Good afternoon Wednesday. One more day and we break for the Easter holidays. It doesn’t really feel like an end of term, if I’m honest. If it weren’t for the fact that my afternoon classes have had a turn-up rate of 0/3 so far, you probably wouldn’t notice. Maybe that’s got something to do with the fact that Semana Santa is just that: one week. You can forget the languorous four-week break for Easter from university. It’s a mere seven days of freedom and then we’re straight into the third term of the year. I was very much ready to take a break this time last term, but whether that’s because I was still worrying over my primary classes back then or because of the stress of the Christmas concert (I suspect the latter), it’s a different story now.

I’m sitting in a sweltering staff room waiting for what will probably be the next two zeroes in the aforementioned afternoon classes. I’m almost certain that 2º Bachillerato won’t turn up, but I have my doubts with the second class… so here I am. Radio Futura’s oh-so-80’s Escuela de Calor is playing in my earphones on repeat. I really need to invest in a new laptop, if just to tweak some of my music library, which has been untouched since my old laptop expired on the way back from Elvet Riverside last February. Fortunately, everything’s cheaper in Spain and I’m settling down as the year draws to a close. I’m not saying I won’t go traveling anymore… I’m just getting sensible about how much I spend on it.

It’s hard not to fork out on long breaks in new locales every other weekend when your classmates are spread across the world in Cuba, Lebanon, Argentina, Australia and such likes. Until this year I’ve never been ‘in the money’ and so my travels have always been necessarily shoestring, for which I’ve somehow managed quite a lot: Uganda, Morocco and Spain from north to south on foot, for one. However, whilst I’d be the first to encourage travel, I’d also point out that it’s worth reining in temptation for the bigger fish. I must have spent at least 500€ on my various adventures over the course of the first term alone, and perhaps even 1000€ including the second. All totally worth it, but I have big plans for the summer and the little costs do add up. It’s very easy to be reckless with money, especially in Europe, so I’m screwing my brain in and preparing to sit this holiday out. Perhaps I’ll even get some more work done on my book. That’d be good.

That TLRP could also do with a little work… Like, starting it. Them. Both of them. Pronto.

In the meantime, spring is here and it’s going to be very difficult not to get out and about celebrating that. The swallows have stopped moving through and are here to stay. The storks began nesting last month and the first of the lesser kestrels came screeching into town two days back. Any day now the bee-eaters will arrive and when they do I’m bound for a quiet weekend in El Rocío. Spain always reminds me just how important the natural world is to me and that’s so very important. I had little reminders in Durham, like the badgers that haunted the path behind the business school and the hedgehogs in our garden (a major advantage of not living in student-infested viaduct), but out here it’s hard to miss. Sure, they may be lacking in a decent music scene, but on the wild side it balances out perfectly.

I’ve major plans of a more forward-looking nature this weekend, which I’ll inform you of in due course. Expensive plans. And that, above everything else, is why I’m clamping down on the travels for the moment. BB x