Summer passing

I don't have any work between the end of June and the beginning of September. No pay either so it's not quite as good as it sounds. And with Maggie working mornings our options about getting out and about have been a little more restricted too.

This is one of the reasons that I've got through quite a lot of books over the summer. That and because I prefer short books. Reading ten books with 200 pages is only like reading a couple of big thick books. Anyway I get bored with one style, one set of vocabulary and the same basic theme. Generally I've read books in Spanish - partly to try and improve my language but also so that  I have a bit more local culture under my belt. After all you don't need to have read every Kate Atkinson or Stieg Larsson to be able to have a conversation about their style. Talking about what you have read is a common enough conversation so the more points of reference I have the greater the possibility of maintaining that dialogue. The only fly in the ointment is that my memory is terrible so I often deny all knowledge of a book until the other person starts to describe something I read only a month ago.

Anyway one of the other pastimes is taking part in the WordReference forum. WordReference is an online bilingual dictionary but there is, amongst others, a Spanish/English forum to talk about word use, phraseology and what not. I realise it doesn't sound that riveting but I find it entertaining enough. Although my written (and spoken) Spanish leave something to be desired my understanding of written Spanish is pretty good and my grasp of English is still excellent. It's surprising though how much of the English that people are trying to understand is remarkably byzantine.

Something new today though. Somebody using the name Zameda picked me at random to give them a hand in putting subtitles on an MTV interview with Amy Winehouse. "Why not?" I said. I watched the video and understood it perfectly. Then I tried to answer Zanema's specific questions given as time periods on the soundtrack. It was amazing how many times I had to listen to correctly transcribe - "Stuff like that you don't, you don't, you know, even cross your fingers or get your hopes up; do you know what I mean? just, just err, you know; if it comes through it comes through, if not I won't have got my hopes up."

Back to work next week I suppose though with a gentle lead in. I don't think students will be queing at the door to get back to their English studies. Still time for a few more photos, a bit more reading and maybe another few posts on the forum though probably not enough time for the cleaning and gardening.