BARCELONA!

We are off to Barcelona today! Should be amazing. We have had really nice weather the last couple of weeks but yesterday it rained again, so hopefully we will be returning to the nice warm weather, but in BARCELONA!

Barcelona, what can I say.

Weather: Great

Atmosphere: Amazing

People: Perfect

Tourists: Terribly large numbers of them.

To sum up in one paragraph; WE had an amazing time, we had loads of tapas, we sat in teh sunshine, did an open top bus tour, saw Gaudis Cathedral and park and acouple of his buildings, went to the beach, rambled along las ramblas, saw the con-artists at work trying to steal from tourists. What a city!

Cycle Chic

Sarah had recently been stopped by a person that is interested in Cycle Chic and keeps a blog on the matter. He approached Sarah about getting a picture taken for his blog site. He eventually caught up with Sarah when we went in to town yesterday, and asked if we would like ot have our picture taken to go up on his blog. We will see if it does go up on the site soon.

A Few Pictures from our Wye Valley Walk!

 

 

Olympic Torch Relay

On the 25th of May the Olympic torch came to Cardiff. I didn't get to see it on the 25th as it was a Friday afternoon and I was still in work. So on Saturday morning it was due to leave Cardiff and head to Swansea. So I managed to get Sara up at about 6 am and we ot on our bikes and headed off to Cardiff Bay to watch the torch begin the days tour.

Heading off pedaling down very quiet streets in the centre of Cardiff Sarah did ask "What if we are the only people there?". Knowing the buzz that the Olympics will create I assured her that there would be plenty of people out even at the early hour to watch the torch travel the streets. We continued pedaling and sure enough we came round the las corner to discover that there was probably a couple of thousand people out to watch the journey of the Olympic flame.

We were however taking our time so by the time we reached Cardiff Bay the torch ahd already begun its journey and had passed where we were planning on getting a view. Back on the bikes we headed off to try and catch up. Sure enough not far down the road w came across the torch bearer. Unable to overtake on the road that the runner was traveling down we took a short cut on the back streets to 'head them of at the pass'.

We managed to get ahead of the bearer and as a result got to watch them jog at a very leisurly pace down the street.

Feeling energised by the Olympic Spirirt we decided to folow the torch for the remainder of the leg, down to penarth road where the torch bearer stopped in the middle of the road. I thought that this would be a change of beareres, however the torch bearer was quickly surrounded by the official torch security and the flame was transferred to the lanterns, before they all jumped back on teh coach and headed off to the next destination, Barry. The feeling on the street was quite joyous and everyone enjoed the eatly morning festivities, but it was summed up by a child that Sarah over heard saying "Mum, is that it? Was that the torch?", clearly not impressed by the spectacle.

We headed off back to the Bay to have a bite to eat and we were fortunate that there was a torch bearer standing around letting people hold the torch and have their picture taken for charity. Not to miss out this opportunity Sarah and I got up and grabbed hold of the torch.

Getting up early was worth it, to see my second Olympic torch relay. Yay!

Macro in the Garden

The weather is pretty bleak today to a quick update on my blog. I was playing aroung with the camera in the garden the other day and this is one of the pictures that I caught. The plant is a Lupin ( I think) and it has this way of catching water in its leaves. I think that it is down to the small hairs that are also on the plant. Anyway, I decided to catch the water that the plant was catching that was also catching a bit of the sun at the time.

I just walked 30km's

"Here's to you". Sarah and I shared a rewarding beer after completing out 30km walk through the Wye Valley. We went from Monmoth to Chepstow. It seemed a lot harder than last time that I walked it a couple of years ago.