Lost in the dim distant mists of time is my Fawlty Towers period. From 1982 to 1984 I was the proprietor of the Forest Garden Guest House in Cambridge Massachusetts. Many visiting scholars from the far-flung corners of the American Empire...Vermont and North Carolina...will have happy memories of their Forest Street lodgings and their walks to Harvard Square. Constanza Leal-Melo will be a part of those memories.
In 1980 I started working with Dr Ed Klugman at Wheelock College in Boston. Ed and his wife Hertha are two of the nicest people you would ever wish to meet and for a few years I was treated more like an adopted son than a colleague. We went sailing together out of Gloucester and worked hard to put some oomph back into the New England branch of the World Education Fellowship.
Dr Klugman was Professor of Early Childhood Education and in those days Wheelock College was vying with the top college in New York for the Number One slot in teacher training and further education. Empowerment was our thing. Out of our collaboration came a journal Take Charge and a graduate summer course at Solviva Gardens in West Tidsbury on Martha’s Vineyard The Ecology of Learning. Constanza was studying under Professor Klugman and jumped at the offer of accommodation in exchange for such services as running the Bed & Breakfast microbusiness. She did a wonderful job and we have stayed in touch ever since.
Constanza‘s father runs the top-notch Gimnasio Jose Joaquin in Bogota Colombia and her aunt runs the girls’ school. Constanza had arrived at Wheelock College as part of her grooming for the family business. But her Roman Catholic Triple Goddess had other ideas. She married an Oxford Graduate from the North-East of England and has devoted her time and energy to the nurturing and education of their three children, Gabriela (14), Christina (13) and Nicholas (9). I watch from afar and expect something interesting in the years ahead.
Nicholas took on his mortal coils on the very day that the intrepid Crocodile Uppsala reached his eleventh birthday. The family live in Mexico City...and live has a whole meaning all of its own after Nicholas barely survived a lethal urban illness three years ago. I probably saved his life. When things were at their worst I went into Västerås Cathedral and gave Constanza’s Catholic God a bit of my mind. Nicholas’ recovery dates from that moment. I was seriously annoyed with the gods anyway as they had just taken Connie from me without so much as a ‘by your leave’ or a ‘would you mind awfully’. In fact bloody furious would be closer to the mark.
Anyway to cut a long story short, Heidi once mentioned to me her dream of South America and my daughter has been telling me about the time she met the Bolivian President-elect Evo Morales in Cochabamba. ‘A true man-of-the-people!’ So since I’m in the ‘dreams come true’ business...can I fix it - yes I can...yesterday Bill the Builder dropped a line to Constanza that went like this.
‘I am organising myself to be in Rye for February and March; in Malmö, Sweden from April to September; in Rye again briefly in October and then in Tucson Arizona from November 2006 to February 2007. Susan is talking about driving me there from Boston and I might just take her up on it. Susan's son Mischa has just got married and is living in Tempe which is just round the corner from Tucson by American standards (ie a few hours drive away) so I might end up in Tempe instead of Tucson. I would love to come and see you in Mexico City or even better in Bogotá from March 2007 onwards. Am I too old to teach English at Gimnasio Jose Joaquin Casas in 2007? I could get the whole school writing weblogs in English.’
Up at seven. Weblogging until ten. Away to Cardigan by half past ten. By midday I am sitting in Celinis eating toast and drinking coffee...with everything I need to do in town done. Back home by 1430. A brief flirtation with P-mode. But I am on a roll. Come three o’clock I am racing for the post office in Clunderwen with my letter for Jord Arbete Kapital in Skövde. I now know it closes at midday. But I had got myself a eurostamp in town and only wanted a Certificate of Posting. Forget it. What are post boxes for anyway?
Please pretty please let me have 75 000 kronor on Friday 24th February. Repayments of 3500 kronor a month will do nicely. That is £250 at the current exchange rate of 14 but £350 at the rate I expect for the krona by the end of the year. Take it from my Working Tax Credit of £277 per month.
Like the Soros, Bufferts and Goldsmiths of this world I need to hedge my bets by buying £ 7500 of Swedish Kronor Futures contracts...at fourteen kronor to the pound. Spread-betting lets me do this without forking out the money. A Nick Leeson One-Way Bet. Have you spotted the flaw? A crash in the Swedish Krona. Is this the end of the world? I don’t think so. A petition for personal bankruptcy would see me back on the trading floor again a year later. Besides portfolios are for spreading the spread betting risks. Not all my bets will be bad ones. And then there are stop losses. Have you heard about them? Another time.
