Coals to Newcastle

The school is in a prime
 city centre location handy
for the sweet shop,
bars and  restaurants

You're going where? In high summer? You must be bonkers - it'll be like an oven! That's been the general drift of the conversation when I've explain to any Spanish chums that I'm intending to spend a week in Murcia city doing a 25 hour Spanish course and living with a host family for a week.

They also find it difficult to understand. You do live in Spain, don't you? Nearly all Spaniards firmly believe that a few months in an English speaking country will turn them into polished and fluent English speakers. If that's the case why hasn't it worked for me the other way around?

The reason is twofold, the first and most important is that I am so terrified to speak that I avoid doing so if at all possible. The other reason is that I hardly ever get the opportunity to speak Spanish. They pay me at work to speak English, Maggie and I speak in English and you don't get a lot of language practice buying a beer or getting the supermarket shopping done.

So, in a few days the Instituto Hispánico de Murcia and Maria Angeles (my host) will get the pleasure of my company. We were in Murcia today signing paper so we went to see where it was.

Who knows, maybe I'll have to speak a bit of Spanish?