Two weeks to go..
It’s Sunday 10th December, which means I am about to embark on the penultimate week of this stint in Barcelona. I’ve got quite a few things to finish in the next fortnight, and the inevitable glut of telecons to get through, but I also plan to take a little time off to visit a couple of cultural attractions I haven’t got round to yet. I’ll be spending Christmas and New Year elsewhere and returning to Barcelona in 2024 but these will be the last two weeks I spend this nice apartment. For various reasons I don’t yet know precisely when I’ll be coming back after the break so I’ll have to find another place to live when I do. That will be during off season though so I’m not worried. I toyed with the idea of keeping this place on, but thought better of it. It is quite expensive, and I can’t really afford to pay weeks in rent to keep an empty apartment. Since I will be returning, I can leave some of my things with friends here, which leaves plenty of space in my luggage for goodies to be consumed during the holiday.
The weather here has changed a bit recently, getting much warmer. It feels a bit strange to be going round in shirt sleeves on 10th December but it was warm enough for that. It’s done my arthritis a power of good anyway. I picked up a bit of a cold last week which has now vanished too. It wasn’t anything serious but generated enough brain fog to make concentration difficult for a couple of days. The unusually warm spell is of course worrying for other reasons, as is the fact that there has been virtually no rain in Barcelona all the time I’ve been here. Drought restrictions are still in place. It seems the weather is a very different story in Ireland!
Here in Barcelona teaching carries on until Thursday 21st December, which is the end of term. Back in Maynooth, teaching term officially continues until Friday 22nd, though I don’t think there will be many students in classes on that day, just three days before Christmas, which also happens to be the day I fly out from Barcelona…
In the Dark 
December 10, 2023 at 9:18 pm
Ireland (and Britain) experienced Storm Elin yesterday, while now it is enduring Storm Fergus. A tornado hit Leitrim this afternoon.
December 11, 2023 at 8:09 pm
Leitrim is the least populous of the 32 counties in Ireland.
December 11, 2023 at 8:12 pm
But not because of the frequency of tornadoes.
By the way, my school chemistry classroom was hit by a tornado during one of my A-level organic chemistry lessons.
December 11, 2023 at 8:14 pm
In America, tornadoes only ever occur in trailer parks.
December 11, 2023 at 9:00 pm
But not because trailers cause tornadoes.
December 12, 2023 at 11:17 am
Are you sure?
December 12, 2023 at 11:57 am
I am sure of nothing.
December 11, 2023 at 11:05 am
My wife suffers very badly from (rheumatoid) arthritis, and its more damp and in particular humidity that makes it even worse than it already is, rather than just being warm or cold. I must say the city looks amazing, although I have unfortunately only very bad memories of Barcelona.