Xmas pix 2007

Phinal Photos

Cruizin' on the beachfront in Empuriabrava, Spain!



In Granddad's garden, Chedburgh, Suffolk




Outside "Les Chouettes", Lodeve, France

Blood on the (bull) trax

Maybe this should be the 'last word' on this blog: the pic I snapped of the aged cobblestones in Pamplona moments after the sad fool was gored right there in front of me!
(too transfixed to capture any other drama before this)......

and Now: a toast, to you, for reading this far, with a glass of Romania's(?) finest bull's blood wine!

Sublime, meet ridiculous!

Ah, so far have they fallen in the old country, no?

(and I meanwhile shopping at a Kwik-e-mart for pink doughnuts and Duff beer!)

Getting bullish...!

Okay, I can tell you all are the kind to always turn first to the climatic end of every novel you pick up; don´t want me to try and maintain the dramatic tension in telling this story in order, so to cut to the chase (literally, ha!),

TODAY I DID RUN with the bulls!

It was quite an ordeal but I couldn´t back down after all this build-up, cd I...?!

I mean it started with a nearly 500 mile drive (one-way) as I had miscalculated how close we were! Went so far I crossed hemispheres (from east to west!)...only got seriously lost once...

But, last night, whoa, Pamplona is like a fullblown mardi gras for 7 hard partying days! More marching bands, amusement parks, fireworks, and ALL night drinking and carousing through the narrow quaint cobbled streets & alleys...
I only had a few beers before retiring to car to try and sleep for a couple hours (unsuccessfully as too cramped and cold)...
up again at 5:30, now in quite obligatory white shirt, red scarf (almost EVERYONE in city wearing this, plus white pants and red kerchief belt too), stumble back to ´él encierro´´, find my place crammed like scared sardines in a tiny square, & moments before 8am, the police stop their blockade and we spread out quickly....
I choose my spot not far away right before a big right hand turn (so i know to keep to the right side avoiding the momentum careening bulls to the left) and we hear the cannon blast, and they´re off!
Adrenaline kicks in and it´s hard to even ´reassemble´what came next...but a wave of runners turned the corner and so I knew to start working my own broken knees...
only about 40 yards and the first bulls were upon us...I moved over the side & hugged a wall and then the worst thing possible happened: 1 bull became separated from the rest, stopped, and while a bunch of macho idiots tried taunting him, turned around and around and even came stepping back towards me a few steps...!
Many around me were screaming and running but i stayed glued against the wall -- about 10 yards away, no more (though there WERE many closer than me) and then the bull picked on one fella & GORED him good right there in front of me! AIYYEEEEE!
Though i was too transfixed to take any photos, I DID take a good picture right afterwards of all the blood across a newspaper this lad left...(he was quickly carried off by bystanders, they have expert surgeons very close by for all these cases!)
yikes, and so how was I to know if ALL the bulls had passed or not yet...¿?

they hadn´t...but the rest passed by less excitingly...!

wow, all over just like that -- i heard this was one of the worst days of injuries they have had for quite some time (another victim was still cordoned off down on the ground earlier on the run when i retraced my route)

and hey, you can catch all the drama here:

www.sanfermin.com/tv

(I think -- it´s replayed on our tv here over and over again every morning)

(look for me in black beret trying to melt into one wall as others run away past me!)

so then there was just the 500 mile drive back to the rest of family,,,,
WHEW!

´nuf sed...?!

& España here we come

So I know everyone is dying to hear about some particular dancing with the bulls(--) but this drama will have to wait for chronological order...and my own patience dealing with slow internet cafes...
anyway, after 2 days in france, drove again only a little further south, crossing the border, to >Empuriabrava (izzat even on maps?!), a kinda crazy touristy mecca right next door to the heart of salvador dali land -- and boy ain´t the surrealism out in spades everywhere u glance....!
sweltering hot days plus a bit of heavy rain too --
me pigeon spanish worse than my franglish but we get by with maximum pantomime & the like....
Figueres´ Museu-Teatru of Dali´s a true crazy treat -- the guy was really wigged, but ain´t it great to be a success as mad as possible...
(internet cafe closing, gotta go for now!)

VIVA LA FRANCE!

barely settled before a drive to Newmarket, bus to Stanstead airport and flight (on wee Ryan Air) to Carcassone France, then renting a nice mini-van and tricky drive to remote ´homemade´ villa near little Lodeve -- lent by a friend of Karen´s Mum...
including swimming pool, ah! so nice, and the narrowest road down into town for baguettes and un bon vin...!

GO FO(U)RTH!

Another impromptu parade with Lucy and Duncan ´bandaged´up & the 3 of us on castanet/drums, flute & carrying stars & stripes kite banner to celebrate our Yankee origins...Granddad, ¨Beppe¨& Ana seeming to enjoy this march around the yard (Karen already down visiting best pal in London, 46 & with brand new twins!) -- (dang, wish we had the connection between camera & computer to upload some of these photos now!) -- and that night surprised our hosts with a couple of indoor sparklers, too, while Maurice & I sing ¨Yankee Doodle Dandy¨!

Made it!

Now in the rickety pink mansion of Karen´s dad, Maurice (pronounced ¨Morris¨)and his Friesland Dutch wife, Tsitske -- parts of which were built in 1450s...! and so full of the kind of uneven floors, mismatched stairs, hidden attics, eccentric plumbing and ghosts & all that u might expect!
Might chance across the kind of wardrobe that leads to Narnia...?! (and the major city near here in East Anglia/Suffolk is ¨Bury St. Edmunds¨which is not only where the famed Magna Carta was signed but also kinda sounds like a major alternative plot development in the Narnia tales...?!)
Great hosts, rich food, a pond with refurbished dinghy out front, an amazingly copious garden surrounding, but way too much pouring rain (& even big hail! In JULY!!) so far in between hot sun breaks...ïf u don´t like the weather, wait 5 minutes, but don´t get your hopes up that THAT will last either...!

1 day before flying off to England....

....live from the Mariners game ( & another win for 8 games in a row!)

Duncan chimes in...!

hey Dad check out the site www.miniclip.com they have a game called extreme
pamplona....

[or go here!]:

Extreme Pamplona Play Sure for Men's 'Extreme Pamplona'

Play this free game now!!

Broma espanol: Spanish joke

Well, it seems there was this savvy tourist who traveled to one of the finer Spanish cities, and found himself in a restaurant which catered only to locals. He was about to order his dinner when he saw another customer being served something not on the menu which looked absolutely delectable: 2 good-sized spherical cuts of meat.
He asked the waiter what that could be and was told about the nearby bullfighting ring, and how after every evening’s fight, the most sensitive and delicate portions of the bull are brought in to be cooked…
Excitedly, he returned the next evening and asked for this ‘speciality of the house’ -- but then was so disappointed when they brought out 2 rather paltry and pale globes.

“Excuse me, camarero, but why does this dish look so inferior to that one from last night?”

The waiter tried to answer as diplomatically as possible:

“Ah, but señor, sometimes it’s not the bull that loses the match!”

[gosh, how well my "spanish for gringos" language tapes are paying off!]

One of those 'pix worth a 1000 words' schticks...

Not yet from Europe but from the international parade in exotic SeaTac just prior....

update from "Ingle-land" (Lucy's pronunciation)

We're having a good beginning over here...visiting cousins, Marks and Spencers and taking lots of trains!
The weather so far is nothing to write home about! The children jet lagged and fractious! Nana out with her latest affording us a little freedom tonight!
I'll try and make this more exciting soon!!
Karen

Synchronicities - 1

SO, the last movie watched with kids before they go -- 1 chosen simply cuz previews looked interesting -- was "The Promise", a Chinese supernatural martial arts kind of movie...
BUT near the beginning one character was running reallllly fast...in front of (and faster than) a herd of bulls even!!!!
A sure sign!
Course, naturally, I watched the start of "City Slickers" again recently which (almost parodies?) the Pamplona running of the bulls...?! As well as Michael Palin's travelogue tribute to Hemingway which also starts off with him chased by some {pretty fake} bullhorns....

BUT MEANWHILE....only had to get up about 4:45 am to take rest of family to airport for 8:30 flight via Toronto (5 hr. layover -- groan!)...then errands and work till 9, fun!

* 2 cars now in garage with seemingly major repair work too....

BUT GOSH, it's mighty quiet in this big lonely house suddenly....!

Now, Voyager(s)!

Well, here we almost go....!
What's going to happen is: Karen and kids fly off 6/26 reallly early to England...to their Nana in Sussex, and best pal Jane (with new baby twins!) in London, and Granddad in Suffolk...
and then July 2, I join them...for only 3 days and then we fly to France (Montepelier area) for another couple days, then drive to Figueres region of Spain for a splendid week in the land of Salvdor Dali....!
(and somewhere during this time I should further drive to Pamplona for the once-in-a-lifetime running of the bulls! Call it the 'last hurrah' for these knees!)
then back to England, I return home as early as July 17 though they all don't rejoin me till July 31.....

So, red ink all these dates into your permanent calendars and we'll see how many internet cafes we find overseas to keep up this blogarama!
Good day! Au revoir! y hasta luego!