Busy bee

As we all know, time really drags when you sit on your bum doing nothing. Which is why I'm trying my best to keep busy busy busy until Easter. I got the plan off to a (literally) flying start in the shape of an all too brief trip back to Durham. I jumped on a bus on Thursday morning, then jumped on a plane, then a train, then a coach, then another train and arrived in Durham approximately 14 hours later. Easy peasy. It was a splendid weekend and a happy/sad reminder of why I miss the place so much. Friday and Saturday whizzed by in a blur of wonderfully-familiar faces, coffee, dancing, dodgems, cobbled streets and musical rehearsal and before I knew it I was sitting back on the sofa in my little Spanish flat on Sunday, wondering whether it had all been a surreal dream (although not before a incredibly special coffee date at Victoria coach station, 7am, Sunday morning, to send me off back to Spain in style. The things he does for me, eh?). Back at school on Monday a lot of my students (and teachers) were incredibly confused as to how I'd managed to leave the country and come back again since they'd last seen me leaving school the previous Wednesday afternoon. Most of them seemed to think I was mad to trade in so many hours worth of travelling for so few hours on solid ground. 'Durham's worth it.' I told them.

I've mentioned a few times my intentions to start extra curricular drama lessons. Now, before coming to Spain, I didn't ever think that a lack of red tape could prove just as problematic as too much of it. But sadly, my efforts in this venture so far been thwarted at every turn thanks to the non-existence of procedure here in not-so-sunny Spain. Do I need permission slips? What about room bookings? How should I decide on timings? And dates? Which age groups would be suitable? How many responsible adults are needed per child? Must a qualified first aided be present? All met with shrugs and blank faces. But I'm not giving up quite yet. And it certainly hasn't stopped me from forcing theatrical activity into daily classes wheresoever I see fit. Inkeeping with this theme, one of my classes has been putting together little soap operas for the past few weeks and it is providing me with constant entertainment. Last Wednesday the groups performed to the rest of the class to show off their works-in-progress. My favourite group produced a story that was set in the Vatican City but that was strangely called 'Castle'. I'm still not sure why. The curtain went up to show the Pope parading through the city in his Pope Mobile. Suddenly, Batman swooped in and killed him in cold blood. Of course, no one saw because he was wearing an invisibility cloak. But, never fear, Inspector Poirot arrived to solve the case. Turns out Batman and his girlfriend (who just happened to be the newsreader) were in it together. Somewhere in the middle there was a subplot involving Justin Timberlake and his many lovers but I had somewhat lost track by this point. 

Another facet of my 'busy' plan is to try to spend more time exploring the region. So on Saturday Jean and I took a trip to a little town of Luanco. I'll be honest, it wasn't the most exciting place to be but the weather was fine, the sky was stunning, the air was fresh and we agreed that it was refreshing to go somewhere new for the day. The climax of the trip occurred at around 4pm when, walking along the beach, we noticed a very large fish that had found itself washed up on the shore and was thrashing around in the sand. Now, when I say 'noticed', what I actually mean is that we saw it, shrieked, screamed, jumped up and down and and ran around in little circles in a panicked frenzy for a minute or two. Eventually, we calmed down and I did what any decent human being would do: rolled up my sleeves, picked up and the fish and lobbed it back into the sea. Then we stood back to admire our handiwork and watch it gaily swim back out to deeper waters to rejoin its kin. Unfortunately, 10 minutes later it was still splashing around about 2 meteres from the shore so I can't help thinking that, instead of saving its poor little life, we actually prolonged its agony. At least we tried.

(Here's me picking up the fish. Yes, the angle and my pose are slightly unflattering, for which I apologise. But it's a good action shot so I'm willing to overlook my pride.)

On the way home we also stopped by the Maritime museum which, despite our low expectations, turned out to be incredibly entertaining and an afternoon well spent. If you ever find yourself in Luanco, I'd highly recommend a visit. And then on Saturday evening we arrived back to Gijón just in time to go to dinner at a Galician restaurant with a group consisting of 5 Spaniards, 1 Scot, 2 Englishmen, 1 Frenchman, 2 Americans and a German. And no, that is not the opening line of a very long and convoluted joke. We ate various types of squid, drank Galician wine out of little bowls and fought valiantly against the multiple language barriers that we were up against. One thing led to another and we ended up going to various bars and dancing to Pulp and Florence and the Machine and I finally arrived home at 6am, absolutely knackered and more than ready to collapse into bed. Saturday was a good day. 

In about an hour I'm off to watch Barsa vs. Milan in a bar that offers the best free pinchos in town. Spain has definitely brought out the football fan in me. C'MON BARSAAAA. 

S'later!

X