We’ve had the pleasure, over the last couple of nights, of children pushing our front door. Because we have no internal doors, not even the temporary ones to which we had grown most fond, it is very easy to get the dogs over-excited by a banging at the door. Which a little band of youngsters have been finding most amusing. We’ve tried ignoring it, and then Ian tried waiting inside and flinging the door open, which they have taken to be even more exciting. Unfortunately they started throwing stones, which damaged the front door. Although it’s only a chip, we weren’t very happy. Ian stood upstairs with his camera – however we both decided that him stood on the balcony in the darkness was getting decidedly weird – and the danger is it might get considered as being more of a game and we could end up with them thinking that we were joining in the fun. So yesterday Ian went down to the Town Hall to see Joe the policeman and have a word with him. The children are very young, maybe 7 or 8 and we don’t think that they even know that they damaged the door and they had just worked themselves into a frenzy.
Anyway, Ian went down and stressed that we were generally tolerant and happy-go-lucky (ha) however we wanted to stop this from escalating from being a harmless game to being vandalism. Ian originally planned taking the approach where he was going to say how understood how fun this can be for children and that he too, played the game when he was younger (I blame the parents), however it was beginning to sound way too much like a confession and I am not certain that ‘Knock Out Ginger’ is an internationally known game. It sounded as though he was turning himself in for knocking out Ginger. We have learned now that keeping things simple is always best.
I am sure that it will soon die down and when we can actually stop the dogs from charging up and down things will be easier. We did have a temporary ‘barrier’ across last year, however I’ve often wondered if Billy got caught between that and the wall, so we’ve not put anything in this time. Hey ho – the joys of village life.
Next Saturday I am having a Christmas craft session with my English class. I’m not quite sure how it happened! I just need to think of something to do with them now. Yet again, I had to clarify that the craft session was starting at 10.30 in the morning and not the 10.30 in the evening!
Did I mention that I now have a fourth in my class? They must feel that they are getting something from the classes! I find it alarming at how hilarious they find some things. In fact, sometimes they laugh so much that I have to go out of the room and make sure that I haven’t suddenly grown another head. They love drawing monsters and I believe that if they had an exam in monster drawing they’d all be set to get top marks. But all I have to do is say ‘draw a monster with 3 eyes wearing sunglasses and they are almost on the floor with laughter. Strange.
Antonio is here working on the doors now. As I mentioned, he works the strange Spanish day of breaking in the afternoon and then coming back in the evening. He says that he will be finished in a couple of weeks. It is such a big job as with every door frame being slightly different, he is making each one bespoke. He’s been doing the planing of the doors today and he says he’ll be hanging them on Monday. They are not treated at the moment, though, so not sure when or how he’ll be doing that. Really looking forward to the doors being finished. We can really then start getting organized….