..Run for the Sun

Prior to leaving Bilbao we visited the Guggenheim. It's one of those must see things.The atrium doesn't contain a single flat surface other than the floor and pumps visitors round the museum like a heart. We also discovered that Arsenal contributed to the creation of the "Matter of Time" exhibit on the ground floor in a room whose design inspiration was a carp. The carp in question was caught and observed in the architect's bath. So, there you have it, fishing and football integral to a contemporary masterpiece. The carp also contributed to the titanium surface of large parts of the Guggenheim (scales like the carp) and also to sustaining the architect (he ate the carp, bastardo!).
El Sardinero (one of the lovely beach areas of Santander) provided our base after continuing west along the coast. Tickets duly purchased, we bowled up to the Campos de Sport del Sardinero for the visit of Villareal to Racing Santander. We supported Racing (pronounced RaThing) against Villareal who have ex-Arsenal jogadores Pascal Cygan and Super Bobby Pires. Bobby started on the bench while Cygan kept out Racing who fell behind to Villareal goal against the run of play. They were then let down by a Ref who sent off a Racing player for an innocuous challenge (El Dairio later described it as an 'expulcion inexplicable' I'd have to agree). The fans went mad and they variously described the Ref, but 'puta madre' seemed the favourite. Pires took advantage after coming on and set up Rossi to score. Our first La Liga game was good fun even though our adopted team for the night went down 0-2.
The following morning (Thursday) we checked out at noon and decided on a run for the sun. Even though our intended route was further west into Galicia the need to warm our bones won out. The run south through the Picos de Europa was spectacular and the contrast of Cantabria (wet & green) to the rolling Sierra's of Castille y Leon (sun dried brown) were marked. The journey brought about our 1st contact with the Guardia Civil. We were pulled over at a roadblock and I was asked to switch off and get out of the car. Asked for documentation I clarified " Para mi O para vehiculos?". "Dos" he replied. At that point I thought we were going to get a good going over. Documentation duly supplied and in order, pleasantries exchanged, we were on our way. I even got a friendly pat on the shoulder! I must say I was pretty pleased as I conducted the conversation purely in espanyol and was a little apprehensive about how it could have gone, as he was well stroppy at the outset. But I think I won him over enough to keep it cool and uneventful. Besides which, they had an easy target in a bunch of pikey workers in a wreck of a truck to keep them busy! Later, we dropped into Alcala de Henares (birthplace of Catherine of Aragon) northwest of Madrid and then wankel'd (inventor of the rotary engine) our way southwest. By midnight we reached our destination in the hills above Valencia. Galicia will have to wait; there are clear skies and some sun to be worshipped.
Hasta luego.

24th September, 2.35 'Daves'

Heading west in search of Ermita San Juan de Gaztelugatxe we weaved our way along some spectacular coastline from San Sebastien. The weather gradually deteriorated the further west we got along the Vasco. So much so that by the time we'd seen SJ de G and found a bed for the night in the Negurbi district of Bilbao we were experiencing a cross between 'Perfect Storm' (Hussey rather than Clooney as Captain of the vessel) and 'The Fog'. Not pretty.
As well as a new weather front moving in, today brought another first. That being my first birthday without Dave. Lesley has already had hers and now its my turn. Since David's day in February anyone's age, in our minds, has been recalibrated to a 'Dave'. 1 Dave = 20 yrs. So i'm 2.35 Daves today. Somehow it makes more sense to measure meaningful chunks of time in this way. Not, minutes here or there, like the Nick Hornby's 'About a boy' where floppy haired plonker plays the lead role and measures everything in units of half-hours. But serious life chunks with lots of days and nights.
But, este dias, we've taken pleasure in small things. The Ultra Sociedad owner of Bar Campus in San Sebastien who let us practice our Espanyol on him and open his WiFi network for our laptop, the dog who adopted us at SJ de G, the smiley OAP who waved us on the Bilbao Metro this evening and the friendly staff at our agreeable lunch break in deepest Basque country. But as a birthday? well, to be speak plainly - mucho ruido y pocas nueces (a lot of noise but few walnuts).
Hasta Luego.

Un buen par de Cojones (A real pair of balls)

So Coleman's bleatings must have made more sense that expected as Sociedad won comfortably 2-1. We saw some of the game in an ultra Sociedad cafe in San Sebastien (Campus Bar) near our accomodation in the private college that lets rooms when the students are away (Collegio Major de la Olarain). Apparently politicians etc pay Euro 20k per annum for their sprogs to attend.

Continuing the Cojones theme we have received a learned contribution from a reader which explains the conundrum of the 'cojones', not sure about the last bit though.
"It was once explained to me that continental men (apparently) have bigger ones than english men, so therefore after having them squashed in a confined driving/sitting position for a long time, they need 'rearranging'! To the untrained eye this may appear as crude scratching, rather than the delicate task of 'sortin' the family jewels. (aka the brooch and earrings). So Col', I think it falls to you now to show those greasy garlic munchers that english blokes are equally, if not better equipped to do a bit o' sortin of their own!
GO ON COL', DO IT FOR ENGLAND!"

On the beach yesterday a local brazenly strode down the beach with kiddies and families in their sunday best on the beach he was totally starkers.....Un buen par de Cojones!

Hasta Luego as we leave San Sebastien on the next leg.

Espana-san sebastian

From tours we picked up the rn10 and drove too far in one day after a couple of failed attempts to find accommodation. Tom tom took us to a hotel that turned out to be a girly dancing bar! So driving 550 km in one day we ended up at the arcachon basin beyond bordeaux. Checked into a trendy hotel with fabric wallpaper, muted colours and pool with palm trees. In this oasis we satisfied our need for wine with a top drawer bottle of fleurie by the pool as the heavens opened. Following breakfast we found the sea and local fisherman along with industrial quantities of oysters. Decided to go for san sebastien and crossed into spain just as 'changes' came up on the cd changer. Dave is never far from our thoughts and he even managed to get his top tune on as we approached the start of the tour of espana. Bed secured some well earned tapas and cerveza has now been consumed and our first espanyol hablo'd. Apparently richard gere arrived today for the film festival which explains the difficulty finding a room. Also real sociedad were at home but we couldn't make kick off. Anyway they are managed by ex fulham boss chris coleman who talks welsh so the team can't know what he's waffling about (sheep boyo yacky da sheep). We'll have to try for racing santander who are just along the coast and in la liga. Hasta luego.
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Sent from my phone using flurry - Get free mobile email and news at: http://www.flurry.com

In the beginning...

..there was a red dragon (Mazda RX-8) and it flew to France. Well, more like it bounced its way over to Boulogne from Dover. The crossing was very rough on the Speedferry (catamaran come ship) and regulars said it was the roughest crossing they'd ever been on! Atleast it was only 55mins so it wasn't too long to suffer. The thought of coming back the same way seems less appealing, anyway that's a long way off yet so we'll dismiss that thought.
The lead up to today was most auspicious, Arsenal beat the Spuds 3-1 at 'The Lane', then followed that up with a 3-0 win over Sevilla (we enjoyed very much at the Emirates last night) and this morning Mourinho leaves Chelsea! All good.
After the dodgy crossing everything went well again. We cruised along through Abbeyville, Rouen and then decided to find a room somewhere north of Le Mans. The Tom Tom with European maps came up trumps as I discovered while trying out options at a service station, that it will direct you to a local Motel/Hotel if you ask it - Voila, a Campanile near Alencon. Lesley observed at that same service stop that French truckers, in a show of solidarity with their English trucker pals display a propensity to scratch their bollocks in public! - why is that?
Anyway, TomTom directed us to a clean and reasonably priced Campanile and we checked into the last room, which was available for 61 Euro's plus a further 14 Euro's for breakfast for two. Not a bad start for our 1st day, oh and the Campanile has free Wi-Fi, result, 1st Blog of the trip concluded using it.
Hasta luego.

Emma in the morning sun, bloggin from my mobile phone

Emma in the morning sun
Originally uploaded by hussman60

This blog entry was created by sending a photo of Emma from my camera phone to the blog! Which i think you'll agree is a pretty smart way of getting a picture and text online. The actual method i settled on after some R&D was as follows:

1. Set-up Flurry on my phone (Java application from flurry.com that allows sending and receiving of email). This is using my Sony Ericsson K800i on Orange, although the network shouldn't matter for anyone else trying it.
2. Sending the email, with photo attached, to an inbound email address on Flickr.com. Flickr will store the photo in my account with the title as per the subject of the email. The body text of the email becomes the caption of the photo.
3. Flickr will, if you set it up, forward the email to your blog. Which as you know if you are reading this is on Blogger.com that again you have previously set-up an inbound email address on Blogger will write the email to your blog.
4. Finally, on Blogger you can tell it to send an email to notify an email address that a blog has been published. With yet another cunning twist i've set that up on my own domain to be an email list. That means every email address on the list gets notified that a new blog entry has been posted. (if you want to be on the list let us know)

If you hung in there and followed the process through you've done well. Especially if you are not a person who's spent any time with technology because it took me a few hours to put together a number of services to achieve the outcome i desired i.e. to write a blog using no more than my mobile phone. The final test will be once abroad and using my phone on a foreign network and it still works! Otherwise it'll all have been for nothing!

Regarding mobile phones, our UK phones will be turned off most of the time but we'll be letting you know of a local mobile no. when we have it. That means we'll be able to receive inbound calls without running up a huge Orange bill whilst away. As you most likely know a UK phone on a foreign network charges you to receive calls - but more of that later.

Hasta luego.

September 2004, Ebro Valley

daveamy
Originally uploaded by hussman60

So this is a picture from a previous trip to Catalunya. The River Ebro is in the background of this picture of Amy and Dave. The picture was taken on an lovely sunny day exploring, rather than my favourite pastime of fishing.

On one of our fishing days on this trip Dave caught his 1st Catfish and I caught a 101lb catfish in the same session. Dave remembered to bring our video camera on the holiday and out in the boat on the river with our guide Heiko. So, that capture was recorded by Dave while I struggled with the fish that bent the 6lb test curve rod to 90 degrees!

Of course my travel carp rods, reels etc. will be packed in the boot of the car for fishing on this trip. I've tracked down Heiko to another part of the Ebro valley and will seek him out for further fishy adventures. Hasta luego.

Tour of Spain, another gift from David

This blog has been set up to keep in touch with friends regarding Lesley and Colin's tour of Espana. Having experienced the joys of the Ebro Valley in Catalunya including the Catfish and Carp of the river along with the countryside and wildlife. The idea formed to extend our travels from the north east across to the north west and then beyond. Catalunya opened our eyes to the variety of terrain and culture that exists in Spain and we have visited and explored that area several times.

Because of the traumatic time we experienced in February where our time horizon was hour by hour. Over weeks and then months our view extended to a daily horizon. As that happened our minds could turn to thinking about what to do and how we might heal ourselves a little more. This adventure is so we can take ourselves away from the daily grind and consider what next. Our sadness has been difficult to cope with at times lately. It may not look that way at social occasions when the company of friends gives us relief from our loss and sometimes we can forget our sadness for an hour or two. But that sadness always comes along and finds us again.

David has somehow given us the kick up the backside to get going. An adventure was always one of the things on our list of 'things to do' in our lives and we've had such a shocking reminder of how short that time can be. It's something we said we would always do in our 40's and we'd better hurry up and do it as we're at the back end of that decade! As Dave would often say 'Do it!'. He would also say 'write it down', hence the blog.