Meaningless, meaningless

¡España!

noreply@blogspirit.com (Rosie) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 10:14:31 +0100

I´m typing this from a cheap-but-lovely "hostal" in sunny Madrid. Tom has just awoken from his slumber and we´re contemplating a trip to the big museum where Guernica is (I forget its name).

We´ve had a whirlwind trip around the Iberian peninsula, starting in Barcelona, which I found, quite frankly, a little disappointing -- all the pretty bits were packed with tourists and the rest wasn´t really worth the bother. Gaudi park was quite good -- I´ve got a nice photo with the lizard dribbling on my head, which I was going to attach but this PC is connected to both internet and mouse by USB - grr!

Sagrada Familia (the big spikey cathedral) was one big rip-off -- you pay 8 euros to get in and it´s basically a building site. But we enjoyed sitting around in plazas in the evening watching the Spanish people hang around, including little kids running about until the wee hours. It´s a nice culture.

From Barcelona we hired a car on a whim and drove down the coast to a seaside resort called Villanova, stopping off for a picnic lunch on a secluded beach we spotted... which was full of naked people! I saw sooo many willies! And boobies! I was tempted to get mine out but didn´t want to blind anyone with my alabaster skin, so I refrained.

Villanova had a nice beach and a mini golf course and a Chinese lady who came past offering massages for 5 euros (well good) and no accommodation. The unfriendly young woman in the tourist office told us there was no room anywhere along the coast. So Rosie and Tom decided to sleep in the car.

If you have never experienced car-sleep, it is like camping, but worse. We had all our wet swimming kit drying out in the car and we trapped one of the towels in the front windows to block the windscreen and give us a little privacy -- the effect of which was to raise car-humidity instantly to 100%. Plus we were in the beach car-park, which didn´t empty until about 4am. But the advantage was that minutes after we woke we were up, swimsuited and on the beach.

We managed to get accommodation the next night, which was a Sunday, in a Roman seaside town called Tarragona. We saw a pretty lightning storm over the sea, then the next day we were zooming back to Barcelona to catch a train to Madrid and then the Trenhotel to Galicia (the bit above Portugal).

Galicia is brilliant -- there are pretty much no English tourists so we got to practice our Spanish and it was also well cheap. We ate lots of tapas and admired the serious-but-friendly way of the Galician people and went to a port where you could take a boat out to the Islas Cies. which the Guardian described as the best islands in the world, ever (or something).

Then it was time to get the Trenhotel back to Madrid, which is also brilliant. Our hostal is in a thiving but dirt-cheap barrio with loads of gay clubs (there is one just round the corner called HOT). We did the Prado yesterday. And lots of other stuff. But Tom is now up and ready and I have to go... hasta luego.

Pratchetts going begging

noreply@blogspirit.com (Rosie) — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 20:51:41 +0100

Does anyone want any of my old Pratchetts? I need to get rid of them to make space for all the books Clurb sent up!

I've got most of the Discworld ones up to Thief of Time, which is where I kind of lost interest, and then the crappy sci-fi ones too. All paperback, sadly, or they might be worth something...

I managed to get an e-mail blocked for obscenity at work yesterday! I had to e-mail the IT Security people and eventually they got back to me to say that it got blocked because in the scanned, handwritten attachment I'd abbreviated the word "cumulative". Brilliant!

Spokey dokey

noreply@blogspirit.com (Rosie) — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:23:35 +0100

I just bought a spoke key (for reasons too annoying to go into) and it has its name in different languages on the front. And the German for spoke key is...

Nippelspanner.

This makes me very happy indeed.

Boring week

noreply@blogspirit.com (Rosie) — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 17:08:32 +0100

Got home from work at 4 today after managing to lose my ID pass somewhere between the office and an external meeting. I am an idiot. I know exactly which strip of concrete I must have lost it on and I've walked back and forth along it about 5 times, but it's not to be found. Grr!

Not much news here. I think I may be working quite hard. Not even as much rain as "down South". Are you lot all nicely submerged now? It's good preparation for when the ice caps melt, I guess.

Tom and I saw Steve Jones give a talk at Edinburgh Uni on Friday. Even though the tickets were free I felt shortchanged because he gave almost exactly the same talk as at the Hay Festival last year! Bloody famous people, think they're too good to have to prepare something new.

Anyways, he was going on about how the genes for HIV resistance are already much more common in Africans than Europeans and it made me wonder what that holds for the future, Might it get to the stage where HIV affects African people like flu but is still deadly to Europeans? Should we all try to interbreed a bit more to spread the resistance around?

Elly's baby arrived. 9lbs 2. Nine pounds two!! Haven't spoken to her yet but she left me a voicemail saying she'd ring me up and tell me about how painful it was soon. I sent them flowers and asked for "Hope her head wasn't too big" to be written on the card, and the lady in the flower shop gave an alarmed, "Oh!" Heheheh.

Bliss

noreply@blogspirit.com (Rosie) — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 18:42:29 +0100

I just had the perfect weekend and I totally wasn't expecting it. Nothing out of the ordinary, just everything - everything! - we did was fun.

Tom's flatmates had a party. It wasn't good at all and I had to drink Tennants but somehow I still enjoyed it.
We stayed in bed all Saturday morning eating cheesecake and giggling.
We played Mahjong in a cafe and then bought a DVD in a charity shop.
I cooked a brilliant curry from a recipe someone at work gave me.
We watched the DVD (25th hour with Edward Norton) and got all soppy when it finished.
We went on a cycle ride and stumbled across a walled garden that was having an open day. It was full of middle aged hippies but there was a pond with tadpoles and a proper mud hut, and we had a picnic.
Tom went home and gave me time to bond with my PC.

I rang Elly last night and she was just about to get her birthing pool set up. My friends are breeding!

Edinburgio!

noreply@blogspirit.com (Rosie) — Thu, 31 May 2007 20:35:00 +0100

Oh, so Facebook does actually have a blog, they just call it "notes" instead. How am I supposed to know that? Anyway, I'm here now, and I'm going to tell you about my new life, so there.

For those who missed it, I am now in the wondrous town of Edinburgh, just oustide the Old Town, which is all windy roads and houses stacked on top of each other, and FUCKING COBBLES, which are playing merry hell with my precious road bike. Grr.

Work is about a million times better than in Sheffield... although despite myself I am missing the people a bit. There aren't as many eccentrics here. But the Scottish Exec has a POOL! And a SAUNA! And a big basket full of flippers! And an aerobics studio. I did Pilates this morning. Alan would be proud. :-D

My flatmate is a police officer. She has handcuffs and a stab-proof vest and everything. And she is a fitness freak and lives entirely on raw fruit and vegetables (almost).

I tried fencing a couple of times, but I gave it up. Now I'm playing mixed football, which is well good. I get RESPECT off the blokes because most of the girls aren't that good. It makes me happy.

There's a place about half a mile from me where you can take your bike and for £3 an hour you can use all their tools and they help you fix it yourself. Tom and I went there yesterday and I changed my brake pads, which strangely is something I've never done before. And when you finish up and your hands are all covered in black greasy dirt there's a magic paste that looks like hummus you can use to wash your hands. It's a world of adventure.

Time for me to shut up. Will write more soon if people leave me comments.

*mwah*

Rosie

I'm back!

noreply@blogspirit.com (Rosie) — Sun, 06 May 2007 11:57:00 +0100

Hello, I'm back.

I have FAILED to find any part of Facebook that lets you blog, and as I have deserted Myspace then I have been forced back here, tail between my legs. I hope you'll take me back.

More later.

Bosie