Barcelona!

such a beautiful city! despite the rain we had a wonderful weekend wandering the streets (yes, i think we covered every street!), soaking up the culture, taking in the architecture, visiting real places of interest and enjoying some delicious local cuisine! our wonderful hosts are extremely familiar with the city and we were treated to an impressive tour, complete with history, places of interests and unusual wee coffee shops and stores we probably never would have found ourselves!we were cooked a fabulous dinner on the Friday evening, complete with delicious cocktails and a Brazilian recipe cake for Chris's birthday!! After a leisurely morning we became familiar with the transport system (genius, you can travel on any bus, train, fenicular, etc and go as far as u like, changing as often as u like for up to 1 hour 15 mins and it only counts as one single!!) our stroll along the beach became a race to get to the cafe at the end due to the monsoon style rain and wind we were out in! after drying off a little we walked to the Sagrada Familia- having seen it 6 year ago i was impressed at how much work had been done on it since then, altho it is still not completed! 

the afternoon was spent wandering the

 streets of the Gothic Quarter, popping into very cute shops and being given an unofficial Shadow of the Wind (one of my favourite books, set in Barcelona!)

tour which had me most enthralled! the evening took us to one of the nicest restaurants i have ever been in, the food was outstanding, very healthy and the atmosphere was just lovely! over there it's considered normal to go out for dinner at like, 9pm earliest, with happy hour in bars from 10pm- midnight!! so we were very happy by midnight, especially visiting the Fairy Forest bar, complete with a actual trees, twinkly lights and a wee pond!!

the following day we wandered down to the Marina, explored the shops, 

tried some Spanish snacks and then caught the fenicular up the mountain to Parc Montjuic where we then took a cable car to the top!! here we had a luvly time at Montjuic castle, dating back to 1640! our weekend was complete with a final wander down Las Ramblas, the main street in the city where there are countless cafes, market stalls, artists and street performers! when we visited Barcelona in 2003 we stayed in a rooftop youth hostel on Las Ramblas which was basically a small rooftop sauna with bunkbeds and a sliding door- most unusual! our journey 

home was uneventful and whilst i was sad to leave the beautiful city behind i am now happily anticipating our return there in the summer! taster weekends are SO the way forward!!

first 5k complete!

i feel knackered, accomplished and rather pleased with myself!

i was excited at being able to run for 43 mins today, was pleased that i'd actually done my first ever 5k run, but will now need to work on bringing the time down and the distance up for the actual 10k, or this race could take me a while!! actually, my initial aim was to actually just complete the race, then i began thinking ok, if i can do it in 1 hour 15 that'll be good, now i might aim for 1 hour 10!!!

however, i feel having started from a level of 0% fitness with week 1 involving having to run 2 mins, walk 2 mins 5 times, being able to run for this long is a bit of a miracle!!

see, miracles happen! :)

new tunes!!!

i am havin such a luvly nite exploring music! thanx to some top tip-offs from musically-inclined mates i have been enjoying the likes of Bon Iver, The Kills, Holly Golightly, and discovered a website 4AD which has a bunch of bands and musicians and includes a free sampler album you can download! there is a nice sounding band called It Hugs Back who's song Work Day is fairly cheery and easy to listen to!

Tickets for the Wee Chill music festival go on sale soon, and Camera Obscura are playing king tuts this month along with Attic Lights which should be a good nite all in! :) they recently filmed the video for their new single in Stereo, and were looking for folk to come and be in it! unfortunately i couldn't round up the troops at short notice so missed a good wee free gig!

and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs new album, It's Blitz,  just came out- i'm excited! i'm holding off til i can get the actual cd in Fopp tomoro, but couldn't resist downloading their single 'Zero' which i LoVe!!

so, there's some links to keep u all entertained!

another step forward!

ok, i'v finally done it and registered for the women's 10k! there's no backing out now as £23 of my well-earned cash has now secured my place at the start line! my training is fairly varied, ranging from 20 mins of feeling horrendous and wanting to crawl, to actually being able to run for 32 mins and feeling pretty good! i'v discovered the worst time for me is straight after work when i'm already tired after a long day! unfortunately that is the best time as it fits in my day! so we're pushing on through!

however, there is a potential *disasterous* clash- my X factor audition has also been registered but here's the bad news- round one is on Sat 9th May and if i just so happen to make it to round two i will have to choose between running the 10k or the possibility of stardom, fame and fortune (really the huge tempter is getting to possibly meet Simon and Cheryl!!!!!).

Dilemma! however, i think we'll just cross that bridge IF and when we come to it!!

10k in the making!

i am just in the door, fresh from my 2nd run of the spring!! when i say fresh i actually mean completely the opposite- hot, sweaty, thirsty and very red in the face!! however, i must admit that now its over for today, it feels good! despite proclaiming to hate running, there does come a point (admittedly near the beginning!!) where i sort of love it!! pounding the streets, thru the park, sun shining, colourful spring flowers cheering me on my way, smiling and saying hello to people i pass by (again, when i say hello i actually mean trying to make a noise that sounds close to hello as i can barely breathe as it is!!)

so, the aim... Womens 10k on May 10th! 

According to their website countdown i have 50 days left to get myself in shape and be able to run 10k in a reasonable time! having put off training for as long as possible the crunch time has come to either commit to doing it or stop kidding myself! so, i figure that if i go public then i'll have to do!

my other purpose in doing this 10k is to raise money and awareness for an extremely worthy cause! OM (Operation Mobilisation) do a lot of work in India to support the Dalit women and after speaking to one of their workers I am going to be raising money to fund a specific project! so, watch this space for more details of how u can get involved too :)

howling bells and spiders!!

last nite saw another much-looked-forward-to gig as the Howling Bells appeared in glasgow! hurrah! i love it when bands u'r totally familiar with come and play live! as mentioned in previous blog, their new album came out last week so after immersing myself fully in it i was totally prepared! we had a nice wee group gathered incl. Rich, Scott and some of the luvlies from work, for a bite at the Arches (where the scary Alien chases are currently happening!!)! the band played at the Classic Grand, a kind of weird venue next to the Academy of Music and Sound where i started my guitar lessons (but the only sign advertising what's in the building is for the pole dancing club on the 2nd floor so i used to feel rather self conscious waiting for them to buzz me in!!!) anyway, it was a nice little venue but the stage is really low so if ur like me and a mere 5'3" then its tricky to see! which lets be honest, is one of the reasons u go- most important to suss out their look  and see if u can replicate the world's most glossy fringe (as featured on the luvly Juanita bell!)

the support band were fairly bland- their music was alright, i just wasn't feeling the vibe!! this may have been partly due to the very sticky wet top i was then wearing after some randomer knocked my drink all over me! sigh! 

however, when the Howling Bells came on the nite became lovely! they mostly played from their new album, of which i am particularly loving 'It Ain't You', 'How Long' and 'Cities Burning Down'! they played a handful of older stuff incl. Broken Bones which karen and i swayed to

 with a bit of attitude! there was a great energy from the stage and i loved how she performed and used her hands all the time! i almost missed the coolest moment of the whole gig when, during their performance of Golden Web (at which i get creeped out cos its about spiders!) Juanita meandered down into the crowd and was standing Right At Us!! major gold stars to Rich for elbowing me hard enough to point this out!! 

so we sang to each other for a moment or two, connecting thru our cool fringes! i believe the lines she gazed at me whilst singing were 'yeah u bit me, and u ran, away, just like a spider', and 'i'v been bitten by a spider, and now there's nowhere to run'!!!!! 

spiders and running are two of the things i loathe most in life, how ironic!! now i have a warm fuzzy feeling when i think of them! :)

so in conclusion, it was a top gig- they were great live and altho their encore song was a bit mince i think we can forgive them as they sounded so good the rest of the nite and had a guitarist who wore a fedora and looked like brad pitt!! smile! :)

i'm a superhero i am!

tonite i popped along to sainsburys garage for an innocent wee shop, only to turn a corner and be affronted by a man shoving a bottle of white wine down his jeans, and hiding it with his coat!!! shocked as i was, i picked up a jar of something useless and marched (subtly of course) to the security guard at the door to report this heinous crime! the 2 of us then crept round the store til i spotted him and could point him out!! 

as key witness i then hovered around the biscuits keeping my beady eye on this crook, only to once again be privy to him stuffing packets of sausages in his coat pocket!!! what is the world coming to!?! i caught the eye of a girl who had seen this too, we both had a shocked giggle and i updated the security guard who by this point had been joined by 2 colleagues, all rather fierce looking and practically blocking the exit!

what happened next u ask...

well, our shoplifting friend then attempts to leave and is stopped by the men in uniform! who challenge him very politely, at first! the stealer denies he has any store produce hidden on him, but this is quickly disproved as everyone can see the sausages sticking out his pocket!! disaster! upon being asked to open his (rather smart leather!) coat he gives up the pretense, pulls out the bottle of wine and a packet of sweets!! and then proceeds to ask for leniency as he is apparently homeless- question: where was he planning to cook the sausages!?!

the security guards let him off with a warning and a ban on returning to the store! What!?!? no punishment!? no being led away in handcuffs, or spending a nite in the cells!? the man staggered away and the security men thanked me for all my hard investigative work, before having a rather boisterous chuckle at " the world's worst shoplifter"!!!

weekly musings

feeling inspired by scott's 'white noise' weekly review/ preview, here is a brief summary of things happening/ have happened!:

My week in reverse:

• today did not have enough minutes in it to complete the outrageous amount of work i have on just now! 

• yesterday evening was spent clearing out everything i hid in my old bedroom cupboard when i moved out!! it was even more difficult than i expected- i am an epic hoarder of meaningless junk and still struggled to part with: my childhood badge and stamp collections (no wonder i was bullied at school!!); approx one million photographs; shoeboxes filled with letters, cards and notes from a rather broad range of people such as my irish penpal from when i was 8, my gran who lives in london, funny notes sent back and forth to friends in school; folders filled with handwritten, colour-coded notes from high school, including repeat notes of Higher biology which i sat twice and gained a D and C for!

• sunday i slept a lot

• fri and sat were spent in edinburgh at the Women Walking With God conference- it was luvly spending time with friends and whilst i slept thru some of the teaching, the seminars were great and Lou Fellingham and band led the music extremely well!

• wed, thurs and fri were jam-packed with work and visiting my grandpa in hospital. he has been in now for 4 weeks and is thankfully starting to show signs of improvement after having a number of strokes and then catching the C Diff infection.

tomoro i am sooo looking forward to the Howling Bells gig!! their new album 'Radio Wars' is great,a bit perkier than 

their previous one, altho there is a song about a spider 

(Golden Web) which i just cant listen to!! it makes me paranoid that there might be one on me, i mean, really, there is no need to remind people that such creepy things exist and sneak around!!

Russell Brand- Scandalous!

last sunday nite we ventured thru to Edinburgh to see Russell Brand's live show at the Playhouse! The place was full, the warm-up act distinctly average and then RB (as i will now refer to him for ease of typing!) walked out on stage and instantly his persona captured the attention of everyone in the theatre!! there really is quite a magical presence about him that draws you to him and holds you there! his show was hilariously, stomach-achingly funny- entitled 'Scandalous' a fair proportion of it was based on his recent escapades featured on the news and in various papers and magazines!! a self-confessed egotist he showed us all clips of himself on the news, delighted that he now had his 'brand new own show' at such prime time viewing!! admittedly i used to really dislike him, but after reading his Booky Wook and watching him some more on tv i have become rather fond of this crazy-haired, tight-jeaned, extremely intellectual comedian!! his use of the english language is quite something, he's clearly very intelligent and uses this to enhance his chat!!

the highlight of the evening (for me anyway!!) was right at the end of the nite when he came down to meet his fans in the foyer!! we hovered around with about a million others, nowhere near the door which he was due to exit! i managed to sneak into the inner foyer at the opposite corner of the room, and i could just see his hair above the crowd! however... he then made his way diagonally across the room, straight toward me, and then jumped up onto a counter-top directly in front of me!!! woooooohooooo!!! i was like, one person away from Russell Brand!!! he then started reaching down and shook my hand!! a girl then handed him a pen and asked him to sign her book, so i grabbed my ticket, yelled ' could u sign this please?!'. To which he looked down at me, said 'sure love', took my ticket and signed it!!!! score!!! so i am now the proud owner of a signed Russell Brand ticket, after having one of the funniest nights of my life!!! :)

snow snow snow!

today there is crazy snow again in glasgow!! i was travelling back thru from st andrews today and as we approached glasgow it was getting thicker and thicker! 

so tonite it was too snowy to resist and we went a wander at around half 10 to the park, which was totally jumping! there were literally hundreds of people, probably all students, out sledging, ski-ing and even snowboarding in kelvingrove park!! it was so pretty and we built a wee snowman with proper twig arms and a face!! he was very cute, i felt bad leaving him alone!! this is a picture of our car park at about 8pm tonite!