A month in glorious Andalucia in Spain: the tranquil sierras; the sparkling jellyfish-free Mediterranean; the golden sands; the local chiringuitos selling dorade a la plancha, sardinas and almejas; the genteel and warm Spanish people who are delighted with any Brit who attempts to master their language, even at the most basic level; and the delight of being on holiday with wife and family away from school….bliss!

I have fallen deeply in love with a machine!  As all my students in Years 7 and 8 know, I am scatterbrained when it comes to remembering to carry my varifocal specs which I need for reading.  In La Cala, our house is a five minute walk downhill to the beach and the last thing one wants to do in 35 degree heat is to forget one’s glasses!  This is where my affair with my Kindle began.

I have been a bookworm since the age of eight or nine.  One of those children who “snuck” a torch into the bedroom so as to read under the covers.  I am an avid fan of books of all genres and it is one of my indulgences to pop down to the beach at about ten in the morning to rent a hamaca and parasol and vegetate with a book until lunch beckons seductively.  After a little siesta the book reading fiesta continues, punctuated by the odd refreshing dip in the deep blue briny.  At about seven in the evening it is just about cool enough to wend our way back to la casa.

Back to the mechanical alliance!

My beach life has been transformed by my Kindle.  Why?

• If I forget my glasses, I can increase the font size and it reads like paper with no glare in even the brightest sunlight
• Its pages do not fall out and flutter down the beach when the glue in the spine of the book melts in the midday sun – there is nothing worse than chasing the last chapter of a thrilling novel up the beach as either the levante or poniente play games with you!  If you are lucky you gather up the errant pages only to discover that your feet are being scorched by the sand and you are equidistant twixt your bed and the sea – decision made: water it is!
• It remembers the last page I read
• It is light (less than 170 grams) and is less weighty than the average tome
• I can carry a library of 1,400 books with me without paying excess baggage at the airport

The upshot is that I doubled the number of books I read and was able to delve into a host of new authors including Jonathan Trigell’s Genus, Catherine Cooper’s The Golden Acorn, John and Carole Barrowman’s Hollow Earth, Michael Arnold’s Highwayman: Ironside and G.P. Ching’s Soulkeepers Series to name but a few of the 30+ books I managed to consume with the aid of my mechanical mate.

We have been back at Skippers for a couple of weeks now and the weather has been fantastic!  Top Block has been demolished and plans are afoot for the development of this area.  Site meetings are in progress!

We have created three replacement classrooms for Years 3 -5 at the other end of the school, which will be up and running by Wednesday, which is sailing a trifle close to the wind!

The gardens are looking lovely and the 20 acres of pitches nestled between the beautiful woodlands makes a fantastic setting for the start of the Autumn Term.  A dozen deer have been munching their breakfast on the bottom field and a white hart was an especially welcomed visitor.

I had the fright of my life when I popped over to check the Swimming Pool this morning.  I was walking quietly along the path; when I passed one of the silver birches on the left, I glanced to the left and came face to face with a doe and her fawn!  Talk about an encounter of a furred kind!  The two deer practically somersaulted backwards and it was truly comical.  Suffice to say, a couple of hours later the two were grazing on the Cricket Square!

Well, enough blogging for one day!  I’m off to a Sussex Referee’s Training session in Crawley.  As the sun is out and the family has decided to torture the credit card on a clothes-gathering crusade, I shall jump on my Triumph Thunderbird and scoot along the country roads towards our neighbouring county, West Sussex.

Now where did I put those darned glasses?

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