Summer is ycomen in - los días de verano!

Friday June 4^th 2010

Yesterday felt like the first day of summer. I’ve had the window open at night for weeks, but on Tuesday the air was so warm and still that it felt like a fourth wall outside the window, so now we sleep – or try to – with the blind raised and the curtain tented to encourage any stray draught into the bedroom.

Wednesday was a hot one, 33˚, and every Metro station smelt of fart. What can you do when you’re standing inside a fart? You can’t hold your breath, but breathing doesn’t seem an attractive option either. Outside, it was rather humid, with clouds dithering all day. Shower? No. Shower? Maybe. Shower?

In the end, no, and we spent an hour or so around sunset in a terrace bar in Plaza de la Remonta, watching a crew dismantle a hundred metre long canopy left over from the Fería Gallega, while kids rode bikes and kicked footballs, and police cars cruised back and forth between the big station at the rear of the plaza, and the opening onto calle Bravo Murillo.

Yesterday, though, was June 3^rd, Corpus Christi, and a public holiday in Madrid. When I surfaced yesterday morning, it was to the voices of the nuns in the convent across the road singing at mass. Right now, there’s a blackbird serenely singing somewhere close by, up on the convent roof, I think.

Bar Seréa was open yesterday morning – most places were shut for the fiesta – so I had a barrita con tomate, an Andalucian toastie with tomato pulp drizzled with olive oil; much nicer than it sounds, though it would have been even better with black pepper. It surprised me that you don’t often find a pepper mill among the condiments in a Madrid cafe – I thought they were an essential part of Mediterranean life; but no, this is Spain, the exception to every rule, so the condiment of choice is salt. Nice having olive oil and wine vinegar on every table though, even with two salt pots!

I had planned to stay all morning, with a bottle of water and my notebook, but it was soon too warm for me (delicate English blossom) and even if it hadn’t been, everyone else’s holiday morning comings and goings around the news stand and the grocer’s, and at the other tables were much too interesting for a street theatre aficionada – noseyparker – like me. So in the end I came home, wrote a bit, snoozed a bit, read, and re-arranged the living room to encourage air circulation. (This place was an oven last summer, when it wasn’t a sauna. I don’t think we have any insulation whatsoever, so we get the full benefit of Madrid’s continental climate. Yay.) Then I watched Billie Piper in Mansfield Park, and sat here at my desk near the open window with a fan going when there was no breeze, chatting to one of my brothers on Skype. Lovely.

And now I’d better get some breakfast down me, and go to work.

Jet trails (not something else entirely, as originally intended)

Tuesday morning and another day off. Ah.. days without deadlines.. time to wax trite philosophical as the sun rises, turning a jet trail rosy pink......... sigh...... and it's tangent time....

Although we're on the approach/take off circle for Barajas, we rarely see jet trails up here (and I suppose I mean on the meseta rather than from from the 7th floor.) For much of the year, the planes fly over as little silver arrow heads (though I noticed EasyJet livery the other morning). No trail.

But yesterday, drifting into wakefulness under the sky (a slow, gentle transition, and not to be rushed, you understand....) I realised that I could see jet trails forming as one little arrow cruised over. And again this morning. With the sun rising later and later - and more and more slowly - each morning - at 7 or 8 a.m. the temperature is only about 16C down here, so it must be very cold up there!

From here, you can actually see the pulse as the twin plumes power out of the turbines, and how they slow and widen to look like two lengths of yarn stretched side by side: first four-ply then double knit, then merging into a single length that unravels and flattens, so that by now - 9.15 - the sky is banded from one horizon to another with trails of wispy white felt fading into the blue.

And we've got a cricket almost as long as my thumb on the wall.

And there was a pigeon here a minute ago - young and slim with dark grey plumage.

And someone started drilling downstairs about a quarter of an hour back, and the workmen have just got started in the plaza with their pneumatic drill, and I'm going to make some fresh coffee NOW!

Down time

It's been a long and tiring week, but it's the weekend now, and tomorrow I get to LIE IN. So that's ok. I had planned to go back to Parque de Peñalara tomorrow, and walk to the Laguna de los Pájaros and back, about 4.5km each way, compared with last week's 5km round trip. But not this weekend. Even though I think it's going to be perfect weather. Uh uh. Pooped, cream crackered, and more than a little sorry for myself.

Nope. Tomorrow morning will be devoted to waking up, turning over, and going back to sleep again, just as often as I can manage it. Then I've got geraniums to re-pot, and a garden to re-visit. As long as the weather holds.

The forecast is for moderate temperatures and maybe some cloud, but tonight, up here on the 7th floor, the canopy's showing nautical ambitions, and may have me in mid-Atlantic by morning - oh - and that was lightning. Forked, horizontal, and slightly closer to my right elbow than I'd like. I hope it doesn't rain.

Inspired by an Iranian friend's nostalgic memories of summer nights in Shiraz, when the whole family used to sleep up on the roof under the stars, I've been sleeping on the terrace since the middle of June. (Actually, on a sofabed on the terrace. Intrepid I ain't.) (..............and that was more lightning. No thunder though.) I love it. Of course, living above one of Madrid's most happening plazas can make it a little difficult to get to sleep,

especially when some really good buskers show up at 1.30 a.m. But if they're that good, you might as well get up and hang over the wall (This also goes for firework displays.). And if they aren't, well that's why we have earplugs.

And in the meantime, you can enjoy the cool nights, the wild moons,

even the occasional eclipse (last Saturday, but no batteries left for the camera).

At night, there are little black bats and big white moths. In the morning, there's a sky full of squeaking swallows (or there used to be, for months - not anymore, at least since mid-July).

And who needs an alarm clock, when you've got the sun rise?

Climbing back into bed with a cup of tea was never so satisfying.

I hope it doesn't rain tonight.

Cabin Fever sorted

Yesterday was fun.

I didn't even get out of my pyjamas.

=D

Lingua Longua

And here is the one I prepared earlier....

on November 1, 2007

Today it is the Day of the Dead persons, and a holiday here in Spain. To celebrate, I have remained in the bed up to 1 in the evening, and then, two more hours, with my tea, my book and my portable computer. Good what to being idle as this one!

Yesterday in the night, I have gone away of working to 9.45 in the night, and have taken the Meter to Nuñez of Balboa, and a concert in The Celtic Cross.

At the stations, I have seen many young people in suit of holiday, garment in fantastic style: layers and black wings, brilliant perukes, and makeup of fantomas, devils, or clowns of circus. In the platform to Alónso Martínez, the people have smiled, or you have ignored him. Then, when the train is ‘ carried out his entry in the station ’ the cars have contained other devils and angels, all in holiday.Then, I have found with Habibi to N of B, y we have gone to the bar, where we have enjoyed friends and strangers – it has been equal. Many people, music, laugh and conversation on other conversations and more laugh. Two birthdays – quite he has sung. We have gone away late.

When we have gone out of the Meter for 1 of the morning, we have found many groups of young people who there are his proper holidays small in the piazza next to our flat. Has wanted to have left: why to try of sleeping across so noise?, but I have made too cold, and we is a little tired one. We have gone to bed, and have got up twelve hours later.

This evening has been clear and has done of good weather. So, we have gone for a slow walk, elevated place the trees, the buildings, and the people of the quarter, and have eaten in one of few snack bars that have been opened today. Then, another walk, a coffee in the kind ambience of historical Commercial Coffee. And the return to the house.

Olay.

Muchos gracias to Im Translator. (The feeling may not be mutual: Guys, before you sue, let me make it clear that I haven't done the past tenses - or much else - yet - so IT'S ME, NOT YOUR EXCELLENT PRODUCT!!).

I've signed up for their free service. You have been avisado.....

The weekend

Today's plan was to sleep til I woke, then go into school to go through Wardrobe for costumes to supply the gaps in our production.

That's the great thing about working in a school with a history of shows: plenty of costumes to be recycled individually or in sets.

In my mind's eye, I see the fairy costumes from our 2001 production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream': that production was very different in style from our 'Merry Wives' - and it was about actual fairies, not a bunch of jokers dressed up for a giggle - but the fairy costumes are the right colour, length and weight for adaptation for our motley assembly, so that will do nicely.

We're also using the Wicked Witch costume from last year's 'Oz*'; a veil from the 2002 'Arabian Nights'; the Blue Fairy from 'Pinocchia' (where we didn't have a strong enough boy for the lead, and cast a girl instead - and she was super), and some staff donations (our Expat Leaving collection).

Howsoever, having slept til I woke, at 9.45 - yay! - I plonked myself down on the sofa with a cup of tea and A Hat Full of Sky, sequel to The Wee Free Men, which I read last week, beginning reluctantly, and only for research purposes. I have to tell you, though: A Hat Full of Sky made me laugh and cry. Crivens!

The difference between this and the clever wise-crackery of Terry Pratchett's early books (as I remember them) is remarkable. Reading them, I could feel the writer working hard at being funny and clever; and there were times when the characters - however sympathetic or imaginative - read as vehicles for the tongue-in-cheek allusions and puns. And it irritated me.

Art catches you unawares, then draws you in through successive layers of meaning. (Note subjective opinion handed down as Truth. Don't you love blogging?) It gives you the swan (....just popping down to Cliche Central for a moment.......) gliding effortlessly on the surface of the water, not the rapid, urgent paddle of webbed feet, and a big sign with a pointing finger urging everyone to looklooklook at the cleverness of the illusion. Rembrandt and Monty Python don't belong on the same page except in MAD comics.

On reflection, I think that my irritation with the early Discworld books may have arisen from the day job. Habibi used to have a similar problem when we went out: he used to be an interior designer for a brewery chain, with the result that he could never go to a pub without analysing the use of space, texture, colour etc. Me, after a day spent recognising and guiding effort, encouraging potential and celebrating strengths in drama students, I just want to dive into a good book, and go with the tide - not get knocked back into teacher mode! There is also the fact that I know I generally try too hard to be entertaining company, so I recognise the signs and it winds me up! Gotta get me one o' they sense of humour thingies.

Anyway, I think that A Hat Full of Sky is superb: the work of a man who knows his craft; a writer of wit, intelligence and compassion.

I mentioned Philip Pullman a while back. Comparisons are odious, as they say. TP never set out to be PP, and vice versa. I'm enjoying both, and bouncing ideas that both have stirred. I really enjoy watching films, but I don't think you can beat the experience a good book. Riches for the mind and the spirit. Wintersmith next week!

As for the plan (Lie-In, School, Wardrobe) I'm not going anywhere today, because I am whacked. Body, mind and spirit. I need a break!



















So today I'm going to

• put on some music (because there's no intelligent talk radio here, except the BBC World Service, and we get too much interference for satisfactory listening)
• potter about restoring our living room from workshop to home (sweeping up plaster of paris and odd bits of wire and plastic, so we can walk barefoot or sit down without first checking all surfaces) pick a favourite vid that I've not watched for a while - probably Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe, which I taped in about 1995!
• and get on with knitting Habibibaba's birthday scarf. When I asked him what colour he'd like, he said dark brown and cornflower blue, to match the socks he was wearing at the time, and realised that he liked (male!). Unfortunately, I couldn't find the right brown or the right blue, or double-knit wool. Argh! What did I expect in a place where it's 30-something degrees most of the year round? (Meanwhile it's currently 6 degrees in London.) So here's a lovely blue, and yes it's acrylic, but it's ribbed, soft, and will be warm when I've added another 49 inches.....better get cracking!
  
  

What shall we do today?

Fun with National Geographic
Kimberley, northwestern Australia, 1991
... no it's not us...sigh....
But it's an idea! =D

Friday Hedonist

One of the chief pleasures of Fridays is waking at my normal Pavlovian hour, but on my terms.

During the week I often stir restively in the small hours, surfacing and resurfacing at 3.30, 4.10, 5.40: the side effect of too much mental activity and hardly any physical activity. At 6 o’clock I am asleep, body and psyche utterly defenceless against the deceptively understated bibibibibiiiip bibibibibiiip of the alarm clock. Aural acupuncture.

I extend a claw to switch the damn thing off, and having decided, against the evidence, that I am not in fact dead and beginning eternity in one of the less spectacular circles of hell, emerge from my pit with all the zest for life of a crone in a Russian fairy tale. My centre of gravity is somewhere around the soles of my feet, and I’ve got about as much vertical hold as a stack of paint cans in a Laurel & Hardy movie. Body buckling under the unbearable heaviness of being, I shuffle towards the kitchen.

On Fridays I wake to the silence where the alarm clock isn’t. Ah. Bliss. A/C hums. Habibi snores. Birds twitter. (Saw Failure to Launch yesterday, arf arf. Go see.) I don’t move, savouring the feeling of spine stretched on cotton sheets and firm wide mattress, appreciative of sunlight filtering through curtains and closed eyelids, waiting to see if I feel like getting up or going back to sleep.

Sometimes I stay put just for the pleasure of being horizontal, cocooned, motionless except for the slow rise and fall of my chest as I breathe (always reassuring) letting thoughts drift until sleep washes over and I sink in quiet rapture.

If I decide I want to be up, then I might slither sideways in a satisfyingly silly private game of escaping unnoticed by mattress or duvet. Or just get up and go see what the day looks like. Sometimes I whip the duvet to one side and feel the cool air replacing the warm over me, give it half a minute – there’s no rush after all – and pootle off in search of tea to the rhythm of whatever happens to be playing in my head.

I think it’s a major misconception that music is something we appreciate exclusively through our ears – music is how we harness energy and spirit; soar, pivot, tumble and sweep onward inside without necessarily moving, at least on the outside; how we express what is otherwise inexpressible in all of us, and share the feelings and experiences of others. It’s right up there with love, food, drink and shelter as a fundamental human necessity.

How marvellous it is that there are people with extraordinary gifts as singers, musicians, composers and dancers; and a recording industry that enables us to see and hear over and over again artists we might never see live. But at the same time, the truly gifted only have in abundance what the rest of us have in moderation. We need to make music too, all of us, and if we’re too inhibited to dance, wiggle, sing, hum, whistle, snap our fingers, tap our feet, at least nod our heads for heaven’s sake, then something vital has been suppressed.

Bring on the live bands of local kids, and the folk clubs, the singalongs, the choirs, the school orchestras, the amateur operatics, the karaoke, the ceilidhs, the barndances and the dance classes. Bring on the superstar in the shower! Bring on the boogie-woogie bed-maker and sweeper-upper!

(I generally do housework while jigging along to Shania Twain, adding harmonies when the mood takes me, because that's where the fun lies, and also because it means that only a quarter of my brain has to engage with the tedious inevitability of dust everywhere - especially after this week's shamals blew half the desert into our apartment. The Empty Quarter must be very empty indeed today. (OK I exaggerate.) Habibi is very brave about the harmonies, which of course drown out the melody and the rest of the arrangement. It was very good of Habibibaba to leave his good headphones behind when he left home.)

OK, so it’s Friday morning, I’m out of bed, with a tune in my head, and the kettle’s over there. I think that different rhythms pour energy into different parts of the body – and in many different ways! Some the shoulders and upper chest (Peter Gabriel’s Salisbury Hill, Chopin’s sorry, Debussy's Clair de Lune - Thanks Pater!, or a quickstep) others the hips (rumba, reggae, rock’n’roll) others the head - both senses and intellect – (Mozart voice, clarinet, strings – you name it). So while I’m not dancing down the hall (It’s still only just gone 6 a.m. remember.) I am lifted and propelled without any real effort on my part – a serious improvement on Wednesday at this hour.

And later, after I’ve had my tea, and an hour or so on the sofa with my book, or BBC World, or some film I’ve caught the latter half of, I may decide to go back to bed. Just for the hell of it.

Today of course, I’ve been writing this, and now I’m taking the temple of my soul to the gym. Once again, it’s been over a week because of work and weariness, so I’m stiff, but I love doing it, I love the steam room afterwards, and weekdays at 6 a.m. are much better when I’ve been to the gym the day before. Begone ancient crone!