Eating, Views and Art

Triumphing over the vertical approach to Irene’s house I was met, as usual, by the baying of hounds.  Included in the intimidating pack was one fearsome looking dog who, to add to the discomfort of the putative visitor, was thoroughly muzzled.

It is only if you are regular visitor that you know that the bark is the whole of the “attack”.  Any advance of a visitor results in an equally swift retreat by said dog.  The muzzle is there to protect other dogs not humans!

Among the many animals (apart from the two ladies) who live in Irene’s home, the most interesting is the blind dog.  This extraordinary animal shows alternating bouts of uncanny prescience about obstacles in his path and then bumps his head on a chair leg.  He is, however, happy in his inexplicably perilous world and his guiding light (so to speak) is any movement of his beloved mistress.  Watching him go down stairs is heart-stoppingly tense, but every move for his aged limbs is a triumph.

He is friendly to a fault and, as a card-carrying dog person; I duly rewarded his nearness with unrelenting scratching.  My activities were closely observed by the misnomerly named cat, Blossom.  Tiring of my complete indifference she meandered towards me uttering was I understand cat people call “plaintive” cries.  Which I ignored.  She then crawled over the sofa on which I was sitting.  Which I ignored.  She then retreated and regarded me with a glare as malevolent as any I have seen a feline display – and I have seen many!

By the time we had to leave the dog was weak with ecstasy and when I sent to the loo he followed me and waited like a lost soul outside the door for my return to scratching.

The driving to Montserrat was straightforward motorway until the last windy bit, so we made good time.

Our first duty was to book a table (with view) for one of the celebrated lunches that you can get in the restaurant.  Not the self-service one, though we did give a pitying look at the huddled masses queuing for their meal when we later came to claim our table!

Off to kiss the Idol with the taking of many pictures on the Grown Up Camera along the way.  The queue to Kiss the Idol was stretching way out of the church so we knocked that on the head and decided to look at the Idol from the vantage point of the nave.

The church was packed and I quickly realized that this was nothing to do with piety but rather the fact that the famed choir of the church was about to sing.  And sing they did to a chorus of clicks and whirrs and a blaze of light from the audience (“congregation” would be going a level of sanctity too far!) as cameras, iPhones, iPad, tablets and video cameras snapped into record mode.

The singing was pretty and instantly forgettable and then it was time for lunch.

Which was excellent.  Our buffet salad starter was one of the most delicious I have ever had.  The lamb in the main course fell off the bone and the lemon sorbet was superb.

Duly stuffed we wound our way back to the Church of the Idol and went down (by lift – I said we were stuffed) to the art gallery.

The Caravaggio of St Jerome Penitent is excellent and outshines everything else in the room in which it is displayed, though I have to say that the little El Greco they have is remarkable for the almost monochrome, quasi-abstract background.

The real treasures here are Catalan and the collection rivals that of MNAC in some of its aspects.  My favourite painting is by Casas and shows a young woman preparing for her bath.  This is a subtle study in pastel tones and has a misty delicacy which I find breath taking.  It is not a spectacular painting but it is one that impresses itself on the memory and always repays a visit because no reproduction does it justice.

An excellent day out which thoroughly justified the lazy day on the beach today to compensate for all the effort of eating and looking yesterday!

The ways of our University System are gnomic to say the least.  I have been trying to get out of doing a foundation course in my present OU degree because I have already done one.  Admittedly it was some 32 years ago in the early eighties, but I really didn’t want to do it again.

I was told when I started this OU degree that everything that I had done previously was “out of date” and I would have to start anew.  The phone call today raise and then realized the possibility that I could be reinstated on the course that I started all those years ago!

So, in one telephone call, the six years that I was going to have to study for my degree has been cut to three!  I will wait for the confirmation of what I have been told before I start making any plans because living in Spain makes one wise in the ways of bureaucracy and the little mind games that they can play. 

But, on the face of it, the OU has done the decent thing and I am very impressed by the fact that I had the phone call (in response to an earlier query) and a decision about my status was decided in hours and an email sent immediately. 

The OU is truly one institution where they place students first!  God bless them and Harold Wilson too! 

And that must be a sentiment which is not often typed nowadays!

In what was surely a barely veiled political comment the lady from the OU referred to “our dear government” cutting money to the OU and demanding that students pay higher fees more in keeping with students in conventional institutions.  Perhaps my reinstatement is a reflection that I have paid (much, much lower fees) for a variety of other courses and that has to be part of my time-extended course.  Who knows!  Who cares!  My studies have changed for the better and the cost of my degree has been lessened by almost eight thousand pounds! 

All things work together for good!  And who am I to disagree with Candide!

Musical Sport

Swimming a leisurely breaststroke in our pool to the sound of the theme music for “Two pints of larger and a packet or crisps” took me back to an inchoate time when I still thought that popular music was something I could look down on with utter contempt because I could hum the more famous parts of The Coronation of Poppea based on the luscious strings version of an early Glyndebourne production on disc!  

Ah, the ease with which one could make value judgements based on the flimsiest of cultural scaffolding!

I’ve never stopped doing that of course, though I pride myself that I now know that my cultural background is more widely shallow than it was.

The bone conduction “ear” phones are working reasonably well and seem to be a vast improvement on the last set that I had years ago.  That at least proved that the technology worked, but it has taken some time for the hardware to get to the level where something more subtle than a base heavy pop track could make its vibrations through to the inner ear.  

I fear that my super-pretentious intention of learning the late Beethoven Quartets while doing my lengths never was really a serious possibility – though now, with the Neptune Finis in all its expensive glory, it might, just be possible.

But before then I will have to rationalize my tracks.  Admittedly I do put the thing on random play so that “Two pints of larger and a packet of crisps” was followed by a jolly little Bach gigue.  It’s those sorts of juxtapositions that keep me swimming lengths!

I have started listening to my DG set of H von K, after gloating over the collection.  I do recognize some of the covers as discs that I couldn’t possibly afford to buy except in sales and so have them all at bargain price is something of a musical delight. 

Not that I am a committed fan of His Germanic Majesty; I bought (at sale price) one of his conductings of Sibelius and I immediately placed a sticker on the front saying “DO NOT LISTEN!”  I did not throw it away as it was very useful as a sort of bookend to protect other more worthy recordings from the end-of-shelf pressure. 

It will be interesting to compare my present understanding of performances of the symphonies with what they were forty or so (!) years ago – indeed, as I intend to purchase another box set of his earlier recordings (at an even better bargain price) I will be able to compare different recordings from different decades of Beethoven symphonies and those of Brahms and Sibelius.

I can remember a televised performance of Karajan’s conducting of the Brahms symphonies where he was the only person shown full face.  The orchestra were in shadow and only their arms and fingers playing the instruments were shown.  Karajan conducted with his eyes closed and he was backlit so that his hair gave a halo effect.  The music was wonderful, but I did end up listening with m back to the television!

These discs are CDs not DVDs, so I should be fine!

My beach reading of The Tudors by Ackroyd continues to delight.  I have especially enjoyed reading about her late majesty Queen Mary I.  Questions about the likeability or otherwise of that monarch followed me like an infection from the age of 13 to first year in University with exactly (and I mean exactly) the same question: “Why was Mary Tudor unpopular?”  I must have answered that question at least six times in my academic career. 

Perhaps I should do a history course I the OU in the hope of doing it again and producing the final and authoritative response and put this recurring topic to rest at last!  I hope that there would be a little more depth and complexity in my answer now rather than the simplistic one-two-three of: was a Roman Catholic; married a foreigner and burned people. 

Or perhaps not, I could re-use all the trite points and try and present them in a post modern, ironic sort of way!

Tomorrow to the Sacred Mountain, admittedly more for the lunch and the art than the spiritual quality!

Lazy Days

What is the summer holiday for if not for indolence?  OK, the concept of summer holiday is perhaps a little inaccurate for me, but it serves its purpose to get me to September and the New Life (again) that retirement (again) brings.

That by way of exculpation for the lack of writing that should have been filling up the space on the Internet.  The fingers are willing but the neural impulses are weak!

Our last summer guest has left and we feel a little bereft!  It does, however, give me the impetus to get down to the reading and writing that is necessary for the last TMA in this particular OU course.  This is the longest of the pieces that we have had to write and the one which is nearest to a conventional academic essay.  As soon as that is out of the way then my mind must turn towards the demands of the examination which is now just under two months away.

Whatever the outcome of the exam and TMA I have to admit that I have enjoyed this course more than the previous one.  I may have been more out of my comfort zone, but that, I think has given me more challenges which are what the whole idea of doing another degree was supposed to have set me.

There is an overlap with my next course and it will be interesting to see whether “Creative Writing” will challenge me as much as the present course.  Obviously this is a higher-level course, but it is still the entrance level that most OU students will encounter before moving on to level 3. 

In keeping with the dictates of the way that we do things in the OU I have bought myself a little red book (as opposed to the Big Red Book for the course) in which I am writing fugitive thoughts; interesting conversations; apposite phrases and writing ideas so that I am at least partially prepared for the opening of the Course Forum on the 25^th of September. 

The course proper will have started in early October so I will be revising for the exam and doing in the introductory work at the same time.  I suppose it is a way of feeling sympathy for my ex-colleagues in Wales and Catalonia as they rush forward with cries of joy to meet the new term and the challenges that it will inevitably bring.  I too will be able to say with real feeling that I am “overworked” – though I suspect the sympathy from my erstwhile fellow toilers in the unyielding fields of education might be a little sparse!

On the material front my third (!) pair of bone conduction swimming headphones have arrived and, so far so good.  After a worrying moment when the tracks did not appear to load and the computer refused to recognize the Finis Swimp as a separate drive, things settled down and I have loaded a typically extravagant and eclectic selection of tracks and firmly placed the random switch on to ensure a bewildering succession of musical entertainment as I plough my lonely furrow intimidating small children out of my way.

I have very carefully kept receipt and packaging, as headphones like this tend to have a fairly limited life and I have paid too much for them to get only six of seven months of use out of them.

This time around I have made sure that “The Green Berets” is not one of the tracks – though I fear that the mere typing of that ominous title is enough to guarantee that the bombastic tune and nauseating lyrics will echo round my head for the rest of the day – and its only 10.45 in the morning!

I have also bought two more box sets of incredible value CDs, both of which are filled with reissues of records that I could not afford when they first came out and which I now cannot afford to let slip by at the cost of a couple of euros a piece.  The DG (with HVK as conductor) set also have reproductions of the original covers together with the information on the back of the cover in tiny poorly reproduced print which I can only read without my glasses on!  It is still an absolute feast of music and I must fly to Gava and MediaMarkt to get the next set of CD cases so that I can listen to the discs in the car.

At present I have been relying on the Catalan Classical Music Station which, while very good, is not really at its best when you are trying to listen to it without an aerial as some bastard has unscrewed and stolen it from my car.

Now the glorious sound of the Berlin Phil with DG clarity and the strict conducting of H von K will flatter me that I am now (at last) one with the Classical Music cognoscenti of forty years ago!  Better late than never!

Having just typed that, I relaxed for a moment and then caught myself tapping out the rhythm of “The Green Berets” on the arms of the chair in which I am sitting.  Never let it be said that I cannot undercut my own pretention!

After a rather muggy start to the day, the sun is making valiant attempts to assert its supremacy and justify the hordes trying to make the most of the link Bank Holiday by paying the inflated prices imposed for parking by our local den of PP politicians.

What used to be free parking along the sea front now comes with a hefty price and the effect has been startling.  There are spaces where there were none last year.  There has been a definite reduction in the number of cars in the area and, while this is good news for we residents, it can hardly be good news for the businesses and restaurants who rely on the summer season to make their profits.

Ah well, the people of Castelldefels have only themselves to blame as we are unique in this area as having voted for PP – and nothing that bunch of self-seeking, avaricious, selfish, unfeeling swine do should surprise.

On the national level the constant bombardment of the higher levels of the party and therefore government with accusations of corruption has become a badly scripted soap where the writers cannot stop themselves piling shocking revelation on top of another to try and engage with the jaded appetite of a viewing public already sated with excess!

On a more positive note I am sure that some aspects of the sad story of Spanish political life can be used as raw material for my next course.  Though, thinking about it, some of the material that we have been regaled with on the television might be consider a little too far-fetched for serious creative writing!

Resumed . . .

Alas!  What must my reader be thinking as day follows day and I write nothing.  It is not as if nothing has happened as our second British visitor of the summer arrived and left and we are preparing for the third.  But nothing.  Sad.

So – dinners and lunches; excursions and sunbathing; seaglass collecting and lamp building; TMA writing and grade getting; exhibition visiting and photograph taking; reading and studying; telephoning and talking; walking (!) and swimming; speculating and arguing; holidaying and working; laughing and cooking; spending and dissimulating . . . and I could go on, and usually would but there is the next part of a James Bond film to watch and, after all, I am only human!

Talking of frailty, I went to the Apple store.  I know that I was wrong, but I was with Suzanne and I begged her to watch over me and prevent me from signing over my life to that unfeeling money Hoovering organization.  To be fair I had a reason to be there.  A slight one, but a reason none the less.

From time to time I forget to plug my phone in and I find myself hoping that the sliver of power that is left is sufficient to work when I need it.  Obviously this was, and is, an unsatisfactory situation.  Never let it be said that I was not aware of the appropriate gadget to make life easier.  I knew that there was a device which would plug into an iPhone and give a power boost when you need it.  I also knew that with a touch of Protestant delayed gratification I could get such a device at a reasonable price from the Internet.

But I was in the Apple store in the centre of Barcelona and, rather than paying a reasonable price later I could pay an extortionate at once and not only get the device that I needed but also get a cord-pull closing, pseudo metallic plastic bag with an Apple symbol on it.  There was no real choice.

I now have an integrated case and battery booster and a woeful gap in my current account!

And another more shallow gap in my knee.  This is as a result of an attempt to get an ice cream at night and being thwarted by one of the depressions around the trees in our little Ramblas.  My fall was spectacular, but disappointingly unbloody.  I was resolutely macho about the whole thing and even managed to salvage my somewhat squashed ice cream and eat it with something approaching equanimity.

For the last week there has been an organically fascinating multi-coloured scabbing of the injury and now the consequent itching as the new skin forms.

And all the while thunder is growling and harrumphing in the background with an absurdly melodramatic light show of multiple lightning strikes and now, at last after an almost impossibly muggy day a welcome storm.  At least it will get some of the dust off the car!

And tomorrow, normal service in the writing area should be restored.