The rain in Spain falls main-ly... on my head.

What is this? It is supposed to be sunny and it is raining plump drops which crack like eggs on my face. I bought an umbrella from a nice Senegalese man on the street and already - 1 poxy hour later - the boombatty Spanish rain has bruck it.

But nothing can get me down today. A fine day!

I knew it was going to be a blinder when I bought my morning apple at the Fruteria. Normally, it's a toss up between the Granny Smith, the classic Braeburn, and when I feel like straying from pastures European, the Fuji. Today, there was no choice. The labels had been redone, and poking out next to the pears was... "Granny Shit". Granny Shit! One of your largest Granny Shits please! Make it two!

I spend a couple of hours in blunt-fringed Esperanza's French to Spanish translation class. We are the worst in the group, incompetent in both necessary languages. We do a personality test; I am outed publicly as having a tendency to lie. A great way to make new friends.

Lunch is eaten under a blanket. Mostly for warmth, but also 'moody' restaurant atmosphere. Next, next, the best class there has ever been: Julian's Spanish to English translation class. Because we are English and everyone else isn't, it is the class we excel at. It is like Enrique Iglesias or someone else really, really Iberian doing Spanish GCSE in Croydon.

But anyway, Julian is the man I would like to be if I was a man. He's kind of a half-way home, because he has a bag which says the word 'pansy' on it. And otherworldly shirts. Anyway, he is the Romane lettuce of salad varieties: sweet and multi-layered.

Today we are translating menus. That is practically my profession! Modestly, I refrain from telling the class about my burgeoning Menu Translation business (I like to call it Empire) in Paris. This one is in the bag.

Our task is to describe pictures of viciously unappetizing food in an attractive manner for a menu. Two planks of bread draped with cheap sandwich fillings and eggs I describe as a "Farmhouse platter. Martha's hand-churned Cheddar, oak-smoked Wiltshire ham and butter baked eggs on oven-fresh granary bread". Sounds good, I'll have a piece of that. Bring it, Spaniards! You ain't got nothing on me.

I am well and truly whooped. A girl comes to the board and writes the immortal line:

"Children will love this: open ham and cheese sandwich with fried eggs, and a grilled tomato presented with a funny smile".

What does she mean? Do they put the open sandwich down first and then follow it up with the tomato? When the waiter's doing the 'funny smile' - which a google search suggested could be like this -



is he thinking 'mmmmm, children will love this!". Responsible parents certainly won't.

How well the Spanish bodge up English, I think. Granny shits, and meals presented with funny smiles...

In the end, it turns out funny-smile-girl is not Spanish. She is from Wales.