A Week in Sitges

All good things must come to an end and, as I write, the last hours of our week in Sitges are ticking away. We’ve just checked out and now we’re sitting in the lounge for a few hours before we have to head to the airport. We did consider doing something in Barcelona this afternoon, but in the end chose a lazy day after a long night last night.

There is something to be said for not having the Internet available on holiday; pretty much from the start I’ve managed to completely forget about the rest of the world and it’s been delicious.

The outward trip was a trial though; BA have switched over completely to self-service check-in at Gatwick which means that the queue for the Bag Drop (discretely renamed from ‘Fast Bag Drop’!) was just as long as the check-in queues used to be, so there was no avoiding it. Then the woman at the counter told us that we had to pay another £60 excess baggage because Brett had two small suitcases rather than one large one. To add insult to injury they then managed to lose one of the cases en route!

Fortunately once we left the Barcelona baggage hall things got better; Avis gave us a rather nice Alfa Romeo for our hire car, the new maps I’d bought for the SatNav all worked fine and we had a smooth ride down the coast to the hotel. A quick unpack, shower and change later and we were off for the first of the week’s gourmet dinners with John & Rich.

They were planning a fairly lazy holiday by the pool sunbathing but I was in the mood for something a little more active. On Sunday Brett and I took a drive along the coast immediately south of Sitges but weren’t much impressed. I think Tarragona might be worth seeing but we didn’t go that far and nothing intermediate looked worth a second glance.

On Monday we headed out for a trek up towards the French border and foothills of the Pyrenees. We saw some lovely views and picturesque towns along the way, some of them feeling quite Alpine, but we had rather overstretched ourselves by not properly planning the day; we needed a lot more time in the area to do it justice and, as it was, we didn’t get home until 11pm.

Tuesday was a much needed lazy day in the hotel.

On Wednesday we assayed Gerona, north of Barcelona, and had a lovely day; we spent it entirely in the old town which has something of a Moorish feel to it; lots of tiny shaded gardens built into corners of the tightly-packed buildings and lots of narrow, winding cobbled streets between them all. I got quite a few nice photographs of the town and we both agreed it was somewhere we’d like to come back to for a longer stay.

Thursday was another day in the hotel. I got itchy feet though and took the camera out for a stroll along the beach and around the town. I ended up getting some good shots of surfers in action, even though the surf apparently wasn’t up to much. One of them told me the surf was supposed to be better tomorrow but gave me his email address anyway to send on the pictures.

I was feeling pretty rough that evening – possibly from not realising how dehydrating the wind and sun were whilst sitting out on the seawall snapping surfers! – so I passed on the usual after dinner drinks and had an early night.

Friday we had thought to do another day trip but in the end decided not to as I was still a bit groggy and Brett was not much better; he hadn’t got in until nearly 4am having run into a couple of other Chorus boys in one of the bars and hung out with them for a while.

A long morning nap after breakfast sorted me out though and I awoke feeling clear-headed again, just in time for lunch which we took at a Mexican tapas bar in town. The afternoon I spent on the beach again; the surf was indeed a lot better than it had been the previous day – to the extent that the lifeguards put up the red flag for bathers. Unfortunately not many of the Sitges surfing community seemed to be skilled enough to take advantage of the big waves so about half of the shots are of guys falling off their boards. Still I had an enjoyable afternoon and it got me thinking about another strand of photography I could develop; sports photography. (I really need to get that website sorted so I can start attracting paying clients!)

In the evening we were joining Jamie C & Andrew and two of their friends, Damon & James, for dinner at the Mezzanine restaurant and then went on to a few bars for drinks afterwards. One of them was quite a discovery; the Mediterraneo, just along from our regular Piano Bar, was a bit noisy but was spacious, modern and well ventilated (unlike most gay bars around town!) I wish we had discovered it earlier.

After that though we headed to bed.

Facing the Music Again

Well today wasn’t great; I missed my train, got in to find a crisis to resolve, things left undone after an office move at the weekend and pushy salesmen to deal with. I’d also been left in charge of the Chorus’ new intake evening tonight, as Richard G had been offered a free holiday at the last moment(!) A looming Tube strike planned for tonight meant that that demanded more of my attention than it should have.

For all the anticipation though, things went smoothly once I got there. The first half of the evening was all about form-filling, warm-ups and ice-breaking. The second half we spent learning ‘Seasons Of Love’ (from Rent) with the newbies. Unfortunately because I’d been busy through the first half my voice wasn’t warmed up and, between that and the fact I haven’t sung seriously for nine months, my sound wasn’t really up to much. It got better though and the new guys picked the piece up quickly enough, so by the end of the rehearsal our performance was quite rousing.

I think I’m going to be glad I’m back. Other highlights of the repertoire will be ‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien’ and ‘The Internet Is For Porn’ (from Avenue Q), both of which I’m looking forward to – albeit for different reasons!

Brett’s back in Stratford-upon-Avon, so I’m on my own again tonight. He’s found himself a choir to join up there already – although it sounds like spare-of-the-moment serendipity – they’re classical, which it sounded like he could take or leave, but all being well I’ll be able to hear him do Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis at some point in the future.

The weekend was a good one; we hosted another poker game on Saturday (which meant the flat got cleaned some. Yeay!) I think in future that, rather than playing to the bitter end, we’ll put a guillotine in place and split the pot at 10pm. With the limited transport connections it’s just not practical to have late nights in Grove Park the way it was in Wimbledon. It was a fun, if long, day; we’d started earlier than previously, but that didn’t seem to help the finish time as we took a break for dinner. (Chris M had brought a selection of homemade goodies in unnecessary atonement for not bringing anything to the games day we had the other week. Didn’t complain though, as they were all scrummy!) Poor Mark was on call though, so had to keep ducking out to answer the phone and reply to mail and was anticipating spending Sunday in the office.

In the end it came down to Richard T catching a lucky hand against John M. I'd done okay, coming back from a very poor chip count, but then got caught out by a full house against my three of a kind. Ah well, have to find some other way to make the rent!

Generally, I think the poker nights here still need a bit more work for them to go really well. It’s looking increasingly like I might be able to get a small table together from work as well though. I wonder if I (and Rosie and Brett!) could handle two poker nights a month?!

Anyway, after all the excitement we had a really quiet day on Sunday. I spent most of it online and watching the Kyle XY marathon to see if it would be worth watching the second season which is showing now. (Probably, but it won’t be at the top of the ‘must watch’ list.) Friday night’s Dexter was good though!

Fleeting Moments

Sunday morning. Lazing on the sofa. Empty glasses, beer and wine bottles. Nearly empty bowls of crisps and nuts. Poker chips piled on the table. The squirrel scampering along the garden fence. The sun beginning to break through the morning overcast. A spider web glinting in the light.

The leather of the sofa warming beneath me. Comfortable, becoming cosy. Maybe I got out of bed too early. Time to doze a little more.

A Day at Eltham

Had another lovely day; after a bit of a lazy morning we took the short drive over to Eltham Palace. I’d been there before, a few years ago with Rod & Jess, but it was the first time for both Brett & Rosie. It’s an interesting combination of a Tudor Great Hall and top-notch Art Deco design. The weather was lovely so we had a nice wander around the gardens too (photos here). A good day out.

Sofa slingshot

Saturday was bright and sunny but I was a complete slob; spent pretty much the whole day on the sofa reading Ringworld, watching TV and surfing Facebook. Wasted life.

The thing happening today was Trevor’s summer party. Last year’s was a great success, but left a lot of clearing up the next day. This year his neighbours weren’t going on holiday so he couldn’t have a late-night party, and had a more select, afternoon do instead. It was a pleasant way to spend the day though; they’re in a fairly rural location and it felt like we were sitting out in the countryside somewhere. Moderate amounts of alcohol, plenty of well-grilled meat and a selection of catch-ups with choristers later, we headed home.

Tomorrow, I think we might head down to Eltham Palace; can’t stand the thought of another day on the sofa.

"But there's nothing you can do when you're next in line"

Today just completely got away from me. It started okay, but finalising the copier contracts (which have been the bane of my life for the last six weeks!) and copying them and then getting them biked over to the over-anxious supplier took forever. It put me behind schedule for my second meeting (about our report templates – which look like being the bane of my life for the next six weeks!!) which in turn overran and made me late for the third meeting with the contractors who are going to be building our new datacentre.

The whole morning felt like one of those domino-toppling events, where one thing knocks-on to another. Before I knew it, it was 4pm and I hadn’t started actually doing anything yet! (Meetings don’t count as doing; at best they’re just deciding.)

This evening has been relaxing though; Brett had a chicken casserole in the oven when I got home and the chicken was both tasty and tender when we ate. It looks like he’s going to be setting up a Limited Company for his contracting work, rather than being paid through an umbrella organisation, as it gives him more flexibility to work for himself as a designer in future.

Later on we were going to do the couch-potato thing but, for all that Sky has hundreds of channels, showing every conceivable type of programme, there was nothing on that we wanted to watch. Instead Brett went off to do coding and designing things on his Mac whilst I stayed and organised a couple of poker games for the coming weeks.

It still hasn’t quite sunk in that this time next week, he won’t be here. Not sure how I’ll handle that.

Down Henley Street

It’s been a good week, albeit a long one. I’ve been trying to get in to work earlier but haven’t been getting out earlier too, so by Friday I was knackered. We went out for dinner with Ping after work and I pretty much sat there like a lump. There was good news from Brett; he had been in Stratford-upon-Avon for a job interview that morning and had been called back on the train into town to offer him the contract. So he’s got three months worth of programming work; the downside is it’s in Stratford, so he’ll have to get lodgings up there which will cost money and keep him away from home all week. Still, it will mean we have a bit more spending money when we head out to Sitges in a few weeks for a break.

We went to see The Bourne Ultimatum last night at Greenwich and rather enjoyed it. The much-touted handheld camera work brought a lot of realism to some of the face-to-face scenes but tended to make me seasick in the fight and chase scenes. I think Matt Damon might have a point about James Bond being a bit anachronistic; I identified more with Jason Bourne than I ever have with 007.

Today has been quiet and domestic.

Where to?

So, the question is; what job involves you travelling and spending quality time getting to know your destination? By ‘quality time’ I mean not going from airport to hotel to meeting to airport, I mean learning at least some of the history and culture of the destination. I don’t mind doing research in advance to help me along; I like to know enough about a place before I get there that I don’t appear to be a complete tourist.

The second question is; why am I so lacklustre lately? Haven’t been doing much of anything meaningful, just moping around wishing my life was more… [insert adjective here.]

Quite pathetic really.

Saturday

Ruth and Chris came over for dinner. We had enchiladas and smoothies and played Trivial Pursuit late into the night; a very pleasant conclusion to a day of household and gardening chores.

Swarm Intelligence - Better Than Mob Rule!

Because of a cock-up in my forward planning today, I had to buy something to read on the train and plumped for a copy of National Geographic. The article on swarm intelligence that I’d picked it up for proved interesting enough. However there was one paragraph towards the end which struck me as especially worth sharing with you;

“Crowds tend to be wise only if individual members act responsibly and make their own decisions. A group won't be smart if its members imitate one another, slavishly follow fads, or wait for someone to tell them what to do. When a group is being intelligent, whether it's made up of ants or attorneys, it relies on its members to do their own part. […] the bottom line is that our actions matter, even if we don't see how.” [Shamelessly lifted from the NGM website; please don’t sue me!]

We humans can learn a lot from nature. Go read the article.

Freakopolis

Is it just too wierd of me to admit to quite fancying one of the shop-window dummies in Austin Reed? Hmm... I guess I just never realised that metallic grey skin (and hair and eyes) were my fetish.
It's amazing what you can learn about yourself while going to see a man about a photocopier!

A Full House

The weeks do seem to fly. Only notable thing about work this week was my boss’ performance in the taxi on the way back from a meeting. We had been visiting a prospective supplier and after the usual sales pitch they showed us around their offices. On the journey home we were comparing impressions and Ian (the said boss) sat there and estimated the company turnover, profit margin and directors’ salaries just by extrapolating what we’d been told about company size and the sales targets we’d seen displayed on a whiteboard in their sales area.

Apparently this is what accountants do subconsciously…

The weekend has been very enjoyable. We were couch-potatoes on Friday night but Saturday we had invited a few friends around for a bit of a house party. It meant lots of cleaning on Saturday morning (which was no bad thing to be honest) but the afternoon was spent with Rod & Jess and Ruth & Chris. R&J headed off towards early evening after a game of Trivial Pursuit which we ended up abandoning because we got so few questions right and it was becoming tedious. We ordered pizza and Ping & Uwe turned up just in time to partake and then join us for a friendly game of poker.

Normally when you are just playing for fun, people tend to be a bit reckless with their betting and the game is over quickly, but I think because neither Ping nor Uwe had played before they were more cautious. Anyway, the game continued until about 1:30 Sunday morning when Uwe finally collected all the chips. It was a most enjoyable game, although I rather get the impression that Ping (the first player out) was a bit bored and Chris was just sizing us up for the game we’re organising for cash in a couple of weeks…

Today was the inevitable clearing up after the party, but we all three pitched-in and it was done in no time. Brett and I headed down to Bromley to do some shopping. It was a targeted trip and we were done in an hour – which, given some recent shopping trips (which have lasted all day and still not purchased everything on the list!) was pretty good going. As a result we had plenty of time to enjoy a lazy Sunday afternoon reading and watching TV. One of the new shows we’d recorded was Dexter which looks interesting, if a little morally ambiguous. The other one, Jekyll, we didn’t even get past the first ten minutes of before we gave up – although that may have had something to do with my mother ringing just as it started…

This evening, we headed up to The Dome to watch the new Harry Potter movie. We’d chosen the Dome as the venue to see what they’d done to it. It was a bit tricky to find as the signposting was minimal and generally too late unless you were really eagle-eyed. Once we got there we sat in a line of traffic until we could be charged £5 for the privilege of parking the car, which I thought was bloody cheeky as there are acres of parking and it hadn’t said anything about parking fees when we booked the tickets.

Once you get into the Dome itself the signage isn’t any better – although we did realise on the way out that there are a couple of floor-plans in the main entrance hall that we’d missed. It’s laid out like a circular street with lots of pavement cafés and restaurants (in fact, looking at the floor plan, that’s pretty much all there is at the moment; the arena, the cinema and a dozen restaurants and cafés!) So we bumbled our way around to find the cinema, the ticket machines weren’t working so Rosie had to head off somewhere else to get the tickets printed, then we joined a queue to get into the auditorium, only to find that a portion of best seats were cordoned off. We still managed to get good seats though, just behind the closed rows, and then we realised why they were roped off; the giant tent isn’t waterproof!

There was a constant flow of water down from the ceiling into big buckets balanced on seats in the roped off section. Luckily the constant ‘spit, spat’ sounds weren’t too distracting from what turned out to be quite a good movie.

I haven’t been desperately fond of the earlier Harry Potter movies; several of them seemed to be just long video-game commercials. This one felt a bit more substantial though; definitely got the more ‘adult’ feel to it that a lot of the pre-release hype suggested. Maybe the next couple will really be worth watching.

Atta boy, Husky

After doing my usual tea-lady role at the Chorus rehearsal tonight I went up to listen to the second half of the rehearsal. They were doing the March of the Toreadors from Carmen Jones and they sounded really good. The last time I heard them rehearse the piece, it was undistinguished, but now the voices are confident, the diction is clear and the choreography, instead of just looking daft, adds to the story of the song.

I was whistling it all the way home and am definitely looking forward to the shows! (1 & 2)

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

I’ve been in a funny mood this week; generally pissed-off with the world. No apparent reason for it, that’s just how I’ve been feeling. It’s meant I wasn’t very productive at work towards the end of the week but I got through it and the weekend has been enjoyable; Mark S, one of Brett’s friends from years ago, was over for a brief visit (mostly for Wimbledon) and was staying with us.

Friday night we went to hear Brett sing at the National Portrait Gallery gig, part of some scheme to get Londoners singing and afterwards we had dinner on St. Martin’s Lane with Dan L and an old flame of Mark’s. Saturday we lazed until mid-afternoon; Brett had got tickets for a matinee of Avenue Q which Mark hadn’t seen (I think it’s my fourth or fifth time seeing it!) so we did that, grabbed a drink in the now smoke-free Halfway To Heaven before coming home for dinner. Mark left late to head to the airport for a (very) early morning flight to Eastern Europe where he’s about to start a choir tour.

This morning Brett and I were up early to go into work. It wasn’t really for work, but the office was opening for staff to watch the Tour de France go by and I’d volunteered to be the nominated First Aider. They’d laid on pastries and bacon rolls and lots of coffee which made it bearable, although it turned out there was an awful lot of waiting around and watching support vehicles before the bikes actually turned up – and then disappeared again within a minute. I was busy with the office camera but didn’t get anything remarkable as they sped by.

Ah, well, at least it was a nice sunny day, in contrast to the recent weeks of endless ‘showery’ rain and floods. This afternoon I’ve done some more tweaking of my Facebook profile and finally gotten around to inviting a few friends over for a board games and stuff next Saturday.

Other than that we’ve been couch-potatoes watching TV all afternoon & evening. I fear we are watching too much TV; our spare time is becoming like an episode of The Royle Family (except without the humour.) What happened to our dreams?

The Week In Summary

This week was a bit stop-go. I took Tuesday off work as time-in-lieu of the full day I’d put in on Saturday. I spent most of the day reading or commenting on a couple of blogs in between some TV watching.

In the evening I went out for dinner with Ping while Brett was at the Chorus' Steering Committee meeting. Ping’s just back from Malaysia again, where he’d been summoned to his grandmother’s death-watch. We dined at an over-priced steakhouse on the river by Canary Wharf and had to change tables after the first course because we had a group of extremely loud American bankers sitting behind us who made normal conversation impossible. Once we were seated in the pavilion out front though, it was more pleasant. Our over-dinner chat was as eclectic as ever, ranging from funeral customs to sexual etiquette. We ducked out after the steaks though and had dessert and coffee at Carluccio’s and watched all the young, beautiful people (Ping likened it to Logan’s Run!) go about their evenings’ entertainments.

Wednesday I was back at work and dealing with an Internet outage in our Leeds office caused by the severe flooding that’s been happening in the north (103mm in one day in Fylingdales!) Floodwaters in Sheffield swamped both the primary and backup systems of our ISP and left the office offline for the afternoon.

The rest of the week was solid with meetings, mostly to do with the projects we are starting but there seemed to be so many meetings I didn’t really have time to do any work.

Friday I got an out of the blue text message from Chris C in Dallas asking how Brett and I were, which seemed a little out of place as usually he emails. It wasn’t until later on, when I saw that the car-bomb discovery was getting coverage in the States, that I connected it. It’s nice to know that people care about you.

That evening was leaving drinks for a couple of guys from work; Mark R from Finance and Maurico S one of the consultants. I’m sad to see them go as they were both distinctive characters in the company. Mauricio had a great sense of humour, very wry and understated and he was always fun to chat to. Also tended to wear distinctive red Merrell trainers as a kind of trademark. Mark, somewhat more plain spoken, was always direct in what he said and was an interesting guy to be around. He always seemed more well-read on topics than anyone else and he too had a distinctive brand of clothing; on dress-down Fridays he invariably wore a bright pink t-shirt for no other reason than because he could. I will miss them both.

Here's To Dreams

I came across this on one of the blogs I read. Like them, I’m not watching the ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ show but this clip is certainly an uplifting indicator of what they can occasionally find. Apparantly the singer is a chap called Paul Potts who works for the Carphone Warehouse, earns a bit extra stacking shelves at Tesco and has always wanted to sing opera. Here’s to dreams! (And here’s to hoping he can sing more than one song that well!!)

Being Alive

Well, I think it’s a while since I’ve griped to my blog, so you are probably overdue a dose of self-pity. I’m feeling run down lately and could really do with a holiday. There’s outstanding issues with both the old and the new landlords which just feels like it’s never going to end. The finances are still in a state from the move. Work seems to be a never-ending list of important things that all need to be done as soon as possible.

I didn’t help myself yesterday either; there was some work taking place at the office and I went in with Rob & Gaetan. I shouldn’t have really; Rob was more than capable of running the day, which is what I let him do so, while I got some useful thinking and planning done, it was really a long, wasted day. I also missed hearing the Chorus sing at West End Live.

Friday night had been a bit more enjoyable though; Mike G from work had invited us along to the ‘First Anniversary’ of his housewarming party. He has a lovely house between Greenwich and Deptford; quite modern, built over four floors with a room on each floor and large windows to front and back. The party was on the roof terrace where he’d laid out food and fired up a barbeque. It was quite chilly, but the food and drink were good and it was nice to socialise with people from work a bit. I don’t do that enough.

Today has been all about taking it easy; It’s taken me all day to wash all of the dishes that were stacked in the kitchen. Admittedly I didn’t do them all in one session, but there were quite a few of them because one way or another I just haven’t gotten around to doing any this week…

In between times we’ve been watching West Wing DVDs and surfing blogs and Facebook.

I need a holiday.

Vertical Farms

A farm that provides;

• Year round crop production in a controlled environment
• All produce would be organic as there would be no exposure to wild parasites and bugs
• Elimination of environmentally damaging agricultural runoff
• Food being produced locally to where it is consumed

Once you've covered the environmental impact of building the thing, it might just work...

See here for more.

We Are the Champions

Feeling good today. We eventually made it to Vinny’s party around 3pm on Saturday and that was all very pleasant; a good mix of choristers, his singing students and friends. The feature of the garden was a massive fishpond heavily stocked with coy carp and giant goldfish – although it did have a little metal bridge across it which made me think of a James Bond villain’s hideout…

We got pleasantly drunk and then got a phone call from Rosie saying they’d watched the Heroes finale at Ruths without us, so instead of going on there we headed home. We pigged-out on pizza and ice cream for dinner. (Classy!)

Sunday wasn’t such fun though; I woke up with the beginnings of a migraine episode, realised I didn’t have any of the preventative pills left and had to make do with damping the symptoms while moping around listlessly all day.

Today I was back at work and the leftover fatigue and nausea cleared out by late afternoon. Our new Helpdesk guy, Maliq, started work today – although I only got to chat with him for a short while in between triaging my inbox after a week away. Then tonight I was at Chorus and feeling healthy again. All went smoothly, had a nice chat with Martin B (the German one) and later Paul G. After we’d cleared up and I was heading home I left with the sounds of We Are The Champions ringing in my ears; so much better sung live by a hundred men than on a CD by a few!

A Packed Social Diary

What is it about Saturday, 16th June?

It seems to be the day when everyone is planning something. Brett and I have received no less than four invitations to events today, we have the parents down to help with the garden and I hear on the radio that three Premiership footballers plan to marry today. I don't know about the footballers but compared to a normal weekend, that's a lot of stuff happening.

In other news, I am qualified to provide First Aid again - must remember to do more frequent refreshers this time so it doesn't expire again. The whole process seemed easier this time though, despite a few nerves in yesterday's assessment.

Next week at work sees my new Helpdesk guy starting with us. It's taken a while to get to this point and I'll be glad to get the whole team together finally - although it turns out that Gaetan is on a training course Monday/Tuesday so he'll miss the welcome lunch (something which I'm sure he's going to groan loudly about!)

Brett is currently suffering from a bad back. Unlike me after moving house, there was no obvious cause for it and I'm still not convinced that it's muscular in origin rather than being a disk problem but I think we're giving it a couple more days on Ibuprofen before getting the medical services involved.

Right, off for breakfast and thence to B&Q and thence to Vinny's birthday party and thence to Ruth's barbecue and thence to Tom's performance...