How am I supposed to work with this great furry slug lying on my arms?? She drives my up the wall sometimes..

On the Saturday we went to Castelnou, and 11th century village stuck to the hillside, it was really beautiful. The roads were cobbled, but so narrow and steep that they were pretty much unusable when it came to cars, so it seemed the vehicle of choice was a quad bike – we saw one with a dog on the back wearing goggles, which was very funny.

There was a nice little restaurant – not cheap, but decent food – where we had a snack. Out of season it was very pleasant, but apparently in the summer you can’t move for tourists. This seems to be a feature of living along the Mediterranean coast, whether it be in France or Spain. We’re lucky in that Vilanova is beautiful, but escapes the mass tourist hysteria of the summer because it’s surrounded by Barcelona and Sitges to the north, and Tarragona to the south.

On the way back to the car we stopped by a donkey stable and the kids did a loop. All in all a great day out.

Photos:
Castelnou steps

Castell Nou restaurant

Castell Nou street

Castell Nou street II

Castell Nou restaurant – view

Map:

View Larger Map

we went to Don’s house across the border in France for the weekend – it’s always a great escape and a weekend still feels like a holiday. Eliza and I went for a run on Sunday, but first I checked out a route in the car. It was a hilly 4km almost exactly, from Don’s front door and back.

It was a nice route, the hills made it pretty hard, but the countryside was fantastic. We made fairly short work of it – Eliza said it took 20 minutes but I’m not sure if that’s accurate, it seemed longer. This is the first time I’ve done a run and known how far it is in km terms. 4km doesn’t seem that much, but with the hills I was pretty pleased with how we did.
To celebrate we returned from our run to a fry-up, the second of the weekend! You’d need to do a lot more exercise than a piddly 4km run to leave Don’s house any lighter.

I just had a comment come through:

“I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.”

I’ve had similar posts in the past, it’d be nice to think that people genuinely read/enjoy what I write but given that my blog is aimed primarily at my friends and family + the odd person or two who might something of interest to do with the local area it would seem unlikely.

The cynical side of me says that this just a ploy to get a link from my site to theirs? Given that their blog is about Estate Planning as a career I don’t really see the connection. It’ll be interesting to see if they pick this post up in the RSS feed!

It’s been grey, cloudy and drizzly the last few days which didn’t make me jump for joy at the thought of going for a run. As Jo said, we’d be useless if we lived in the UK as that’s the weather of choice for at least 6 months of the year!

In the end it was more the fact that I knew I’d be annoyed with myself if I didn’t go that finally pushed me out of the door on Tuesday. It turned out to be one of the best runs I’ve done. I’ve a route which I do which basically takes me through an industrial estate. It doesn’t sound great but it has big wide roads and very few cars, which is good. The smell of toxic glue or something when running past one or two of the buildings isn’t so good but there you go! Anyway I did my usual run but I really pushed myself, taking in some optional detours with long(ish) uphills included. It felt really good.

I haven’t any means of measuring progress* but I’m pleased with how things are going. I ran for approx 30 mins flat out, no stopping (I’ve never been into that) and including some good gradients, and I had absolutely no aches or pains the next day. I feel that I’ve passed the ‘I’m trying it out’ phase and can now say that I run without fear of sniggers from Jo – she was always dubious of my sudden conversion to the idea given that I’ve never run and always said I hated it.

* it’s my birthday in a couple of weeks and I’m hoping to get an attachment for my ipod which measures how far/fast/long you’ve run etc. Take note!

My posting seems to have slowed down, so here’s a catchup. On Sunday 10th I went for my last ever ride with Mick as he’s leaving (now left) the country. We decided to do a run into Parc Garraf from Sitges – I’d driven up a promising track previously and a friend of mine had also mentioned a run that he did from Sitges.

It was great. The weather was cold but sunny, one of those days where you freeze in the shade and fry in the sun. I had shorts and short sleeves (with a gilet/body warmer) which turned out to be perfect despite the fact that we saw ice on the ground in areas where the sun couldn’t get to.

Our initial plan was just to ride up the path I’d been up previously, but as we’d made good time by the top we decided to continue and explore. We took in some great views of the coast before eventually heading to the Tibetan Monastery which is inland a little. It’s located on the edge of a new and ugly urbanisation, apparently built following a loophole in the park boundaries, but is well worth a visit. It has a cafe/restaurant attached so we stopped for a coffee. I’d like to return for tapas or a menu del dia as it looks interesting and there’s space for the kids to play.

All in all a good run, adios Mick!

Mick in Parc Garraf

We’ve now had a few consecutive nights of sleeping through – amazing how things can change so quickly from this post. Esmé is now well into her routine – in bed by 8 – 8:30pm, wake 6-6:30 am. She might then go back to sleep for another hour after that.

With this new found feeling of normality we went to a party on Friday night till 2am and survived

Of course if there is one thing to be sure of, we’ll definitely have more disturbed nights ahead of us at some point, it’s all to easy to fall out of a routine..

Mischa (the cat of cable chewing fame) likes to sit on my keyboard, on my arms or generally anywhere in the way when I’m working. Here I have a good view of the back of her head where my screen should be.

We moved Esmé into Olivia’s room on Friday night – at 5 months old much later than Gabriel or Olivia. This is partly because we’re sleeping on a different floor to the kids, partly because she hasn’t slept through as well as the other two.

Friday night went OK – two wake-ups – but last night was not great with four wake-ups. Because she’s sharing we’re less able to experiment with leaving her to cry/rocking her off etc and are back to being a bit dependent on giving her a feed, not necessarily the greatest. Nice to have our bedroom back to ourselves though.

I’m shattered now, partly because of a disturbed night and partly because we put on Zodiac at 10pm last night. The film was OKish but by 12:10 I’d completely lost interest and just wanted to go to bed (so we went through all that and didn’t see the end – I think it’s a 2 1/2 film, way longer than it needed be). Esmé is pretty regular at waking at 7 am now, so lie-ins are not anticipated now for a year or two

I had the following email through which with a little research appears to be genuine, the photo has been published in regional papers:

This girl disappeared in Huelva on the 13th Jan, she’s five years old. If anyone knows anything or has seen her call her parents or the police in Huelva immediately. Telephone: 655159776 or 630362308. Click on the pic to get a larger view.