happy halloween

They don't really celebrate it here although All Saints day is a pretty big deal but happy halloween and happy guising

evolution

So today was Halloween for us and I fashioned a pirate stylee beard, seemed to help on the metro at least where folks gave me a wide berth. Got home and started the demolition illustrated below but have maintained the final 'tache. Although whether it will make it through the next couple of hours is touch and go, bit too Freddie Mercury for my liking. So are you in? The challenge has been set: tachetastic

arrrrrrrrrrrrr! Oim ah pirate


Pirate or pornstar?


.......we are the champions!

yeti sighted

Life is tootling along nicely thank you very much. Had our intercontinental party last weekend which was braw, managed to shoehorn 15 folk into the flat. A record we're going to try and break with our imminent moustache party. I managed to make myself proper ill so spent Sunday asleep (those damned white Russians)

Halloween is tomorrow for us as school is off on Friday and we've been busy preparing a story and decorations for the whole school. I've been growing my beard specifically for the purpose of dressing as a pirate and I have to saw it's coming along at a rapid clip.

Hidden photographer catches yeti in a quiet moment as it feeds


The weather has finally broken and we're well and truly into winter here. Obviously 'winter' is a relative description as a couple of days ago it looked like this:



Ahem, winter indeed. (Although it was raining cats and dogs yesterday it has returned to cold* and bright again today, hope it holds)

Not much else to tell really, caught my first cold of the school year so even more keen to get a flu vaccination as soon as I can although this being Spain no-one can really tell me for sure if I have to pay or not. Endless. Trying to cram as much fruit down my throat as I can and crossing fingers that I can ride at the weekend.

*cold is also a term that must be taken with a pinch of salt

Carla whips up a treat


Gratuitous beard shot

"Virtual killer faces real jail after murder by mouse"

Bizarre. How else to describe the arrest of a woman accused of 'killing' her virtual husband in an online game?

geeks gone mad



oh and sign up as followers my minions, I promise I won't murder you*




*online. All other bets are off ;)

follow me

You may have noticed (or not) I have finally updated my blog roll------>

I was slightly shocked that this only accounts for half of the blogs I have bookmarked, I guess that's why I spend so much time on the computer.

I've also added a followers gadget which allows folk to say they actually read this (both of you can sign up) and a link to my flickr account which is in dire need of updating.

This is all folks, more news as it happens. Or doesn't as the case may be.

infection

Mum and Stuart paid us a flying visit over the last couple of days which was really nice, especially as the weather held. They even came in to my school to see the tiny tearaways I teach and read a couple of stories. They were impressed by their level of English if not their behaviour. Later we were shopping for food that Mum and Stuart could take on the train down to Alicante when I was hoking through halloween stuff that I could use for school. Mum said I'd been 'infected' by the teaching bug and couldn't wait to tell my sister, another teacher. Damn I hope she's wrong.

They were good enough to bring out a pile of stuff including coffee, comics for my private tuition and some bike bits. I got hold of a (ridiculously overpriced because the bcd is weird) chainring for the ferrous, partly because the one I have is wearing out (though not as much as I thought) and partly because I'm going to run a 5 speed cassette in the sierra (proper mountains) and a 34 tooth offers a better range of gears.

not too worn




work and play

fun bike stuff on the left and my pile of worksheets, lesson plans and comics for private tuition on the right. Currently got 7 students doing 8 hours of lessons a week, pays the bills...

what's it worth?

This painting could influence the entire art market when it goes on sale this week. The worry is that the economic crisis could now be extending to the unassailable uber rich. Scary thought.

not much to tell

Not too much to report since last week, got a 3 and half hour ride in on Sunday, safe to say we were pretty goosed afterwards. Started most of my lessons now and they're going ok, school has already descended into crowd control but it's still fun at the moment. Mum and Stuart are over for a couple days so looking forward to that. Got an intercontinental party (think WWF wrestling belts) coming up this week which should be fun, America, Scotland, England, Ireland, Greece and Spain all being represented which is cool. Hmmm that's bout it really, have a swatch at this vid though, brakeless FFS!

weasel and the meerkat

So today marks 4 years of me and the nobber* I think we can safely say we've given the relationship a proper workout, went to India for 8 weeks after going out for 6 months, moved in together 6 months after that and have been living in Spain for 8 months so far! I think she's done very well putting up with me and more than that encouraging me to take on challenges I would otherwise have neglected. She corrects me when I'm wrong (hardly ever happens mind you, ahem) straightens me out when I talk shit (happens more) and picks me up when I'm down. Best of all she never tries to change me (beyond getting me to clean the flat more) and, seems to at any rate, accept I'm a cynical, cycling forum addict with a reformist agenda and the time but not the inclination to act upon my instincts who will be unlikely to have a proper job before I'm thirty and even then probably work as something that demands more of her than me. It's a pretty sweet deal, besazos for the nov.

So I marked the anniversary with a special t shirt celebrating her meerkat fascination. I tested the process with an axis of weasel proto, I think it worked out rather well....







*nobber is derived from novia, Spanish for girlfriend (and worryingly, bride) and because in Spanish a v sounds like b I bastardised it to nobia, nob and nobber. It does cause some confusion when I shout 'nobber' across a shop and my girlfriend comes bouncing across (actually she sidles rather than bounces) to people's horror.

Spring in October

Watched Juno again tonight, such a wicked film. If you haven't seen it stop reading this and go watch it. Amongst the gems of one liners this has to stand out as a pretty great piece of advice:

In my opinion, the best thing you can do is to find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person will still think that the sun shines out your ass. That's the kind of person that's worth sticking with.

matt in new job shocker

Turns out the spaz is now in more appropriate employment

monkey boy

biding my time

Started work, which is awesome.

Got private lessons sorted out which I need to write lesson plans for, not so awesome.

Waiting on a stem arriving so can actually ride my bike, definitely not awesome.

Anyways all is good, we were at a flat warming last night lots of fun, speaking, bad, Spanish and mixing my drinks. Queue for clubs were massive so headed home early. Ahem 'early' being half 4! While I tensely wait and see if my stem ever actually appears I've got a few runs in. After a slight miscalculation it turns out I ran 7.5 not 11 miles on Monday but did manage to hit 10 miles on Friday, though it seemed to take bloody forever. I'm hoping on a flatter route I'd be able to get round a bit quicker, I've got a bitch of a hill to end on.

Also went to a British council do during the week which was nice. I'm sure I've done more than that probably but thanks to the wonders of singletrack I've rediscovered Monkey Dust, brutal at times but always intelligent and funny as hell if you've got the stomach for it.


Can't imbed this one, Scottish guests


Painfully good