Journal Entries
Proudest of Mums
Posted Apr 19, 2006
OK, it's not often I have something to boast about.
My two eldest spent their Easter holidays traipsing along the Camino from Santander to Santiago (well, bits of it) and then some time in Barcelona at an international youth forum (where they met dozens of interesting people of their own age from all countries, but they're always doing that anyway).
The middle one, the youngest of the two, has given up the becoming-a-pilot plans and has enrolled at university to do Spanish - he starts after Easter. In fact, he started yesterday. He wasn't taught Spanish at school, and has taught himself over the past couple of years some with the help of an antediluvian "Teach Yourself Spanish" of mine that I found under some dust on a shelf, loads of Spanish pop music, and odd visits to Spain.
The eldest has been taking French courses at university, alongside getting really good marks in all his physics and other technical stuff that these engineers do. He has got a scholarship to Marseille Polytechnic and will be doing a semester there after this summer.
They each came back from their Spanish jaunt with stories to tell of how good each other's command of their language was - No. 1's French and No. 2's Spanish. They got compliments on their accents - No. 2 was told you wouldn't guess he wasn't Spanish.
I asked him about this and he said "Oh, yes, I managed, but M's French is better than my Spanish". I told him not to be modest, so he added "..and that's saying a lot!".
So proud of my clever boys. (Although my husband also claims some of the glory, and says they're his too. )
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Latest reply: Apr 19, 2006
Another Meet
Posted Apr 19, 2006
Zoomed up to Frankfurt on the Intercity yesterday afternoon and met up with old friends - just imagine: I'd met them ALL before!! Sho, B'Elana, Mazin Mad Fiddler and ReddyFreddy. My husband came along, too - it is school holidays and he's been chopping wood for nearly two weeks non stop, so he needed a break.
We had a jolly good chinwag, went up to the top of the Maintower, which was a bit vertiginous for the likes of Mad Fiddler and me, but we looked at the others' photos when they came down off the observation deck, and had an interesting battery of 
s.
We wandered around the city, looking up at the skyscraper buildings (all the big Banks) which form "Mainhattan" and then got on a tram to go to the Nelkenstrasse. Then we got off again. And, following a tannoy announcement, went up and down some escalators and walked miles to get on another tram.
This finally took us to where we wanted to go - the "Brotfabrik" where we were going to have dinner - an interesting pub/restaurant with good music, the best waitress one could wish for, and had a good meal, a chat, a laugh... the usual.
On the way back to B'Elana's place, Sho, my husband and I had to get out along the way as we were at a hotel directly at the railway station. It's now Wednesday morning, and here I am, back in the office again, while the others are still in Frankfurt, checking out the food and the town.
*waves*
Discuss this Journal entry [29]
Latest reply: Apr 19, 2006
In Seville - next to the apples
Posted Mar 28, 2006
It's about time I got round to writing up my impressions of the meet in Seville, before it all goes fuzzy in my memory.
All my travel plans went perfectly, and I met lots of interesting people on planes and trains, although I was very tired due to having to get up extremely early.
I left on the Thursday evening to stay near the airport at Frankfurt Hahn ready for the early flight on the Friday. The flight to Jerez was at 6.45, but everything went according to schedule and I arrived in Seville, by train from Jerez, on an earlier train than Azahar was expecting me on.
I took a taxi to her house, by which time she was home from her class. She and Noggin took me to the pension which was very near where they live. We arranged to meet for lunch in front of the Cathedral. On the way there, after unpacking and signing in, I joined Lucky Star and Dai (met them by chance, on the stairs) and we walked to the Cathedral together, bumping into Ben and Z and Mother of God on the way there.
From the fountain where we gathered, Az took us to a restaurant on a corner of some of the labyrinthine streets of Santa Cruz. The food was delicious - every meal we had was superb, under the guidance of Azahar and Noggin who knew the best restaurants and bars and what to order once you were there.
In the afternoon we walked through the park and looked at the Spanish Pavillion at the Plaza de Espana, which was decorated with painted tiles depicting historical scenes from each of the larger Spanish towns. The courtyard in front of the semi-circular building has a waterway and lots of lovely bridges in the same blue and white ceramic design.
Teuchter discovered all sorts of interesting things - parakeets, a frog fountain, a peacock and a chicken - in the park.
In the evening, Teuchter, her husband, and I, were going to watch a flamenco show - but it was sold out. We procured tickets for the following night, to make sure of a place, and found a restaurant to have dinner at instead.
On the Saturday morning we all met for breakfast - this time there were ten of us - Azahar and Noggin, Teuchter and Mr Teuchter, Ben and Z, Lucky and Dai, Mother of God and me. We seemed to successfully annoy/confuse the waiter, but the tea was jolly good. Dai, who had still been too ill to eat at lunch time on the Friday, was getting better, and Ben's migraine was ebbing, too, so everyone was on best form.
We sauntered across the Cathedral square and queued up to visit Alcazar, which is a royal palace of enormous proportions with bits from every era of Spanish history. The gardens are restful and the architecture typically ornamental.
We all met again for lunch - this time in a pizzeria, where beautiful young Spanish people served us delicious pizza and wine.
This is where Dai was amusing us by reading snippets from the phrase book in an arbitrary order. The winning phrase "It's next to the apples" was from the section on "asking the way". It didn't fit at all, and Azahar reckoned that it was wrongly translated: Manzana means apple, but when you're talking about landmarks on the street it means a block of houses. How anything can be "next to" a block, I am not sure ...., but the wine and the situation. 
You had to be there.
After lunch and further wandering about, I decided to split off from the rest and try and get in to see the Cathedral. Unfortunately it had closed 15 minutes before I got there. As it was closed for a Service, I decided to go to Mass instead, but was turned away at the door by a horrid gruff old man.
So I headed back to my quarters, feeling rather thirsty, and nearly fell over everyone sitting outside a bar having a drink. I embarrassed everyone by being very English and having tea with milk (No way, José, - not with hot milk. He took it away and brought me cold milk - what a sweetie he was!)
By now I had blisters on my feet from all the walking, and I put my feet up for a while and changed my shoes before going to the flamenco show as arranged.
The show consisted of a dancer, a singer and a guitar player performing in various combinations - usually all three together. It was very impressive, but there was no explanation about what the songs were about, their origin, or what the dances were about.
Afterwards we found the others at one of the bars which had become a favourite (their jamón was out of this world!) and had a round of 
before setting out to find somewhere to get a proper dinner. That round of drinks proved to be our downfall, as we didn't manage to find anywhere to seat the (then) 8 of us before midnight. However, it was worth the wait - the food was, once again, perfect.
We had intended to try the "pringa" at one particular bar, but it was over-full, but the meal we had was delicious - the best being prawns (nice fat ones) wrapped in bacon and served with a sherry sauce. 
It was one o'clock by the time we came out, which was really two o'clock, because the clocks were due to go forward that night.
And Azahar (bless her little cotton socks) had promised to meet me outside my pension at 6.50 the next morning, to accompany me to the bus station to catch my 7.15 bus back to the airport. Apart from anything else, a person crossing that part of town on their own in the dark can easily run into trouble, so I was very grateful to Noggin and Azahar for coming with me.
I got the coach from Seville to Jerez, in Jerez I took a taxi to the airport, and from there on it all went according to plan, my husband picked me up at Hahn when I landed on the Sunday lunchtime.
I can't find the words to express what a wonderful hostess Azahar was and what fun we all had together, how relaxed Seville made me feel and how mind-blowing the food was.
Here are Azahar's pictures. (Mine are on their way to her very soon - I need access to another computer before I can upload them. Don't ask.)
http://public.fotki.com/azahar/seville_mini_meet/?cmd=slideShowFlash
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Latest reply: Mar 28, 2006
Wolfgang Amadeus and me
Posted Mar 14, 2006
We all have to do our bit for the Mozart Anniversary year, I suppose. The project choir that formed in the last years to do Vivaldi's Gloria/Magnificat, Handels Dettingen Te Deum, Orff's Carmina Burana, Haydn's Creation and various other works for the town's summer festival is doing Mozart's Requiem this year.
So I'm regularly going along to the rehearsals. My son is supporting the tenors, as he's throwing himself into everything musical he can get his hands on at the moment.
My problem is: I won't be here the night of the concert. So I'm just going along for the fun of rehearsing it. Daft or what?
Last time I sung the Requiem was in 1981. I was 7 months pregnant with my first son and we also sang Honegger's "Dance of the Dead". I got some odd comments to the tune of singing about the Dead being rather unfitting for someone in my condition. So what.
Oddly, I still remember best the "Dies Irae" whereas my friend who has sung it before, but sung the soprano part, particularly remembers "Lacrymosa" - which is much nicer for the sopranos, but the altos don't have much fun in that one, so I'd all but forgotten it!
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Latest reply: Mar 14, 2006
Never again will I book online
Posted Mar 4, 2006
I've got to fly over and visit my parents next weekend. I got a cheap Ryanair flight a good while ago for this and while I was online I thought I'd book the train connection as it was so convenient last time.
When I was going in to London in January for the meet, I had booked a train into Liverpool street in advance and could pick this up in seconds at the fast ticket machine in the airport station. Hardly had to stop.
But, my parents live in the other direction - I need to get the train from Stansted Northwards to Cambridge, not Southwards to London. I should have stopped the transaction once I had discovered that these tickets can't be issued from the machine.* They gave you the option of sending them off first class post, and, as there was plenty of time, I thought that should work out OK.
I typed in my address, using a pull-down menu which allowed you to enter the name of the country you live in. But when I went on to have the address processed, it wouldn't accept it. I tried again a few times.
Then I discovered a clause in the FAQ "What if I live abroad?".
What was the answer? - "Well, we don't send tickets abroad." (
WTF was that pull-down menu for? ) "If you live abroad, you have to give us an address in the UK and we will send them there and you have to ask the people to send them on to you."
So I did thisgiving my parents' address. My mother said she'd slip them straight in an envelope and post them on the minute they arrive.
All week (since my father's been ill I've been phoning home every night) they've been telling me the tickets "still haven't arrived."
So this morning I dialled the 0800 number given to find out if they've been dispatched yet, and if not, to cancel the whole thing, because I'll never get them before I leave now.
What did the chappie at the 0800 number do? Gave me another 0800 number. There they gave me another one. And so on. Until I was getting the same number again. I have a list in front of me with four of these numbers, some of which I have tried more than once. I have spent a fortune on calls abroad and wasted half the morning.
I finally got through to someone who gave me a little hope. Apparently my tickets were dispatched on 2 March at 10.23. Or on 1 March at 17.27. I don't think even he was sure he knew what he was talking about. My parents live in the sticks - I don't know if there's a way they can post things on before Monday if they arrive with the Saturday post (their post comes at about 12.30). And even then they would have to arrive here by Thursday as I leave here at 6 am on Friday.
I'm going to buy my ticket to the airport at this end in the STATION and talk to a REAL PERSON. And walk away with the TICKET in my HAND. Just to be sure. YES I AM.
DEFINITELY.
Although, while I'm online, perhaps I'll just see if I can't book them now... after all, our local station isn't manned on a Saturday morning either, and I don't know when I will be able to get out during the week to book.....
*I had choices like Lancaster or Edinburgh for stations where I *COULD* have picked them up.
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Latest reply: Mar 4, 2006
You can call me TC
Researcher U154942
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