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.

Sweep!

The next new activity!  Sweep on a race.

That was as cool as marking it, easier too as you didn't have to figure anything out, just remember not to cut off a finger with the box cutter.

Another 20K, raining again, though not so much.  I wore more too, which helped.

Conducted a scientific experiment as well, gloves, even if they are super thin fleece gloves help.  Even if those same super thin fleece gloves are so wet that every time you make a fist water runs off your hands.  Still warmer than bare hands.

Something to bear in mind!

It was the muckiest bit of trail I have ever walked.  Mud that came up over the tops of the boots and so much of it that you don't even try to avoid it.

Didn't even fall, which has to be something of a miracle, and as the three other sweeps and I went dressed as witches, we had to have brooms after all, it was a BLAST.

If anyone ever asks you to do sweep on a race?  Do it.  Fun fun fun.

marking a course

The other day I had the good luck to go out and mark a trail race.  Never done it before and it was genuinely fun.

Trail races are sometimes marked with chalk on the ground, but with this one, they decided not to do that and it was primarily marked with plastic tape, like the cops use, hanging from trees and branches to show the way.

Five of us set off together to do it.  We started out pretty slow, but gradually got our pace up and better organised.  Figuring out how we were going to mark the corners and the confusing patches.....

The only thing that really made it stand out from most similar days doing something like this was that it was POURING on us.

You may record that a few days ago, I was commenting on the topless women sunbathing on the beach.  Now we're back in winter coats with rain rain rain rain and more rain coupled with wind.

We had 20K of mud and slop and rain.

Wring out your underwear when you finish kind of rain.

I have not been so wet in quite some time.

Fantastic, like a kid.

Flamenco and a four year old!

One of those, Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore moments!

The other day I was teaching a class and one of the four year olds in the class asked if she could borrow a pencil.  The sweety even asked in English!

Better still, she sang the request....sang it Flamenco.

Awesome.

One thing I learned from teaching

And this is definitive.

There is no such thing as telepathy.  People cannot read minds.

I have had so very many students staring at me so intently during an exam, as if willing the information to leap from my head to theirs, and it never. works.

I have often looked at students trying to find an answer or a word, projecting it madly in my head, to no avail

Sad but true.

We do not have this ability.  This I have learned.

Sant Jordi and a temporary rose

Today is Sant Jordi here in Catalunya, the patron saint of Catalunya.

The tradition is that people buy each other roses and books.  I love this tradition I have to say, truly adore it.  The man and I went down to the plaça to look over the books.  meh.  The used ones were crap and the new ones were pricier than we felt we could spend.  We'll pick up a book for each other one of these days.

We picked each other roses from the garden and got a candy rose for Youngest.

At work, I got a couple of roses as well.  One is a miniature rose plant!!!   Lovely!  She's four.

Another little girl, five years old, leant me a rose.

I love this.  It is a plasticine rose that she made at school, really a very nice one, and she has given it to me till Thursday, then I have to return it so she can give it to her dad.

Well organised this child.

Difficulties bike riding

It has just gotten warm here, indeed during the last week, it was positively summery.

Folks flocked to the beach.  And as is typical here, many of the women were topless.  I am the freaky one, the hotter and sunnier it gets, the more I wear!

Now, I ride my bike back and forth along the beach to work three times a week, and during the winter, it is easy peasy, not too many people, pretty quite, some runners that's about it.

Last week though?  Goodness gracious me.

When we first got here, I thought that the guys would sort of get used to topless women at the beach, it would become something kinda normal.  Then I realised that no, they don't really, but whatever.

However!  The beginning of the year is a whole different thing.  The pedestrians are ok, they are walking slowly enough that they can gape and drool without missing much or changing direction violently.  The bicyclists though!!!!! They are going too fast to get a really good look, so when there is a lovely and extremely sparsely dressed young lady tanning on the sand, some fairly heavy braking occurs and the related swerving around as well.

As I do not find the view quite as, uh, titillating, my biggest problem is their suddenly erratic speed and direction.

These boys are both hard to avoid and hard to pass.

Maybe if I rode topless too?????

A day out with Youngest. Un dia amb la Petita

Youngest and I headed into BCN to go ShoPpinG again.  Culture?   What's that, we shop it seems.

ANYWHO....I needed new runners and Youngest, headphones.

First though, an ice cream break.   The only problem with this photo is that it makes it seem like the double ice cream that Youngest had is smaller.  It isn't.  It's twice the size of my lemon one.

Urp.  Very nice ice cream it was too.

The running shoe hunt has so far proved rather hopeless.  I went to a local store on Fri, no luck, nothing that seemed really...right.

Then in today to the running store that the Man goes to all the time with tremendous success.  Seems that my feet are exceptionally large by the standards of Catalan women runners.  They had only two pairs that were theoretically my size and they were toooooo small.  So then they had me try on a bunch of men's shoes. My feet are toooooo small for mens shoes.  Frustration.

So, after doing some more shopping in BCN, successfully for Youngest's headphones, art supplies for Youngest, Eldest and me (PAPER!!!) and shorts and a new top for Youngest...we went home.

I c.r.a.s.h.e.d. in a delightful nap.

Then stubbornly I decided to go running in the shoes I have.  Longish story. A couple of years ago I bought runners to take up running.  They have now pretty much given their all, so I bought new ones a few months ago.  Only problem is that my knee started hurting with them.  Though that was also when I had a lot of longer walks and started riding the bike as well, so a little tricky to parse out exactly what was the culprit.

But, as I seem to be entirely unable to get trail running shoes that fit my feet in this country, I'm going to try out the -really fun and light and great to run in, but possibly hurt my knees - running shoes again.

Went today, short fun gentle run.  No problems,  fingers crossed.

I will probably buy some very cushioned mild trail runners in TO this summer for running on the road and a bit of trail.  They should have my size anyway.

Then Youngest and I went to the newly opened local bouldering gym, which we have been to every day this week (can you say obsessive?)  It is a whole lot of fun!

And there's still tomorrow in the weekend!  Weeee!!!!