End of the year

"Dear diary, sorry I haven't kept you up to date!!!  Don't know what happened or if I can remember what I would have put into the diary if I had kept it up... "

Some memorable recollections of the last quarter of 2010

We got a Vespa!  LX125 with open face helmets (one each for Ben and I).  Ben took his CBT and I did a refresher course before picking the scooter up and driving it home from Streatham (took me a good three hours - I got lost loads of times, travelled quite slowly and stopped frequently - definitely needed to build my confidence).  Ben uses the Vespa to travel to and from tennis and rowing and I use it for taking Beccy to home matches.  She is very confident on the back of the scooter and is quite happy that the journey takes longer (well at least it is quicker than the bus).

Alexander was very keen to wear a crash helmet so we managed to balance on on his shoulders (too much weight for his small head)!

Ben rowed in a couple of races.  His crew are quite fast and are progressing well.  He rowed in Maidstone and in Royal Albert Dock.   He got a lift to Docklands and I travelled up by train to watch and to meet him. We had lunch at Canteen in Canary Wharf and then travelled to Sydenham where Ben had a tennis match. A lot to do in a day!

Beccy broke her nose in a football match in early November and hasn't played since (no matches rather than she didn't want to play).  Her nose looked awful for a while and she has had a major nosebleed since but, hopefully, it is healing.  It isn't deformed at all.  The accident knocked her brace into her lip (which at the time looked worse than the nose) but, luckily, didn't break it.

After my car had broken down, fatally, and we had decided to make do with one car and a scooter, Brian's car did the same and was irreparable.  For five weeks we had just a scooter for transport.  This posed some difficulties but had the effect of slowing all of us down.  We all became more relaxed, more organised and less rushed.  It was a bit of a shame to end it by getting another car but we do need at least one to live comfortably.  At the end of November we found a Renault Scenic which suits us fine.  I think we have all learned something as the mileage isn't rising as fast as it did before.  Many things happen for a reason and I think this one happened to teach us that living life at 100mph reduces quality.  So far we are still walking, catching the bus and using the scooter, although it is nice to have the car when it is really cold!

Beccy and I joined the Maidstone Show Choir.  After around six weeks of practicing we took part in a Christmas show at the church in Maidstone.  The show went well (we will buy the DVD of it next week) except for a malfunction in the sound system which resulted in the melody singers getting ahead of the harmony singers during "True Colours" which was a real shame as it was our best song.

I stepped up the volunteering in the last few months.  I have managed one Shoresearch (with Ben).  I am helping to update a website for a museum project, uploading stories submitted by visitors.  I worked as a steward on the Climate Change Rally at the beginning of December and I volunteered for Crisis at Christmas, working two night shifts in a shelter for homeless single people with drug or alcohol dependency.  All volunteering is rewarding but the Crisis at Christmas was highly memorable as well.  The whole operation is so important for all the people who need it and the volunteer community were brilliant.  I am definitely going back next year.  Ben has been bag packing to raise money for a trip to South Africa to carry out a project in a school, the trip will happen next year, he also took his emergency first aid certificate on his way to getting Level 2 coaching assistant qualifications. Beccy joined the cadets where she will do some army training and, hopefully, take her D of E awards.

Alexander has stayed overnight twice now while Dan and Helen have gone out.  He slept really well and seemed to enjoy himself.  He had his second birthday (we got him a train set) and is starting to use more and more words.  He can say 'Grandma' (or 'Mam-mar') quite well and knows what all of us are called.

 

Midge has grown into a young cat, no longer a kitten but with mounds of energy.  Our first task in the new year is to get her vaccinations and to get her speyed so that she can start to go out.  She has a collar with her name and our telephone number on it and will be introduced gradually to the great outdoors.

Smudge now stays in all the time.  She is nearly 18 years old and is quite frail, the snowy conditions that we have had for the last month or so are far too cold for her and so she has become a house cat.

We have celebrated the end of the year now and I think I have fulfilled my resolutions from last year (I have definitely got more involved in trying to make a difference).  For this year I want to continue to increase the amount of voluntary and campaigning work I do and want to start to make an exit strategy (I hope I have ages to do this but as it is impossible to know, it might as well be done now).

September

The end of August and the start of September went really quickly.  We had a birthday celebration (mine, Dan's and Joe's) at the Robin Hood pub on Bluebell Hill where we had a Sunday roast.  Afterwards we went to Wouldham recreation ground to play rounders but about 5 minutes after we all got out of the cars it started to rain really hard and we had to retreat to the cars, then back to Natalie's to play tennis indoors on the Wii!  Regardless of the lack of rounders, it was one of the few times that Alexander, Amelie and Hiren were able to spend some time with each other and this made up for the rain.

On the August bank holiday Monday Ben took and passed his CBT course ready for when we manage to get a scooter.  Hopefully, this won't be long.  We looked at one on the way to Dan and Helen's on Dan's birthday but it wasn't what Ben was looking for (wrong colour)!  No scooter yet but we had a lovely meal at Dan's.

Back to school and work, clubs started up again and life became as busy as ever.  I will carry on getting the bus to work, as last year, but this time we don't have a second car as a back up.  This means that we are having to get the bus to things like football training, tennis and rowing, which takes up more time but, as long as we plan ahead, isn't an inconvenience and is surprisingly cheap.  Ben and Beccy still need to learn a bit more about planning ahead so that there isn't such a rush for the bus or the real possibility of missing it!

Midge, Beccy's kitten, is growing and is very active.  She likes to pounce on Poppy's tail and even sometimes to jump on her back.  Poppy and Smudge are gradually accepting her and she seems quite happy.  She needs to stay in until she is at least six months old, when she will have been vaccinated and maybe microchipped and speyed.

On Saturday 11th September we ran the Bedgebury Forest run (as we did last year).  Dan, Ben and Natalie ran 10k and the rest of us (me, Beccy, Helen, Sue, Mum, Josh and Izzy) ran 2k.  There were hiccups for all of us.  In the 10k race, the leader took a wrong turn and ran in the wrong direction down a hill before realising and turning back.  Of course, the rest of the runners, including Dan, Ben and Nat, followed him and all ran between half and one kilometre extra.  There were a few very cross runnners!  Ben came in around 6th in around 48 minutes despite the extra.  Dan did a very respectable 53 minutes but neither knows how long the actual 10k took them.  The rest of us lined up at the start with what we thought were the fun runners (there weren't very many).  The starter gun went off and we started running.  As we got to the first junction we realised that we were on the 10k route and we had started with the 10k runners.  Mum, Helen, Sue and I turned round and headed back to the start, we couldn't stop laughing especially when we realised not only that nobody else had done the same but also that Beccy, Josh and Izzy hadn't realised the mistake and were still running!  Fortunately for them there are very few occasions on which Beccy doesn't answer her phone, even in the middle of a run, and I was able to tell her to collect Josh and Izzy and come back.  The 2k had started by the time they got back and it took Beccy at least a kilometre to catch us up!  We eventually all made it to the finish line where we met Brian and Alexander.  As it was Natalie's birthday and she was the last to run in, we sang Happy Birthday to her as she ran to the finish line.  She had her earphones in and didn't hear any of it so wasn't too embarrassed!

That afternoon we went to Beccy's football presentation where we played rounders, then had fish and chips.  Beccy won the parents' player of the year award and we presented Steve, her manager with some goodies from the parents to show our appreciation for the amount of time he puts into the team.

August - second half

On the 14th we drove Beccy and Antoine to Biarritz to meet up with Jean-Francois who had flown there from Paris at the end of his shift and had hired a car to take them back to Salon-de-Provence.  We had a quick coffee with him before he drove the children off.

Then Brian and I had a quick walk around the Biarritz coastline and town, finding a giant paella (the only one we have seen so far) and followed by a drive to San Sebastian back in Spain.

In San Sebastian we found a small restaurant where we ordered from the menu del dia.  We had a really nice meal and the price included a whole bottle of wine.  The town of San Sebastian is beautiful and we were happy just to walk around having a look.

At the waterfront we visited a naval history museum which depicted the involvement of various basques in the conquests associated with Spain in Central and South America, the Philipines and the far east.  We also found an interesting collection of artwork made from rubbish collected from the sea.  The exhibition was attached to the aquarium but was separate and free to get in.

 

We bought some really expensive chocolate in a small patisserie and then found ourselves in the middle of the fiesta.  There were really large figures dressed in traditional basque costumes.  Some had balloons on sticks which they were using to hit people.  At exactly 7pm a cannon was fired (extremely loudly and surprisingly startling as we had watched it being made ready).  Then there were rounds of gun fire, equally startling and loud.  We very much made the most of being able to walk around at our own pace.

On the way back we decided to drive along the coast road rather than the motorway.  The roads were really winding and I spent most of the journey feeling quite sick.  During the day,  Brian had been sorting out repairs to our immersion heating system as the family in our house had spent at least two or three days without hot water due to the immersion controller giving up.  On our way back from San Sebastian we needed to stop so that Brian could phone home to check that everything was fixed and OK.  We stopped in Ondarroa.  We parked by the river and walked into town where we found another fiesta.  There were children marching, throwing sweets and banging drums.  There was music and people everywhere wearing neck scarves.

We found a marquee which was being run by a basque freedom organisation.  We bought a ticket for a plate of barbecued sardines and two drinks, then we found seats at a long table where many people were already eating.  The sardines were delicious and it was nice to be sat at a communal table.  The town was worth a look.  It looked like buildings had been built on top of each other and they went up and up.  The reality was more that the town was built on a hill. We saw an interesting climbing wall, attached to a bridge.  It looked like the climbers could either climb or drop into the river!

The drive back after this visit was less winding and we got back tired and ready for bed.

On Sunday we needed to get to the airport to meet Ben and Jeni who were arriving at 5.45pm.  We decided to have lunch and then drive to Santander so that we could have a look around before going to the airport.  We arrived at around 2pm but didn't really find much worth looking at.  The sea front was interesting enough to walk along and there was a park on the front where we found a stray cat which was stalking birds but this was the most interesting part of the walk.  We headed for the airport arriving in time to see the plane land and the passengers and bags leave.  When Ben and Jeni came through we drove to Santoni and had a walk along the beach before we went back to the apartment for dinner and an ice cream from El Chef Garosse.

On the 16th, my birthday, we had a slow start and eventually arrived at Plentzia by 1pm after I had opened presents from Ben (a book called Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese,which I subsequently couldn't put down) and from Jeni (a hand-made lavender scented heart to hang in the wardrobe).  There were emails from Beccy and, later, Dan, Helen and Alexander.  We relaxed on the beach, read books, swam in the sea and Ben and Jeni went for a walk and explored rock pools.

We went back briefly to the apartment to clean up, get changed, have a cup of tea and get ready to go out again.  This time we went on the metro to Bilbao.  Our first stop was the Biscay Bridge, which Ben and Jeni walked and Brian and I crossed in the gondola.  Next, we visited a fiesta in Portugalete, bought some nuts and sweets, looked at the craft stalls and had a drink.

We took the metro again to Casco Viejo where we had a quick walk around while looking for a restaurant.  We eventually found a restaurant which served menu de noche.  We had mushroom and scrambled egg with red pepper sauce and carpaccio of beef with greek salad.  The we had roasted red peppers with crab and prawns, duck with orange sauce and sea bass with young eels.  This was followed by chocolate and orange cakes and was accompanied by rose wine, water and bread.  It was a really enjoyable meal.

The next plan was to see the Guggenheim Museum from the outside at night and then get the metro home.  We learned this evening that on weekdays when there isn't a festival in the main part of Bilbao, the metro stops before 11pm.  We tried to get a train after midnight and found the stations closed.  We weren't sure how to get home so looked at the bus as a possibility (this had stopped for the night as well) then managed (after walking quite a long way from the centre of town on the road towards Urduliz) to hail a taxi, ask for where we wanted to go and get a reasonable price.  It seems that people here don't get up very early, stop for a good long lunch and then have quite an active time during the early part of the evening.  Everything then stops and closes up by 11pm.  Short days!

On Tuesday we hired sea kayaks for two hours from 10am to 12 noon and we paddled up the river from Plentzia.  We paddled against the tide for the first part then back with the tide.  On the way we saw some egrets and many fish.  On the way back, Brian and I were quite a way behind Ben and Jeni (they didn't paddle up as far as we did).  We heard a screeching noise which sounded like a pterodactyl, then saw a bird not dissimilar to a pteradactyl at a glimpse.  We paddled closer to get a better look and saw it take to the air again, screeching and being chased by a bird of prey.

Once we had returned the kayaks we were quite wet and needed to change so we drove back to the apartment and cleaned up.   After lunch and a long rest we drove back to Plentzia and walked up on the cliffs with great views over the sea.

There were many fishing boats offshore and boats returning to the marina.  It was a long walk and resulted in us returning after the supermarkets had shut.  We used up the eggs and other ingredients in the fridge to make a Spanish omelette.  After so much walking and some food, we couldn't do anything but fall asleep and so all went to bed.

 

Wednesday was another sunny day.  Brian and I went out to find stuff to repair things we had damaged (a bottle shelf in the fridge was quite cracked when we got there but Brian managed to completely destroy it when he tried to force a bottle in in - we tried to order a new shelf but couldn't get it delivered to our house before the Spanish family left or to the apartment before we left, so we decided to repair it with tape.  On the same day he managed to rip a curtain hook out of the curtain in our bedroom and I had to sew it back in, but the most major accident was when we scraped the car on a pillar in the garage - we found a local garage that repaired paintwork and organised for a partial respray so that the part we damaged was as good as new).  One of the things about home exchange that I really like is the need to deal with everyday things such as this, especially when you need to get your head around another language in order to do this.   I managed to ask for the right sort of tape in a hardware store, and we sorted out what we wanted for the car, how much it would be and when it would be done, mostly in Spanish.

Later in the day we had our final trip to the beach, to Bakio.  Ben and Jeni used the bodyboards (and both got rashes just the same as Beccy and Antoine).  Brian swam and snorkelled using the snorkel and mask we had bought earlier for Ben at Forum Sport.  I just sunbathed and read my book.  Another late evening back, we visited the supermarket on the way home and bought some pizzas for dinner.  After a visit to the car wash to do a jet wash (Brian and I managed just about to get through the program twice and soak ourselves in the meantime),we had an enormous dinner, followed by a game of Rummikub.

On Thursday we took the car to the garage and then got the metro to Moyua station in Bilbao and walked to the Guggenheim.  We had booked our tickets online and so just had to collect our audioguides and check the bag with the lunch into the baggage store (it was deemed to big to be allowed into the galleries).  We saw the Richard Serra exhibition, stunning large sculptures of steel that you could walk through.  Most were spirals which encouraged you to walk to the middle which was invariable elliptical in shape.  Others were waves but all were amazing to walk through as the structures would lean over you or away from you to affect your sense of balance and space.  We saw the Anish Kapoor exhibition, largely the same as the one we saw in London but with some different exhibits and a changed exhibit (the wax moulding was circular at the Guggenheim whereas it had been linear and stretched through three galleries at the Royal Academy).  There was also an exhibition of Henri Rousseau's work and the work of Robert Rauschenberg, neither of which impressed us.

From the Guggenheim we took the tram to San Mames metro station.  We, disgracefully, managed to ride the tram without paying as we weren't sure what to do and didn't work it out until we had reached our stop.  Our consciences were eased by the fact that we should have used our Creditrans tickets but, as we didn't, we would leave the Bilbao area with credit left (probably just about matching the tram fare) so, inadvertently, we had actually paid it.

From San Mames we travelled on the metro to Neguri from where we walked to Artea, the shopping mall, where the bowling alley was.  We had four vouchers for a free game from the last visit and so we paid for the shoe hire and had one game and a couple of rounds of drinks.  I managed to win the bowling, a feat that I haven't managed for a long time, beating Brian by 3 points!  A long walk back to the metro allowed us to travel back for the last time and to walk right past the swimming pool that we hadn't been able to find the week before!

We arrived back in time to have a quick rest before Brian and I went to collect the car.  We had been offered a courtesy car but, as we already knew we would be travelling on the metro, it didn't seem worth it.  The garage had done a good job (we cleaned the car before taking it in so that we wouldn't need to clean the new paintwork) and the car looked really good.

When we got back to the apartment we convinced Ben to look up his AS results online.  He could only find out three of the four results, his Biology was with a different board and he didn't have a pin for that one.  He got B in PE and in Physics and D in History.  He was surprised that he didn't get an A in PE as some of his marks seemed to have been changed (the school decided to make an inquiry as others were affected by this as well).  He was also very disappointed with his History grade as he had been predicted an A.  It may be that the school had misunderstood the criteria or that he just performed really badly on the day of the exam.  He hadn't thought that the exam went badly so either he misinterpreted the questions or his style wasn't what was needed. When we got home, his other result had been posted and he had a B in Biology as well (just as predicted).  His grades were certainly good enough to continue to A2 and he is starting to realise that much more hard work is required to get the higher grades.

Our final day in Urduliz was, as usual for home exchanges a cleaning up day.  It was quite an easy job as we had cleaned up as we went along and the apartment was very easy to clean.  We tried to eat up all the food we had left and made up some lunch to take with us to the airport.

At around 1pm we left Urduliz for the last time and drove towards Santander.  Carolina's mum had rung us to invite us for coffee and so we planned a stop at Liendo where she lives with her husband Jose-Luis.  We got there a bit early so drove to the hills overlooking San Julian beach and ate our sandwiches.  We tried to ring a couple of times but just got the answerphone so we drove back to the petrol station where we had agreed to meet and they turned up just after we got there.  Carol and Jose-Luis took us to a local bar, showing us some of their village on the way.  We had coffee and they had wine and Carolina's sister called in with her husband, so we met them as well.  Brian asked if there was a liqueur he could try that was specific to that region.  Jose-Luis bought him a glass and also a whole bottle.  I tried to give him the money for it but he wouldn't take it.  Brian had also mentioned that he was really keen on cider and so they next took us to a Sidraria where we were served with two jugs of very nice tasting cider and some breaded olives.  We learned that you discard the stones, serviettes and any other rubbish on the floor.  This is traditional in Spanish bars.  We wished we had know this before as, in Bilbao, we had chosen not to eat in one particular bar because of the mess on the floor (it could have been the best bar in the town - it was certainly very crowded).  They then wanted to show us their home but we were already very late for the airport and had to leave.  They were very friendly and it was nice to meet some local people while we were in that area.

We arrived at the airport just before they closed the check in and only queued for a short while at the gate before boarding.  The flight back was OK until we got to Stansted when the pilot announced that the runway was blocked and that we may have to land at Luton instead!  We circled around one more time and then were told that the runway had been cleared and we could land at Stansted, still on time.  It wasn't just us who had problems getting into Stansted.  Jeni's dad was stuck in heavy traffic at Dartford Tunnel and then again at the exit from the M11 to the airport, where there had been an accident.

He eventually arrived to pick up Jeni and Ben and was shortly followed by Dan and Alexander who had come to pick Brian and me up.

We had a nice dinner of stuff marrow and potatoes followed by home made pecan tart and some proper tea to drink.  Dan and Helen gave me my birthday presents, a book "The Time Traveller's Wife", which coincidentally Ben had considered and, luckily, not chosen, and some home made chocolate cookies.  Dan had made me a nice card as well.  I read a story to Alexander before he went to bed, the one I had given him when he was born, "Grandma calls me beautiful".

We slept on their sofa bed and in the morning we had home made crumpets and went for a walk to a local nature reserve where we got covered with fluffy seeds from rose bay will herb plants that were abundant.  Alexander chatted away while we walked.

Brian and I got the train from Stansted Mountfitchet to the airport and met up with Carolina, Kepa, Jon, Itxaso and Gaitxo to swap keys and discuss how we had got on.  We told them about the car and the fridge shelf so that they weren't surprised when they got home.  Apparently a previous exchange family had scratched the car before and hadn't got it repaired and so we were really glad that we had made the effort (especially as it had done wonders for my confidence in using Spanish).

We found the car, paid £8 for just over an hour in the car park and drove home to find a nice clean tidy house and to unpack our things.  We picked Ben up from the tennis club on the way home after he had done his coaching and squad and had played a match.  After picking his things up from Mum's and getting him to give her a box of chocolates to say 'thank you' for letting him stay at her house, feeding him and sometimes driving him to tennis, he went out for dinner with Jeni and here family to celebrate Jeni's A level results.

Brian and I had salmon fishcakes and curried vegetables in which the main ingredient was courgette (or marrow of about two feet in length) that we had picked from the garden.  The family had obviously picked some but had left a lot behind.  We had our first night's sleep back in our own bed which, I think was no more or less comfortable than the memory foam mattress we were sleeping on in Urduliz (at least we know that the cost of the memory foam may not be worth it for us).

23rd August, we went to Gatwick to meet Beccy as she returned from her stay in Salon.  Her plane was delayed by an hour and a half but she, apparently, found enough to do to occupy herself as she waited.  She eventually emerged from arrivals at around 1am.  This was the end of our holiday journey, which started when we waved Ben off at the scout hut for the Norjam camp on 31st July, continued when we picked Antoine up from Gatwick on the 5th August, then when we met the Spanish family and stayed at Dan and Helen's on the 7th August, flew to Santander on 8th August, drove Beccy and Antoine to Biarritz on 14th August, met Ben and Jeni at Santander on 15th August, flew back to Stansted on 20th August and stayed with Dan and Helen, met the Spanish family again and drove home on 21st August, then met Beccy on 23rd August.  A total of 24 days!  It's as complicated to write about as it was to organise but everything went really well and we had a really relaxing and interesting time.

26th August, we picked up Midge, a 7 week old kitten.  Her owners said she was born on July 3rd but she was very small.   However, she was eating plenty of solid food, using the litter tray and wasn't fretting for her mother.  She is Beccy's cat and she will need to take full responsibility for her care.  It could take the other two cats a while to accept her and they will need to be kept separate.

August

The first week was spent preparing the house for our home exchange.  Beccy spent some time with friends and on Thursday 5th we travelled on the train to Gatwick to meet Antoine.  On the was back we stopped for lunch at Cafe Rouge near London Bridge Station.

On Saturday Beccy had a friendly football match at Aylesford, where they were opening the new club pavillion.  She, Antoine and I caught the bus to Aylesford and, luckily, the match finished just in time for the 12.23 bus back (otherwise we would have had to wait until 1.53pm - Aylesford has an infrequent bus service).  Her team won the match 11-0 but it was a reasonably good practice game before the start of the new season.

Earlier in the day Brian had driven to Norfolk to pick up Ben and other scouts at the end of Norjam.  Ben arrived home tired and with plenty of stuff to unpack.  As we were travelling that day, Mum had agreed to let him leave his stuff at her house, I took him round and he agreed to go with her to look after Natalie's dogs for the night (he hadn't organised anywhere to stay for the night).  I didn't like only seeing him for a short time and then leaving him there but it was what we had planned.

We finished cleaning the house and left at 5.30pm for Dan and Helen's.  Brian had sorted out the car (service, tyres, etc).   After a cup of tea and a play with Alexander, Brian and I drove to Stansted Airport to meet the Spanish family who we have exchanged with, Carolina, Kepa, Jon, Itxaso and Gaitko.   They took the car and left for Rochester.  We phoned for Helen to come and pick us up to take us back to their house where we stayed overnight.

In the morning we went over to the park to let Alexander have a play on the swings, slides, and other equipment then, after lunch, Dan drove us Brian, Beccy, Antoine and me back to the airport where we caught our flight to Santander (after standing in the wrong queue and nearly missing the check in time).  We found their car at the airport and drove to the apartment in Urduliz.  We found the apartment OK but struggled to find the parking space in the garage (it was in the house instructions but we didn't manage to digest them properly).  Our exchange family didn't fare quite so well and the car wouldn't start after they had stopped for a meal in Rochester.  They phoned us and we started thinking about how to sort it out so that it didn't happen again.

Carolina had left us some pizzas and wine in the fridge, which was just as well as there were no shops open when we arrived.  We went for a quick walk around the village and found a shop that sold ice creams, cakes and bread.  With what we found in the fridge and what we bought we had a nice meal and didn't go to bed hungry.  After dinner we had a game of cluedo and went to bed. The apartment was right next to the Metro station and the trains were very regular but they weren't too intrusive.

On our first morning we drove to Plentzia to have a look around.  After a long walk around the town and an ice cream, Beccy and Antoine decided that they wanted to swim in the bay so we sat on the beach while they swam.  The sand, where the sea was washing over it, had many bubbles erupting on the surface.  These were persistent but it wasn't obvious what the gas was.

We managed to find a small supermarket in Sopelana and bought dinner and some supplies.  After dinner we went out for a walk around Urduliz.  Beccy and Antoine had found some skateboards and wanted to try them out.  They didn't find a skateboard park but managed to board on a few slopes before we headed back (it was late and they were making quite a lot of noise with the boards). The area was full of apartments (where people live, not holiday apartments).  Most people had windows open as the weather was warm, so the boards were disturbing them.

  

On Tuesday we drove to a few beaches to see what they were like.  We didn't find any that looked any more interesting than the one we found at Plentzia.  We walked towards the first beach from the top of the cliffs but got to a point where the path ran out.  Coincidentally, this was the first point from which you could clearly see that this was a nudist beach.  We didn't really want to go any further and the path seemed to indicate that others didn't either.


We found another cliff top where we sat and had lunch while watching a P&O ferry sail out, presumably from Bilbao.  After this we drove to Plentzia, found the car park for which we had a pass, and headed for the beach.  Beccy and Antoine took body boards into the sea and used them to swim out to the buoys they hadn't reached yesterday because the water was too cold (the water on the top was warmer than the tidal water coming in from the Atlantic).  I had a quick swim and found the same cold water, Brian paddled to clean off his flip-flops and then we left the beach and headed for the skate park (next to the beach and on top of the car park).   Antoine had a nasty fall and hurt both his elbows, luckily he didn't break any bones and he recovered quite quickly.

  

We returned to the apartment and had a short rest before going out for a walk to try to get to a cross we could see on a nearby hill.   The views from the hill were worth seeing and there were plenty of paths to walk and rocks to climb.  Many people were climbing the rocks, it looked like a climbing school.

We reached the top and managed to get just about to the cross.  On the way down we found a spot where there were butterflies flitting around.  By standing in the sunlight and staying very still you could get them to land on you.   Beccy and I managed to get a red admiral butterfly to land on us, although Beccy couldn't get it to stay long enough for a picture.

  

After the walk we went to the basketball court for a short game.  Beccy and Antoine beat Brian and I by 10 points to 6.  Finally, back home for omelette and pasta.

Wednesday was another nice day and so we headed again for the beach.  This time we went to find Bakio where there were more waves for the children to bodyboard on.

We drove to Bakio and found a car park, then we walked along the beach before finding a restaurant where we had lunch.  We ordered menu del dia but had difficulty finding something that Beccy would eat for starters.  One dish was 'patatas' with some other stuff that we didn't understand but she was interested in the potatoes and so we ordered it for her.  Antoine had the same dish.  When it turned up the potatoes were in a squid gravy.  To her credit she did at least try it, but didn't eat it.  Antoine managed to eat his and both were fine with the ham and chips they had for their main course.  After dessert (creme caramel), we went back to the car and got out our stuff for the beach.

The children spent a long time riding the waves and both ended up with a rash on their stomachs from the bodyboards.  Brian and I lay on the beach and tried to keep out of the sun as far as possible

After the beach Brian suggested that we walk to a little island that was connected to the mainland only by a narrow path.  It was a long walk down to the path and then a long walk up to the church at the top of the island with over 200 steps to climb.

We used the most disgusting toilets I have had to use in a long time on the way up (with no water or toilet paper) and then, when we got to the top there was nothing there (seeing the buildings we had hoped that there would be a cafe or at least a small shop but there was nothing, only a further toilet that smelt worse than the first ones.

After a short rest we walked back down.  Brian didn't want to go back on the narrow path and walked back along a road that had joined it.  The children and I went back the way we had come and stopped for a drink in a bar at the end of the journey.  We waited what seemed like ages then walked back towards where the car had been parked (Brian was supposed to be meeting us at the bar).  He had just got back to the car, the road had been a long detour.


We drove back through a town called Mungia which had a hypermarket.  This gave us the chance to stock up on supplies for packed lunches and dinners.  Following this we had another very late dinner and went to bed after midnight again.

At Bakio we had walked back to the car park and passed this car.  Ben has told us we would love a Ferrari, we wondered if he would like this one!

On Thursday we got the metro into Bilbao.  Our first stop was Arrieta where we walked across the Biscay Bridge.  This has a gondola which transports people and cars across the river at a point where many tall ships need to pass through and so a conventional bridge is not practical.




We paid for the walk across the top of the bridge, went up in the lift to the top and walked across so that we could visit the market stalls on the other side. We had good views of the river and some of the town (although the bridge is quite a way from the centre of Bilbao).

 

While on top of the bridge we spotted a large dinosaur in a park on a small peninsular then, when we were at the market stalls we saw that there were quite a few more dinosaur statues.  We decided to have a look and to have our lunch there.  We crossed back over the river in the gondola which was just as exciting as the walk and much cheaper.

On arriving at the peninsular we found a set of closed gates and a hut where you could pay to go into what was essentially a landscaped and planted area with statues of dinosaurs in amongst the trees.  The cost was €3 each and so we decided against it.  We sat outside an had our lunch instead, watching a young boy in the water crying for his mum who had swum out into the wider river.  He was standing on the bottom and trying to swim every now and then but was obviously afraid to swim and just kept crying out instead. Occasionally he ducked under the water and eventually a lady on the beach and the SOS staff ran out to rescue him, only to be told that he didn't need rescuing, he just wanted his mum!

Our next stop was the Guggenheim museum.  We took the Metro to Moyua station and walked to the museum.  The building was really impressive.






Beccy was really impressed by the giant puppy made of flowers outside and both she and Antoine were impressed by the fog that was sprayed out over the water in front of the museum.

  

There was a really long queue to get in and we noticed that Anish Kapoor was exhibiting there.  Instead of going in (the children were unlikely to be interested) we went into the cafe for coffee and coca-cola before heading back to the Metro and onto the Casco Viejo (the old town).

We did some shopping and looked around the city a little before heading back to the Metro for the train home.  The next train didn't go quite as far as Urduliz and we had to get off at Larrabasterra and wait 8 minutes for the next train to Plentzia.

Brian didn't want to wait and decided to walk (the rest of us had done enough walking and were happy to wait 8 minutes for the next train besides, Beccy had enough to keep her occupied!  Brian arrived back 35 minutes after us having walked 2.3 miles.

After dinner we played a game of Rummikub before bed.  We had to look the rules up online as we couldn't remember how to play and couldn't understand the Spanish rules in the box.

During the day we heard from Ben who reported some success in the tennis tournament in both the consolation draw of the boys under 18s and in the mixed doubles where he and Megan had reached the finals, beating the number 2 seeds.  It was good to hear from him.

Not so good was the news that the family who are staying in our house had been getting no hot water.  I sent an email back to them to give some suggestions but we had no idea what had gone wrong.  Things haven't gone so well for them.  The car wouldn't start on their first journey back, they couldn't get into the house after deadlocking the door and then they didn't get any hot water. Hopefully, things will get better!  This is the worst part of home exchanging, the worry about things going wrong at the house that mean that the exchange family don't have as good a time as they might have.  This is the first time in nine years that we have had this number of problems and it is a worry.  When you let some one use your house you want everything to go smoothly and you feel guilty when it doesn't but can't really do much about it because you are miles away.

Friday 13th was a bit of a disaster day.  It was raining and the children had wanted to go to the beach.  We couldn't find any alternative activities that they were interested in and so we decided to go to the wave beach on the off-chance that it would be sunny by then.  We went further around the coast to Mundaka but couldn't find anywhere to park so carried on to Bakio where we ate our packed lunch near to the beach and then got back into the car to escape the rain.

 

I had found a sports centre using Google and had got the address so we decided that we would go swimming.   Unfortunately we could find the area but couldn't find the sports centre.  We did, however, find a bowling alley and had two games of ten-pin bowling followed by a quick go in the amusement arcade.  Back for dinner and Beccy and Antoine went to play basketball for a while.

Notes

Everywhere we go in this area we are surrounded by eucalyptus.  It was apparently introduced about 200 years ago as a fast growing resource for the production of paper and is used for sustainable forestry management.  It seems to self-seed quite readily and there are many seedlings and young trees dotted around as well as many established stands.  You can see whole plantations of eucalyptus on the hillsides and, when you walk through the forests, although there is a good variety of tree including beech, ash, oak and others, the predominant species is eucalyptus.

There were posters throughout the metro system for a film called 'London River'.  This is about two parents each looking for their child who was in London at the time of the 7/7 suicide bombings and who has not been heard from since.  It doesn't seem to be showing much in London (only one cinema listed) but might be shown in Bilbao with subtitles if we are lucky.  Worth a look.