Barcelona WOW!

It is many years since we last visited Barcelona and I had completely forgotten what a fantastic city it is. We had a fabulous few days although it was tiring. We arrived on Friday, late afternoon, after taking the scenic route from France over the Pyrenees, there was hardly any snow to be seen after the recent spell of hot weather but the scenery was spectacular. We spent the first evening wandering along the Ramblas down to the sea. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me that evening so can't share with you the totally amazing indoor food market. It was visually stunning and the array of foodstuff put french markets in the shade, not easy to do!!! Saturday morning we went to see one of Gaudis masterpieces the Parc Guell which is on the Unesco list of World Heritage sites. WOW WOW WOW. Please have a look on Wikipedia as my photos do not do it justice. The afternoon was spent at the Olympic Stadium watching our local rugby team, Perpignan, beating Toulon in the Heineken cup quarter final. The atmosphere was electric with a sea of red and orange Catalan flags. Absolutely brilliant. The evening saw us back at the Ramblas where by a quirk of fate we found an Italian restaurant and had a very enjoyable meal. On Sunday we met up with some friends who were also in Barcelona for the Rugby. We had hoped to visit the Sagrada Familia, Gaudis Cathedral which was started in the 1920's and is famously still under construction. It is due for completion in 2025!!! However the queues where horrendous so that will have to be for another trip. Instead we went back to the sea and visited the Olympic village and watched people swimming in the sea. In between times we managed to enjoy the Cafe culture which is alive and well. It's a really busy city but somehow doesn't feel frenetic like London, the people seem very relaxed. The wide tree lined Boulevards give the impression of a light and airy city, despite the traffic. It helped that the weather was fantastic, mid 20's for the whole weekend. And the Integrated Transport system is first class, meaning that we were able to leave our car at the hotel and tour Barcelona using the clean fast and regular trains or metro system. We didn't try either the buses or the trams, maybe next time. We left Barcelona on Monday morning and returned along the coast road, stopping at La Jonquera for some shopping before crossing back into France. A thoroughly enjoyable weekend, I'm just sorry that my photos don't do justice to the city.

Barcelona here we come!

We're off to Barcelona for a long weekend of Rugby and R&R, news and photos next week. YIPPEE

Chicken little, chicken large!!!

OUCH!!!!!! You may remember we bought some chickens last Spring well I think one of them is overeating!!! We get 4 eggs nearly every day from 4 chickens which in itself is excellent but then we got an absolute whopper of an egg. Basically two full size eggs in one.

Oh and as an aside to this fascinating egg fact I have managed about 1000 words of wip 2. Just thought I would slip that in, wouldn't want anyone to think that I was actually writing again!!

And thanks to Debs for telling me how to link to previous posts although I haven't mastered the photos yet but will keep trying.

Anyway have to go now and decide how to cook my monster egg.

Snow and writing friends!

The first photo was taken on the 29th January' from my study window. An unexpected fall of snow, luckily it was gone by the next day. Unfortunately I was out running when it started snowing so I was somewhat bedraggled by the time I got home. But I don't get wet very often so I can't complain. The second photo shows my furry friends who sit in my study and keep me company while I try to write. They are very undemanding and non- critical. This is particularly useful as I am reading my wip into my laptop using Dragon software and I don't want any sniggering in the background.

What I have noticed is how useful it is to read aloud what I have written, it really shows where some passages are not working.

The down side is there will be an awful lot of rewriting to do!!! And now the sun is shining and I may just have to do some very important work in the garden.

New year, new study, new impetus!

I would be doing this post with my new Dragon software but I am watching the T Twenty cricket[England v the Aussies] so it's too noisy, but so far I am impressed and looking forward to making progress on my new wip and the second draft of wip no.1. I also have a new study, the first time I have had a place I can call my own, and it's great. No excuses now other than all the usual ones that we mega procrastinators can call up at any time, but I shall try to be good. And I have got the wifi on my laptop sorted out, we popped into the local computer shop and they tweaked a few nobs and hey presto my wifi is working properly. So now I can sit in my armchair, watching tele while blogging instead of sitting at my desk writing. Real progress there then!!!!!So the photos, in reverse order, show the original kitchen when we bought this old house in 2005.

By April of this year we had moved to part of the new kitchen so we could start demolishing the old kitchen. I have to say it was not a moment too soon, the old kitchen was really beginning to depress me and when we uncovered the old water heater we were extremely relieved that no major disaster had occurred!!!! I think you will agree that my study is a vast improvement on the kitchen and my old desk at the top of the house. See My window on the world. Although the view is not as impressive, this morning I was visited by a red squirrel who was checking on the availability of almonds on our Almond tree. Of course no camera to hand!

For my next post I will try and sort out why I can't get photos in between the text and how to link to other posts . Any advice will be very gratefully received as I am still a technophobe and require instructions in words of one syllable or less. Now I must concentrate on the cricket, I mean writing.

Blog birthday, four years old today!

Happy New Year to all the Novel Racers and everyone else who pops by from time to time.
I can hardly believe where the time has gone. 4 years since my first blog. I have been a bad blogger recently but one of my goals for 2011 is to be more consistant in everything I do, including blogging.
I am still having sleep problems but over-indulging over Xmas and the New Year has not helped. I am hoping that a regime in January of 'healthy' food and 'much' less wine will improve things. For Xmas I treated myself to Dragon speech recognition software. I have had a little play with it and I think it is going to help me enormously. It is much quicker than my typing and more accurate. My bugbear now is that the wifi on my laptop keeps dropping out, so at the moment my laptop is connected to the router by a cable in the kitchen, where I am standing up instead of sitting comfortably at my new desk in my new study. Over the weekend we are going to try to sort this out and then I will post some photos of my fabulous new work area. Where writing will be so much easier!!!!!! No more excuses either.
So that's it for now as it is time for my Saturday run, but please come by again next week and see how I am getting on with Dragon.

Insomnia rules KO'D Xmas 2010

Sorry for the long silence but I have been struggling with serious insomnia for some months now and I haven't been able to string more than a couple of coherent sentences together. So no writing or anything creative for a long time. Now I am seeing a Doctor and am having acupuncture and taking homeopathic medicines and I think sleep is slowly returning. I am hopeful, no determined, that the New year will see me return to my writing and blogging, so if anyone still comes to look at this blog from time to time then please come back after the 8th January.

In the meantime I hope y0u all have a Happy Christmas and a creative New Year. See you in 2011.