Pretty busy day today. It started with heading out to my old stamping ground of Notting Hill Gate (I lived there in my second year at LSE, which is not as glamorous as it sounds – there were four of us in a two-bedroomed flat, with no central heating and directly over the tube, so the whole place rattled loudly every time a train went by…). We were at the Spanish Consejeria de Educacion, to select the schools that are going to take part in the Double Club trip to Brussels in a few weeks. There were loads of applications and it was really encouraging to read how the project has taken root in schools and is fostering a real interest in languages, especially among boys, who traditionally don’t go for those subjects. If you don’t know what the Double Club is, you can click the tag to go to previous posts which explain it.
I also did an interview for the Food Programme on the labelling of ingredients in alcoholic drinks. Keeps you on your toes, this hopping from one subject to another.
I’ve ordered all the books for my Open University Spanish course, which starts on 1 November. I’m also doing a short course on the science side, so I hope I haven’t taken too much on. But the Spanish is a work thing really – sounds strange to say that it would help to learn Spanish now that I’ve moved to London, but we do a lot of work on languages here, and the Spanish are real movers in that area. Anyway, I feel you shouldn’t have to search too far to justify learning something new. As I found out with the science course last year. Maybe Barcelona (my dream city) will need a press officer in a few years time!