Birthday in Barcelona

Ohh, it's been ages since I wrote here, loads of stuff to update. First here's my pics from Barcelona where I went for my birthday. It was the first holiday I've had with Florent...aww ;-)

Manresa

Manresa

Side street in Barcelona

Me Florent and Antonio at Barcelona Aquarium, Antonio's boss gave him free tickets :)

Alberto, Antonio and Florent.

Me and Alberto at the Barcelona Quayside

Mmm, vino!

Me and Florent, Sacre Familia

Up in the Monserrat mountains

At Cardona castle

A nice boy ;)

The Hotel room in Barcelona on the first night.

Gail's Birthday

At last I have taken the pictures off my phone from Gail's birthday meal a couple of weeks ago. I had a lovely time, but I got so drunk! The amazing thing was that I had to get up early the next day, but by that time I felt fine and even managed to do some of my Spanish homework at 7.30am in the morning while waiting for the train!

St John's

Every day this week I have been working at St John's College. Tonight is the last night...thank God! I keep telling myself I shouldn't do more thna 2 shifts in a row, but I just can't say no lol! Anyway, it's all gonna be nice spending money for my Birthday in Barcelona :)

Exam!

Ohh, today I have my final Spanish exam. It's the written part, I've already done the listening and the oral, which I think were the worst, so at least they are out of the way. I'm not so worried about this exam, I was quite nervous yesterday about the oral, and I would have been even more nervous if I had known that it would be in front of the rest of the class. Anyway, in the end it went ok and I think I may have passed that one. The listening one is another matter, I'm completely sure that I failed that one lol!

This exam today is gonna last an hour, but then that's it, the end of the course. I'm sort of happy and sad at the same time. It's been nice going there every day, the other people on the course are really nice and Soraya, our teacher, is lovely, so I think I'll miss them. But it has been hard work, 2 hours every day, having to juggle that with work etc, has been a bit tiring.

Kerry's Wedding

On Friday it was Kerry's wedding. It was wonderful, the weather was ok in the end, and I was lovely and drunk...perfect ;-) They always say it's never a good idea to get too drunk with work mates, but I don't think I did anything too outrageous. Anyways, here are some of the pictures.

Yikes!

Ohhhhh, just had a look at my credit card bill for last weekend in Manchester. I spent over £300! That's probably more than it cost me when I went to Spain. I'm gonna have to try and be better with my money. Still, you live and learn.

More from Manchester...

Español

This morning I flew back from Manchester, I was exhausted! We went out last night, and while it wasn't as late as the previous nights, it was still gone 2 by the time I got back to the hotel room. It was quite a good night, but I don't think I would stay for a Sunday night again, it didn't seem to be anywhere near as good as Friday and Saturday. I think also the thought that I had to get up early the next day was a bit of a dampner. It would have been nice not to have worked today, then we could have drunk a little more last night and I think then that maybe we would have made our Manchester karaoke debut!

Also today I started my intensive Spanish course. It's two hours a day for the next 3 weeks at the university language centre which is luckily only 2 mins from where I work. Today the stuff wasn't too hard and it covered stuff I already knew, but a girl I was speaking to who ad done the same course last year said that it quickly got very heavy! Yikes! But I like a challange, I will just have to make sure I get caught up on my sleep!

Manchester

Ohh, the wonders of modern technology. Here are some pictures from last night, hot off my phone. We arrived in Manchester around 6pm. The hotel isn't as good as the place where we normally stay, but it's ok. Last night we had a wonderful and lovely bottle of Chardonnay, with which we toasted Jackie (Stallone) ;-)

The Garden

Today at last I made an attempt to do something with the garden. I haven't cut the grass for months! Thank God John and Pam aren't still living next door, I dread to think about all the grief I'd have gotten from them.

It was such hard work doing it, it really taught me a lesson not to be so lazy and leave it so long! Anyway, it was all too much for my poor Flymo, I'd died before I could complete the job :( So here's a picture of where I'm up to, tomorrow I'm gonna order a new one.

Fitladz

Last Friday after work I went to London to meet Adam, I haven't seen him for ages and thought it was well past time going to visit him. We met at Leicester Square, but he was a bit hungry, so we went to Café Boheme for a quick snack, only they don;t like you doing that there after 7. You have to have a full meal or nothing, how shite is that. Anyway, Adam was getting ready to have a go at them, but nothing came of it. And anyway, we'd ordered a bottle of wine that cost more than any of the main courses! It's an example of one of those places where gays are ripping off gays. After half of bottle of wine I felt nicely drunkish, so didn't care anyway. We then left Soho and headed for Southwark to one of mine and Tim's favourite bars Man Bar lol! I wasn't sure what Adam would make of it, as it's a weeny bit on the sleazy side. Well, he wasn't all that keen, so we only stayed there until 11.30pm and then went off to try the clubs in Vauxhall for the first time.

Tim, who was in Liverpool, suggested that we go to Fitladz, so there we went. It was really good! Although it seems more of a cruising place that a dancing place. Me and Adam were like kids in a sweet shop lol! We stayed there until 4ish. I met a lovely Belgian boy called Oliver, but that story's not for here :P We then went to the Gentlemen's Health Club (read Sauna) that was very conveniently next door to pass the time away until the first train back home at 6ish. A very good night :)

Fuentes

Me and Antonio at a nice little park close to the University in Granada.

Wild

My garden has become so overgrown! It because of the lovely weather we've been having (but not at the moment) and also me being away loads of weekends, and then when not away working so that I can go away more weekends lol! Anyway, when it is nice and sunny, like in these pictures I don't think it looks too bad, and anyway, the cats love it. I'm sure it's much better for the wildlife too.

More Granada Pics

Tamara in the Green Bugatti

My favourite Tamara picture. I must see if I can find a print of it somewhere to buy for the house.

1940's

Here's another picture from Granada last week, it's a view from the Al Bayzin region looking over to the Alhambra.


Last night I worked at a 1940's themed dinner. It was in tiny little village called Witcham, which iisn't all that far from Ely. The place it took place was called 'The Hall' and when I arrived I assumed it was the village hall or something, but no, it was in fact the house of the people holding the party! It was very beautiful. There were 90 guests and 7 courses! Because it was meant to be 1940's based their waiters were all men, which is how it was in those days, and we had to be ultra polite to them, yes sir no sit three bags full sir, that sort of thing. There was a live band, with a very sophisticated singer. Was all very nice and to top it all there were Tamara de Lempika prints everywhere. She is my favourite artist and I even saw some of her stuff I'd never seen before. Apparently the hosts had them all specially made for the night. Ohh, to have all that money :)

We worked until gone 12, but didn't get fed with any of their 1940's food, but instead Lasagne. Tamara wouldn't have approved.

Granada

I went back to Granada last week to spend a few days with Antonio, I flew out on Thursday afternoon and came back on Tuesday afternoon, so it was a nice long weekend. On the Sunday he had to go back to Manresa as he was back to work on Monday, so we flew to Barcelona on Sunday afternoon. And it meant I had a nice day on Monday shopping in Barcelona :)

When I arrived at Granada airport, it was about 9.30 in the evening, it was so lovely and warm, with a perfectly blue sky with Venus blazing down in the west; it was a perfect moment :) I was collected from the airport by Antonio and his friend Vicente. Granada city centre is only about a 20 min journey from the airport, so we were soon in a typical spanish bar drinking cervezas and trying strange (for me) tapas. One thing that I found out talking to Vicente is that there is a gay town in Andalusia, Torremolinos. I can remember hearing about this place years ago as the destination of loads of brits on cheap package tours, but reading on Wikipedia it says that all the 'straight' clubs have now gone. It's a place I'm definately going to have to visit ;)

Anyways, I need to go and do some shopping, here's a picture I took of the Alhambra, looking nice and green in late spring.

Childhood

The weather has been so nice here the last few days that during my lunch hour I have gone on some bikerides and revisited places where I used to play when I was a child. This picture here is of one of my most favourite ones, as 10-year-olds we used to call it 'the muck-around place' lol!

We used to build dams across it, fish for sticklebacks and just generally mess around in it. It's actually the water that ultimately supplies Hobson's Conduit, that runs through the centre of Cambridge, and I think I can remember at school the taught us that this stream itself originates in Colchester, but I'm not 100% sure of this. Anyway, it used to be a fab place to play and me my brother and our friends spent hours and hours here during the summer holidays all the years ago.