Thursday 18 March 2010

The kids and some other Barcelona bits.

The kids have also had a great time in Barcelona, so much so that they didn't want to leave at all. They have made friends with all the people along the pontoon but especially Toni from the boat Elyzian next door, they just loved her and her husband Mike and their two boys. Every time any of them dared to come in or out of their boat two little heads would pop up and talk away at them for ages.



This is a picture of Toni and Mike's 'Calcotada' they invited us over just before they went home at the beginning of March in case we were gone by the time they came back. Calcots are young leeks and this is the traditional Catalan way of eating them (bibs and all!) Toni barbecued them and then you strip the outer skin off, dip them in sauce and eat them like this - hence the need for the plastic bibs! If you noticed it was lunch on deck at the end of Feb, little did we know it would be snowing only a week later....

The girls even managed to persuade the boys (21 and 26year old) to take them rollerblading! It was funny to watch them as the were far more enthusiastic when Andrew was teaching them and they didn't cry if they fell over but when it was just us.......



The girls showing off to Andrew.



Kaylee after a hard afternoon rollerblading!



This was our last night in Port Forum, we had Mike Toni and Fergus around for a chilli and the girls decided to eat the sugar mice Toni had taken them back from England Calcotada style!

Firstly there was the Barcelona boat show which just happened to be on the weekend we got to Barcelona - I suppose that was the real reason for all the rush! The girls were a little bored walking around all the stalls waiting for Ali to interrogate the salesmen about products he was never going to buy but then we got to the boat hall and they had a big pool set up for kids to go sailing on! It was great they had a man in the water who helped them if they got stuck and also stopped them from capsizing which was very lucky as we had no spare clothes with us and it would have been a pitiful journey the whole way back across the city with soggy kids! The girls really liked it whether they gained any sailing knowledge or not.......





Sunday mornings were generally pancake morning and if we were lucky enough with the weather we would eat them out on deck! The girls love to make pancakes and really love to eat them it reminds them of being home when we would casually drop by Colin and Susan's on a Sunday morning in the hope Colin was making pancakes!




The lasses have become such good friends on this trip sometimes we can't believe it, their imaginations have developed to almost worrying heights, probably because they spend so much time with only each other and no TV etc. We sometimes sit and listen to them with out them knowing and it is hilarious what they come up with! I caught them deep in discussion on the companionway one morning I can't remember what they were talking about but it must have been interesting judging by their expressions......



The barbies went through a big phase of different activities as you can see below!



This is a barbie camping trip, with Alisha and Kaylee's sailing socks for sleeping bags on this occasion they had camped in the big woods of Canada hoping to spy a few grizzly bears....




Here are the barbies getting a swimming lesson with Prince Phillip for the life guard, Alisha spent an hour or so cajoling Ariel into getting her face in the water saying it would be OK when you know how to swim! Rich coming from a girl who flatly refuses to get into the sea.



This is Kaylee doing the monthly barbies clothes wash and dry, as you can imagine the trail of suds gets spread through out the boat and sets Ali entirely high!



This next example deserves two pictures as it gave us such a laugh, we had been trying to fix something in the fore cabin and when we came out we were faced with this.....



'Plain driever gurl' and her passengers!

Alisha had made tickets with the above spelling and given them to Kaylee and all the toys for a trip on her plane, unfortunately it was hit by lightning and they crashed into the sea and most of them died....... OK just a tad worrying! Most of Alisha ad Kaylee's scenarios involve boats sinking and planes crashing etc a bit drastic but very imaginative!


This is the girls trying their hardest to get music out of the toys after a big down pour which flooded the play park.



Alisha making her Valentines card for Ali, needless to say someone else completely forgot about that day.........




This was the big play area in the Diagonal Mar shopping centre I don't actually think you were supposed to climb up the outside of it but it made it more of a challenge for the girls.

The girls spent three months at a nursery which they thoroughly enjoyed as all they did was play all day, it was good as we got a bit of free time too and it is amazing how many miles you can cover when you aren't dragging grumpy girls around with you! Some of the the things they did was a 'Christmas Breakfast' pictured below which we all had to bake for - eek! I hadn't actually tried to bake anything more adventurous than a ready made pizza on the boat so I decided on mince pies as they were very 'British.' The girls ate most of them thankfully as I think they were a little overdone! We must say thanks for Marvin at this point as he took us to the 'Taste of Home' shop near his to get the mince meat etc, it is amazing how much you will pay over the odds when you need something you cant get at here!



The nursery Christmas Breakfast

Then in February there was the nursery Carnival parade, we had to get the girls animal suits so we found a bumble bee and lady bird outfit each and turned up at 6pm on the night. We weren't really sure what it all entailed but found out the whole nursery and parents had to basically go for a walk around the block banging on the noisy 'instruments' we had all made. It was a fine night and as with the breakfast it gave us a chance to talk to some of the other parents.



This is the kids all getting ready for the parade.




And here is a clip of the parade.



We bought this shopping trolley shortly after arriving in Barcelona as the walk to the nearest shops wasn't much fun with a fully loaded rucksack. The girls however decided it was a great mode of transport for them! This is Alisha having her shot in the trolley.



This is a picture of Kaylee helping Gemma on the day Gemma and Marvin came down for a bannock baking lesson. It went OK the first lot of the griddle 'Whalsay' style were good, the second batch would have been great if we hadn't started drinking wine and forgot they were in the oven......



This was a mobile dog grooming parlour that the lasses just loved!



This is a picture of the girls 'Skyping' Ellie our next door neighbour at home. They can't wait to see her and Robbie in a weeks time and they love to skype their peerie pals although they usually get a little shy and can't think of what to say especially when Alisha has 'skyped' Nia her best friend. It is such a shame as she misses her so much but when they actually can talk she is so shy she can hardly speak.


One day Marvin invited us up to Gracia where he and Gemma live to come and see the Parade of St Medir at the beginning of March we decided to make a day of it and went up for a late lunch with Marvin at the same restaurant him and Ali had had a 'great' lunch two weeks previously. well it must have been great judging by the state Ali rolled home in at about 9pm.....

The lunch was lovely in a small restaurant just up the road from Marvin's and it was very good value too which always improves the flavour I think! After lunch we went back to Marvin's to see Anouk their Alaskan Malamut 'puppy' pretty blooming big for a puppy as you can see below!



We decided to all go for a walk up to Park Guell even though it was a little dreech as the girls love to try and walk Anouk but it is definitely more a case of Anouk walking them!



Park Guell is a great place to go for a walk as you are surrounded by original Gaudi architecture but it has loads of nooks and crannies for the girls (and the dog) to explore so they don't get bored.
Here are some pictures


.

We went back to Marvin's to meet Gemma who was home from work and to go to the parade which startd just around the block from their flat. They tried to take Anouk too but had to put her home after her first encounter with all the horses! The parade is the Parade of St Medir and is held to mark the anniversary of a yearly walk done by a man who prayed to Saint Medir to be healed promising to do the route and spread the 'word' every year. Nowadays however it just seems to be another Spanish exercise in sweetie throwing and if we thought the Three Kings Parade had a lot of sweets we hadn't seen anything like this! You can see two video clips below and a few pictures. Once again the up turned umbrellas were out although you really didn't need them, I had sweets down my collar without even trying!



This is Alisha who was an expert sweetie grabber, she ended up with a shopping bag full to the point it was actually heavy to carry home (we have since either given or thrown most of them away as it was just too much!)



Kaylee wasn't so brave and preferred to stay up high out of the scrum.



This is someone even managing to get sweets from their first floor window! It really was a little crazy.



The aftermath, it was like walking on a sticky pebbly beach!

There are likely a few more pics of the lasses ad Barcelona but that'll do! We are currently in St Feliu de Guixols waiting for a southerly breeze to carry us up the coast to France where we are meeting Colin and Susan. It has been very calm the last two days which I though was pretty good sailing weather really but guess we better do what skipper says and wait for wind!

Sunday 14 March 2010

Skiing videos - hopefully!

Here are some videos of us skiing, remember if viewing following the link from Facebook you will need to press the 'view original post button,' why I have no idea but you do!

There are three skiing videos, even one of me filmed by Ali the skimaster whilst he is actually skiing..... one each of the lasses, Alisha is doing a 'red run' on her own! That is a run classed as difficult, fortunately I am tumbling along so much further up the slope you can't see my efforts to get down there! That is the slope Ali denied having known was red forgetting he had actually said it into the video.....

This is our last night in Port Forum we leave here tomorrow for Port Olympic to take Islay Mist out of the water and then it is off up the coast, there is a high over here again, and so hopefully it will bide long enough for us to get around to Port Vendres in France where our neighbours Colin, Susan and the kids are joining us for a week can't wait!

Monday 8 March 2010

When Pop Granny and Daniel came to stay including skiing trip to France

On the 10th of January we had another big clear out and reorganising job to do as we were to be invaded that night by Granny Pop and Daniel and they would all be staying on the boat so it was going to be a pretty tight squeeze. We were glad the swell of the festive period had died down a bit and the boat was lurching around a lot less - we don't think we have lost our sea legs this winter that's how rolly it has been! We cleared out the fore cabin for Granny and pop and dumped the toy box outside into the locker to many protests from the girls. Daniel was sleeping on the couch again poor boy it really is a little too short for him!

Ali headed off to the airport to collect the guests on Sunday evening and the girls tried their hardest to remain calm until they got here (not very successfully.) There was great joy as they arrived on board the girls were jumping all over Daniel he doesn't get much peace at all when the girls are around at least when we were home he had a room he could go and hide in when they got too much!

We had a few days in Barcelona before we headed up to the Pyrenees so the girls returned to nursery after the Christmas break although they really didn't want to only the promise that Daniel would come to pick them up from nursery got them there at all. Kaylee got a spewy bug which unfortunately for poor Ali we only discovered by her throwing up over his head in thew night! This resulted in Ali missing our night out that we had planed so Daniel and I just went alone which was probably a good thing as we went to maybe a better restaurant than we would have if Ali had been there and seen the prices..... It was a lovely meal in a Chinese restaurant in the middle of town where you sit on big tables with other people and just tick dishes off a paper menu which are all cooked just at the entrance to the restaurant so you can see how fresh they are! We had some wine and were on our way back to the metro when we got handed a flier for a free shot in an Irish pub, being suckers we accepted and found that with our overly priced Guiness we got a small shot of 'Sex on the Beach' certainly not worth it but we consoled ourselves saying that we had really wanted a pint of Guiness and it was a good one..... When we left the pub and headed towards the metro again we came across possible the worlds worst mugger/pickpocket he targeted Daniel ad kept trying to do all the things we had been warned about like shake his hand so he could get to his pockets or tumble Daniel to the ground the only problem (for him) was that e was far drunker than us and rather polite with his fumbling attempts to get into Daniel's pockets. He just wouldn't go away and we had to shout at him to get rid of him and almost run, not because we were scared just annoyed! The next problem was that I had forgot the metro stops running at midnight during the week and so we decided to get a taxi back to the marina which stripped our pockets bare anyway!



Whilst we were still in Barelona we took Pop and Granny out for a couple of walks, one down to the centre of town to go on the fabled cross harbour cable car - it still wasn't running! Then we went up to Las Ramblas to show them all the street artistes, mainly it was the girls who went up to them but granny decided to be brave and go and see Kaylee's favourite monster guy which was fine until he tried to grab her toorie hat!





We got the tram back and stopped for a look at the Agbar Tower on the way home too.



The last day or so was spent preparing for skiing, getting gloves etc that we didn't have I managed to get an outfit for very cheap at the super market, maybe not the coolest skiing out fit but when have I ever worried about that! Fergus came with us to pick up our hire car and we followed him back to the marina as he has sat nav and we have pretty bad senses of direction when on four wheels!

On the day we left the girls were stuck in the back seats with most of our luggage squashed in around them poor things it was going to be a long six hour drive. The roads on the Spanish side of the border were great and we managed to go on a toll free route, almost a miracle. When we got over the border we just took the shortest route on the map but should have realised that because it squiggled around all over the place it was a hell ride down through the trees and really steep drop off down the mountain at least it hadn't sowed for a few days and the snow was very well cleared!



Packed in! - note the crocheted blanket Rhoda had made for the girls to keep them warm up the mountain.

When we got to Luchon we realised we had no idea where our apartment was and after asking a few people in our best French we decided to head to the town centre and find the Office de Tourisme. When we got to the apartment we found that the seven person apartment was a little smaller than expected (not much of an improvement space wise on the boat!) and after a near mutiny from a couple of the family we sorted the sleeping arrangements to suit everyone, just!



It may have been small but it had a bath so the lasses spent a lot of the first couple of days playing in it as the last bath they had was in the mountains of Portugal!

Rhoda and I set off quickly to the supermarket as it was nearly closing time whilst Daniel and Ali went to get pizzas for dinner as we were all starving. We got an early night so we could get up and find out about the skiing the next morning.

We got up bright and early and Ali headed off to find the best deal on Ski hire etc. By twelve thirty we were all kitted out and on our way to the ski lift in the centre of town to buy our ski passes. We plumped for a six day pass for the first week and headed off up the telecabin, which thankfully you don't have to ski out of that because I got stuck in a cabin on my own on the way up.



Luchon from the Telecabin

Daniel was so excited at the top of the lift he shot off at high speed down the course and Ali tried in vain to get Alisha, Kaylee and I to get the hang of skiing. It was rather painful we all spent a lot of time on our bums and after an hour or two of trying to ski down a little path over and over again we gave up and went for a glass of coke! It was almost time to go and so we went over and booked the girls and myself into lessons for later in the week, Ali decided he would try to teach us one more day himself and then we would get lessons.



That night we came home to dinner ready cooked by Granny and Pop which was the basic routine for the rest of our time there, on the days we were skiing they would cook and either Daniel or I would cook on the days we weren't.


Another way of getting up the mountain.

The next days skiing went very slightly better, we found a small slope at the back of the resort hotel which the girls and I could quite happily plod up and slide down practising stopping etc. Daniel also stayed with us for the morning to help me (he must have been very exasperated!) After lunch we all decided to go down one of the runs, Ali taking the girls down one on either side of him holding onto his poles and Daniel with me. I got about a halfway down the first steep entry to the slope and had to give up! I climbed back up the slope, no mean feat with skis and poles and funny boots on..... I must admit when the girls made it back to me and had loved every minute of it I felt utterly defeated and didn't think I would ever get the hang of it.



Some skiing gangster bloke....

The next day was lesson day and we got up the hill particularly early so the girls and I could practise a little at the back of the hotel before we met our instructors. We were all led to the kiddie slope at the back of the Hotel which has little courses and moving floors etc to get you back up. I had a nice teacher called Alain and the girls had Claude, who unfortunately was by far the better looking......



The lasses and Claude.

We spent and hour practising turning and stopping and using small versions of each of the different lifts. By the end of one hour Alisha could stop and turn and I was crouching down to go under obstacles as Alisha is doing above, quite impressive! We had lunch with Ali and Daniel who had been relieved to get a chance to go off and ski together on their own for a while.





Ski masters at the if you go past here it's at your own risk sign......

We decided to try the same run as we had done the day before but for me it was a bit of a disaster again to say the least, I did get around it but at one of the steep bits Daniel said just take your skis of and slide down on your bum - I was that bad! It also included a chair ski lift which I got off very unceremoniously indeed......



Getting ready to get off and to try not to fall.....

By the time we got back to the top of the resort I was quite happy to stay with the girls behind the hotel whilst Ali and Daniel went off to do a couple of black runs and some off piste skiing.



This is what the girls and I made one afternoon whilst the boys were off skiing!



I think Daniel kinda likes skiing!

When I met Alain for my second lesson he said we shouldn't have done the run we did as it was too difficult and he took me on a different run - a green or baby run which I managed although a little slowly and felt really quite proud of myself. The girls were doing quite well too especially Alisha, her legs are a little longer so that was to be expected .The weather closed in that day so we all decided to bail out back to town and go for a walk around town instead and visit the bigger Intermarche for a look around, French supermarkets holding as much sightseeing value for me and Daniel as the historical buildings!



The next day was our last lessons and it was much better weather and because there had been a little fresh snow the skiing was much easier too. Alain took me down the slop which has beat me twice and I managed quite well and he said I should be OK now when the end of the lesson came he did take me on a button lift though and I managed to get entirely tangled with my poles and I had to go the whole way up in a bit of discomfort....



Me and Alain on the piste, Ali was in the ski lift when he spotted us.

The girls were delighted with how well they were doing too so after lunch we all set off down the runs again and although Daniel came with me I was getting so much better that I only fell a few times..... I did spend most of that day going very slowly especially when Alisha came flying past me from behind shouting Hi Mum. Ali was laughing but I couldn't look as she looked so small and out of control and there were steep drop off at the edges of the run. So proud of her but soooooo scared to watch her!



Another way of getting down the mountain....

We still had a couple of days left on our passes and we went up as early as we could and skied all around the courses that I could do going down round all the different combinations of courses etc. Each afternoon I would spend a while with the girls whilst Daniel and Ali went off together up to the top of the other peak where all the black and red runs were so Ali got a chance too as he still had Kaylee firmly stuck to his side on the way down the slopes.



Cheers!



The apartments we were staying in had a small pool, jet pool and sauna complex which we could use when we wanted so very often we went swimming after skiing, it was great as Alisha has been very scared of the sea and so hasn't done much swimming since we left home and she loved it by the end of two weeks she was diving in at one end and swimming to the other end like she could at home before we left. The jet pool was very good for tired muscles although I didn't feel as sore as everyone had warned me about after skiing. The one bad thing was that we weren't guaranteed hot water for a shower after the pool and one night we decided to dash back across the freezing car park. There was a lot of squawking from the girls and a lot of tutting from others when we got back to the apartment.



We decided to go for a run to a different town on the Saturday as we hadn't seen an awful lot of Pop and Granny and we thought they must have gotten a bit bored wandering around Luchon as it isn't the biggest of villages. We decided on Tarbes as it wasn't too far away and it looked like a big place on the map. The drive over was great very interesting especially for the older generation as it is prime farming land around there, lots of grise and geese - unfortunately for them all the signs said fois gras this way.....

When we got to Tarbes we realised it wasn't really much of a town being big was about all it had going for it, it did have a decorated Christmas tree



and a fountain



and a pretty church.....



We went to a cafe for lunch and got very small portions for quite a heck of a lot of money Pop treated us and the bill came to 100 Euros and I think a few of us were still hungry afterwards!



Lucky Daniel got to carry Kaylee around all day...

One thing we have noticed about France in the short time we were in Brittany in the summer and here in the winter is that the place is 'fair loupin wi dog dirt.' They all have very big dogs and Tarbes definitely tops the dog poo hot spots list! It means you spend more time looking down at your feet than looking at the sights. Daniel must have been paying more attention to the sights because he managed to step in great big lumps at least three times whilst we were in France, here is a pic of him washing it off in the river.......





On the way back Pop suggested we took the mountain route back through some small villages. They were very pretty Aurrau being very nice with a river running through it where we stopped for a coffee. All the little villages had churches even if it was only a handful of houses, you can actually do a tour of the churches of the Midi if that is your sort of thing.





We didn't go skiing for the next few days as the weather was pretty dreech Ali and Daniel went off to the next mountain for a day to see what that was like but it was pretty dreech there too and they nearly got lost on the slopes in the poor visibility. We went for a few walks around Luchon and had lunch in one of the restaurants one day which was nice. There were lots of little food shops selling pates cheeses and apertifs etc so we thought we had better get a bottle for a pre- dinner drink or two.



Winter wonderland.

We bought a three day pass when the weather cleared and had three more good days skiing which we all enjoyed if you had told me at the beginning of the previous week that I would be zipping off down blue runs myself and Alisha would be doing red runs on her own I would never have believed it at all, but we were. She was so funny as she just skiied along sometimes singing and sometimes licking an icicle she had found and seemed oblivious to all around her but if it looked like someone was going to crash into her she always managed to zip out of their way. I even did one red run by accident which wasn't my finest moment as I crept down at a snail's pace and fell over a few times. Ali said when I looked at the run at the bottom he was sorry for taking us that way but he hadn't realised it was a red, so I forgave him until I saw the video he had taken of Alisha coming down the run and him saying it was a red run...... Peerie monkey. We were all even managing to jump from the ski lifts at the end without hitting the deck so the skiing part of the trip was a definite success and we can't wait to go again another year.



We went out for a fondue one night and that certainly was a big eating night, we ordered just what we thought was right but it was far too much, yes even for me and Daniel! The camera had got a bit of a shock from being in minus temperature at the top of the mountain to the heat of the restaurant so the pictures came out all steamy. It was yummy though and the puddings were great, it was amazing that everyone managed their puddings after having to leave some of their mains because they were full.......

Alisha's sixth birthday fell whilst we were in France so we took her and Kaylee into town to choose cakes from the patisserie to have at tea time and had a run around town with them. We had lunch and them walked down to the park gardens where there are lots of really big trees planted when the village was just becoming known as a retreat for Parisian aristocrats 'taking the waters' of the thermal spas.



The whole town is very much still reminiscent of that era with the decorated houses etc if it is a little run down.



We learned when we were at lunch that there are still quite a few brown bears roaming the Pyrenees around Luchon and the girls felt very relieved that we hadn't run into any of them whilst we were skiing!



Alisha was delighted with all the phone calls and texts we got for her birthday it made her feel very special, and we surprised her with balloons streamers and hats for her 'party' at tea time. We had bought 5 small cakes from the patisserie but they were so rich they proved too much for us, amazing but true!



Alisha's birthday tea!



Alisha's fourth tooth came out whilst in France and she managed to get a hold of it before she swallowed it so that is two she has had to put under her pillow now, I certainly wasn't searching for the other two!

All too soon came leaving day which meant that we had to get the apartment all cleaned up before we left at 10am so it was a rushed morning with everyone getting in everyones' way as you would expect, and then another big squish to get back into the car. The forecast was for snow so we took the bigger road back to the Spanish border and once we were through to the other side of the mountains the sun was shining the whole way back.

It was fine to be back at the boat and it was 16 degrees which was like an oven compared to France. Alisha was especially delighted as the deck of the boat had lots of parcels lying on it all for her birthday sent from home so she would like to say a huge thank you to all of you who sent her presents!

The visitors only had a couple of days left so Daniel did some more sightseeing and Pop and Granny went for little walks around here and prepared for leaving again.



I am glad to say that Daniel's guitar playing has improved vastly since his death rock band days when he and his friends used to vibrate the house so much with their 'music' things were falling off the shelves upstairs!



Elevenses on deck at the end of Jan.....



The lasses showing off their rollerblading skills to Granny and Pop.

We went out for lunch at the same place Ali and I had been on New Years Eve on their last day but alas they didn't give us whole bottles of wine with our meal that time!

On the way home we went to the 'musical play park' at Park del Forum again and everyone had a shot of the toys.....





We all went early to bed on the last night as they had to leave the boat at three am to catch their flight home and needed some rest.

The lasses were very sad when they woke up the next day and Pop Granny and Daniel were gone.

I can't seem to upload a video to this so I will try later with a new post so you can see the some of the skiing etc.

And as one last note, there is actually snow lying on the deck of the boat as I write this and we can hardly believe it! There have been strong winds tonight and thunder, now the swell has set up in the harbour and we are bobbing around all over the place. Sunny Spain indeed!