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You get accustomed to your surroundings and the way of life here and this is a good thing I suppose, until you do a summer camp and the other teachers who are new to this game start pointing things out that you now accept as 'normal'. This happened yesterday when we greeted the new pupils at the summer camp being held at a school called 'Piramide', Pyramid, on account of its spectacular architecture, and a Mauritian girl started to ask me if I had seen the state of the floor at the entrance. I hadn't as most floors look like this most of the time. In fact most pavements too where I live. She had had to bring in some rugs from her house where she now lives here in Huesca to cover up the lump of concrete pretending to be a floor. Then she asked if I had seen the ceiling. Most of it wasn't there and it wasn't until Henderson pointed out that he was surprised we had walls that I began to question how native I have become. Outside I noticed that most of the paving stones and other parts of the school looked as though they had been deliberately dug up in a bid to create work. It must be part of Zapatero's Plan E as this town has received most of the financial assistance from the government to what is it? Kick start the economy? Save jobs? Create jobs? I still don't have what I call a pavement on the street where I live. About three inches of concrete where people in wheelchairs and mums with pushchairs hang on the side everytime a car screams by. I remember when I first came here about eight years ago being worried when a kid ran into a glass door and knocked part of it out and when I told the teacher I was assisting he just gave it a quick kick and pushed it back into place for the next accident.

The same was with the way we greeted the parents and pupils. Again, it wasn't till a Welshman asked me why we had to have three different tables to deal with the formalities that I realised this was another example of job creation civil servant style. The parents and their kids were greeted by several monitors and the director of the camp. Then they went to one of the tables, depending if the pupil was a boy or girl. Here they had to hand over their mobiles, any money and to get their name badge. This was explained by me and another teacher on the other desk but sometimes it was explained by about five different people all appearing out of nowhere and putting the badges on the kids or writing their names on the envelopes, or sticking labels on the mobiles, something one person could do easily. A hindrance in other words and and a wonderful example of how not to do things. Then I had to tell them to walk over to another desk where they had to give their medical card and any medicines to another person. It is all reminiscent of any trip to do any paperwork here in Spain where you are sent from one department to another before you finally get the thing you want.

Having said all this, the Spanish are masters at getting it done albeit at the last minute, or the last hour as people say here. I remember a story about the mayoress of Valencia at midnight ordering some workmen to carry on planting some flowers or stick something together and the next day everything looked fine and wonderful. It does leave you worried about the walls though.........................

IN LA GRANJA WITH THE GHOST OF ORWELL

I still can't look at an orange without feeling perturbed. The dread felt when you are expected to do something against your will and then the relief when the day ends and you escape, hinged and intact. Despite my reluctance to look at citrus fruits I was advised to drink some lemon drink when half the summer camp fell ill and the boss Carmen found herself rushing off to 'urgencias' with her small car loaded with me and green faced nine year olds. When it was my turn to see the doc and explain how I felt I wanted to just say, 'look, there's nothing you can do is there? This is just a reaction to the heat we are living in'. She listened to my chest and back with the stethascope which Henderson says is the biggest con as unless you have the lungs of a miner nothing can be gathered. She also looked into my eyes with a bright light, asked me the usual and sent me on my way with a bottle of the dreaded lemon drink and advised a lie down. A room in the summer camp was provided and instead of classes I lay listening to the sounds of so many birds and the chatter of the kids as they recovered quickly and set off for more fun and games. I could hear them from my darkened room practising their English as they sauntered by. The shutters were open slightly in the room and so a small chink of light played with their shadows as they walked by the window. It was an eerie moment as it looked like their souls were dancing along the walls. Or maybe it was just my heat exhaustion coupled with a permanent, vivid imagination.

On the subject of vivid imaginings, I had a dream that I had gone to the baker's here and asked for plasters. This is not such a strange request as in this town there are numerous shops which sell their wares and a line in products that have no bearing on the shop name. There is a shop here that only sells bleach and eggs, and I have seen another that sells bread of a certain shape but I have never seen anyone buy the stuff. It might be because, as Henderson once pointed out, the proprietor sits there with his hands tucked under his armpits all day. Anyway, in the dream I asked for the plasters and the owner gave me a knowing look and handed me a brown envelope. As I left the shop I looked inside the envelope and saw a fake passport and several cheques for huge amounts. It all reminds me of a record shop in Soho years ago where you could ask for a certain Charlie Mingus LP and get some hash. There was another record shop that sold dance records of the day and had an old woman sitting behind the counter who knew what you were looking for if you could hum it.

Leaving La Granja behind for two weeks we are now going to be stationed in another school where we will be teaching kids from this province. No oranges I hope and not too many lessons in politeness.

IS JEREMY PAXMAN A FATO?

I often say I can't speak for the rest of Spain when it comes to the goings on and going ons here. However, I do have enough experience teaching kids from outside this province to be convinced that we may be living in the most backward, ignorant and brutish part of Spain. Many would get the hump over this and argue the merits of the joint and I would agree, up to a point. Until you have seen the startling difference in attitudes directed towards one's fellow human beings you will presume the whole of Spain is littered with boorish oiks and gobby, tunnel visioned smarty pants. The word Fato I have mentioned before and it needs to be reminded to all that down the road in Zaragoza they call the locals here in Huesca this name. Fatuous and full of self importance. Mix this with a narrow minded view of the world and you get the picture. It's a similar feeling that must have been aroused when the Conservatice MP Michael Gove accused Jeremy Paxman of being obtuse on Newsnight recently.

While some folk here might get their jotas in a twist my friend Jon from Bilbao often reminds me that there are plenty of others who are proud of being a burro, or pigheaded to be precise. Another friend, Angeles assures me that there is evidence of this throughout Spain but it seems to excel here. She told me the other day that here if you ask someone not to do something you think is wrong, like throw stuff out the window, bellow in someone's face, snatch something out of another's hands, run people over etc you will often be hit with the response ' Y tu?, and you? Henderson who has lived all over the planet tells me that he has never come up against the old two wrongs don't make a right school of thought as much as he has here. I must confess I do find it all quite draining and am making an effort not to justify, explain or deny my actions to incompetents. We have oiks back home, in fact we call them chavs and we probably possess more than the Spanish so we should be proud but it doesn't mean I can't have an opinion just because I am not from this town.There is an advert around town which roughly translated is all about being respectful to others and the town, not to paint grafitti, wear a crash helmet, you know normal civil behaviour. The ad implies that the other person does all these normal cringeworthy things and leaves the ignoramus thinking 'and me? what do I do?' I doubt if anyone has read it except those who don't need to be told.

When I mention my blog and some of the stuff I write some people here get all worried and say 'oh, you shouldn't write that' and give me an even more perturbed look as if I might get my head kicked in. I find it very empowering and hysterical, the idea that one of these Fatos could believe for a minute that someone whose ancestors fought Nazis amongst other derring does might be lying in bed at night shitting themselves in case said oaf might beat me up one day. Besides, you don't have to be a foreigner and have a point of view to stir up old hatreds and bitterness here. Bring it on.

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Thanks to the heat and flies the decorum classes were put off for a rainy day. Instead we played, danced and had fun. I have done many summer camps in Spain and seem to be a dab hand so I don't like it when interference is felt in the form of being told what to do, especially if it means I have to teach kids manners and how to peel fruit. It is a bit rich inviting kids from Asturias, Madrid and Valladolid to of all places, Aragon, famous for its obstinacy and brutish ways, and then tell them 'we are going to teach you the right way to behave in polite society' when living here sometimes feels as though I have stepped into a time machine and gone back to the Stone Age. It is also a shock to be around kids who don't snatch the register out of your hands, address you as 'oye' or 'chica' or 'joder' or the dreaded 'queeee' which is emitted here 'eehhh?' I wonder if there is room for classes in 'why it's a good idea not to run people over while they are on the zebra crossing'.

So all is great and we are in an agricultural institute opposite 'La Granja' which is where George Orwell spent many an hour trying to figure the Spanish out. This place is mentioned in Homage To Catalunya and there is a palpable atmosphere here with an abundance of birds. As we drove over the little bridge behind La granja a Golden Oriole flew in front and landed in atree where we could see its beauty. Meanwhile about fifty storks looked as though they were grazing in one of the fields nearby. Many of them no longer migrate to Africa and have changed their habits and decided to stay here.

BLAME IT ON THE BOOGIE

I thought I woke up to the strains of Piti this morning but it turned out to be the wails of Michael Jackson's mourners. None of them knew him of course but being a fan and young does strange things to you. I remember being about 14 and finding out I wasn't the only weirdo who fancied Rowan Atkinson. Never has my gusto for something or someone been massacred as much as the discovery that day that there were others.

Getting back to the dog upstairs, I did see a programme about the RSPCA who were having words with a man back in Britain who looked like an extra in Little Britain and his mute wife who sat around all day in her dressing gown and curlers. Common practice here too I note. Anyway, this bloke had two dogs and one bullied the other so he kept it outside in a shit hole basically. Even when he was told to clean it up he kept repeating 'what do you mean?' as if it was a lovely place for man's best friend to hang out in all day. To skip most of the horrid story, it wasn't a dog's life. The woman from the RSPCA said she would take the dog from him if he didn't sort it out. Compared to the life of Piti I think he had it OK. I found myself shouting at the tele again and telling the RSPCA woman to come over here and have a butcher's.

Later I had to go to the offices of my new employment which involves working in a summer camp. Without giving too much away in one go it looks as though Monday is six hours of 'good manners', etiquette, or, as it is known here, protocol. They want me to teach the kids table manners, how to peel an orange (?!) and the rest. I suggested as a joke that maybe I could do a finishing school and put books on their heads etc and both bosses agreed this was 'genial'. I have decided that I might just go the whole hog and put on a garden party where I get to dress up as the Queen Mother or Princess Margaret and end up under a tree with a gin, a packet of Marlboro and a box of Ritz crackers. I'm a dab hand at these 'campo veranos' and might even put in a few stories this way in the next few days of past soujourns of sitting in corridors trying to wield power at four in the morning while keeping a watchful eye on any Lotharios who thought it might be a good idea to nip into the girl's dorm for the night. Or the time I nearly throttled the 'director' of the concentration camp which masqueraded as a summer one a few years back. Thinking about the 'how to peel an orange' class, the only time I have ever come up against this was when a friend was admitted into a mental hospital circa 1990, on account of her not being able to among many things, peel a plastic orange, say the year backwards or say who the Prime Minister was. Perhaps I should just use this version in my 'decorum classes'.

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When you learn a language it is interesting the order in which you pick up vocabulary and verbs. You start off with the obvious, necessary verbs and words you will need to ask or explain something and it grows from then on. When you work with children you find you learn words like octopus, cloud and wave and verbs to do with someone else ruining their life. It gets difficult when you realise you don't know how to say the verbs to miss or to deserve or take advantage. So it was with Alejandro the other day when I read a line from PG Wodehouse's Summer Lightning and the sentence 'when they saw young Parsloe coming, strong men winced and hid their valuables'. The good thing about a verb like wince is you can act it out which I did and then the pair of us continued in this vein everytime we mentioned undesirables.

Wince I did when I caught sight of the increasingly worrying spectacle known as Mr Harley Davidson AKA Mr Personality. A sight that was at the same time toe curling and wince inducing. I didn't know whether to curl up and moan like a dying animal or pretend I hadn't seen anything. It's the sort of feeling you get when you see a grown man dressed as Darth Vadar or Varder/Vada if you're going all Parlare. So, there he was vardering on across the roundabout at Plaza Santa Clara dressed to the nines, looking like he could do with a wash and wearing one of my bete noirs, those leather fingerless gloves that always remind me of my music teacher who wore the woollen version. As we drove round said roundabout his back pocket revealed a hanky dangling out a la Al Pacino Cruising style. I don't think this is the desired effect and I think someone should tell him before he finds himself on one of his concentraciones further afield. Henderson told me later that Mr Harley has been seen walking into the Bar Rugaca with his Nazi helmet under his arm but his bike parked in the garage back home. This didn't go unnoticed as half the bar felt compelled to tell him what a tosser he had turned into.

To end, my siesta as usual was accompanied by the weatherman back in Britain. As I drifted off I heard the words ' Jug of Pimms' which had Henderson sitting bolt upright. The last time he did this he was fast asleep snoring like a good 'un on a flight back from Bangkok. The stewardess was meandering her way up the aisle asking each passenger if they would like a drink. I vadered with expectant glee as he snored on and the hostess got closer. As each passenger wanted something soft the snores got louder until a man three seats back uttered the words Gin and Tonic and I've never seen anyone wake up so quickly and say 'me too'.

MERCEDES HAS LEFT THE BULDING

To be able to walk away from all the racket and be in nature with just the birds tweeting in your ears and a weasel trotting ahead is one of the simple pleasures enjoyed here, but it was soon marred by the sounds of the dreaded Jota emanating from a Peugot 107, one of the smallest cars in the world and inhabited by a huge old man equipped with songsheet bellowing away without a shred of guilt. His misconduct didn't go unnoticed but he only looked up briefly and plugged away.

Meanwhile, Piti and his owner have fled but not without making a song and dance of it. Leading up to their departure there was a lot of commotion as dear old Mercedes had to go to the hospital in Zaragoza to have if I have understood correctly, nerves removed from her face. Her absence caused the beast to have moments of sang froid and restless foot tapping all leading to the inevitable. Her return resulted in him having an apoplectic fit while I was still recovering from mine. People ask 'do you miss him now that he has gone?'

Anyway, been meaning to mention the wonderful day out at one of my favourite places not far from here called The Rio Alcanadre where there is a waterfall and lots of leafy glades and no unhinged dogs. While lying beneath the trees and at one with all I spied a vulture a stone's throw away sitting atop the rocks that make up this part of The Sierra Guara. Dozens of Beeaters, swifts and a woodpecker at it. Kids jumping into the river from a great height.People siesting in hammocks. Two men playing chess. Kids in dinghies and others leaping off the waterfall. A picnic and love for your fellow man. Wonders will never cease.