The masks have come off!  Finally, after two years, I can teach without my voice being muffled and being able to see the facial reactions of my students. 

Then, naturally, everyone gets colds, flu and covid.  I have the former.  My immune system is just so unused to having to deal with the mucus of hundreds of kids in a workplace.  What to do?

Let us start at the end.  The end of the term saw me doing the drive back to Spain with four dogs and a very pissed off pussycat.  This is not a nice drive.  It is, in fact, one of the most boring ones thanks to those sadistic swine; the Romans.  Damn did they know how to make the shortest distance between two points a straight line.  And is it ever straight.  When the highlight of a couple of hours of driving is a roundabout then you know how dull it is.

To be fair, our journey does take in the region of Extramadura, the most deprived in Spain.  Andalusia comes in in second place.  Both do good wine, this is true.  But whereas Andalusia has its hotspots of humanity, Extramadura just doesn’t seem to have  anything except emptiness.  The old mining  industries have disappeared and been replaced with solar farms and towns that scream isolated. 

Doing this drive, passing villages and small towns that look down at heel is also a reminder of just how big Spain is.  The small towns of Portugal that you pass have a definite air of being tidier and more lively than the ones in Extramadura, which makes this journey a quite melancholic one in places.  It is one that we will not be making too many more times. 

But, the important  thing, we made it back to Spain.   A week later we pick up Sonalee from the modern Cordoba train station from where we return to our village and dogs that go mental at seeing their mummy again – Bindi did a little wee when Sonalee walked through the door.  She loves her mummy. 

We then spend a week with each other, with our friends in the village and with the people that we plan to retire with.  And with the customers of the plaza bar.  And with the customers of the plaza bar who are all equally outraged at the tiny amount of wine you get when you order a glass of red. 

Let’s not muck about, this is a serious issue.  When you order a wine or spirits in our area of rural Andalus, you expect absolutely no regard as to how much is chucked in the glass.  It is the cultural norm that you get as much as the barman/woman thinks will make a full glass.  To the shock and horror of everyone, the plaza bar have been…no, I cannot say it… they have  been…it feels so wrong to even mention it…they have been…gasp…measuring how much you get! 

Yes, I said it!  This is the heinous crime that has caused normally sane people to lose their grip, me included.  The disgust is palpable.  As is the shock.  This isn’t England where such evil things are done, this is rural Spain where such things are unheard of.   You’ll have to forgive me, I am still processing  this disgraceful turn of events.

Speaking of driving, it is good to see that Lisbon drivers are still trying to out-do Moroccans as the most screwed up in the world.  They’ll never do it of course, the Moroccans are just in a league of their own when it comes to total disregard for the rules of the road.  The Lisbonites still give it a go, mind.  You know that thing  where you are supposed to wait at a roundabout?  Yeah, well this lot don’t know that thing.

You know that thing where you’re not supposed to cut across three lanes at 120 kph just to get to that junction at the very  last second? Well, you don’t because you’re not Portuguese.  This lot know it very well.  Very well indeed. 

It has got to the point where I will take the backstreets at 50 kph and take five minutes later to get home simply because, if I do get in an accident, I know I will make it home alive.  My friend Mark is with me on this; we will both avoid any motorway because we have seen too much carnage not to.  We reckon that if you only meet one absolute fuckwit who endangers everyone around them per journey then that is a good journey. 

Sonalee came over last weekend as it was a bank holiday for the entire world except Portugal.  I intended to take a ‘sickie’ on the Monday little knowing that I would, actually, be sick.  Anyway, we had a good time eating out and being with the doggies who could not quite believe that  their mummy was with them again.

One of the things that you have to accept when Sonalee comes home is that she will express amazement that the dogs and cats are still alive.  That the place is still standing.  That things work.  That I have managed to use the dishwasher (not properly of course but competently enough), that I know how to use  a washing machine (not properly etc.) and that I know how to live safely without her.  You know, as if my previous forty odd years of living  were an aberration or just plain luck that I made it this far. 

Sonalee and I had a great weekend together despite everything.  Bindi was in heaven as mummy came home.  The cat, well, the cat is just being a prick.  Which is fine.  He is what he is.  Love him.

Anyway, Sonalee and I were having a lovely time on Saturday when my bff Kev messaged to say that his dad, Gordon, had died following complications from surgery.

Sonalee had met Gordon, at my god-daughter’s confirmation.  She had been anxious beforehand because, you know, it is a thing when you’re in a relationship and meeting your partner’s long term acquaintances.  I assured Sonalee that Gordon would be fine, that she would get really drunk, have a great time and not remember all of it.

How right I was.  Gordon, his son Kev and daughter Marcie, his son-in-law and his partner Jane were true to their type – generous, good fun and big drinkers.  I do recall that, at some point, Igone had to go out and get more wine when were celebrating on behalf of my god-daughter.  Much more wine.  There was something wonderfully uncomplicated about Gordon whenever I met him.  I am not going to say he was a typical Brit because that would patronise some of Kev’s other foreign friends who also know how to enjoy themselves but when the answer to the question is “Let’s get pissed!” you know that after a while you won’t care what the question was in the first place.

I will miss him.  I have known Gordon for over forty years.  He was not an angel nor a martyr but he was unfailingly nice and very generous towards me whenever I met him and for that I will salute him.   He is also one of the few people I think  will ever meet who drove himself to hospital whilst he was having a heart attack – I kid you not.   

Kev is obviously going through a traumatic time at the moment and it is another reminder of some of the things that frustrates when you choose to live and work in foreign lands – I can’t be there to help.   It is one of the reasons why my friends Mark and Shanthini – literally the reason why we are in Lisbon right now – have chosen to return to Blighty for a few years and be with their families. 

It has been great to work with them once again.  There are some ex colleagues that you would always want to teach alongside again and they are in that category.  Andy B, Sandrine, Ed,  Kate, Mike in Bristol, Kirky, James – you know what I am talking about as will too many others to mention.  Teaching does allow you to meet some really nice people who share your ideas of passing on knowledge and skills to the next generation.   I have been lucky to have met such people and I miss them.  We miss them. 

Being here as a first time teacher of senior English language and literature has been an experience that I have certainly grown into.  Sure the school is far from perfect and has some difficult challenges but I am now so much more confident in what I am doing.  It is a weird feeling.  When I give an answer I now know that it is the right one rather than worrying I have said something idiotic. 

The students are also aware of this; they now honestly believe I know what I am talking about.  Bless them. I am hesitant  to say it but I think I am really quite enjoying my work right now and I think I am quite good at it.   I would like to continue to do so.

And this will be in Madrid in some form or other.  Sonalee has a contract to sign for her new job in September when they finally get her name spelt correctly.  We are Madrid bound! 

And this will be with Sonalee back in Lisbon for the duration of our stay.  She  has finally had enough of her current school and will be returning to us all next weekend!  Yay!   We can enjoy Lisbon in the summer.  Already the beaches are packed each evening and the weekends are busy with Lisbonites determined to be out in their droves.  It is an exciting time, to be sure. 

The dogs and the pissy pussycat are going to love their mummy being home again.  The two of us are going to love being together again and luxuriate in Sonalee’s explanations of how I doing something wrong.  It is what we both live for. 

Ciao

Ayubowan

Hasta luego, inshallah

Paul

PS:  On one of our journeys back to Andalusia Sonalee played a recording from a concert from these guys.  It lives with me because there we were, all of us packed into this van driving home for Christmas and we were together.   This is my favourite from a band who really knew how to write a song – who do you need? And any song that has the phrase ‘discordant rhyme’ deserves a mention.