Lazy Day By The Pool

Weather now back to what we came here for those nice lazy days by the pool, it has been just nice. It's funny though even when you want the lazy day you still keep in touch with what is happening at home. The papers are printed here in Spain and are in the shops just as soon as you get up and you are never to far away with a mobile phone. Business still goes on and at times the mobile can be going constantly, we need an out of office for the phone as well as email, though there is the off button but that is always harder to do.
Talking of technology I was disappointed to see last night that my blog is totally messed up with repeated posts. I tried with 15 minutes on the proper Internet to delete them but to no avail. I am not going to post anymore pictures now until I get home when I can edit them in the story properly.
Have posted my blog address on my Facebook account now so maybe some more people might see my ramblings.
Football tonight so might venture to the local English bar to watch Utd, the resort has a heavy German influence and a lot of the bars on the front are showing the Bayern game and suprisingly not one is advertising the Arsenal game. The hotel as usual in these parts has little or no UK TV, Sky news is all we have even though there are 23 other channels available maybe Technology hasn't quite took a hold yet.

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Market Day

The sun was out today which was a nice suprise as the weather forecast was for more rain. After breakfast there was a Market which was set up outside our hotel, it definately was just for us as this resort of Torrex only has one hotel and lots of timeshares / apartments. Usual stuff on the Market leather and clothes, not much fake stuff except for watches and sunglasses.
Spent the day by the pool otherwise well that's what we came for, and if the sun was out it would be rude not too.
I have been reading Bill Gates book The Road Ahead, I picked it up in a charity shop before we left. It is interesting to read his visions and how true they have become as the publish date on it is 95, as alot has happened in a short space of time since then.
Having trouble with lifecast at the moment I can't seem to post a picture with the words, but it is good to finally come to a hotel that has free wifi albiet only in the lounge downstairs.
I wish I had brought a laptop now, will try and get on the hotel Internet later and do some editing of my blog, I have tried from the phone but it is not easy especially as the home page of Blogger comes up in Spanish. Did you know that Lifecast?

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Malaga

Been having a good time and getting loads of practice in with my camera, trouble with it is that I brought what I thought would be the instruction book with me, but it only contains basic information
Just like the Iphone a complicated gadget has little or no instructions. There is a manual on CD but of course that is of little use to me in Spain.
Today we took the world record for waiting for Paella to cook, well over an hour, it was very nice when it came but god was it slow.
Managed to get in the pool this afternoon sun came out for a bit, could have set another record there for how far balls travel up your body it was cold in the pool.
An observation at dinner showed to me that we are not really liked on holiday, the Germans on the table next to us had far better service and we even got a telling off for taking orange out of the breakfast drinks machine. The manager was coming round doing a little check to see if we are happy and doing the subliminal thought process saying they are very good. Well Pablo and Miguel wont be getting any very goods from me! Nor anything else, this bear has a long memory.

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View From The Room

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Arrived Safe But Ripped Off By The Taxi Driver

After a very early start we finally took off from Exeter, it really annoys me when you get delays and nobody keeps you informed. We left half hour late no word from the captain to explain and a feable apology from a rather grumpy head steward.
She had real grump on throughout the flight telling someone off for going to the loo when seat belt sign was on and ushering us quickly off the plane at the end of the flight even though we had to go back on, as someone very close to me lost one of the passports. She has now been relieved of all passport duties.
Weather did not look too good when we landed but as the afternoon wore on it improved. The taxi from Malaga took three quarter hours and cost 80 euros I have never paid that much for a taxi in my life!
Hotel is really nice and cracking views as you can see in the picture, even got a red sky tonight which hopefully means the sun bed for me tomorrow.


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Malaga Here We Come

Exeter airport at some unearthly hour in the morning ( sat) is the start of our journey . I like the early start though as we will be in Spain for lunch. Hopefully the weather forecast is wrong as what I have seen so far the weather will be nicer here.
Still it's a break and whatever the weather I will enjoy it. Bought a new camera today, looking forward to getting to grips with it and publishing some nice photos on my blog. I have bought it mainly to do web sites, thinking once I have done my dreamweaver course I might start offering a basic service.


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Malaga Here We Come Again

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Antiques Roadshow

The day started off early and the sun and mist was up early providing nice views out of my bedroom window over the river.

Had a visit today to Wells in Somerset and popped into the Antiques Roadshow event that was being held in the Bishops Palace in Wells.

We had a lion (of which we have a pair) that we wanted some information on. We got there at 0930 and joined a large queue of folk with a variety of bags filled with there own treasures. There was the usual opportunists wandering round selling bottles of water (£1), giving out leaflets and getting you to fill in surveys. All a pain normally but stood in a large queue they helped pass the time.

We came to a bit of filming just before we entered the main part of the grounds and was suprised how long it took to film what will probably be a 2 minute peice on the TV. The lady in the photo had a sword and the film crew filmed the expert in a variety of directions always being aware of continuity etc but like I said they must have been doing the peice for half an hour.

That said it took us an hour to get from the end of the queue to the grounds and we were then a little dissapointed to see the queue still snaking further inside the grounds. It was almost two hours before we got to the desk in the picture on the left. At this desk were some experts who looked at your item and then gave you a ticket to go to another queue to see the relevant expert. Fiona Bruce the presenter was working here whilst I was queuing she looks younger in the flesh and a little skinner, unfortunately she had gone off to film some stuff by the time we reached the front.

It wasnt to bad from here on, we had ceramics and the next Queue wasnt too long, we sat down with the expert Eric Knowles he was impressed with our lion but hadnt seen one before, he took it off to another expert who hadnt seen it either, this seems to trigger other people in the background and we then had a researcher arrive who offered to take some extra pics and our lion will be featured in Homes and Antiques magazine in the ask the expert section. We did give the experts an idea of who we thought made the lion and they looked it up and confirmed it in their encyclopedia. It had a nice value and we really enjoyed the experience of the day. We were there for about 2 and half hours and had our 5 mins with an expert, bit like their filming. Hopefully I will get my ugly mutt on TV I was walking past a big old cupboard thing they were filming , but with half and hour of film for a 2 minute peice I wont hold my breath....

Falmouth Tall Ships

The Uruguayan Tall ship and the side of the Russain Ship "Mir"

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Tall Ships At Falmouth

The weather tried to spool our fun and the extras put on accomodation and car parking, but we had a good time. We got there early afternoon just as the heavens opened all the worse since we left the sun yes sun in N. Devon.
It was a bit of a walk through a flooded dockyard to the ships but worth it in the end, there was about 10 ships berthed in the port and I suppose the poor weather was a benefit in the queues to get onboard was minimal.

We went on the Uruguayan which was neat and tidy and then went on the huge Russian called Mir. This is the masts of the ship it was huge and must take some crew to get the sails up.If these ships are in a straight race and are not operating a hanicap system then the Russian is a definate winner. What would have been nice would have been some crew dotted around the ship giving you some information about the ships, the only info I gleaned was that the Uruguayan was bulit in Cadiz in 1930.. The parade of sail is tomorrow before the race starts at 5pm but I wont be there to blog on that as we are off back to Bideford for our Carnival. I will though blog on that on Sunday.
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Tarka Trailing Woes

Sometimes when I sit down to write this blog I think I should have made notes throughout the day. After relaxing I now don't feel as upset about the trials and tribulations of the day. Today the weather,well the rain stayed away and I decided to get back on the Tarka Trail once again. I have the afternoon off on a Thursday, originally it was to attend college where I was studying a Foundation Degree in Computing (that was a long story but basically I quit and I now use the afternooon for a sporting afternoon.)

After yesterday I set up my Iphone GPS and had my itunes going and off I went, I chose once again the Bideford to Barnstaple section. The wind as always was behind me so the first few miles flew by. I sometimes wonder if it would be better going the opposite direction so I have the wind in the face at the start and one time I did take the Bideford to Torrington section. You guessed it the wind was still behind me and the homeward section was just as bad. The route is not as nice on that section neither, I prefer the sea views rather than the river. The trail is a public place but it is part of the cycle network, so when you are walking on it yes you should be aware that a cycle may come past at some stage.... I think there should be notices telling people that, as the amount of time you have to second guess what the pedestrians are going to do is unbeliveable, oldies walking two a side but still covering the whole width of the trail, you politely inform them you are coming and they then become startled rabbits in headlights!!! What a cycle on a cycle trail I didnt expect to see a cyclist...

Another problem on the Trail is dogs besides the usual inconsiderate owners who cant pick up there crap, is them wandering around without leads. Of all the stupid rules in this country, cant say this, cant say that, cant have funny men on my jam, Noddy has to be non gender specific etc etc, why cant we have a sensible rule that dogs must be on a lead in a public place? On the trail not only do you have to worry about oldies doing their startled rabbit impersenation but you have to figure out how fast you have to go to get away from their snappy Jack Russel.

Anyway 2 hours and 26 miles later, I had survived the trail and was extrenely tired as the wind was really strong for the back 13 miles...

Off tomorrow to Falmouth for the weekend the Tall Ships are open to visitors on Friday then they sail on Saturday afternoon which should be something special. I will blog the highlights over the weekend ( might try my lifecast blog again on the iphone)

Im Back been loafing....

After actually getting comments on my blog, I have been feeling really guilty that I havent been keeping my blog up to date. I could make loads of excuses but i havent got a good one so I will just post again and get on with it.

I had trouble doing this blog at this time of the evening as I got my new Home hub from BT (which by the way is excellent), but what it does have is, a standby setting on the hub. I thought that 10pm would be a good idea, its time for bed and no real need for internet....trouble is there is no going back on that once you have reached 10pm and your wireless shuts down. I have had to trawl the instruction manuals and have only been able to come up with the solution "reset to factory settings"

Anyway as I am here posting now the factory reset has done the trick...

I wanted to talk about a really good cheap application on the iPhone, (I don't normally pay for apps as there are so many free ones about but this is brilliant). Its Itrail basically it uses the GPS in your phone and tracks your movement and gives you results at the end. I used it on Sunday on a little walk we did up the Tiverton canal, but tonight was even better. I have been using the Gym quite alot recently but with very little success except for extreme tiredness, so I decided to have a break tonight and go on a bike ride. The neighbours aside I am really lucky in this house as I live so close to the Tarka trail. It is basically part of the national cycle network and as you can see from the google image is that it follows the river and coast here in Bideford (the blue line is my route on the trail).

I didnt use it on my way out but stopped at the 6 mile point (my bike computer told me that) and set the trail up. It has one draw back on the Itrail in that it will not work in the background, luckily Itunes does so started my music and then set up the trail.

I stuck it in the back of my rucksack and wasnt sure if the GPS would pick up the satellites from there but on arrival home here was my route...the GPS measured the route at 5.43 miles but i am happy to except the 6 mile of the cycle computer as I feel Ive done more...

The weather was awful on the way back but it actually felt better than being stuck in the gym and my trusty stead is here in the picture opposite.

Apple have been getting on my nerves just recently aside from the fact that they have produced the best phone ever with some great applications. It seems every week there is going to be a big apple announcement, the technical forums start buzzing with rumours and everybody gets excited. This week there was supposed to be yet more fixes for the phone, but what did we get an up dated Itunes. this must have had 5 updates at least in the last few months, though ranting aside have you used the Genius function? that is quite good and after spending ages reloading the new version it was actually worth it with this update.

Genius looks at your tracks and then selects similar either 25, 50, 75 of them and puts them into a playlist, which is really useful if you want to create a random playlist without all the hassle of going through and selecting individual tracks. It is quite good at getting similar tracks, I put in Oasis and got a good rock orientated playlist which helped my cycle ride this evening.

So well done for that Apple but let us get used to the latest updates before you spring more on us....