Well, we are back in Barcelona in the real world, one with the hustle and bustle of people but more importantly one with communications. We have been for a short break with Chris and Gwen in the French Alps on the Pass de la Croix Fry in a log cabin with no computer links, no mobile reception, no television and no radio. But with stunning, stunning views across valleys and mountains.


Whilst we were are up in the mountains the Ruby World Cup is due to start, the Cricket Twenty20 world cup will get underway, England are due to play Israel and Russia and Arsenal will go to White Hart Lane to stuff the Spurs. And that’s not to mention keeping up with Lewis Hamilton in Italy and Belgium. So the first task on arrival at the cabin is to tune the TV to Sky Sports and find out what’s going on.


Well definitely not the TV that’s for sure, there is no signal and sure enough there it is in the small print that the TV is only there for the video machine so instead of watching England and Russia we can probably watch Die Hard 23 or more probably seeing as Christine and Gwen will do the choosing it will be Gone with the Wind.


But never say die all we need to do is pop out to the local village look for the crowd of Brits in Union Jack shorts and T-shirts pop in the bar and watch the games on big screen TV with a pint of lager. Sounds OK, perhaps we would have preferred to sit at the cabin with a glass of the local wine but the pint and the big screen will do.


A tour of the villages of La Clusaz, Thones, Le Grande Bornand and Manigod produce no sign of Union Jack shorts or indeed any Brits of any description and certainly not a bar with a big TV screen. How do these people keep track of England’s progress in Euro 2008 I wonder? How will they know if Lewis wins the F1 driver’s championship. Do they not want to watch Arsenal stuff the Spurs? I suppose, seeing as they are of course all French without a smattering of English between them just maybe, as hard as it is to believe, they don’t care about England.


So for a few days here we need to forget the outside world and enjoy the local community and that is of course not difficult to do. Plenty of wine, nice lunches at local cafes, a few walks and in the pitch black of evening enjoy a lovely dinner on the balcony under the stars spotting lights in the valleys.


All is going well, the area is beautiful, that is until I try to re-arrange the shape of a particular mountain with the front of the hire car which naturally comes off in a worse state than the mountain. Fortunately no one is hurt although I did notice Christine checking our travel insurance policy shortly afterwards probably checking to see if the pay out would cover the cost of the coat she had spotted in Annecy.


The car hire company wants me to report the incident to the local police, so I arrive at the local Gendarmerie to naturally find no one who speaks English but by sign language I get the message to come back at 2.30. I arrive back and get shown into the office of a young Gendarm who says “Hello”.


Excellent someone who can speak English, I say “Hello” and continue talking, after a few words he puts up a hand in the ‘stop’ sign and says “Hello”. I again say “Hello” and start talking again. Once again the ‘stop’ sign and “Hello” is repeated by the young Gendarm. I quickly realise that his knowledge of the English language stops at Hello and as my French is not much better. We have a problem. But all is resolved with the magic of modern technology.


Here I am sitting in a Gendarmerie in a small French village in the Alps typing into Babel Fish Translation site on the internet changing English to French with a French Gendarm on the next computer doing the opposite. We can now understand each other.


“I have damaged a hire car” I say.
“Is any one hurt?” he says

“No” says I
“Was anyone else involved?” he asks

“No” I say
“Why are you here then?” he says

“The hire company says I have to report it” I comment
“We don’t care, go away” comes back the answer. I little abrupt I thought but put it down to the translation program.


In the end he rings the hire company and sorts out my problems. We shake hands, say ‘hello’ again and I am on my way to continue a very good break in the mountains.



We arrive back in Barcelona and start catching up with everything we have missed and find out that The Arsenal did in fact stuff the Spurs and Lewis is still the leading F1 driver. Unfortunately we did not do as well at Twenty20 and certainly not as well in the rugby. But all is well the kids are back at school, Alex and Dave are both busy working, no problems until Dave breaks the news. The Bodega is shut for a holiday. Time to go back to England for a break I think

I haven't fogotten the Blog, there are more postings to come. It's just that I am on holiday from a holiday, if you get my drift.


Chrsitine and I are sitting in a very nice chalet half way up a mountain in the French Alps, just a short walk from Mont Blanc, well it would be short if you didn't have to go over two other high peaks to get there.


We are having a break from our four weeks or so in Barcelona with Alex and the family and have met up with Chris and Gwen from back home for a short break, it's a hard life this being retired.


When we explained to the grandkids that we were going on our holidays Amber immediately says "Your always on holiday, Grandad, you are retired". "Retired!" I say "You obviously haven't read Grandma's Pink Black Book". She just looks at me puzzled and wanders off to her computer, signs on to whatever messenger service it is she uses and her social life is once again in full swing.


But now with the help of modern technology and the fact that I am becoming more conversant with the ways of the internet I have managed to pre-date this to appear whilst I am away. Of course if it doesn't work then this excercise has been a complete waste of time.


If this posting doesn't appear I will do what all good project managers do, simply blame the IT department. It may not be their fault, they may not even know about it but get the blame in first and you are half way to passing the buck. It always worked in the past.

Grief, hectic or what. I thought we were coming out to Barcelona to spend a few quiet weeks with Alex and the family whiling away our time in the sunshine, walking on the beach trying to get fit and swimming in the Mediterranean. But what’s happening, I am busy working.


I have taken instruction from Dave on how to buy domain names and develop websites with a view to becoming a webmaster and naturally making the odd million. Any idea what I am talking out? No, neither have I, but more on this later. First I need to explain the scientific research I have undertaken regarding the effect of the sun’s rays on an exposed body.


I have a belief that the sun’s rays on the beach have a greater burning capacity than the same rays on an exposed body in the back yard. I believe, possible mistakenly that the burning capacity of the sun differs dependent upon your surroundings but the only way to test the theory is to carry out the research. This does quite naturally involve many hours on the beach photographing and measuring the amount of burn on the body. My particular thesis you may be surprised to know is on the female body simply because they have more protruding parts which obviously will be more susceptible to the burn.


Now if only I can find a way to explain what I am doing perhaps they will stop shouting words that probably translate to ‘pervert’ and sending their boyfriends to move me on. The things I do for science!


I will keep you in touch with my findings although the photographs may be too revealing for a family site such as this one.


So, to the websites. Being familiar with how to write and post Blogs I thought it was time to move on and look at how to develop my own websites. Four hours after asking Dave how to do this, he is still taking me through the option and the benefits of the type of name to buy and the method of development. A few sherbets down the bodega, late back for dinner and a couple of bottles of wine later Dave sums up by saying “that’s all there is to it, you’re ready to go”. I actually go to bed to see if I can get rid of the headache.


The next step is to register a web site which means finding one that doesn’t already exist so I am now type words into a registration site to try and find a website. Naturally Christine won’t have just any old site it has to be upmarket and quality. I put in the words ‘Nubuck’ and ‘Cloth’ and find that www.nubuckcloth.com does not exist so I can register it. My only problem is I have no idea what Nubuck Cloth is.


I look it up on the web and of course find that Nubuck is probably the most expensive leather available. So I start to develop the site and make the mistake of asking Christine if she has heard of Nubuck Leather. Heard of it! She gives me a full run down on what it is, how it’s brushed and tells me about the velvet like finish and how you need a Nubuck Cloth to keep it clean.


When I mention I need some pictures for the site she says that if I can wait until we get home I can photograph her coat and shoes. I struggle to take this in, this is the most expensive leather out there and she has a coat and shoes although when I regain my composure I wonder why this surprises me.


Whilst on the subject of leather I came across ‘car leather care’ being available and as this also met Christine’s criteria of quality with class registered www.carleathercare.com to help pay for the upkeep on Christine’s coat and shoes.


Now it appears I am a web master developing my own sites and the first million must be on its way. The future is looking good I could very soon deliver my first scientific study on ‘Is Sunburn Surroundings Based’ and bank a shed load of dosh from my web port folio. Or maybe I’ll settle for simply few more beers down the bodega. Who knows.

Here we are again, sitting on the upstairs balcony at Alex’s house, the private park with the swimming pool is in front and the Mediterranean is a minute’s walk to the left. What more could you want? The sun is full on and it’s very hot, no breeze and only a gin and tonic to keep us cool. What more could you want? Well a BBQ actually but it’s a long story.


It’s Saturday and we decide on a BBQ for our evening meal which takes place out here about nine at night. The late dinner seems to work well, we have a ‘put me on’ about six o-clock and then Dave a I go down the bodega for a few ‘sherbets’, meet up with others doing the same thing and then back home in time for dinner. Well usually late for dinner but that not really our fault It’s hard to get away when you like a cold beer and have no willpower. But today we are having a BBQ so Dave will have to be back early to do the cooking.


There is only one problem, we have a brand new gas BBQ but we haven’t any gas, so off we go to the garage to buy a bottle. Now although Alex’s knowledge of the Spanish language is improving it was proving difficult to understand why the garage would not sell us a bottle of gas but after quite a few minutes she got the problem. The garage would only re-fill bottles, so you needed an empty bottle to take back to get a replacement and as this was our first gas BBQ we had no bottle, so off we go to the camping shop.


They only have small camping gas bottles and don’t sell the big ones for a BBQ but they know where we can buy one. We are now on our way to another garage on the main dual carriage from the airport to Barcelona, for those back in the UK this is like the A1, for those out in the Bahamas it’s a big road without pot holes and with tarmac on the surface.


We get to the garage and pull into a parking place and sure enough there are the bottles of gas, we are in business we can BBQ tonight except that when we go round to the garage door there is a notice ‘Closed for personal reasons’. This is a major garage on a major road and it’s closed for personal, the result is no gas. We try two more garages on the seven mile round trip to the next exit on the dual carriage way before we arrive home wondering if we can cook steaks on Joe’s small portable charcoal BBQ.


The problem is that it is now four o-clock on a Saturday so Dave and I have to be at Alfonso’s bar to watch Arsenal play Manchester City so again Alex is out in the car taking us the three miles or so up the coast to Alfonso’s and all thought of the BBQ is replaced by the excitement of another football league season.


Just by chance as we pull up outside Alfonso’s, a very large lorry is parked in front of us delivering gas bottles to all the local cafes and bars. This lorry must have hundred of these very large bottles all lined up ready for delivery. Having a few minutes before the match starts Dave takes the opportunity to have a word with the driver who seems taken aback when Dave asks him if he knows where we buy a gas bottle.


Although Dave’s Spanish is coming along very well the driver obviously realises he is not Spanish and assumes he has got the question wrong. The driver simply looks at his lorry loaded with hundreds of gas bottles and then looks back at Dave, scratches his head and says “gas bottle?” “Yea, gas bottle” says Dave. The driver looks at his lorry again and then back at Dave and points to his lorry and again says “gas bottles?”


With a stroke of inspiration he assumes we want one delivering and tries to get our address. Dave then asks if we can buy one from him and as best we can decipher his reply was along the lines of “of course you can buy one you English muppets, what do you think I do with this very large lorry full of hundreds of bottles, it’s my job to sell them, at the end of the day I want no bottles and lots of money in my pocket, it’s called business.” With that he put a bottle in Alex’s car boot, a few euros change hands and the BBQ is up and running and fortunately so are Arsenal so it turns out to be a good day.


The steaks are very good, the beers and the wines have been flowing freely and it’s now midnight and we still sitting outside round the dinning table. We are still in t-shirts and shorts and all-in-all it’s been a good day. What more do you want?

.........Nothing.

Well it’s a funny old life. We have taken in two refugees from the recent floods in Hull while their house is restored to its former glory. Actually it’s my sister Margaret and her husband Howie, so they will be in charge of maintaining the cottage gardens while we are away in Barcelona. They have no house at the moment and as we are leaving ours for a few weeks this is a solution that suits everyone.


But as usual there is always a down side. Christine, Margaret and myself go off to Beverley to do the vegetable shopping on the market. Howie gets to stay at home watching ‘Soccer AM’ but because there is now four of us living in the cottage I am required to carry the additional shopping back to the car. We could of course buy all our shopping including the vegetables from Tesco’s and I wouldn’t be needed for carrying purposes but that would go against our principle of buying local produce in an attempt to reduce Tesco’s annual profits. If you think our vegetables can’t make a difference you haven’t been keeping up and are not aware of the quantity of vegetables bought by Christine each week. I am sure Margaret and Howie will be glad when we have gone so that they can stop eating the wallpaper paste and assorted vegetables and get back to normal meals.


But that’s not the down side. Before shopping starts we have a coffee in Nero’s Coffee House in Saturday Market. Now that’s normally an Americano with an apricot croissant which I accept I have to share with Christine, but what happens today is that it’s still Americano coffee but now Christine is insisting that Margaret tries the apricot croissant as well. Now I am sharing the croissant three ways! So now I’ve missed ‘Soccer AM’ and shared my croissant three ways, can things get any worse.


Well it certainly wasn’t improved by our trip to the library. Our normal procedure is to get a lot of books out just before we go away and get the library to extend the return date for the four weeks we will be away. For some reason they can’t extend the date to cover the whole period we are away but it appears that it doesn’t matter as we will not be charged for returning them late. I question why there will be no charge for late return and am told that our category doesn’t get charged. Our Category! What is our Category?


I am just trying to find out from the young girl behind the counter how I have been categorised and what category I have been placed in when Margaret says quite loudly “it’s an age thing”. The girl just smiles and nods. I’m categorised as old.


I make the point that I can still afford to pay for late returns on the books when the girl explains it’s nothing to do with money it’s just that it is assumed that people of my age take longer to read the books and forget to return them. I instantly decide to put the books back on the shelves and cancel my library ticket until I realise that twelve books, even at charity shop prices is at least £15 so I take the books back to the young girl and get checked out. I am sure I can hear her say “Bless” as I walk away.


So I have missed ‘Soccer AM’, shared and apricot croissant three ways and been categorised as old at the library but not to mind tomorrow we will be in Barcelona. Out of the airport about 5.30pm arrive at Alex’s about 6.00pm and be in the Bodega with Dave by 6.30pm. Sounds OK to me.