Life in Ciudad Rodrigo

Maggie sent me a text yesterday evening urging me to watch an early evening magazine programme on TVE1 because there was an item on it about Ciudad Rodrigo. Apparently a bullock had escaped from the slaughter house and gone to have a look around the shops in the town centre. This surprised most of the other shoppers but at least it gave them something to talk about. There was no news of the fate of the bullock.

When Maggie rang this afternoon she said that she had received a call from the Adult Ed. Centre where she is registered to a pottery class. The way Maggie told it she said that the man on the phone had said that they had had a draw and that she'd been pulled out of the hat for a table - then she hesitated, I seriously thought she'd won a table, but it turned out to be an electoral table. Basically she had been selected as a student representative by lottery. She declined

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.