Blackberry wheels.

As part of my new keep fit regime (having knocked it on the head for far too long), I'm taking to biking (again) on the Fallowfield loop.  Last year (or was it the year before...perhaps I took last year off when it came to keep fit?) I took the long route from the Withington connection all the way to Sportscity in East Manchester then back via the city streets rather than the loop.  It's an interesting route, taking you through this hidden countryside within the inner city, something you never see when you're in the car or on public transport.  A couple of spurs lead to you various villages along this path and also onto local parks both small and large (Debdale Park can be reached via this route).  Occasionally you would catch glimpses of Manchester City centre peeking over the top of the hedges, trees and bushes which line the 15 odd mile long cycle loop.  Other times you will see Police training horses saunter by, the horses making your bike look the size of a tonka toy such is their size (like Snooker tables, horses look much larger in the flesh than they do on TV).  Very rarely, you might spot a few kids trying out those obnoxious off road motorbikes, tut tut.  The silence of the trail momentarily broken by the sound of a giant mosquito.  

Mostly, however, you'll spot other cyclists and dog walkers.  In a car, most people barely give the time of day to other motorists and any form of communication is usually an aggressive blood pressure raising, violent mouth off...something is a little more rare when on foot.  The protective armour of the car, almost convincing people they are Peter Weller's Robocop.

There's a sense of community along this route.  Although you normally greet people via fleeting nods and your heads pass by in space at a combined speed of approximately 40mph (23 mph if they are walking, 29mph if they are using roller skis) it's usually enough to warm your cockles and keep afloat your belief in the human spirit for a few hours at least.  

As the nights will inevitably drawn in and Autumn and Winter get out of bed, scratch themselves and head for their morning shower, I won't be taking this journey as often as during the summer.  

It helps define myself and my family's summer (I take my younger daughter on a child seat on the back of my bike – I guess next year she will be riding a bike herself).

In the freezer I still have several tons of blackberries we picked along here in the summer...what I'll do with them is anyone's guess...blackberry gin anyone?

 

Barcelona Trip 4: The Gracia Festival.

As our apartment was just a metro stop or a indeed a short walk from Gracia we found ourselves visiting the area on a number of occasions.  We first visited in the daytime during the festival week (August 15th - 22nd) and then during the night time when it really heated up.

Gracia is a series of grid patterned streets north of Placa Catalunya and Las Ramblas. It was once a separate town to Barcelona but today it seamlessly integrates into the city to the point where you cannot see how it was indeed once a separate entity.  Whilst the streets are not as tight and constricted as Barcelona's old town around Barri Gotic, it nevertheless contains numerous tiny streets where driving a car is an exercise in forgetfulness. Parking, I imagine, is out of the question but of course the Barcelonians find themselves blessed with many underground car parks thereby saving the city from the hideous 'architecture' NCP's in the UK blight us with.

Nope – if you want to peg it around this area of the city then it's a good walk or a moped (of which there are hundreds zooming around the city) to take you from your doorstep to other area's of the city.  I should also mention the bicycle facilities whilst I'm on the subject: the cycle lanes are good, perhaps not the best in the world but certainly much more advanced than back in Blighty.  The city now offers a system whereby you can pay a subscription over the year in order to rent a bike from pretty much anywhere in the city and merely take it to a drop off point elsewhere in Barcelona.  These were much in use and a fantastic idea, although the safety off proper cycling lanes help a lot.

During the day, the festival was either asleep or drunk in the corner somewhere with wet pants.  I think we chose the wrong time to traverse the festival – perhaps the siesta was in full swing as most streets were very quiet and any 'refreshment area's' (outdoor bars) were fully closed.  Still, some of the streets and squares were a little busier and we managed to view one odd sounding band (Spanish Folktronica?) their sound nestling perfectly into the searing heat.  There are around twenty odd streets amongst the hundred or so in Gracia that choose to deck themselves out in all manner of decorations (all recycled by the way – see the attached picture).  My personal favourite was the homage to Mexican wrestling/Nacho Libre.  My youngest daughter, much a fan of Jack Blacks reasonably funny comedy wrestling flick, procured a fantastic mask for a handful of Euro's.  That's this years New Year's Eve party fancy dress sorted then.

We returned the next evening and what a difference a few hours make.  Gracia was absolutely heaving.  Squares after squares, streets after streets were brimful of folk partying their own necks off , but of course in well behaved manner (there were many families amongst the party folk).  Bars were doing swift business as were the local street merchants supplying the street drug of choice (Estrella Damm) for around the 1 - 1.50 Euro mark (great if the local bars had closed or were simply too busy to queue).  Local bands were plying their trade in festival jazz whilst folk of all ages danced liked a latin version of Strictly Come Dancing.  Bionic ice creams were purchased for the kids whilst a few more tins of Estrella went down very well.  But kids tire rapidly after midnight, even in Barcelona, so the we just managed to catch the last metro back to our apartment where following a view of the Beijing Olympics in Spanish we all dreamed of vivid swirls of colour and the sounds of life loving energy.

Barcelona Trip 3: Sitges

Whilst Barcelona has a fine stretch of beach, the town of Sitges a few miles down the coast has a really lovely beach.  Barcelona's is a city beach and as such, slightly more hectic and messy than the beaches at Sitges.  If the site of Barcelona's smack heads put your off your sand castles then it might be a good idea to grab a train to Sitges.

The trains are of course (being European) reliable, efficient and fast (double decker trains to boot).  They run from Barcelona to Sitges every 30 minutes, or thereabouts, and as such you never have to wait long for the next one.  With the journey taking around 30 minutes and for a reasonable price, Sitges is well worth a visit or two.  We caught the Metro to Barcelona's main train station (Sants) – the underground is directly connected to the train station (which is pretty large and clean although not as good looking as Barcelona airport).  This also serves as an airport check in, hence the large queues dotted around the place.  Fortunately there are ticket machines situated within the station and if the English pages on the screen are not working (although they usually are)  you can work out the destination and ticket type fairly easily.

A quick manoeuvre down the escalators and you're on the platform.  What we noticed in this city is that people are genuinely very helpful and considerate (which becomes condensed on public transport).  People of all ages will give over their seats to someone they would consider more needy of the seat (usually pensioners, women and kids) and it's quite heart warming to see.  The difference between here and the aggression found on UK public transport is stark.  I cannot recall the last time somebody would willingly give their precious seat up over here.  

Sitges soon arrived at the train (as the relative theorists would say) and off we departed into this gorgeous looking party town.  The winding little back streets reminded me a little of St Ives in Cornwall, although the town and beach front were definitely of a Mediterranean mindset.

Apparently Sitges has been a bit of an alternative party town for many decades (if not ealier) and is obvious on sight that this is popular with the gay scene.

The beach front is lovely, fronted by posh looking hotels and apartments and we might liked to have stayed longer into the evening.  As it happens we spent most of the day on the beach, broken up by a trip to large, pleasant restaurant.  Apparently it it nigh on impossible to book a room here this time of year and I suspect it's very pricey.  But in contrast to the chaotic and large city of Barcelona this made a nice respite.  There was a nudist beach a little further up the strip, but on this occasion I decided to keep my 'sporty, yet casual swimming keks' firmly slung around one's buttocks...one day I'll pick up the courage, although perhaps I'm not that 'European' in outlook after all?

Barcelona Trip 2: Las Ramblas.

We arrived in the city fairly late in the evening (flying from Liverpool) so didn't really get the chance to take in much of the city that night.  We did however catch the metro down to Placa Catalunya (a few stops from our apartment) and have a quick wander down Las Ramblas.  It was around 11 o'clock and things were just warming up there (people go out late in Barcelona), but the kids were pretty tired and hungry so we settled on the nearest restaurant to a a metro stop.  Of course, on Las Ramblas most of the bars/restaurants along here are tourist traps.  We seemingly stepped into an Italian/Indian/Spanish place more akin to Little Chef than El Bulli (a restaurant a few miles down the road from Barcelona often regarded as one of the best in the world...almost impossible to gain a reservation, not that we could afford to dine there anyway).

I'd normally demand we should wander deep into the back streets and find a small, homely restaurant but at this stage (having not eaten for the best part of the day) I quickly acquiesced and tucked into pretty banal pizza (in Spain I ask you!).  I wouldn't been surprised if these were sourced from the frozen section of a Spar (yup...Barcelona is full of them, although they did come in very handy for us).

Washed down with a little Spanish ale and my body soon came back to life.  Following our 'feed' we spent half and hour wandering down the very, very busy Las Ramblas.  I'm not sure I entirely like this area if I'm honest.  In fact it's quite possible best avoided (once you've 'been there, done it' at least).  It's dark, it's paving design a relic from the 70's and the entertainment is best ignored completely.  How many 'people statues' can one take in an evening?  Such acts litter the place up and down the mile long stretch.  Slotted in between these are the expensive and not particularly decent bars and cafés.  A slight diversion and you would find much better streets and squares to have a drink and take the city in.  Every forth shop seems to be a tourist trinket place selling the ubiquitous mug, Barcelona FC shirts and Gaudi memorabilia.  During the day Las Ramblas is a little more interesting: the sight of many kiosks selling all manners of pets is pretty bizarre to our UK high street eyes.  You can also see where you're going during the day – lighting really is a problem in the evening (and of course Barcelona has a reputation as a pick pocketers paradise).

By all means take a wander down this famous street but you'd be wise to spend your euro's elsewhere.

Barcelona Trip: Day One.

This trip to Barcelona fortunately coincided with Barcelona's Gracia Festival which takes place during mid August of each year.  We were lucky (ish...more on that later) to get a pad in the city this time of year as the majority of hotels were totally booked out (we found a 2 star type affair but this was situated nearly 20 miles from the city...hardly on the doorstep of Barcelona is it?).  There were, however, one or two apartments being let and a few at reasonable prices.  We captured one situated just above the Gracia area and virtually next door to an underground (Metro) stop.  

The apartment itself was a fairly modern affair, although it wouldn't look out of place in the 80's bar the LCD screens in every available portion of the rooms.  With a fancy walk in 'hydro-massage' shower and two bathrooms we thought we'd struck gold given the price we paid.  It soon became apparent however that the place was on the rather small end of the space spectrum.  The upper floors were in fact mezzanines; the two floors connected via doll house stairs (one such set of stairs were almost vertical...a practical death trap if you asked me).  I felt like I was in some kind of space capsule and in fact had walked onto the set of a modern space film (I'd watched Steven Soderbergh's remake of Solaris recently...cross that with an Athena poster and you'll get the picture).

The, ahem, Kitchen comprised of a small sink and a 12” workspace (could just about peel a small tangerine on there) although to it's credit there was a 'real' espresso machine...I got to be a coffee barista for a week...and it amplified my desire to procure, one day, a genuine coffee machine).

Apparantly the apartment came complete with wi-fi access, but we couldn't for the life of us work out where and how we could potentially connect to the internet from this space capsule (although to be fair we neither had the time nor inclination to do so).

Another plus was the air conditioning in all rooms...it really is hot this time of year in Barcelona and I know we would've struggled (with children) without it.

The 'patio' consisted of a 2 foot by 6 foot 'well' in the middle of all these apartments.  If you craned your neck somewhat you might just about catch a glimpse of the sky above.  Suffice to say we never felt it necessary to open the door to the 'well' after the first view.

Thankfully we spent most of our time out of the apartment and really used it as a base at the end of the day.  Dodgy DIY 'exhibits' a few exposed wires; dangerous stairs; huge gaps on the upper levels meaning that kids could potentially fall and seriously hurt themselves, made this place slightly less enticing than the original site photo's showed.  

POST NOTE: As of writing we have yet to receive our deposits back from the landlord despite being promised this would be returned as we checked out (he didn't turn up).  So that's another fight on our hands.

Mario Kraut.

My eldest daughter recently purchased Mario Kart for the Wii, having loved it on other platforms (the DS being the previous version she played to death).  So of course, it would be rude of me not to participate in a few evening games...who is she going to play otherwise?  Her mother loves video games (are they still referred to as that?) as much as she loves selotaping offal to under her eyelids.  Me though...well, the Wii was intended for my daughter as a present but it seems such a waste sat there all forlornly come the evening when she is in bed.  Zelda and Super Mario Galaxy are of course sublime (though I, nay 'we' could do with completing them soon enough).  

Mario Kart Wii (although hardly a major jump, if any, up from previous incarnations it is nevertheless, a flippin good journey to the centre of fun...

Last night I managed to sort the wi-fi out (some crazy looking new, superfast model  router sat flashing it's face off in the corner of the living room) and jump onto the 'worldwidewii' so as to race against all types from all places dotted around the globe.  So here I was, Paulo, waving on the virtual globe as Hans99 from Germany, Elsie from the UK (I imagined her to be a 'silver surfer' from Suffolk), DAZX from Korea, TonyTony from the United States (such as potential prodigy his parents named him twice), Kiki (Dee?) also from the States and a few other wordless names grinning their cheese boxes off at me from the consoles display forum (my telly).

With a good few weeks practice under my belt and with some pretty swift moves, I felt I could have these races in the bag before I knew it...how bleeding wrong I was.

To be frank, I was shafted rather unceremoniously by these onliners.  I came last in all but one...and I reckon that was probably due to a loose connection on the end of one of the participants.  Am I missing something here?  I had what I thought was one or two tricks up my sleeve (like those cheeky speed boosts) but I was pretty much trundling along on my own at the back whilst the others (possibly arrogant little sh...eight years olds with ill manners and a lack of respect for other generation gamers) were probably downloading ultra cheat codes onto their wireless LCD pets.

Just before I called it quits and did something worthwhile with my evening (like watch another episode of the Wire) I could see that my 'driving techniques' were getting a little more savvy.  A few more attempts (and a quick session googling cheats/tips) I reckon I'll have these upstarts by the scruff of their Nintendnecks.  

Olympicitis.

Day 5 of the Olympics in what looks like blanket coverage by the BBC (perhaps it's the time difference, perhaps they need to recoup much of the money spent advertising these games).

My daughter woke up this morning at the usual time of 6:30 (her body clock is sharper than quartz) and whilst making her breakfast I stuck beeb one on – yup the Olympics were off to an early start.

Finish an episode of the Wire late at night just before bed and voilà – the Olympics still streaming out of the tellybox.  Not sure if it's bad timing on my behalf but every time I've viewed these games I seem to fall upon either equestrian events (in all honesty this has never been one of my favourites), rowing (again not one I'd go out of my way to view) and canoeing: now I'd almost written this off as a none too pleasing to the eye sport but I was ultimately hooked.  The British fella, David Florence, although initially somewhat behind, soon pulled himself up a few gears and before you know it a silver was his.  This looks like one of the toughest sports in the game (mind you most of them look back breaking) a lone competitor wrestling with what look like angry flash floods whilst commanding a canoe through flagged gates.

The cycling always has me hooked, there's something ferocious in the sport in which the body is almost torn apart from the nerves up during the races/grotesque feats of endurance.  Cyclists seem to be the leanest and fittest looking people in the world.  Great news that Nicole Cooke won us our first gold.

Swimming is always good viewing (and yes I haven't forgotten beach volleyball...neither it seems has that Dubya Bush fella).  Michael Phelps (as of writing) has won a record 11 gold medals marking him down as the greatest Olympian in history (and he hasn't finished yet).  

Here again Rebbeca Adlington did us proud with a gold medal.

Unsurprisingly China leads the medal tally (currently at 27 golds).  The only games I saw today was the women's weight lifting.  A rather strong, yet stout lady called Liu Chunhong not only won the gold medal in the 69kg division but she also hammered in three world records.  All this talk over 'clean and jerk' and 'third attempt in the snatch' left me a little befuddled so I promptly called it a day.

The opening ceremony was pretty special...it will be a hard act for London to follow in four years.  Everything ran like human clockwork, a giant organic German car personified.  The architecture for the most part is brash and flash (the aquaitc centre and the stadium are undoubtedly gorgeous looking).  Overall I can't help feeling a little confused over whether I should be watching this at all, without guilt over the goings on of such an oppressive regime.  I'd hope that this will open China up to the world and in turn make the citizens of this vast country much more free...I'm just not sure if this emerging (and emerging quickly by the looks of it) superpower can be trusted to be in charge of  this planets steering wheel.

Anyway...I'm now off to see if I can catch any of the table tennis – a true Olympic sport if there was one!