What's been happening

Well, as I've not said anything for a while, let's have a recap on this year.

At Easter I went to the south of France with Sara and Sophie and we visited Carcassone- Cathar country. What a fantastic fairy tail castle. We stayed at Sara's boss' house there for acouple of days.

On our return to Spain we visited Montblanc, a medieval town a couple of hours south of here.

And a nearby monastary. As you can see-fab weather.

The Grand Prix came and went- Woody came again-he's hooked now. Here's my man-Alonso.

I've been to a few other car related things. It was the anniversary ofthe 1st race at Montjuic in BCN, there was an exhibition of classic racing cars and Fittipaldi drove his championship winning Lotus around the track accompanied by Marc Gene in last year's Ferrari.

Top banana!! My mum came to visit and I had two tickets for the Renault world series at Montmelo-so I treated her to the joys of motor racing-and crashes.

Which,to be perfectly honest, is why people go to such events.

Dancing days

Well, finally I've got around to updating this thing. Here are a few snaps of my summer appearances with my dance class. Here is a shot of us all at the end of our top turn. There were 5 dances in total, I did 2, a few girls did a tribal dance, some others a drum solo, others Shakira and I did 2-a bollywood style dance and one with a walking stick-see below.

Here we are in full swing.

Me close up. Some collegues went to see me and Pedro went right up front to do the honours with his camera, Vanesa shot the video.

A few of us also took the Bollywood dance to some local fiestas, here we are just before we went on L-R, Marylin, me, Aurora, Amalia and Montse. Just after doing this dance,the heavens opened. We've been askedto do some stuff over Xmas for a charity one of the girls is a volunteer for- I'll keep you informed.

concerts

Been to a few concerts recently. It's the only way I can get out and about (I usually go on my own, bit of a billy no mates)

Went to see Ojos de Brujo in December with Woody, then I went to see a Led Zep tribute band (god I'm getting old!!) called Letz zep. They were really good and did double-headed guitars and violin bows etc.

In April it was Roger Waters doing Dark Side..., brill stuff, flying pigs, explosions and psychadelic lights.

And for that blast from the pastness, let's relive our teens, the Cult. They even did a Led Zep style acoustic interlude.

More China

As well as the Forbidden city I managed to climb a little of the Great Wall, it's a bugger as all the steps are of different sizes and coming back down is well scary as it's so steep. God knows how they managed with full kit on. I went to China again in January and visited the Summer Palace-not very summery as you can see.

But exquisite- well worth a taxi ride to visit (take great care with the taxi drivers tho', you need your wits about you. God help the visitors to the Olympics next year!!!!)

We had a reception and dinner with some bosses from Air China and the Spanish ambassador, we were shown around AC's training facilities and the Ambassador had a go on one of the full motion Boeing simulators.

And I'm afraid I gave some of the more unusual local delicacies a miss- you care see sharks on a stick here, but there were also spiders, beetles, larvae, scorpions, etc.

I'll be back again in September, so look out for more photos.

Everything in China means something. This is an example of a door in the Forbidden City, nine is a very auspicious number in China so there are nine by nine little knobs on all the doors.
The more animals on the roof, the more important the building. Nine is the maximum number of animals on the roof. As you can see this is a pretty important building.














This is a giant water vat for fire extinguishing. The buildings in the Forbidden City are all wooden, so fire extinguishers are very useful.



Maybe some of you will recognise this throne, the Last Emperor is the only film that was shot in the real Forbidden City.

Surrounding the main room is a three tier marble structure, it represents the clouds and heaven and shows that the Emperor is closer to the gods than anyone else.

China

Well at last I'm getting around to updating my blog. It's raining so I'm takng this opportunity. I'll begin with my first trip to China last September. I went to Beijing (Peking) and Tianjin, about 2 hours drive away. The reason for my trip was to meet our prospective new students and check out their English. I also managed to get in a bit of sightseeing.

Here are the guys in their classroom at the Aeoronautical University in Tianjin. The uni is huge andthey train all sorts of people for the aeronautical industry.














There was a festival coming up; I think it was the national day; so the were lots of preparations going on in Tianemen Square. They were building a couple of models, one was of the enormous dam that's being built and the other was of Tibet. Here it is half finished.




Chairman Mao's tomb is also in Tianemen Square. There was a veeery long queue of people waiting to pay their respects to him going around it. Here's a photo of me and our guide "Michael" with the tomb in the background. Many Chinese people take on a western name when dealing with foreigners to make our lives easier.














For some reason I can't upload any more photos, so I'll begin another post.

Stu's visit (part 1)

Well, my brother, Stuart, arrived on Sunday for a week. On Monday we went to Park Guell to do the touristy bit. Here are some photos. First Stu in one of the covered walkways.

And contemplating the variety of nationalities gathered there.

We went to Gracia to see my friend Blanca and have a look at the last night of the fiestas, I'd already been on Friday night and had a great time. We went for dinner in a Mexican there, here we are in the restaurant.

















And Blanca and Stu.














As some of you know, they decorate the streets in Gracia for the Fiesta, here are some. They are all on different themes (taken on Friday Night), 1st-War ofthe Worlds-this won first prize.

















We saw The President of Catalonia and the Mayor of Barcelona having supper in one of the streets, it's usual for the neighbours to have a bit of a private street party amid the chaos.
The next photo is me trying my luck with the local talent. Didn't have much luck with this one, unfortunately.

Yesterday and today, Stu's been helping me chuck out junk and at the moment he's playing with the chainsaw and preparing firewood for me. Tonight we're of clubbin', so more photos will appear. To finish I'll show you a couple of shots I took while out flying at the end of June- by the way, work phoned me this morning and they want to send me to China for a week at the beginning of September, WOW!!!!that'll be worth at least one blog post.
Anyway-here's Montserrat from the sky-a muggy, bumpy day, but she always looks splendid.


Bet you can't guess which is my house-answers on a postcard to.....

Cool perk of the job, eh? Shame I get travel sick in the small planes. Will probably take Stu to work tomorrow for a look around and a play on a flight simulator.

Life changes

Well, life gives you unexpected twists and turns. Just as I was getting used to life in Sabadell, Gabi died on the 14th of July and I've had to move to Masquefa to look after the animals and organise the house and stuff. Unfortunately, Gabi's liver gave up and the doctors were unable to do anything to save him.
I'm probably going to sell this place and find myself a small flat if I can afford it. I'm waiting first to see how my job goes and how much I can get for this place-1/2 of it is Gabi's daughters'.
I'm trying to keep busy at work and at the weekend I get together with friends for lunch or for a drink with friends or students-they've all been very supportive and helpful.
I'm on holiday from the 12th to the 27th August and my brother, Stuart is over on the 20th for a week.
I'll write more when things settle down.

update

I'm slowly settling in to my new home. I've made friends with a couple of the women at work (Vanessa and Montse) and we've started going to the cinema and stuff together-we watch the films in Spanish, unfortunately, because there isn't a cinema here that shows films in original version and I can't be bothered to go to Barcelona alone. If a film is good I can always watch it on DVD in English later. We went to see the DaVinci Code a few weeks ago and Vanessa took this photo of me and a very big and very dishy Johnny Depp. Let's hope the new films are as good as the first one.
I'll be popping back to the UK in September, but only for a couple of days to go to the Lakes for Pla's birthday, I'll be flying back to Spain on the 25th with my mum and Dave, who'll be here for the rest of that week. Stuart's coming in August, so I've booked my holidays for then. I need to think about Christmas-I'm not sure I'll be able to come back as Sara and I are planning a girl's road holiday here for Easter-let's hope it doesn't turn into a Thelma and Louise type trip!!!!!
I went for a buzz in a helicopter again last Friday-I went and forgot my camera again!!!! We flew down to Reus, near Tarragona, and then up the coast as far as Sitges, more or less, before having to move inland to avoid Barcelona.We were in the air for about 2 hours-it costs about 500€ for 1/2 an hour if you have to pay-it's a pretty cool perk!!!!! We can't fly too near the city due to all the commercial traffic. I'm getting quite a taste for the helicopter-I don't feel ,as sick as I do sometimes in the light planes. I'll try and remember to take my camera next time.
Apart from all that-the last puppy went last Saturday to live with an elderly lady in the village, so maybe I'll see him around when I go back to visit. Gabi has to have a liver transplant-but he doesn't know when yet-keep your fingers crossed for him. I'll look after the animals while he's in hospital.
More to come when something interesting happens!!!!!!!

A quiet weekend

On Sunday there was a little music in the street festival in Sabadell, I went down and spent the day in the park sunbathing and watching a few local bands. There was a group who did Ramones and Green Day covers, a few who did their own songs-many in English, Rumba, electronic, rock etc. There was also a Castellers gathering, there is a photo on the right. They make the smallest kids climb to the top-scary stuff.
The park here is quite pretty-there's a boating lake with ducks and swans-I tried to feed them, but the carp seemed to be hungrier.















There's a type of waterfall that you can sit under and get spray blown at you by the wind-rather pleasant on a hot summer's day.










I got a bit of a wet bum sat on the grass so decided to go for a walk to let it dry off a bit and discovered a couple of palm trees inhabited by parokeets and other exotic birds. You may just be able to make them out on the photo. There were loads of them making a real racket as they got ready for bed.