went for another walk in the hills!

And saw this wee baby horse and his or her mama.....

 Sweet, no?  Anyone more knowledgable able to make a guess about her age?  or his....or a guess about that either?

Then we went and saw where they make some seriously delicious artisanal cheeses.  Mmmmmmmmmm

This is fresh cheese, as in uncured

Getting to taste it where they make it

Then at home with the handful of asparagus I picked as well.  Mmmmmmmm

Quite a tasty outing!

Youngest and I indulged in some C*A*N*D*Y*!

One of the interesting things about living in a different place, is different candy.  All of the below is soft and gummy textured, with some variations.

The frogs?  Kinda lemon-y

This one, a little....meh...

The brain was actually kinda yucky textured....

Vampire teeth!!!

Hot, not just in looks!

fine, you know, it's candy, how bad can it be?

Gooey in the middle, yum.

This one is harder and has a strong licorice flavour, love these.

A gooey in the middle pillow...

OK

This was a little too gooey in the middle, weird in a croissant.  Then again, croissant candy is kinda weird too.

This one is sour, there is quite a lot of sour candy, but I'm not that keen, so we didn't get so much

Pizza!

Licorice with creamy filling stuff.  Good.

Urp.

Asparagus season

We've got so much this year we're sharing!

This is actually an old post, that I didn't have time to put up from a couple of weeks ago, that said, there's still a wee bit growing here and there.

Life is good indeed.

Kayaking! on the Ebre!

The fun never stops!!!!

Got invited to go kayaking down the Ebre....and it was DELIGHTFUL!


Here, see???

Slept on the floor in a community centre the night before, I've had better nights, but I've had worse too, and there was a loo....

Getting organised the next day

I do like poppies quite a lot

Wish I could remember their name in Catalan.

Heading downstream

Lots and lots of us heading downstream!

Up some creeks.....

Past some buildings, pls note the mountains in the background that were also calling out to me!

Went through a lock, kinda fun with a lock so very full of kayaks!

Quite colourful!

Stopped for a lunch, fideuà!

Here's pa amb tomaquet and mussels to start things off, oh and embotits and salad, which didn't make it in the photo...

The the fideus!

We had ice cream for afters and there was coffee and wine with lunch as well.  Not the typical North American spread for a mid-voyage lunch.  Love Catalunya, I do.

This is a friend's photos, arriving in Tortosa!

A lovely outing.  I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

Toad in the back pati!

Look who showed up!

new bike brakes

I had to get new brakes for the bike.  The ones that came with it, u brakes I think they are called, were OK to start with, but were fading into nothingness.  In part I think because of the sand that grinds them away so very fast!

I very nearly rear ended a car twice, cause I couldn't stop as fast as they could.

Just a wee bit embarrassing, no?

Anyway, I went into our neighbourhood bike store, that had also sponsored the local trail race I was sweep in, and asked them about prices etc.  The man in the store speaking Spanish the entire time, and me in Catalan, what the hey.....the price was (cough) reasonable, and he said he could do it FAST, now that's something I like to hear.....

So I left 'em the bike and look what they did for me!

Pretty, no?  Still nice and clean and shiny!  That probably won't last long, but for the time being.....and they brake really really well, instead of squeezing the bejeezus out of the brake levers and praying I stopped in time, I just give them a light tap and pray I don't pop over the handlebars.

I am getting better at scooching my butt further back off the seat when I brake hard!

Correfoc again - this time with kids!

I've posted about this before, but it is so cool, it's going up again, this one was the children's correfoc, as in yes, children's fire running.

Please note the 2 year old in the mix, sporting an independentist flag over his face.

There's the little one!

And again

This guy's blowing flames out his mouth to light the fireworks

The little one's in there messing it up with the rest!

What happened on the ride over to class

Riding from work to class is along the beach.  For most of the route, it is fine, well packed sand, but there are patches, where...mmmm...not so much, and there are a couple of rieres that I have to cross.  A riera is an a river that only runs when it rains, and when it does, it often has quite a bit of water in it.  But it had been more drizzling here rather than RAINING, so I elected for the beach route on these marginal patches rather than beside the rather nasty road.

Now, when crossing these rieres at the beach, you dip down to them, usually about a meter, if it has rained, there's a couple of inches of water running to the sea, then you go up the other side.

I crossed a couple on my way to class.

One of them, however, looked a little murkier and deeper.  I paused and had a look at it and figured that at worst I'd wet my feet on the down-stroke of the pedal.

Rode in.

Umm, no.

Had to put both feet down as it was rapidly getting over the hubs and too deep to ride.

Well, since by now, both feet were already soaked, and it's only about 3.5 meters across, figured I'd walk on, the other option was a couple hundred meters of REALLY loose sand (sucks with a bike) or doubling back and then the road.  Feet are already wet, what the heck. Oh, I was wearing leggings as well.

Stepped off the bike, forged forward.

Got deeper,

and deeper

the bike was floating so the seat was nearly at my shoulder.

I'm not a short woman, at the deepest, the water got to my upper thigh.  That's about a meter deep!!!!

A wee bit wetter than I thought I'd get, but very very very funny.

A day that feels like three.

A great three, but three.

Got up,

Went to work.

Worked.

Watched my boss surf for a bit

Rode over to my English/Catalan class, (there is a story there that warrants it's own post - to come) but

stopped on the way at the bicycle store to talk to them about my brakes, that aren't braking, as in I've nearly rear-ended a car twice as they can stop so much faster than me.  I'm no longer stopping well at all.

The man at the store laid out the equipment, the cost and the time frame.

Left to go to class, thinking about it.

Walked back with my language buddy and dropped the bike off, walked back along the beach, went to his office to gather up our stuff and go for lunch as we were both starving and it was that time.

LOVELY lunch in the newly reappeared sun, then into BCN!

Went to Arts Santa Monica, which I love, but they only had one exhibition open, saw that.  No loo, so went to the Marine museum, where they had a loo (yeah!)

Had a look at a free exhibition there (meh) had a look at some bumph for another one, all in Spanish.  Um, sorry?  Discovered that some of it was in both languages, turned half of it over so the Catalan showed. Then discovered the rest was only in Spanish, turned the other half of the first batch to Catalan too.  I mean really.

Had a delightful wander through the Barri Gothic and then chocolate and xurros, before meeting the Man and his sister, renting a car for tomorrow, driving out of BCN, and hitting the bike store again, to pick up the now very stoppy bike.  I'm going to have to be rather careful not to do myself harm while I get used to it.

Rode home, walked immediately out the door to give the dog a quick spin for a pee, came back, hopped in the car to meet the Man and the rowing crowd in a bar for a drink.  LOVELY group of people, half watched Madrid fail to advance in the Champion's league and have promised to help a friend learn English, and invited a crowd to go bouldering on Saturday.

Home just in time for Correfoc!  Boom boom boom...pictures to follow.

As I said, that's got to be about three days worth of day in one.

I. am. tired.