Life in Ciudad Rodrigo

She actually got back by 9.20.

Maggie left Ciudad Rodrigo on 11 October. Since then she has driven all the way to Culebrón, been to Liverpool for a conference about links between Spanish and UK schools on the British Council project and set up a deal with the Holy Family School in Southport. About ten minutes ago she set off from here headed back to her flat in Ciudad Rodrigo. If all goes well she should be there by 10pm.

Maggie came across to Culebrón for the puente, the long bank holiday weekend, just before she went off to Liverpool to see if she could find a partner school in the UK for hers here in Spain. I was struck by some pictures that Maggie had ready for her UK presentation. They show Maggie working in a brightly coloured room, with scaled down furniture and scaled down children. Imagine the tune, for the Addams Family but change the words to reflect the days of the week "It's Monday and it's Tuesday, it's Wednesday and it's Thursday etc" and there you have it. We know a song about that don't we Gareth!

Maggie got a phone line yesterday so she's available again by email and voice. ONO, the suppliers, turned up about 40 minutes after their arranged time which must be split second timing for a utility company. When they'd finished the installation Maggie realised she didn't have a phone so she went out to buy one. On the way home she popped into a shop to buy a couple of towels. It turned out that the shop was run by a husband and wife team and that he was Turkish; they all had a chat. Maggie seems to have enjoyed their company. So the Only Brit in the Village meets the Only Turk in the Village.

The children that Maggie works with are very young. Apparently one of her charges had his or her first "accident" today but someone else wiped it up. Maggie says that toilet behaviour is one of the conversational topics amongst her teaching colleagues.

Poor old Maggie has a bit of a head cold today but it is not stopping her forging ahead with her social life. I mentioned that she has joined an aerobics class (though she turned up half an hour late for the first session and decided against going in) and today she joined up for a ceramics course. Apparently when she went to the Adult Education Centre to sign up she attracted quite a little group around her. She asked about Spanish courses but she was told they were for foreigners and well below her level of Spanish (!) At least one of the staff there knew of her "Ah, you're the English teacher working at the school on the British Council Project." Ciudad Rodrigo is a small place.

Maggie is obviously pretty much on her tod in Ciudad Rodrigo. No clans of Brits to chat to there. Very soon after she got to work she bumped into the people who own the flat she is renting. They invited her around to see their house. Whilst there she met the mother and a sister in law. Since then she has run into one member or another of the family on the street several times and she has begun to feel that she is being stalked (or that she's the stalker). They have walked to the family farm, been involved in a small fiesta and shared a shopping trip. She's also been out for a coffee with a work colleague a couple of times after work, she's arranged an intercambio (the Spaniard speaks English, Maggie speaks Spanish) with the woman from the Tourist Info office at the Town Hall and she's just signed up for three evenings a week of aerobics at the local gym. Mind you she was just watching a celebrity gossip show when we spoke on the phone a little while ago