Tuesday 29 December 2009

Kitting out by Kate

Just how many of these cute, pastel-coloured, curvy-shaped, cuddly character items are really necessary for a baby? Having just been on a (most enjoyable) shopping trip for our expected offspring, I've been quite staggered at the sheer amount of stuff being dangled enticingly under the willing and susceptible noses of potential parents and grandparents - stuff which I rather suspect is largely unnecessary for the health and well-being of the new infant. Of course, some items are essential and a few expenses unavoidable, but if people living in jungle tribes, two weeks from civilisation in all directions can successfully raise their new-born children without the benefits of ergonomically-designed breast-feeding cushions, baby baths and crib-bumpers, then I reckon we could probably manage it too.

Take nightlights, for example. Now, a low-wattage light to help you carry out the night-time feeds with minimal disturbance to your partner (and your retinas) seems like a decent practical idea. The little, plug-in lights you can get from the local electrical shop cost no more than a couple of quid/euros - and the job is done. In the baby shops, the nightlights made from soothingly-coloured, moulded characters with smiley mouse faces (for example) set you back by fourteen notes and yet they do exactly the same job as the two-quid widgets. And who's going to appreciate the extra twiddly bits on the fancy nightlight? The baby? Not on your nelly. Is it going to relieve your fatigue or boredom or enhance your enjoyment of the 3 a.m. nourishment session? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seriously doubt it.

Anyway, as I said, some baby equipment is essential. Clothes, for example - although we've been donated and promised such a wealth of babywear already, that I doubt we'll have to part with much more cash to complete our newborn's layette. Nappies are unavoidable and as we're keen to try and mostly use washable ones, that will be an initial outlay of a couple of hundred euros (but should work out cheaper than disposables in the long run, even with the washing costs factored in). And there's baby transportation. By law, if you want to transport your little one in a car, it has to be in a proper, government accredited car seat. You're advised against getting them second-hand and the new ones don't come cheap. That's why we figured we might as well try and get a multi-purpose seat that would clip into a frame on wheels and therefore double as a pram and/or buggy. In fact, we've realised that the seat, as well as having its uses in our vehicle and on its own set of wheels, can also be a baby seat for general use around the house - when our little one needs to be set down somewhere safe in our vicinity while we do other things, for example - and indeed as a cot. The height of the pram set-up is about the same as our bed, so conceivably (assuming she's willing) we could have our nipper kipping in it at nights (if indeed she does kip at nights, Inshallah...) and be within easy paranoid new-mother checking distance and conveniently grabbable for breast-feeding in the wee hours. That's the theory, anyway. I guess we'll find out soon enough if our baby finds that solution as practical as we do.

For general child transportation, I'm very taken with idea of tying her to our bodies (one at a time, obviously) with a strong and stretchy length of cloth. Baby-wearing, in fact. The idea seems simple and flexible and assuming we can get it right and she takes to it okay, it seems like a good way of having your babe-in-arms snug against your body but not actually in your arms.

Still, I'm aware that babies are nothing if not adept at knocking all the best pre-parenting ideas into a cocked hat and I can only hope that our one will share at least some of our views on the best ways to make her (and us) comfortable. Unfortunately, if she takes after her parents she's bound to have some definite ideas of her own about the way she would like things done and will no doubt be unafraid to express them. Yikes.

Sunday 27 December 2009

Pregnant with desire by Kate

There will be no pornography in this post, but the fact I just wrote the word should at least garner our blog a few hundred more hits than usual. That and the word sex, which will be repeated several times in the course of the piece. Look away now if a) the combination of intercourse and pregnancy upsets you and b) if a few intimate-ish details about other people's carnality tends to give you indigestion. The brave, the curious and the prurient, read on!

Sex during pregnancy is generally encouraged by the experts - unless you're very miscarriage-prone (in which case, the advice is to leave off for the first few critical months), they see no reason why the hanky-panky shouldn't continue unabated. That's not to say the couple concerned doesn't have issues with the whole area of How's Your Father, of course. Morning sickness, over-tender boobs and exhaustion can all contribute to a low mojo in the recently impregnated woman. Meanwhile, men can find the concept of "something else up there" a bit of a performance-dampener and as the foetus gets bigger, there are concerns about accidentally squishing the future offspring in-utero in the throes of passion. Then there are the women who feel like big lumps of unattractively wobbling flesh as pregnancy enters its later stages and the men who involuntarily envisage the Fat Slags in Viz and can't help making unflattering and enshrinkening comparisons with their expectant partners.

I'm pleased to report that none of the above problems have affected Theo and me. In fact, the only thing that's prevented the frequency of our sex life being as high as previously has been late night fatigue, morning medical appointments and early Spanish lessons. If anything, pregnancy has enhanced the quality of our carnal relations, despite the necessary diminuendo in acrobatics and the restriction of positions for bump-avoidance reasons. I don't know whether it's the pregnancy hormones, the yoga (which includes a move aimed at "freeing and encouraging the flow of sexual energy") or simple practice, but achieving climax certainly seems to have become more effortless in recent months, which has got to be a bonus. Not that things in that department were ever bad, I hasten to add, but considerably more time and energy was required to get there previously and I'm only human.

I think we're also aware that the days of our - relatively - unfettered and spontaneous sex-life are now severely numbered, so here's to matrimonial bliss and tranquility while it lasts. Not to mention the rumpy pumpy.

Saturday 26 December 2009

Christmas in Madrid

We finished work on the 22nd December - for Kate her last day as she won't be returning in the near year. It was a horrible, wet day but still some students made it in, and what with our uber-generous boss Will handing our glasses of Cava and plates of turron to teachers and students, much fun was had. The generosity didn't end there, as we were both given (as were all the teachers) a Christmas hamper containing Champagne, Rioja and chocolates. Nice!!

We promptly opened one of the bubbly bottles the following night when Belen, Cesar and Nataly joined us for a Christmas dinner: mulled wine, nut roast, roasted spuds, cauliflower cheese, broccoli and onion gravy, followed by Christmas pudding and rum butter. The Spaniards seemed to enjoy it all and though we had so much left over we knew we wouldn't need to cook again on Christmas Day itself!
Christmas Eve morning was spent hanging around while the technician from Telefonica fixed our internet, then we had a lovely lunch with our American friend Anne at Artemesia after checking out an exhibition at Alcala 31. Then, after some last minute Christmas shopping - Fosbella had finally decided what she wanted to get Kate for Christmas so I went to pick that up - we settled down to watch a whole load of You Tube.

Kate and I have clearly been very good this year as we woke up to two very full Christmas stockings at the end of the bed. Kate got some tea, chocolate, underwear and handbag; I got boxers, turron, and a jumper. Eventually we got up and had scrambled eggs on toast, Skyped our families, ate left-overs and opened more presents. My family gave us some useful baby things, including a sling. We both practised wearing it, using a stocking stuffed with clementines as a baby stand-in.
Kate gave me an Ipod - awesome - and I got Kate series 1 to 4 of Bones, while the Rainbow family had sent us the movie Once on DVD, so we snuggled down to watch those. Nothing particularly Spanish about our Christmas, but bloody lovely though.

Wednesday 23 December 2009

los padres

My parents (aka Santa Claus - well they arrived loaded with presents) made their first, flying, visit to Madrid. They could only come for two days, which was a real shame, doubly so because they managed to time their trip so it coincided with our last two days at work and the wettest two days we´ve ever had in Madrid. Consequently we couldn´t spend much time with them and the time we did spend with them was decidedly damp!! Still it was lovely to see them and we´re very pleased they made it over, especially as they had to endured over 6 hours of delays at the airport going back. Makes me glad that we generally stick to four wheels.

Monday 21 December 2009

First mince pies of the season

Although we've been stuffing ourselves with turron and pannetoni, we didn't manage our first mince pies until Saturday, when Juanmi, Kirsty and Emily invited us to their Christmas party in Rivas.
We were late arriving, having had to work until 2.40pm, so there was a fair crowd clustered round the food when we arrived. It was like a meeting of Expats Anonymous, or rather, Anglo-Spaniard Couples Anonymous, for as well as our hosts our friends Fermin and Rebecca were there and everybody else we spoke too seemed to be in mixed Spanglish relationship. Just a run down of the names (Tracy & Ignacio, Manuela & James, Jason & Dolores) makes it pretty clear! I was worried I wasn't going to get a chance to practice my Spanish at all, but luckily we managed to find about the only other linguistically homogeneous couple there, Nani and Jose Ramon, who grew up in our barrio to chat to. It was a lovely afternoon, with plenty of recent or soon-to-be mums for Kate to compare hospitals and midwives with, plus some carols round the piano.

We nipped off earlyish in order to do some shopping in Carre Four on the way home, where we encountered the most impressive Belen (nativity scene) yet. The Spanish go for their Bethlehem scenes the way a certain type of English male goes for model train sets, and this one, with its functioning water wheels and hand-painted miniatures, was really quite something. For childless couples only though, methinks.

Sunday 20 December 2009

Bothanica by Theo

Accompanied by our friends Fermin and Rebecca, Kate and I made our first venture to a Spanish Theatre on Friday night when we headed to Teatro del canal to see Bothanica, a contemporary dance spectacular by the American company Momix choreographed by Moses Pendleton. I was slightly feeling the pressure as the show had been my idea and tickets were really pricey - €35 - so I was really hoping it would be good!


It was. The two-hour show, presented in two acts, had no real plot as such, but rather focused around themes of evolution and nature but was none the less enthralling, beautiful, emotive and occasionally humorous. Prancing centaurs, whirling jellyfish, dinosaur puppets, living rocks, amorous trees and macho bees that looked like Brian Blessed's hawkmen out of Flash Gordon were among the characters. Particularly effective I felt was the opening scene in which a twirling anemone tempted dancers out from the ocean sands to taste its poison fruit - the Garden of Eden on the sea floor. Some scenarios were more or less straightforward - a woman dancing on a mirror a metaphor for asexual reproduction - others more complex (what the hell was going on with the two lovers being attacked by rocks?) but they were always engaging. The use of often oversized props - massive flags, huge snail shells - and clever costumes added another spectacular element to the show. We'd definitely recommend it, even if the price is a bit steep.


(not my photos by the way!!)

Saturday 19 December 2009

Getting the Social Security to step in By Kate

In Spain, if you've made social security payments for a minimum of six months, you're entitled to maternity money from the national system. You get four months fully-paid maternity leave and after that it's up to you and your employer to negotiate the remainder (I'm a bit hazy about that part because maternity leave would take me to the end of my contract with the language academy where I've been working anyway).

However, the widely practised way of enhancing one's maternity allowance is to request a baja del medico from your doctor. Basically, you quit work and ask the doctor to officially sign you off on sick leave. 99.9 per cent of doctors are happy to do this for any embarazada complaining of tiredness or a sore back - the usual health complaints that accompany the third trimester. You then lumber back to your health centre once a week and your doctor renews the sick note, usually without any further conversation required. The good part about this is that you start receiving sick pay (70 per cent of your salary) and it continues until the day you give birth, at which point maternity leave officially kicks in and instead of losing part of it pre-partum, you get the whole paid four months once the baby is born.

However, my boss wants me to go one better than this. I had indicated that health-allowing, I would be willing to work until at least the end of January (mainly because I would like to contribute another month's-worth of salary to the domestic piggy bank before earning a living becomes a secondary priority after baby care). He accepts this, but from his point of view, it makes more sense for me to finish my classes at the end of the Christmas term and my replacement to take over at the beginning of the Spring term. Not wanting to cheat me out of my full January salary (and possibly because he would also receive a little financial support from the government) he's been advised by his lawyer that I should request a baja for an embarazada del riesgo.

What this amounts to is that I claim my work is not just becoming difficult for me to perform because of my condition, but that my work is actually putting my pregnancy at risk. A baja obtained for this reason would basically mean I was treated as if I had had an industrial accident. I would receive 100 per cent of my salary from the Social Security until the day of the birth and I wouldn't have to keep heaving myself to the health centre to get it renewed.

When I first consulted my GP about being signed off, I hadn't appreciated the difference between the two bajas. Dr Paniagua indicated that she would be willing to give me the ordinary baja, but I would need to return once I'd actually stopped going to work. Once my boss realised my Spanish wasn't up to the intricacies of discussing the finer points of the other baja, he bade me to make another appointment and lent me his Spanish wife as chief negotiator and translator.

Marina and I arrived at the appointed time in the waiting room, only to observe Dr Paniagua choose that moment to leave her consulting room, lock the door behind her and depart the vicinity. We both treated her disappearance philosophically, as did the other patients in the queue, and settled down to chat until such a time as she should choose to reappear. This she did some twenty minutes later, carrying a shopping bag and with renewed post-coffee break vigour. She then glanced perfunctorily at her appointment list and called my name ("Katt-ee Sal-eess-boorr-ee?"). Marina and I promptly took up positions in front of her desk.

Luckily, I only had to say one sentence in my halting Spanish before Marina took over and laid out the facts of my risky pregnancy to Dr P. The whole time Marina was making her impassioned plea on my behalf, Dr P seemed more interested in trying to disentangle the cord holding her ID, then re-attaching what looked like a small pair of surgical scissors to it - no easy task as far as I could judge. Half way through Marina's brilliant and articulate outlining of my case, another medic unceremoniously walked in and interrupted her flow with some query or other for Dr P, which then became a peripheral discussion. When she thought the other medic had finished, Marina started again, only to be interrupted a second time with another question, which completely ignored the fact that Dr P was in the middle of seeing a patient. Marina and I waited patiently for Dr P's attention to come back to us, such as it was.

When Marina resumed, it seemed clear that Dr P was not buying the risky pregnancy scenario. "So what if she gets tired and has to work late in the evenings, so do I," seemed to be the central tenet of her argument. Eventually - once I'd pointed out that I was awaiting the results of a test for gestational diabetes - Dr P grudgingly gave us a form indicating a suspected risky pregnancy, but told us we would need to get the opinion of an obstetrician before she was prepared to give me the baja.

Both Marina and my boss were taken aback by the doctor's attitude. Apparently, signing people off work for whatever reason is usually a straightforward process in Spain and the medics don't generally fuss too much about establishing the veracity of each case as it's not their problem. Just our luck to get one of the few who was a tougher nut to crack on that score.

Of course the irony of all this is that my pregnancy is unlikely to be risky, given its progress so far (touch wood). Yes, I do get a bit tired (especially when climbing the steps of the Metro) and I have a little backache, but these are relatively minor discomforts. Overall, I feel pretty healthy and have had a very easy pregnancy so far. The only risk element is my age - 39 - but that's hardly unusual nowadays, half my friends have had their babies at around the age of 40 with no serious problems to speak of. As for the diabetes, well I was being honest about waiting to hear the results of my second glucose curve test, but given that I haven't been recalled (beyond a routine 32-week appointment with my obstetrician in January) with any urgency, I rather suspect the result was normal.

Anyway, Marina will come with me to see my obstetrician and have another crack at getting the baja. Only this time she will be armed with a risk assessment my boss commissioned for the academy in terms of hazards for a pregnant woman. Rather to our surprise, they are many - three full pages of them. It seems my work-place is a potential death-trap for people in my condition, with danger lurking in every computer, photocopier and classroom (not to mention the biological hazard of coming into contact with so many germ-infested students). Whether this will convince the Madrid medical profession of my imminent peril - well, we shall see.

Tuesday 15 December 2009

Madrid PI Reunion

On Saturday we had a bit of a reunion. Not with private investigators, but rather with some of the delightful Spaniards we got to know on a Pueblo Ingles immersion week that we did last year and who had largely been responsible for us moving to Madrid in the first place, so positive was the impression of both Madrid and Madrilenos we got from them. Some, like the lovely Belen, we see relatively often, while others not as often as we'd like due to work, family and distance constraints - Amalia and Juanvi live in Valencia for example, while Olga and Silvano have young children.

Naturally not everyone could make it, sadly and ironically including Vanessa (whose idea the reunion had been) and Jero (who had made an online calendar so we could arrange the most convenient date), but there was a still a decent showing - 15 of us - at Horno de Juan in the Islas Filipinas barrio. It being a traditional Spanish restaurant vegetarian fare was not featured heavily on the menu - the rest were tucking into black pudding following by huge slabs of cochinillo (suckling pig) - but we did pretty well on salad, tortilla, and roasted vegetables. Max and Cesar desperately wanted to speak English so made sure that sat near us, which was fine except I wanted to try out my Spanish, so I made sure I moved down to near Olga, her (non-English speaking) husband Fernando and Jaime's wife Teresa for pudding so I could get some practice!
We finally left the restaurant at 6-ish and retired to a nearby bar where Olga regaled Kate with horror stories from her first birth and Max described his attempts at kite surfing which I just about understood, before Kate and I decided to call it a night. We also received our first presents for Fosbella, a beautiful, tiny pair of woolen shoes from Maria-Jose and Amalia. It was a wonderful day, and I hope it isn't too long before we do it again.

Monday 14 December 2009

Well that was a surprise

Yesterday was a bright, beautiful, sunny day. No indication we'd wake up this morning to a blanket of snow over streets and roofs!

Funnily enough I'd been complaining that the warm weather was stopping me from feeling really Christmassy. Let it snow, let is snow, let it snow!

Saturday 12 December 2009

O tannenbaum, o tannenbaum

We're starting to get into a Christmas mood. Madrid is looking pretty, with lights strung out over the streets and little markets popping up all over the place. We've got what must be one of the smallest Christmas trees ever: it's a cypress tree we picked up at the Rastro last weekend. We didn't want to buy a fake one, and we couldn't find a real fir so this was the closest we could get. Still it looks very pretty.We'd already been availing ourselves of the piles of Turron and Panettoni beginning to make their seasonal appearance in the shops, and yesterday we stuck all our Christmas cards in the post. Plus, we embarked on a mammoth Christmas-music playlist compilation on Spotify yesterday to ensure our first Madrid Christmas is suitably sound-tracked.

Naturally we've gone for the cheesy party tracks - The Pogues, Boney M, Band Aid - but for when we just want to chill we've found some lovely versions of some traditional hymns; Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band singing "I saw three ships" and an instrumental version of "The Holly wears the Crown" by Martin Simpson - weirdly we couldn't find a decent vocal version of "The Holly and the Ivy" though there were loads to choose from - they were all too slow. We found a cracking Dolly Parton version of "Go tell it to the Mountain", there's some Jethro Tull, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (controversially, perhaps, we've gone for his version of "White Christmas" rather than Bing's). Speaking of Bing Crosby, his duet with David Bowie was annoyingly prefaced by 2 minutes of chatter, so we picked the Jackson Five for "The Little Drummer Boy" instead. There's Handel, Troika, Gaudete and the Snowman in our playlist, but what's really making me nostalgic and bringing up memories of Christmases past is Nat King Cole singing "Holy Night" and "O Tannenbaum"; it reminds me of Christmases in Kenya as my parents would often play it back in the days of cassettes. Once we moved back to England and bought a CD player he disappeared from our Christmas soundtracks. I'm glad he's back.

Friday 11 December 2009

bonding and bowling

We had our work Christmas Party last night. Well, there wasn't much that was Christmassy about it, but it was a party, and it's nearly Christmas, so.... Anyway, our boss kindly treated us all to a trip to the bowling alley with beers, food, taxis and suitably ridiculous nicknames all thrown in. Very nice of him.

As Theo "Thunder" Berry I was paired up with Anna "Maverick" McKendrick as we took on Tim and Kate B in the first frame. (Kate S having decided that bowling and pregnancy weren't a good combination, she'd relegated herself to a cheerleading capacity). Sadly, while Anna and I ratcheted up a combined score that would have beaten any of the other 4 teams, Tim and Kate B turned out to be the two best bowlers there, both being the only people to manage three-figured scores.

Still, what's important to remember here is that Anna and I won the following two games comfortably and the beer was all paid for.

Wednesday 9 December 2009

The Yucky Bits by Kate

I always quite liked the idea of being pregnant - swanning around, proudly sporting a neat bump up front and blooming with glowing skin and shining hair. That's the glamorous image of approaching maternity and I've been fairly lucky in managing to pull off all three so far. But there are so many less appealing aspects to the process - and bear in mind, I've actually had it pretty easy so far!
Wind - those hormones sure stir up the digestive gases. Most unladylike.
Leaking orifices - runny or blocked nasal passages, for example. I'll leave the rest to the imagination.
Bleeding gums and nostrils - apparently the maternal hormones are responsible for thinning out your membranes in these areas. Still, they've stopped short of absolute haemorrhage, thankfully.
Spots and rashes in odd places - while the skin on my face is loads better than usual, my thighs seemed to have developed an ongoing acne problem. At least it's easier to conceal from the world at large.
Backache - changing centre of gravity and loosened joints because of the hormone relaxin can be a killer combination. Luckily, I have a husband who is always willing to massage the affected area.
Acid reflux - as the womb expands with the growing foetus, everything else gets compressed, including your stomach. Hence, food reasserting itself in fiery fashion at unexpected moments.
Constant need to pee - see above. Drink half a glass of water and you're running to the loo fifteen minutes later. A short stroll to the shops can be punctuated by any number of urgent toilet dashes. You never squeeze out much more than a trickle, either, it's very unsatisfying.
Clumsiness - changing body size and shape tends to impede co-ordination pretty effectively.
Absent-mindedness - studies have demonstrated the veracity of this one. I can't seem to start a class without rushing back to get the text-book, register or note-book I forgot to pick up.
Tiredness and breathlessness - heaving the extra tum around is pretty knackering.
Fat in unwelcome places - the bump's pretty cool, but why did I have to get an even-bigger-than-before arse to go with it? It's all fat deposits for lactation, apparently. Go, breast-feeding!

All the above thankfully excludes things like constipation, piles, swollen ankles, face-rashes and other delightful side-effects of growing a bairn. So far, anyway.

Tuesday 8 December 2009

Tai Chi

Sometimes I can be really impulsive; I think of something and I do it, and I'm quite single-minded about it. On other occasions it can take me ages to act upon something. This was one of those occasions.

It all started with a workshop on the Sunday morning of the Rocket Festival in May 2008. We were feeling a little groggy so, looking for something to perk us up a bit, we headed to the healing fields and ending up taking part in a Chi Kung workshop with some friends. I really enjoyed it.

Now the most well-known form of Chi Kung is Tai Chi, so I guess it was back then that I first got the idea that I would like to take up Tai Chi. For a while I had a decent excuse for doing nothing about it - Kate and I were on the road. I couldn't join a class. Then we moved to Madrid and I didn't have that excuse anyone, so that key skill of all art graduates - procrastination - came into play. It was only on our return to Spain this autumn that I thought I really must get around to joining a class. I was feeling physically inert and Kate's dedication to her morning yoga routine shamed me into doing something about it.

The first few places I checked out online were dead ends - either the timetable advertised on their site was no longer valid and the sessions clashed with my work or they'd ceased offering Tai Chi classes altogether (this was when they bothered to reply to my e mail inquiries at all!) Eventually I found the Centro de Relajacion in nearby Quintana that had a Monday class I could make from 12 til 1pm. So along I went for my free trial lesson.

I suppose if I'd thought about it a class from 12 til 1pm on a Monday was unlikely to attract large numbers of young professionals, who are no doubt gainfully employed at this time. However I was still surprised to find myself the only male and only under 60 in the class! Still, the senoras were very welcoming and laid back. It was also helpful for me as the class I was joining was technically an advanced class; what I lacked in experience I was able to make up for in youth flexibility. They were very complimentary about my efforts to copy the tablas they were working through - for while the teacher was giving us instructions in Spanish it took me a copy of seconds to translate - too slow, so in the end I just focused on copying. I had been worried about following the instructions but as it turned out I was able to understand most of them, though this was occasionally detrimental; during the relaxation exercise to start the class I was so busy concentrating on understanding I wasn't able to relax!

Sunday 6 December 2009

CumpleaƱos a ti...

It was our venezuelan friend David´s birthday on Friday and so Saturday night saw us heading to his and Nataly´s flat for a fiesta. Jez and I were a little stiff and sore after an afternoon´s cycling around Casa de Campo, and were grateful to park ourselves on the sofa while trying to hide our glasses (as David would fill them up again immediately if he thought the levels were getting low). Belen and Cesar were there, as well as an old friend of David´s (also called David) and his girlfriend Olga. Everyone made a big effort to try our their English with Jez and to humour our attempts at Spanish. Personally I feel I´m nearly there on the language front, understanding most of what is said to me but still struggling to select the right tense and person when responding.

Nataly had, as usual, laid on a delicious spread with plenty of veggie options, and as the booze flowed we pushed on into the early hours, dancing away to some of Cesar´s mix CDs. Clearly David and Nataly don´t like their neighbours very much!

Saturday 5 December 2009

Cycling in the Sierra

At our prompting, Kate's brother Jez booked himself on a flight over here for a week; knowing Jez to be particularly fond of outdoor pursuits, I immediately got on the case hiring a couple of mountain bikes for his visit. I haven't been cycling for years and I'm terribly unfit, whereas Jez has cycled from Land's End to John O'Groats, but as surfing and sailing weren't an option I felt I would try my best! Besides with the Sierra de Guadarrama surrounding Madrid we're spoilt for choice over potential routes to explore, so having secured two bikes for a reasonable price from Bike Spain I picked a route out near the Palace/Monastery complex of El Escorial for Friday's ride. This was for three reasons: 1) Having walked the route before I was pretty sure we wouldn't get lost or die, as it was pretty easy and mostly downhill 2) I figured that we could go and get cultured up by checking out El Escorial afterwards which 3) would help to persuade Kate to come along as well and drive the 'support vehicle'.

My plan was duly executed, and after a reasonably straightforward drive out from Madrid we found the starting point, la Silla de Philipe II, a beautiful picnic and viewing area with stunning views of both the surrounding snow-capped Mountains and El Escorial. It was here that the full beauty of my plan was realised, for la Silla was the highest point on our ride and by persuading Kate to come with us and drive we'd be able to skip out the biggest uphill and have her meet us at the bottom. Result! It was a beautiful, clear sunny day, the leaves still on the trees in their autumn colours and as it was a Friday there was hardly anyone else around.


We got kitted out, which in Jez's case involved a complete change of clothes, in my case just putting on my helmet. Hmmmm, something told me my lack of fitness was quickly going to become apparent. I was even more pleased with the wisdom behind my choice of route - as it was mostly downhill I could get gravity to work for me. This turned out to be basically the case, although I did dismount and push on a couple of the uphills and one of the (extremely steep and rocky) downhills - hey, I'm not ashamed! Everything went pretty much to plan, with the ride being lots of fun and the trails deserted (great, as it meant nobody witnessed my total lack of balls and over-use of the brakes). As we neared the end of the trail there was a particularly fun, long downhill where we really cut loose and got some speed up. As I pulled up to stop at the gate I noticed that the quick-release catch on my front wheel was about to fall off. The nut holding it on at the other end had come off at some point and I had been one over-confident jump away from loosing my front wheel entirely and face-planting onto the rocky path. How relieved did I feel!! The support car was duly summoned and the last little stretch (along the road to El Escorial) was abandoned as we put the bikes in the back of Delilah and drove up to the monastery.


The huge, sprawling and slightly-forbidding building that is now part college and part museum, was originally built by Philip II as a monastery and summer Royal Residence; it contains in its crypt the tombs of much of Spain's royal family since Philip's time. The tour ranged from a fascinating collection of architectural tools and models in the cellars, to a large collection of art by Dutch and Spanish masters, a cathedral sized basilica, plus the sumptuous private royal apartments with stunning carved doors and incredible maps. Taking photos wasn't allowed, so I literally had to shoot from the hip, keeping our little digital camera in my pocket and surreptitiously snapping away, to get a few shots.


We piled back into Delilah and, while Jez and Kate took their siestas, I managed to get lost going back to Madrid. Typical.