A Walk to the Nursery

Firstly I would like to correct something which I stated in my last post. I stated that on Sat7th/Sun8th November for the first time ever Spain produced more than 50% of its electricity from renewables for the first time. In fact 53% of it's total energy was produced from wind power alone! Rather impressive I must admit, although one has to also point out that this was in the hours between 12.30am and 5.30 am when there was very low energy demand and it was very windy all over the country (I can vouch for that the boat was fairly banging about!) it was also warm and it was night time so the majority of the country was sleeping. The total wind energy production percentage for a year in Spain is usually between 8-11%. So it is a great milestone to have reached but a very variable one for a country that is entirely covered in turbines. Also I have learned not to quote out of magazines without doing a little research first!

Enough of the boring stuff! Yesterday Ali and I decided to walk to Alisha and Kaylee's nursery to pick them up instead of taking the underground. Here are some pictures of what we saw in and around the nursery.


Firstly a picture of the girls on the way to nursery in the morning all wrapped up because it a bit nippy at 8am!


Here is a picture of the Forum Building it is in Parc Del Forum which we have to cross to get anywhere.



This is Ali standing at the start of the Avenuida Diagonal which starts at the Forum Parc and goes diagonally the whole way across the city away from the sea (the clue is in the name!) We walked up here to Poblenou which is where the nursery is and only really a 15 - twenty minute walk but we take the underground with the girls as we have already walked for about 15 mins to get through the Forum Parc.



The first interesting thing we came across was the Parc del Poblenou which is actually four parks which have the inconvenience of being cut open by roads but it is the city so I suppose you cant argue when getting space to do something that isn't thirty stories high! The park is a 'homage to the shade' It has many weird and wonderful features like the cactus holders above! But is also full of willow tress and archways covered with vines as below. In the summer when they are in full growth they must certainly be a welcome respite form the hot Spanish sun.

This is one of the gates - no plain iron railings around here!

And these are the park 'benches' they even swivel so you can look which ever way you want!


This is the Skytower just a block or so up the Avenue from the park there is a restaurant at the top. I never understand how these buildings with the overhangs stand up but Ali assures me that it is perfectly safe....


At the half way point of the Avenuida Diagonal (as far as we went for today) there is this building the Agbar Tower. It is inspired by the eruption of a geyser and is far more colorful than my photo suggests as it was taken into the sun because we had to head back towards the nursery.

We discovered the Glories shopping centre here which has a big Carrefour Supermarket and is just next to the tram line so we decided to take the lasses to the park after nursery then get tea and the tram home to the marina.



On our way to the nursery we saw a few more interesting sites too. The one above Ali took the photo I had told him to get a snap of the graffiti on the wall but being himself Ali included the building site too!



This is a university Campus which is built around an old factory chimney. Poblenou is the old industrial heart of Barcelona and they have preserved quite a few of the original chimneys if not the factories too.


We have noticed since we have been in Spain/Barcelona that all modern buildings absolutely must incorporate a 'twist' in the architecture whether it be just colour or gravity defying overhangs or the usual squintness of everything. Here is another example, this building looks like it has a giant yellow net draped over it why I do not know but it does stand out which I presume is what they were looking for!


Alistair thought these bins were very good and maybe the answer to Lerwick's wheelie bin dispute, every street nearly has recycling bins at the end and they are emptied every night.
They are very heavy and would presumably be less of a hazard during a winter's gale.


This is one of the many small pieces of art that are on the Rambla de Poblenou (a rambla is a street with a central paved walkway, usually with benches and trees.) The rambla is the main focal point of the area with lots of benches up and down the old people always talk to the girls and it seems like a really nice place - until you notice all the crazies lurking amongst them, there is an old alky who is very often to be heard roaring at people up and down the rambla clutching his bottle of meths like beverage, but he seems harmless enough. He is one of a few I have noticed when hanging around waiting for the girls to be finished.

This is the nursery all the mums and dads wait out in the street to pick up the kids each day.


Back at the Parc Del Poblenou

An old factory chimney in the Parc

Peerie bairns and big bairns


More lovely autumn colours


Then we went up to the supermarket deftly keeping the girls out of sight of the nearby Disney store (we had looked in earlier and Ali nearly had a heart attack at the frivolity and prices!)


The girls loved this huge sausage but didn't love the whole newborn piglets vacuum packed in the fridges behind the sausage, that was a new one on us too - eek! they looked so peerie and cute but so dead and lifeless.

We got the tram home and found out it actually comes a lot closer than the tube which is good when you have tired girls!

Barcelona - Where we are

Well we have been in Barcelona for about 3 ½ weeks now and have fairly settled in. I was wondering what to do with the blog because I don’t think anyone would want to read a boring daily diary of what we are doing as we are not horsing around sightseeing and some days all we do is put the girls to nursery, collect them buy the dinner and not much else, not exactly riveting stuff.

This first entry will be mainly pictures of the marina we are in and surrounding area. The marina is called Port Forvm marina, and is actually a super yacht marina (God knows what they were thinking letting us in!!) It has a surprisingly good winter rate and first class showers (always a good thing!) the internet is really fast and electricity and water are all included in the price. I would say the only draw back to this marina is that we have to walk for 15 mins at least to get to the food shops or the underground or tram. This is however very good as we certainly get our weekly exercise just from doing that walk two or more times a day. The cycle lanes around here are very good also and the girls can cycle along with us now without having to cross any roads. Once we get to the underground we can get almost anywhere in the city fairly quickly and we use it every day so the girls are getting very used to it. It took a long time to persuade Alisha to go through the barriers without screaming as the first time she tried she took so long they closed on her!

Anyway here are the photos.

This is us at our winter berth. One boat has a Dutch couple on board, another has an English couple on board, one of the catamarans has a Swedish bloke on it there's an Irish party boat and the other three are usually empty. Everyone seems very friendly which is good as we will all be stuck together for at least three months. There is another inner basin to the marina but the bridge that towers over our boats is only 16.5m high so we certainly cant get through! Behind our boats is the 'Super yacht marina' It is now getting quite quiet because it is winter and the boats have all left for the Caribbean or the Middle East.

This boat was our nearest neighbour for the first two weeks she is owned by a Kuwaiti and cost £70,000,000 and she is much smaller than his dad's boat who has the other half of the berth next to her when they are here! 'Apparently' that one has a submarine, helicopter and mini coupe on board! There was a large two masted yacht in the marina which cost over a million pounds a metre to build! All of the big boats have a full time crew working on board all of the time whether the boat is going anywhere or not and whether the owners are there or not. The mind boggles at the sheer craziness of it all.

This is the first thing we pass next to the marina office on the way to town.
We aren't entirely sure about this one probably some kind of street art, At first Ali thought they were storing the sheds like that but each one is welded onto the next and you can walk through them and they all have different textures and patterns on the inside.

This is a huge solar panel which towers over the boat on the other side of the dock. When it was built in 2004 it was Europe's biggest solar installation. Incidentally on the windy weekend we were holed up in Denia at the beginning of November Spain produced over 50% of it's energy from renewable sources for the first time ever. Pretty amazing but the place really is plastered with windmills and of course when it is windy here it is usually also sunny so the solar panels would have all been working well too.

To get to the shops or the underground we have to walk through the Parc Del Forum which is a huge concrete park and the following pictures are all of the park.


Huge piece of rusty artwork


This is the skate park. The parc as a whole is usually populated with skaters and rollerbladers but the funny thing is that they are not usually in the actual purpose built skate park - typical.

This is the best bit of the parc it has a really great play park which the girls love. When you want to get somewhere quickly it can be a bit of a drawback! Luckily it is at the top of the hill from either direction, coming home or going out so it means that we don't have to carry Kaylee so much when her little legs get tired, funny that how they don't get so tired when running towards a play park!


Really good climbing frame



This is something which is going to open soon it is basically lots of rope ladders, swings, zip lines etc at different levels. We can't wait to try it out and will post photos once we have done so.

The Parc del Forum has something for all of us, This is a large building being constructed in front of the tram stop and Ali loves to stop every day and watch them working, luckily he cant speak any Spanish or I know he would be asking for a winter job!


We try to go for at least one big family cycle run per week we either cycle around the Parc del Forum or we go the other way to through the Parce de la Pau which is a grassy park that goes along the beach front to the North of the marina and is bordered inland by this...


A huge power station we cant see it from the boat or hear it but occasionally between the power station and the incinerator complex to the south it can get a little smelly when the wind is coming from a certain direction!


There is a small river that goes past the power station which the cooling waters run into and it is amazing how many people fish just at the end of the river maybe the fish are bigger there. There are also a few of the expected wild cats living in the rocks of the breakwater but they are far healthier looking than the cats we saw in other Spanish towns. Must be the water...

We are really enjoying being here so far and the next post will have a few pics of where we have been in Barcelona and one or two of Ali's birthday party this weekend, now that was a bit of a rammy!