My friends Angie and Royston are on holiday in Barcelona at the moment and contacted me to see if we could meet up, so I got the coach early this morning and headed to the big city. After coffee we walked up to Sagrada Familia, the crazy Gaudi church, but the queues were so long, we decided just to look at it from the outside. Next we thought it would be nice to get away from the crowds and I thought Parc Güell would be far enough off the beaten track for most tourists. I suggested that we take the metro there and then walk back through Gràcia. As we go onto the train I was telling them what a safe city Barcelona is – very little violence, but it’s full of pick pockets and con artists. Right enough, as we got off the train, Royston noticed his wallet had gone out of his front trouser pocket. He jumped straight back on an grabbed the person who had brushed past him. He spotted him throwing the wallet to his partner and raced over to him. Angie ran and held on to the pick pocket. I was so surprised and slow witted that I didn’t do anything for a minute, but then went over to help pick up the money they had thrown down in an attempt to distract Royston and Angie and make a run for it. They did get away in the end – we couldn’t call the cops without a signal underground and we would have struggled to keep hold of them until the police came anyway, but on counting all the money, it seems they got away empty handed. So well done to Angie and Royston for thwarting the scumbags.

That adventure over, we did get to the park, saw the great views of Barcelona, the Gaudi sculptures and houses and chilled out in the sunshine. Far from being away from the tourists, it was pretty busy. Late lunch and a few beers later, it was time to catch my bus back home. It was so nice to spend the day with them!

Geoff writes: a frustrating day for me. It was warm and sunny, but with strongish southerly winds forecast. Checking round in the morning, there was no sign of wind, and I phoned Peter to see if there was any at the coast, but nothing significant there either. So we decided to meet up at Sant Pere de Rodes. Arriving there, though, the balise (wind machine) on top was giving strong northerlies, and the wind in the landing field was from the west, rather than the sea, where it should come from. Although there is a north launch at Sant Pere de Rodes, it was probably too strong, so rather than go up, we phoned Marc to see if Santa Brigida was on – but no, it was too west there, but they were going to El Mont. So, off we went. We arrived there, and there was almost no wind. We were going to drive up, but I thought I’d show Peter the landing fields. In the hang glider field, some friends had just landed, and reported that it was very strong on top, way too strong for PGs, and they had needed people on the wires to launch. So that was that – back home to do some work.

See photos of Barcelona today.

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