and working out the exact proportions of money to be reduced will be difficult.

The school will be presented with an incredibly difficult problem because they will not want to reduce the salary of any one teacher, but if the funds are not available from the government then some sort of discrimination will be difficult to avoid.

I am expecting that our “extra” pay will be delayed or perhaps even reduced.  Speculation is rife within my own brain, but my colleagues seem strangely subdued in their expectations.  Wednesday should illuminate some of the darker corners of the government’s financial mind – if indeed it has anything approaching a coherent plan about what to do.

It is typical of management that such important information is to be relayed to the workers on the day before a holiday.  How well I remember such tactics being used with boring regularity in Britain.  Nothing changes.

But I do at least hope that the drugs that I now have in an unholy cocktail will do something to shift the mucus soaked cough ridden ill health which I find so tedious at the moment.