Miscellaneous activities
Archived posts from this Category
Monday, 4th April 2011
Posted by Judith on 05 Apr 2011 | Tagged as: Miscellaneous activities
Despite a traffic jam round Lille, we got to the ferry in time.
Back in the UK we needed to stretch our legs on the way to the Cotswolds, so we stopped off for a break at Tonbridge in Kent. It has the best preserved motte and bailey castle in the south of England. What we didn’t realise is that there’s not much left apart from the gate house. We had a half price voucher from the port, so decided to go in just to show willing. It was a good job, the exhibition and audio tour were brilliant. We spent a fascinating hour looking around completely on our own and then got back in the car to complete our journey to Geoff’s family in Gloucestershire. Nice to see them all!
Tuesday, 15th March 2011
Posted by Geoff on 16 Mar 2011 | Tagged as: Miscellaneous activities
Geoff writes: an even wetter day than yesterday. In fact, it never stopped raining until late Tuesday night. The river flooded again, though, being at the top of a 100 metre cliff, we aren’t in too much danger. And another 50cm of snow at Masella, though all the top runs are closed because of avalanche risks.
Wednesday’s forecast is also poor, but getting better after that.
Monday, 14th March 2011
Posted by Judith on 14 Mar 2011 | Tagged as: Miscellaneous activities
Rubbish weather. It rained all day. At least we managed to catch up with all the email, post and bits of work we ignored last week.
And, excitingly, the 2011 Àger Women’s Open is ready for registration. Nicky and I worked on the details today and the web site is now available. I can’t wait!
Tuesday, 22nd February 2011
Posted by Judith on 22 Feb 2011 | Tagged as: Miscellaneous activities, Work
Another strong wind forecast for today. Winds of 25m/s (90km/h) in the mountains and 35m/s (125m/s) at the two extremes of the country. At the central coast (and possibly Santa Brigida) they were giving SE, light and variable. It seems a bit weird to me that you could have howling winds coming down from the mountains that just peter out when they hit the lower slopes, but hey, what do I know? In the end, it was cloudy with massive wave bars, so it really didn’t inspire us to even try to fly.
We also have some stuff to do before we depart tomorrow on our spontaneous trip to Athens. We were busy discussing what to take when Geoff got an email to inform us of a planned strike at Greek airports tomorrow. At the moment our flight is delayed (bonus – means we can get up at 8am, rather than 6am), but it means that we could be stuck at the airport for a while. We could be like those people you see on telly at Heathrow airport when BA decides to strike. Either way, it will be an adventure.
Just after mid-day we got a text from my parents, who were on their way back from their trip from Ireland, asking us if we fancied going out for lunch. Since we won’t see them again until next week (and haven’t actually seen them properly since before the conference), we gladly accepted their offer and got to try out La Veranda in Olot for the first time. Lovely building and nice dinner!
Saturday, 29th January 2011
Posted by Judith on 29 Jan 2011 | Tagged as: Miscellaneous activities
We woke up this morning expecting to hear the noise of rain. A quick look out of the window showed big blue bits in the sky. The weather just got nicer and nicer and we even considered going flying at Bellmunt, but decided to have a look at the updated forecast. The sat pic showed a big blue hole over us that would move by afternoon and the synoptic didn’t seem to match the sat pic. Come 11.30am we were eagerly awaiting the Meteocat update, when they rolled back the web site and treated us to Wednesday’s forecast. It stayed like that for an hour, until we just decided to not chance flying (it was probably snowed up or muddy anyway) and go to Girona instead.
The sky was certainly mixed when we left the house. Beautiful blue sky to the north and south, wave to the east and black clouds to the west. At the Girona turn-off we had a brain wave to go to Figueres instead. Since they built the by-pass we haven’t been to the town centre, so it’s been years since we were last there. Most of the towns here have really been spruced up in the last few years, so we decided to have a look to see if this was the case in Figueres too.
The town is mostly famous as the birth place of Dalí and contains the huge Dalí Theatre-Museum. The whole town is very arty – lots of public scultpures and paintings, as well as sculptures on the roundabouts. It has improved a lot. We had a pleasant look around and when the sky clouded over and we got cold, we went for a slap up lunch. We arrived back at the car just as the rain started.
Saturday, 20th November 2010
Posted by Judith on 21 Nov 2010 | Tagged as: Miscellaneous activities, Walking
No live sessions over the weekend, so we’re having some time off and just doing the minimum to keep the conference ticking over. We need a rest before the actual conference starts – both to preserve our sanity and our wrists/mouse fingers. We were hoping we would be blessed with good flying weather as Nicky was coming up for the weekend, but the day started with rain and wind. By lunchtime the sun was shining, but it was still too windy. When Nicky arrived we just had time for a walk round the cliff/village and then dinner.
I haven’t had much time or inclination to cook recently, but having a visitor gave me the chance to plan and cook a small feast. We had asparagus gratin for starters, then carrot, almond and feta terrine wrapped in vine leaves with a green pepper-corriander salsa and lemon sorbet for dessert.
Nicky claimed not to be very good at games and then wiped the floor with us on her first ever go at Labyrinth. No good indeed!
Sunday, 14th November 2010
Posted by Judith on 14 Nov 2010 | Tagged as: Miscellaneous activities
The craziness of the conference starts in earnest tomorrow and we were hoping that we would get a final flyable day. First though, we were driven out of bed by a loud buzzing overhead. It’s the annual local paramotor festival in Beuda, and they always come over and buzz the cliff. After Geoff’s experience yesterday, we wanted to check out the wind before committing to potentially wasting the day trying, but failing, to fly. By 11.30am it was clear it would be too breezy and we then spotted the mother of all wave bars forming behind El Mont. That sealed it.
A few hours of work later, we decided to make something of the hot weather and went to Banyoles to have late lunch and a walk round the lake. We tried the first restaurant, but after waiting to order for 20 minutes, we walked out and tried the next one. To make a long story short… it took us an hour and a half to have a plate to eat and the walk was therefore a lot shorter than anticipated. You have to be chilled here… there’s no such thing as fast food on a Sunday.