There's always something

Light-hearted jocularity and facility with language do not adequately cover long distance misery.

Yesterday had its moments of delight but the overarching ache of sympathy for unhappy friends tainted any transitory pleasure.  And the not knowing precisely what is going on and how they are coping is another source of worry.

When the palpably real takes on the appearance of a tawdry soap you have to keep reminding yourself that the people involved are not characters bending to the whim of some omniscient author, but flesh and blood whose lives you know and with whom you have history stretching back decades.

I am blessed (or cursed) with a vivid imagination and last night was spent reviewing possible scenarios which might play out and indeed are being played out as I say the words.  And none of them was good.  I obviously want both of my friends to be happy.  But that seems something of a remote possibility at the moment. 

At times like this we teachers have the accumulated wisdom of past Morning Assemblies on which to draw.  And as someone who listened with attention to each of them (uniquely in my professional experience) I have an extensive range to go back over.  The one which seems most apposite at the moment concerns the king/emperor/sultan/caliph (I have heard this in many versions) who ordered his Jeweller/chancellor/advisor/etc. to make his something which would make him happy when he was sad and make him thoughtful when he was happy.  A ring was produced which had the inscription, “This too will pass” - which happily fitted both the conflicting demands.  “This too will pass” helps superficially with the present situation but what happens before it passes is what is concerning me at the moment.

I shall do what I always do in such situations, and indeed in life generally and escape into digressions.

One of the astonishing things about yesterday was my trip to the Employment Office.  Not in itself something of note, but as my contract is now over and I have shaken the dust from my shoes in the School on the Hill I now have to register as someone without work.  This is usually a soul-searing experience mixing as it usually does equal amounts of pointless frustration with institutional enforced ignominy.  Not yesterday.  A short wait (including recognition by the white haired security guard – what a memory for faces he must have) and a polite and efficient official and we were done.

Until the next meeting which is today.  For this one I have a “timed” slot and I am almost certain that I have all the requisite papers to expedite things with the least possible fuss.  Bureaucracy here is a powerful and esoteric beast and no matter how prepared to meet him you are, armed with the shield of patience, the sword of photocopies and the helmet of proof of identity there is always some part of the armour that you have forgotten such as the breastplate of Form ALP/39945-A3911 which is only issued on the second Thursday in alternate months in a small office in St Boi between the hours of 8.14 am and 9.37 am (ask for Juan) and without which all your efforts are as nothing.

And this is not a meaningless formality this morning.  It is an essential part of my strategy to live reasonably in this country.  I await the outcome with trepidation and a certain amount of lively expectation – which is my usual way of existence.

My scepticism was fully justified as, it turns out, I am officially On Holiday and until my On Holiday time runs out I can do nothing.  So, it’s back to the office on the 6^th of July for another visit and hopefully my status will be recognized by the Powers That Be.  At least we had a cup of coffee and a croissant to give some substance to a futile visit.

Now that my Greek Vase essay has been returned I feel liberated to continue my studies.  Overshadowing the placid acquisition of knowledge is the Fear of the Wiki.  This is basically an exercise in collective writing where eight of us strewn around Europe collaborate to produce a connected piece of writing which is given a single collective mark.  The reflection on this work is marked separately and individually, but the Wiki counts for more than the individual piece.  In the last course the Wiki give me my worst mark, but armed with experience I hope to do better this time round – collaborators willing!

Every aspect of this course so far has been interesting mainly because it caters to my fairly indiscriminate appetite for snippets of historical and artistic trivia and weaves them all together into a seemingly coherent narrative of academic exploration.  The OU is famous for taking the student on a journey which opens up discussions that force the individual to reassess previously held assumptions – and sometimes using the most surprising artefacts to prompt the questioning.  Who would have suspected that C19th Kimberly points (flaked glass spear points made by Australian Aborigines) and a Greek kalex-crater in the BM would combine to make me question the function of museums and the historical process they have gone through in the presentation of artefacts and the societal historical valuation of things that have gone through vast changes in their perception if one studies the object biography.  [I think it is better if you try saying the last sentence all in one breath; it may not make a great deal more sense but you will feel a sense of achievement in saying it.]  And indeed the whole concept of “object centred” and “object driven” assessments of artefacts.

Not forgetting, of course, the wonderful word skeuomorph which refers to an object or to a design which has features which reflect a different form of material used it its previous construction.  For example the digital representation of a notepad on a computer screen making the pad look as though it was made of paper.  You can also see it on some cheap articles which have moulded screw heads to make it look as thought the article had been assembled in a traditional way rather than as a piece of moulded plastic. 

How did I live without this word? 

As soon as you know its definition you see examples everywhere.  Look around you; you are probably surrounded by examples!

More phone calls and I feel a little better.  The situation is bad, but both sides seem to have accepted the situation and are working towards their new reality.  In the circumstances it is the best that could have been expected.

Tomorrow work to be done: the history or printing and bookmaking!  If that is not pushing at an academically open door I do not know what is!

Reality bites

My Grown Up camera is slowly but surely getting closer.  Or not.  At least the company which is either in China or Hong Kong or Britain has written to me explaining that my package will be “released” from customs in Britain within the next week.  Why is it in Britain in the first place?  I live in Spain.  Obviously it was far too simple to send it to me direct.  I shall contain myself in further patience.  Perhaps if I play up my retirement I can get another gift to compensate for my frustration.

The meal in Terrassa was delicious as usual made, as is also usual by Toni’s mother’s professional hand.  Three of us drank the Cava with two of us drinking the lion’s share.

The weather in Terrassa was not particularly inspiring and it was not much more elevating in Castelldefels.  This summer is not turning out to be anything like last year.  OK, I realise that, technically, the summer is only a few days old, but one of the reasons for living in Catalonia is that months which cannot be regarded as anything other than Tundra-like in my country can be positively sultry here.  Well, this year has been something of a disappointment and so far April has been the most inspiring month and that, surely is pause for thought.

The news from Britain is not particularly good at the moment with friends having to cope with a variety of problems not all of which are of their own making. 

The distance is a buffer from the tangible pain of the harsh reality that they are experiencing but it is also a geographical gap which increases feelings of frustration because all you can do is sit and listen as stories are told at the end of a telephone line. 

Without the immediacy of proximity there is a sort of narrative unreality about everything which is deeply unsettling, as you constantly have to re-texture the disembodied voices with the context of personal history and experience.  You have to keep reminding yourself that this is not a radio play for voices; it is the real on-going lives of people you love.

Thank god for the Internet and for the telephone (in all its forms) which allow a form of immediacy with the situation which geography denies!

Again, I started the day with an early morning swim in the delightful silence of a child-free environment.  That hasn’t lasted of course, but it is a total pleasure while it does.

But, try as I might, my thoughts keep going back to Cardiff and the people going through difficult times. 

And me in Spain.

The days after!

Now, in the tranquil calm of the early evening I can look back over a day spent in demeaning but necessary chores.  “Demeaning” is not, of course, the right word – it’s just that I sometimes like to think of myself living above such mundane necessities as ironing, sweeping, clothes washing, tidying, rubbish gathering, shoe cleaning, door sponging, mat beating – and all the other –ing words which require quotidian physical effort.  Essential I know, but I am always defeated by the inescapable fact that you have to do them all over and over again.

This “activity” is tradition for me at the start of a major holiday – and what is more major than my (sixth?) retirement!  And I feel that I have achieved an –ing task worthy of such an occasion.

We have hard water of such toughness that I am surprised that it ever makes it out of the taps.  This means that anything that uses water rapidly takes on the appearance of having been set on some sort of coral reef as mineral accretions soon limit the life and certainly challenge the appearance of any machine that uses water.  Such a machine is one of our toilets.

I realise that last line gives the impression that we either have en suite bathrooms to every space in the house or that we are living in a public urinal.  Neither is true, so perhaps I should have said “the other” toilet.  Just above the bend inside the bowl and below the water line the build up of extraneous roughcast is most unsightly.  This mineral deposit has the tenacity of superglue and the strength of carbon steel.

Unbeknownst to Toni, for it is in his bathroom, I have been running a series of extended scientific experiments when he periodically decamps to Terrassa to watch his nephew play in increasingly prestigious juvenile football teams.  As his present new team is going to meet one of Barça’s junior teams I thought that it merited a Renewed Effort to get rid of the barnacle-like eruptions on the erstwhile smooth porcelain surface.

You have to understand that the calcium has resisted bleach and a whole range and variety of squirts, drips and sprays from proprietary toilet cleansers. I have even; donning rather fetching rubber gloves for the occasion, used wire wool – which I hasten to say that I discarded at the end of the abortive attempt to get the stuff to flake away.

I comforted myself, after all my efforts, with the saving lie that “it looked a bit better” but even I couldn’t convince myself that I had approached anything like success.

A colleague having recommended vinegar and/or bicarbonate of soda I called into Lidl after depositing Toni in Terrassa and bought a bottle of vinegar.  Admittedly it was apple vinegar, but I was sure that the principle was the same.

I forced the water away with a deftly wielded toilet brush and then applied the vinegar.  Any hopes that I had that there would be a fizzing reaction when the acidity of the vinegar hit the carbonate nature of the accretion was dashed immediately, but never despairing I applied half a bottle and left it to soak.  Overnight.

The morning did not bring shining whiteness, but again, using brute force and the other end of the toilet brush flakes, positive flakes were seen to detach themselves.  Buoyed up with incurable optimism I hit the growth with my second weapon, anti-calcium water softener tablets.  These (I used three) did fizz up in a most satisfactory manner and, with more force and an eventual second application I have now achieved something approaching pristininity – and yes, I do know that word doesn’t exist, but after all the effort that I have put in I think that I am entitled to a neologism of my own!

The bed is made, the path is swept, the tearoom is tidy, things and washed and ironed and I am bloody exhausted.

By way of relaxation I read a short book I bought when I was last in Tesco in Cardiff, “The Welsh National Anthem - its story, its meaning “ by Sion T Jobbins.  This is a polemical little screed which insults everyone who doesn’t speak Welsh.  It did however afford me a moment of pleasure when I discovered (as surely I must have been told sometime in the past) that the first public performance of “Mae hen wald fy nhadau” was in Tabor Chapel in Maesteg!  A place that I have passed time without number when visiting my grandparents. 

I have a little painting of a chapel in Merthyr by Kernick which reminds me of Wales and the nonconformist tradition and, although Tabor is a little more ornate than the chapel in my paining it is near enough for me now to associate the national anthem with it each time I pass!

Early night and quick early swim in the pool with water the temperature of which was just short of certain heart failure this morning.  A lazy time sitting in the sun and cloud listening to the sequence of music determined by my iPhone juxtaposing Stravinsky and “The Green Berets”!

Up to Terrassa for lunch and return to what will be a re-run of World War II as the night of San Juan advances.  Perhaps I will saunter along the Paseo and watch families and groups of friends settle down for a night of drinking!  It only happens on this particular night and it is always a shock as you see unexpected revelry involving alcohol and Catalans!  The authorities have banned fires on the beach – which were a tradition part of the night – though this does not stop everyone.  I hope there are fireworks so that I can attempt the Perfect Firework Shot which has, so far eluded me.

As the day advances the results of all the little booths selling the equivalent of penny bangers will be clearly heard and my only hope is that the sequences of explosions will finally put pay to the local infestation of rat dogs which emasculated men take for walks on thin strings in this area.  Their hearts must be the size of stunted peas and therefore the mere sound waves should surely do for them!  My heartfelt prayers for their destruction are never met and the bug-eyed, squeaking monstrosities do their impressions of Futurist Paintings as their twig legs blur as they try and keep up with a slow walking pace.  God rot the lot of them!

And then there are the kids.  On this long, long night they are obviously allowed to stay up even later than normal.  OK, Castelldefels is a seaside resort and when on holiday kids are given leeway.  Far too much leeway from a British point of view, but let it pass.  So not only will be have sporadic explosions but also the constant screaming of indefatigable children.  God rot them too.  Though they do need to survive and thrive so that their taxes can pay my pension.  Though, as it happens not in this country, so, as far as I can see they are a completely unnecessary luxury which, in these times of frugality, we can surely do without!

Tomorrow is a Bank Holiday and therefore my most recent retirement cannot start until the Tuesday.  However, even though I am not entitled to the couple of months off with pay that my colleagues who have worked throughout the year are entitled to, I find that I have had 14 days paid holiday pay allocated to me so my actual (most recent) retirement starts in the second week of August.  I will contain myself in patience until then and have a modest celebration!

Now off to a distant lunch.

The Real End Days!

Two hours on the trot with the 1ESO was not necessarily the best way to start the day. 

The first part of the lesson was going in to the Exhibition which is mounted by the Art Department each year and that was excellent – though we had to get in in a rather roundabout way as the doors were locked.  And the film wasn’t working because everything was switched off and . . . but the content made up for everything. 

The kids, given a relatively short time to take it all in, seemed pleased by the visit and I made them write illustrated letters of appreciation to Suzanne on their computers.  As someone who has had to live on benign neglect as far as her efforts have been concerned, she is going to have the shock of her life!

One of the less able, but obviously more intuitive children asked, perceptively that wouldn’t Suzanne suspect that I had incited them to this act of simple courtesy!  She will know immediately!  But I suppose that it is a sign of maturity to understand that knowing this is not to negate the positive effects!  They have much to learn.  Which is why they are in school, of course.

The timetable has been suspended for today and after my two hour stint with the 1ESO and the quid pro quo being that my time with 3ESO was taken away, I found myself with nothing that I had to do until almost 4.00 pm.  A nod, as they say, being as good as a laugh to a dumb hyena, so I departed in faith and fear and went out to lunch with Toni.

And very pleasant it was too – and this time both of us had a decent meal, apart from one false choice on Toni’s part involving the dreaded cheese, which of course worked in my favour and gave me a tasty extra morsel.

I am now back in school waiting to do my bit in a darkened room keeping recalcitrant schoolchildren from wrecking the furniture by showing them a film.  So, my last teaching lesson in my career will be babysitting!  I am sure that there is a moral to be drawn from that somewhere, but I will leave it for others to do the drawing of it!

So I wait.  Tomorrow the Big Day when the comedy will be over

I suppose, looking on the bright side, I could not have had a better “lesson” to end my career than babysitting a group of Year 7 pupils on the penultimate day of term at the end of that day – because it couldn’t have been worse.

Over thirty years of teaching experience and I was struggling to control a small group of off their heads students!  If nothing else it gives scaffolding to my resolve to give up.  Teaching I mean!  Though at the end of the day as I walked, shell-shocked from the classroom, I was probably ready to give up more!

When I went back to the staffroom I met other veterans of the Year 7 Campaign, all equally traumatized.  Thank god I am not going to have to cope with this year after they come back refreshed revitalized and ready for further frays.  My colleagues are, very sincerely, welcome to them.  And any residual ideas of the “odd day” of supply vanished in a spasm of concentrated horror at just how bad young people can be.  They are now, officially, someone else’s problem!

As another teacher said in rather more trying circumstances, “It is finished!”  My contract is ended, the money is in the bank and I don’t have to go back.  The Third Floor beckons and the OU material is begging to be studied and assimilated.

The “fiesta” was rather more subdued than usual with far fewer parents turning up – or so it seemed.  The Tóm-bola as opposed to the Tom-bóla was its usual odd self.  There is no competition in this event and the only amusement it affords is watching rich people deliberate over spending small amounts of money for a good cause.

The meal was excellent and the pleasing effects of the Cava Sangria were augmented by the stimulating conversation of my colleagues.  The speeches came and went with three colleagues being honoured for their joint efforts in giving three-quarters of a century of service to the school!

The best speech was given by a redoubtable Scottish lady who commandeered the microphone and, ignoring the increasingly hatchet faced directora regaled the company with a lively and amusing Cava-fuelled speech which almost ended in a tug or war over the microphone, but she won and continued to great applause!

The actual end was a series of kisses and hugs and that was it.  A career over and the spacious days of summer to look forward to.

Home and a swim: a clear indication of how the immediate future should pan out!

In the Old Days, after the drunken debauch that the end of the summer term usually entailed, I did all those things that the pressure of work precluded my completing.

There will be the ceremonial packing of the ties; the putting away the white shirts and folding the black socks.  The black shoes will be put back in their accustomed places and await their regeneration for funerals, weddings, operas and official occasions.

The subscription to The Guardian will be reactivated and my daily drive to the swimming pool will recommence.

Life without Institutional Education begins!