We have been blessed lately with visits from family members who, frankly, have been lucky with the weather here.  Not too hold; not too cold.  My sister came over for my birthday with her husband and Sonalee’s brother came over for this Saints Week with his wife.

Naturally the dogs have been spoilt rotten. 

In between their visits I took some time off work to try to improve my mental health and I think it worked.

Other than that, not much to report on.  We did win the lottery though.  Four Euros.  It’s a start.

We did book a holiday in the Pyrenees for the summer and near a town that has Thai, Vietnamese and Indian restaurants so that will be nice.

Actually, it is nice to have something to look forward to for the summer and also having the knowledge that we will be escaping the horrendous summer heat for a few weeks at least. 

We have also been trying to deal with the damage to the house from the endless rain of the past few months.  There have been leaks all over the bloody shop and it’s all very dispiriting.  I just wish I had the time to repair it all properly instead of weekends when we’re always a bit knackered. 

A lot of the initial repairs and upgrades were done five years ago when Sonalee was in Morocco and I was stranded here.  As with all new  things, those repairs got old and they did not cope well with months of torrential rain. 

I’m not going to talk about the backyard.  Just, OMG. 

As part of the preparation for the upcoming visit of my other sister, bro-in-law and my niece and nephew we have had to empty the spare bedroom upstairs.

It is at this time that  you stand there and think, “Holy Mother of God, how did we accumulate so much crap!”.  You know what it’s like.  You buy something, find something or replace something and that something MIGHT prove useful at some imagined point in the future so you don’t chuck it away but keep it somewhere you don’t really use very much in the hope that you MIGHT save some money or use it somehow. 

Anyway, the room still has that Spare Room vibe but at least you can walk through it and someone can now sleep on the very comfy bed.

We now have three months until the end of the academic year.  Should we be counting those weeks and months down?  Is that the prevailing attitude that we should have?  Damn right we should. 

Teaching does not get any easier the longer you do it, far from it.  It’s still as draining and exhausting  as it ever was and we both do what we did when we started our careers in education thirty years ago and count down till the next holiday. 

In the meantime my beloved Pompey FC have 7 matches remaining to wring yet more cursing and crushing disappointment out of me and I have an extremely long list of repairs to get through, including the parts of the house that I truly hate hate hate doing – ceilings. 

Wish us luck!

Ayubowan,

Hasta Luego, inshallah

Ciao

Paul

PS: I accidently downloaded every song from every album from these guys which my car stereo plays relentlessly.  This one is one of the best.   This one isn’t bad at all.

PPS: So my sister has made it her mission to complete every Ottolenghi recipe from a cookbook. Not easy. You can chart her rather sweary but honest and funny progress here, on her substack blog