#368 Vias Verdes etc

Last weekend we took our bikes up into the hills of Catalunya. First by train to Ripoll and then we rode up the Via Verde del Ferro i del Carbó, after that a tiny little rural road to Olot to stay the night.









Sunday, all the way down the Vía Verde del Carrilet (1) to Girona railway station where we took a train back to Barça. 100k of tracks and trails - excellent!







































Sunday night we stayed with Carrie and went out and ate Japanese.
















Monday morning went to the market and bought some Iberico ham as a present then drove into France to visit our friends Brian & Maureen. Next day we went with them and lunched with Madame Valette at her Auberge Lou Bordié (we were there last year - #344). I had to pull rank to get a table, she was originally "complet" so the ham was a little thank you present.



















Wednesday we drove south and visited David & Jackie, had another long lunch. David has an extensive wine cellar (if you read this Snowy you can click on the pic to enlarge it, read the labels and shed a small tear).
























Thursday back to Spain but we took the scenic route over the Pyrenees near to Andorra, dropped down the other side and stayed the night in the Parador de Alcañiz (very chi chi) and came away quite surprised that my credit card was accepted ;-)

#367 Full Marks = Trek & Vittoria!

Have to report excellent customer service from both Vittoria and Trek. I got personal replies to my questions straight away. Good for them (and me).

You wonder how other companies can be so rubbish and not reply to a customer who wants to buy their products. Over the past year I still haven't had a reply from; Icebreaker clothing, TRP brakes and Velocity rims, so boo to them.

#366 Amazoning Again

I must be keeping Amazon in *profit! - four more books just arrived:

Pardon My French by Charles Timoney
Come & Gone by Joe Parkin
A Dog In A Hat by Joe Parkin
Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes

*I calculate that I have bought 31 Amazon books in the last 12 months, not counting the freebies and charity shop purchases - no wonder I need new reading glasses.

#365 New Look

Here is a 'new' bike, built from bits in my spare parts box, plus 52€ on a new bottom bracket, seat pin and some handlebar tape.

I'm sure it will come in useful . . . somewhere . . . somehow . . . .

#364 Paella Bacalao

Friday: Lunch.
Restaurant: Sendra, Las Rotas, Denia.
Foreground: Paella Bacalao (salt cod paella).
Background: Mediterranean Sea

#363 Russian Pin

I just found a pin I was given by a young Russian soldier (Private Putin?) at the Goodwill Games in St Petersburg in 1994. I was with the Nike marketing manager who was handing out Nike caps in some sort of guerrilla marketing scheme. The soldier wanted to give something in return so gave me his hat pin. Браво!

#362 London Olympics

We buzzed down to Canary Wharf to lunch with John and Jasmine,
the Supremos of the 2012 London Olympic Triathlon.


















John gave me a LOCOG badge which I'm wearing with pride.






















Then we took the river bus up the Thames, passed under a wet Tower Bridge before landing at the Embankment and a stroll up through Covent Garden.

#361 Big Birthday & Lucky Draw

For my Mum's 90th Birthday six Lillies and six other friends had a slap up Sunday lunch at the Clissold Arms in Muswell Hill. We sat in the 'Kinks Room' which had been decorated with Kinks ephemera, interesting to me as the group is about my age and were our famous local band from back in the 60's.

The day before we three Lillie Boys went out for a Full English Breakfast, then to the Emirates stadium to watch the Arsenal scrape a draw against Leeds United in the FA Cup and a pint of Guinness on the way home. :-)

#360 Arthur

We came back to England for Arthur's funeral. While looking through his photo's I came across these pictures from his time in the Second World War. These three photos were taken in Berlin; showing the Brandenburg Gate, Arthur's foot on Hitler's broken head and the third with a mate and a statue in Hitler's bunker. An important time to arrive in Berlin and quite an experience for him, I imagine.

#359 Jamón Jamón

Not to be confused with Bigas Luna's 1992 film Jamón Jamón, starring Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, this is a genuine leg of Spanish ham destined for a friend of ours who has provided the Lillie Boys with tickets for the FA Cup game: Arsenal v Leeds on Saturday.
¡ Animo !

#358 Pugsey

While in Barcelona Tom and I dived int Espaibici and their man Xavi showed us a Surly Pugsey. It's a mountain bike with really big fat wheels for riding on snow or I suppose, on the beach. If I won the lottery and had the room . . . . . .

#357 Christmas again

Christmas in Barcelona. Jay stayed in Amsterdam so we posed with a cardboard cut out so that he wouldn't feel left out.

Monday we went to the Parc de Collserola behind Barcelona for a nice bike ride in the woods. I got TWO punctures - brand new tyres - both times riding on asphalt. Second puncture looks like a snail climbing up the face of my tyre, but in fact it's a great big tack sticking out :-(

#356 Salute to The Captain

We took a quick three day trip to England and fitted in a Sunday Lunch at a Vegetarian / Vegan restaurant in London called Manna. We were returning customers (we were there in about 1972).

Just round the corner in Primrose Hill is Sesame, a health food shop that I delivered yogurt to, it hasn't changed (also about 40 years ago).

Then down to Broadstone for a cup of coffee at the Little Red Roaster and a fine meal at Isabel's with Judy, Pat & Timothy.

#354 Polyglottal

More books to help me become a polyglot.
Je Ne Sais Quoi - A guide to sounding, acting and shrugging like the French. Actually, I'm already pretty good at shrugging.
Speak the Culture, Spain - A guide to customs and culture. I've already got the excellent French equivalent.
Cycling's 50 Craziest Stories by Les Woodland.
Practice Makes Perfect - Advanced Spanish Grammar.
Practice Makes Perfect - Complete French Grammar.

#353 Double Vision - bike updates.

Grey Langster now running a freewheel and a pair of Roval wheels with Tufo tubulars.



















Salsa Chili con Crosso with new bar bag fitments.



















Last year's Roubaix picture, now with a new Brooks Colt saddle.

#352 Jamie's Pie

I made this pie after watching one of Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals tv programmes:

http://www.channel4.com/food/recipes/chefs/jamie-oliver/spinach-and-feta-filo-pie-with-coated-ice-cream-meal_p_1.html

For this Spinach and Feta Pie you use a frying pan with a metal handle because after frying you put the pan in the oven. When cooked you take the pan out, using an oven-mit or cloth. Then you walk away to do something else. When you come back you pick up the pan forgeting that the handle is very, very, very hot and after less than one second, you let out a short sharp scream.

I could have smothered my hand with Jamie's Chocolate, Coffee and Hazelnut covered Vanilla Ice Cream, but I didn't, I ate it instead (the ice cream that is, not my hand).

#351 Four new books

Thelonious Monk by Robin D G Kelley
It's All About The Bike by Robert Penn
Homicide by David Simon (creator of The Wire)
Marco Made Easy by Marco Pierre White

#350 Visitors

#349 Street Market

An artisanal food market in our high street had lots of interesting foods on display. We bought a slice of this really excellent Swiss Gruyère - with the graphics printed on the top being so nice you knew the cheese would be equally good (just like back in the days of vinyl, LP record sleeves used to have ace covers for good music and crap for crap).

Also in the shopping bag went hand made soaps, ecological olive oil, a butifarra con setas (a Catalan sausage with mushroom) and I only passed on the horse ham, which looked like a solid piece of dark red tuna, as I'd run out of money.

#348 Trofai

When I was in France I happened upon a little grocery shop that was run by a nice lady from . . . Mali, I think. I was after some Red Palm Oil but she persuaded me to try this can of Trofai Palm Concentrate. Apparently it's the 'bees knees' for West African stews and soups and absolutely essential in a Nigerian soup called Banga. (I had to smile 'cos this was my boy Jay's first personal swear word - Oh Banga!)

I used the concentrate when making my Captain's Chicken Curry (link) and it was excellent. Trouble is, I can't buy any down here in Denia, might find some in Barcelona or have to end up e.buying from somewhere like Lagos. If you see any in your local corner shop, please let me know.

#347 Books & Films & TV

Amazon UK have just reported improved profits for the last quarter as a consequence of my order for another six book.

Len Deighton's Action Cook Book might have been the very first cook book to grace our shelves and I bought this reprint just for the good vibes. Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing is a rip-off, the whole book could be printed on one page, boo. The Paris Review (vol 4) I bought this for a reason which I can't remember at the mo. The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sissons, hope it will convince me to carry on living la vida low-carb. Zadie Smith, I really liked her first novel but I don't think I'm going to like this; what can I say - pretentious, perhaps. Jamie Does 'cos he has some recipes from Madame Valette's restaurant in Bach that we visited (#344)












I'm enjoying a Shane Meadows (Brit film director) retrospective. This is England is a film about the 1980 punk scene. IMDB says: A story about a troubled boy growing up in England, set in 1983. He comes across a few skinheads on his way home from school, after a fight. They become his new best friends even like family. (It's not all that nice in places).

Now there is a four episode TV series in the UK, This is England '86 which carries on with the story, but some years later. I've seen the first - It's Proper.

So then I searched out Somers Town of which IMDB says: A black-and-white study of a social environment in London, concentrating on a pair of unlikely new friends and the girl they both fancy. It's good.

#346 Vuelta de España

La Vuelta (or tour of Spain bike race) passed by our house on Sunday. 185 riders plus 185 cars, vans and motorbikes to look after them. Then they sped over to Ondara for a sprint and then up the Col de Rates on their way to the finish in Alcoy.

Just by chance we had been up the Col de Rates the day before. There is an ingenious time trial system installed at the foot of the climb. You take a card, date and time stamp it then race to the top to a second machine where you stamp your arrival time. You can leave the card in their post box and eventually your climb time is posted at www.stoppomat.com

We weren't that fast going up but I calculated we were five time quicker coming down :-)

#345 Barcelona

We left France by train, stopped overnight in Perpignan, took two more trains heading south and ended up in Barcelona for a paella with Carrie & Tom.

It used to be that buying stuff in the market was cheaper than shopping in stores but that seems to have changed with low price supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi - except today.

I ran into Barcelona's famous Boqueria market and selected a kilo of fresh tuna for 15€, some green beans for 3€, a pair of ace kitchen scissors for 12€, a tin of new improved Ghana Fresh Palm Nut Cream Concentrate for another few euros and finally got a right short haircut for 4€ (plus a 1€ tip). Bargains the lot :-)

My barber was so pleased with the tip that he agreed to come out and be photographed in front of his shop.

#344 Cahors

We are in Cahors . . I think . . ?

On thursday we went with our friends Brian & Maureen to a village fête in nearby Aujols and a night of eating duck & chips and drinking glasses and glasses of wine.

We sat outside on benches with a few hundred locals and were serenaded by a three piece band; piano, base and accordion - why is it that the accordion is so popular in France? and, possibly, Argentina . . . ?

Anyway, I digress because the next day we went out eating again, this time for lunch at the Auberge Lou Bordié in the village of Bach. Actually, it's not the first time we've been here (#179) and I'm assuming the renown clebrity chef Jamie Oliver must have read my blog and so decided to come to film a piece for one of his Chanel 4 tv shows in the restaurant (the one about about the pyrénées part of France).

The boss lady, Madame Valette has plenty of photos of Jamie taking over her kitchen, so we took one as well.

I tried to take a pic of our serveuse Mélodie bringing our éntrée but she was too quick and I missed the plate - sorry.

#343 440km from Chateau Gontier to Montmoreau St Cybard.

Sunday:

A long day's drive. Our poor old Winnebago is 22 years old and creaks and groans a bit if I try to exert it. Taking the direct route, with all the stopping and starting for junctions and roundabouts, has the 7400cc engine really guzzling the gas. So I drove at a stately pace and kept to motorways to save fuel.

In its (and my) youth, I would select cruise control and be flying down the autoroutes at 70mph, a Bob Marley cassette cranked up to full volume. Now an average of 50mph still gets us there (eventually). But, sad to say, seemed to have mislaid all the reggae tapes - and who's got new cassette tapes these days?

We are on an almost empty municipal campsite with not much going for it except, right next door - a swimming pool :-)

#342 A Bit Fishy

I like to think I'm a bit of a gourmand, I follow one rule when perusing menus in expensive restaurants - ignore any dish costing more than 10€ ;-)

However the other day was (apparently) our wedding anniversary so when we went out to eat I ignored my costing rule and also my "wtf is that?" criteria and ordered something I didn't know called Sandre. This turned out to be a very nice piece of fresh water fish much esteemed locally.

I checked with wikipedia and found its alternate spelling Zander, this picture and a little story to go with it:

In July 2009 in Switzerland, a zander attacked tourists in a Lake near Italy, sending two to the Emergency Room with the worst cut being about 10 centimeters long. The zander was later caught by the local police who cooked it and offered it to the tourists for the trouble it caused. It is very unusual for zanders to attack humans.