One of those days!!!

Some days can be very frustrating, I suppose. Today has been one of those in a couple of respects, less so in others.

First the frustrating stuff. Public transport in this country – slow most of the time and just not there some of the time, especially if you live in the outskirts of the city. I don’t intend to go on about that though because I have bigger fish to fry.

I have been trying to enrol myself onto a Portuguese language course. I found the course I wanted at a place where I have studied languages before so it seemed like a good idea. First frustration: no on-line enrolment. Second frustration: you can’t just turn up and enrol on the day and at the time of the course. I’m sure that some people MUST do this but they don’t like you to do so and I am a fairly law-abiding person. So as I was going into Manchester today anyway I decided to pop in and fill in the requisite forms, hand over my money and go on my way.

Well, that was non-starter. To begin with the notice in the foyer directed me to a room where a lesson was taking place. Oops, I know how annoying it is when you are giving a lesson and people keep popping in. And it must have happened several times in succession because there were about four of us in the queue at reception asking for the same help. “Oh”, said the receptionist helpfully, “what does the notice say?” So we told her whereupon she commented, “That was last week’s notice.” Very good, I thought. So why was it still there?

Once in the right room, I had a little chat with my former Italian teacher and we caught up on all the gossip about friends in common. That was very nice but didn’t get me very far as he had no enrolment forms. By now I was running out of time so I arranged to pop back later. There it is again, that idea of “popping in/out/back” with all the suggestions of speed. Mistake!

When I called again later there was no sign of my Italian friend. He had been replaced by a rather inefficient waffler. There were still no forms but she had to discuss things with several people before she could go and get some. She even dithered about sending me down but realised just in time that they wouldn’t give them to a member of the public. Heavens, we might distribute them to others in the queue and get them to fill them in!

So, eventually I completed the form and waited once more while she discussed things with other people. Then, lo and behold, she discovered that the folder for my Portuguese course was missing. Consequently she could not put the relevant sticker on my form and, therefore, I could not go and pay. So I had to fill in yet another form and wait around some more. Finally, as I was about to stand up and go, accepting the fact that I should just have turned up on the first day of the course next week and done it all then, she handed me something else. Would I please sit down and do an assessment to see if the course was appropriate for me?

Now I am a very patient person; you can tell this because I never moaned about the waiting around and the lack of forms and folders. However, this was a step too far. I sort of exploded that of course I could not sit down and do an assessment there and then. I had things to do. I had a husband waiting downstairs. I had a bus to catch. I took the form away, having been told that I was not to use a dictionary and having riposted that I did not even possess a Portuguese dictionary. I was almost, but not quite, rather rude, not like myself at all. Hence this rather extensive rant.

It’s a good job that in between my two (only partially successful) attempts to enrol I managed to go to the cinema and see an excellent film. Manchester is blessed with an establishment called The Cornerhouse, a gallery cum small multi-screen cinema that shows art-house and foreign language films that don’t usually get into mainstream cinemas. This afternoon we got around to seeing El Secreto de sus Ojos, a subtle murder mystery set in Argentina which won the Oscar for best non-English language film last year. Starring Ricardo Darín, an actor I have got to know in a few other films, it is well worth seeing. Clever, amusing at times, a little bit wistful at times, dealing with violence in an understated way, it keeps you guessing as to the final outcome. I can highly recommend it.

So, on the whole, not really a bad day after all.