#198 Guapas!

#197 Six Books

So that I won't go hungry in France while watching football,
I bought six books from Amazon at Christmas (they arrived to-day).


















The Discovery of France Graham Robb
Speak the Culture: France Andrew Whittaker
Further Adventures in Search of Perfection Heston Blumenthal
How Football Explains the World Franklin Foer
Football Against the Enemy Simon Kuper
No Reservations Anthony Bourdain

#196 Beefheartian Mastermind

Actor Paul Bradley appeared on Celebrity Mastermind answering questions on Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. Did I grin? Yes!

Was just able to pip him to the answer to question 4 - which was, of course - Winged Eel Fingerling. Hurray!

#195 . . . . . its a tetrahexahedra! (I think).

Christmas gift from Mascha's dad.

#194 Christmas Paella & Boxing Boxes

Christmas with all our family (including Dutch division).
at el Mena restaurant by the sea.















Boxing day - ten for dinner!
In our casita (and we've only got 8 chairs :-)

#193 Hot

Some months ago I was cutting up hot chillis for a spicy curry and I planted some of the seeds. Here is the result, ready for the pot!

#192 A Week in YooKay

Friday: We flew Alicante - Bournemouth. I hired a car and drove to Air Canada Cargo at Heathrow and gave them my Merlin Newsboy for shipment to its new owner in Vancouver. After an hour filling forms I cruised down the M4 to visit Kev & Lorraine (and Ryan) near Swindon. Kev has been storing my old Low Profile TT bike in his loft for the last 20 years, so packed it in a box and I'm taking it back to Spain.














Saturday: After breakfast (note Ryan in very chi-chi dressing gown) I drove down to Broadstone to rejoin Sally and see her dad, Arthur. Stayed the night at Judy's (Sally's sister).














Sunday: Pat (seen here photographing me photographing her) and Timothy came down from Norwich, after another breakfast, we all met up for a family pub lunch. Then by car to London. Dropped bike at Jay's in Tooting and continued to Muswell Hill to stay with mum. Had v nice tapas with her next door neighbours.


















Monday: We went shopping and lunching in Covent Garden. Here we are hanging outside the Addict flagship store. It was very, very cold.














Tuesday: On our way from Muswell Hill to Tooting dropped in on Sally's friend Janet in Highgate (who we've known since the 60's) for a drop of soup.


















Wednesday: Pilgrimage to the Emirates Stadium to see Arsenal play Steaua Bucharest. We won 2-1, grin, btw Jay is not saying 2-2!














Thursday: Flew home and unpacked bike ready for a rebuild.

#191 Pimp My Ride (bicycle division)

As I've just sold my Merlin Newsboy (sob) I've cleaned polished and pimped my Marin Team Titanium (circa 1992). Same old frame but new tyres, chain, chain rings, cables, bars and stem. Plus 'punk' black and red grips :-)

#190 Reunion 2008

I've been trying to organise a reunion, together with two of my mates, at a cycle race in Guérande, France which we three all rode 45 years ago. I'm hoping to get permission to turn up at the same event next year and have a bit of a knees-up.

I've dispatched several letters with no response - so now I've written to Madame Annick Mahé (the mayoress of the ville) hoping for some action! After much sweating over French dictionaries I came up with the missive (below).
Zut Alors!















Chère Madame Mahé
Je m'appelle John Lillie, je suis l'un de trois coureurs cyclistes britanniques qui courions la course cycliste de guérande en 1963. Les autres sont Brian Wilkins et David Lancaster (qui a gagné la course).

Comme nous sommes toujours amateurs du velo, nous voudrions arranger une réunion en mai 2008 au même fois que la course cycliste en guérande.

Je vous écris pour demander si vous pouvez m'aider?

Je veux contacter le président ou la secrétaire de l'us guérandraise cyclisme pour demander le date de la course l'annee prochaine. J'ai déjà écris à M. Y Piquet, 18 bd de la Fraternité 44420 La Turballe et aussi us guérandraise cyclisme a la marie de guérande, et aussi j'ai envoyer e.mail a pascalvaillant@wanadoo.fr. mais malheureusement j'ai pas reçu une seule réponse.

Si vous avez le temps de découvrir le contact et il ne vous déragerez trop je espére d'avoir bientôt une lettre de vous (ou, si vous le trouvez plus facile, e.mail a johnlillie@easy.com). Merci en avance.

Ci-inclus une photo prise à guérande en 1963. Pensez-vous que la fille et le jeune garçon sont toujours dans la région? Il ferait beau de recréer cette image.

Avec tous mes sentiments distingués.
John Lillie

#189 :::::::::::::

I have added book reviews to #178.

#188 Merlin Titanium Newsboy

For Sale £2000 or 3000 euros or $4000.

Merlin titanium Newsboy mountain bike.
Built, I believe, in 2002.
Number 99 of only 100 ever made.
Medium size.
I've cut down the carbon fibre bars and added Specialized bar ends.

I bought the bike new in England in 2003, I've not used it much:
2003 Tour of Spain's Vias Verdes (Greeways) 350km
2004 2 separate weekends following Valencia Greenways 200km
2005 Ruta del Cid - Burgos to Valencia 650km
2007 Parc Natural de Els Ports 100km
. . . . . various other rides, not more than 200km
About 1500km on the clock (940 miles).



Click on the pic for a super big image,
and for more info mail me: johnlillie at easy.com
More pics at http://flickr.com/photos/menfot

#187 Ma bouillabaisse (recette)

Stage 1 (60 minutes)
Make a fish stock by boiling bits of fish (heads, tails, shells, etc) for an hour, keep the liquid, throw away the bits - or buy ready-made fish stock.

Stage 2 (15 minutes)
Sweat vegetables: In a frying pan with a lid, gently cook in olive oil; carrots, red peppers, onions, celery. Add salt and pepper, crushed coriander seeds and paprika. Then add a tin of chopped tomatoes and a spoon or two of orange juice. Cook a few more minutes.

Stage 3 (5 minutes)
Whizz the stock from Stage 1 with the cooked vegetables from Stage 2 to make a soup. Then add a bottle cap full of Pernod - this is important!

Add a big slug of olive oil, and more salt and pepper and paprika if required. If you make twice as much as you need, now is the time to freeze half for another day.

Stage 4 (10 minutes)
Re-heat the soup and in it gently cook bits of fish. I used cubed Monkfish, big Prawns and some Mussels. Also, I added some cubed boiled potatoes that I had cooked earlier. Then serve sprinkled with fresh coriander or parsley.

In France they sometimes serve croutons on the side - cubes of fried bread together with garlicky mayo.

Bon Appétit.

#186 Bouillabaisse

Sunday lunch - Salad and Bouillabaisse.
Tom refills wine glasses. I'm standing on a chair and Sally is . . . . . ?

#185 Six days in Els Ports

We went to Horta de San Joan in the Parc Natural de Els Ports for six days. Sally went mountain walking with her friends. I went off mountain biking. Tom came for two days and he rode with me one day and we all walked the last day.

Some of the bike routes included Vias Verdes, old railway lines that have been converted to tracks. These Vias, particularly the Via Terra Alta had a number of tunnels, some short, some long with lighting and some unlit, long and black and rather unpleasant (even with a bike lamp).

#184 Sea View

The view from our terraza - I should have put a jug of sangria and a couple of glasses on the table to complete the picture . . . . .

#183 Billie Holiday - Fine and Mellow (1957)

click if your hip (and can spare 9 minutes)

There's an introduction, then a bit of chat from Billie Holiday. You can see a very young Gerry Mulligan in a 'sport' coat jigging to the rhythm - and he hasn't even started playing yet.

First solo from Ben Webster, smooth and cool (and so is his hat). Then 'The Prez' (Lester Young), he's so laid back he's probably playing and meditating in his yoga class at the same time. More solos from the all star group. My favorites are the saxophones of Mulligan, Young and Webster.

Dig.

#182 Sag Dhal

Sag Dhal and/or Spinach & Ginger Soup.

It's fast. It's quick.
It's Popeye's favourite!















Ingredients:
Spinach (fresh or if out of season use frozen)
Onion, finely chopped
Ginger, finely chopped
Fresh coriander ( about 1 part coriander to 4 parts spinach)
Salt.

Method:
Cook spinach for 2 or 3 minutes.
In a separate pan fry onions till soft.
Add ginger and fry for a few minutes more.
Mix everything.
Blend in a food blender with a little of water to make a puree.

Reheat when needed.
Serve as a side dish with curry . . . . . . . .
or make a soup by diluting with more water or milk.

#181 Moors & Christians (junior version)

Its the Moors & Christians Fiesta in Denia. Gangs of chaps (mostly) dress up as Christians in armour or Moors in Arabian robes and act out battles from a thousand years ago.

Before that they parade up and down the high street accompanied by marching drum and brass bands. Imagine, if you can, a slightly out of tune "Puppet on a String" being *bashed-out* with tremendous gusto by five or six separate sets of costumed groups coming down the street. You can't help but grin :-)

On Tuesday they had a pre-parade for kids. Just the same as the seniors, except some of them had to be carried by Dad.

#180 Madeline Peyroux

Sunday we went with some mates to the Xabia Jazz Festival to see Madeline Peyroux . . . . it was ok . . . . . but most of her stuff is slow and bluesy, so after an hour and a half of slow blues I was ready to go. . . . . . maybe she's more suited to a smokey jazz club rather than in an open air athletic stadium.

#179 South France & North Spain

Two weeks in southern France & northern Spain.

Sunday: We drove to Barcelona and went to a jazz concert with Tom and Carrie (who organised nice seats) in the Teatre Grec to see the Chuchu Valdes Quintet with a guest appearance of Chuchu's dad Bebo. ¡Que Bien!

Monday: Left Sally in Barça, I rode to Placa de Catalunya station to take the train to Ripoll. Seeing my bike a railwayman engaged me in conversation. When he discovered we were both ex-Ironmen he spent 20 minute detailing his bike splits in various races around the world - just about made it onto the train. From Ripoll rode on to Ribes de Freser, got another train to Puigcerdá then rode into France and on up over the Col Quillane to Formigueres. Total for the day - 60km.










Tuesday: From Formigueres to Castelnaudary. This was *supposed* to be all downhill but was advised to take a short cut that was on little roads and had much less traffic. It certainly had less traffic (see below) but was v hilly. Many hours later found a hotel in Castelnaudary (dined on Cassoulet famous regional dish of beans and pork), 120km for the day.


















Wednesday: Very long day (8 hours, 150km) from Castelnaudary to stay with friends Brian and Maureen Wilkins who live near Lalbenque in the Lot region of France (was welcomed by their dog). Sally drove up from Barcelona.












Thursday: We all went to a local village for an open air gourmet evening. Excellent food - seen here a half eaten plate of maigret de canard - duck and fried potatoes (cooked in duck fat, delicious!).





















Friday: We drove to Cahors to see start of Tour de France stage 18. Saw lots of skinny brown cyclists posing and men wearing Tour accreditation being important. Then to a village called Bach for luncheon.

















Saturday: We left chez Wilkins and had a weekend in very chi chi hotel to celebrate wedding anniversary (40). Sunday got the bikes out and rode 60km out-and-back beside the river Lot.


















Saw fields of tobacco (no government health warnings) and a delayed train.





























Monday: 9am by car via Cahors, Toulouse, Pau. Over the Pyrenees to Zaragoza, Spain. There we parked in the railway station car park and with minutes to spare, caught a regional train to Logroño. From Logroño a 17km uphill ride arrive at 9pm in Laguardia (Pais Vasco). There we met up with a group of Spanish mountain bikers, led by our old mate Chus, who are following the Rio Ebro from one end to the other.


















Chus (above) runs a bike tour company called Pangea. We went with him on a tour of Spain's Vias Verdes a few years ago and then I did the Ruta de Cid from Burgos to Valencia, 8 days mostly on tracks. This time we are going to ride on the road parallel with the group, meeting up for dinner and hotel each night.

Tuesday: Sally and I rode Laguardia to Alfaro 110km. Mostly quiet roads except for the last 10km on 'N' road which was full with high speed trucks. Had a convivial evening with the mountain bike gang. There are a couple of dozen of them taking 8 days for their trip from top to bottom of the river Ebro.












Chus has two guides; Juan (who is the one rebuilding a wheel on the pavement) and Antonio (who has just stuck his fingers somewhere unpleasant).

Wednesday: Alfaro to Zaragoza. We had no choice but to ride for the first hour to Tudela on the N232 that was more like a motorway in the rush hour but narrow because it was also under construction. Unpleasant. We rode another 65km into a headwind. Then did a sneaky trick and caught a regional train into Zaragoza, so avoiding another bout of motorway madness. 85km days ride.


















Thursday: Our next stage was mostly in the car from Zaragoza to Monasterio de Rueda. We did a bit of riding (40KM) and sightseeing. Monasterio de Rueda is an ancient monastery converted into a luxury hotel - not the sort of digs us cyclists are accustomed to so we made the most of it, lounging and dipping in the pool.































Friday: One last lounge and one last look at the River Ebro and then we drove home.