9th March 2011. Here's one for the next time it all goes quiet in the snug - instead of complaining about estate agents, why not try asking people if they're satisfied with their broadband download speed (yawn!). This suggestion is brought to you straight from the "Dinner Party Guide", Chapter 7 ("When talking flags - sure-fire gambits for re-starting conversations"). The speed of my broadband connection has been on my mind of late - I've just tried a broadband speed test here and this (above) is what mine is reckoned to be. Is that good, bad or indifferent..? The truth is that I only had a dial-up connection in England and I must have spent hours waiting for web sites to dribble in. It seems the faster our connections are, they are never quite quick enough. Or is that just me?
11th March 2011. We went to Irun in Spain yesterday - just across the border from Hendaye - for some shopping. Spring is in the air and the trees there were starting to show greenery. I wanted to go and look at nearby Pasajes San Juan - somewhere I've wanted to visit for a while - but we didn't have time.
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| Irun |
It's midway between Irun and San Sebastian and it's a quaint fishing village - with just the occasional big ship squeezing past! The fish restaurants there are reputed to be worth trying. Here's a link to some Spanish recipes (this is how Madame often does fish - and not just hake). Here are a couple of spectacular shots of the harbour entrance:
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| Pasajes San Juan |
Update on supplies of Greek coffee (thought you'd never ask!): Whilst in Cannes, I found a large Arab grocers and looking around in the coffee section, I found 2 tins of Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi Turkish coffee! Bingo! 4€90 for 250gm. Amazon charges four times as much. One of the guys at the rowing club has a friend who regularly visits Athens in connection with his work and he's going to try and find some affordable Charalambous Greek Cypriot coffee for me as well. Now there's only one thing that goes well with this and that's a wee glass of Metaxa 5 star brandy. Maybe followed by another one.12th March 2011. Out in a coxed quad sculler this morning. The guy who was 'stroke' must have had a new battery in because we raced up to the turnaround in one piece without stopping - turned around, only 2-3 minutes to rest before setting off like the clappers back to the clubhouse.. I've never been back so early! We were the first boat back by a street. 12 km. (Running total: 482km) More rugby this afternoon: Italy-France followed by Wales -Ireland. It's England-Scotland tomorrow afternoon.
PS. Some of you may have noticed that the blog threw a wobbly the other day - my fault. I'd ignored the old axiom: If it ain't broke, don't fix it*. Apart from the slightly new look, I think it's all back as it was - more or less. While I've still got the tools out, let me know if there's anything you'd like to see here and I'll see what I can do.
(*My Dad's version of this was: If it ain't broke, fix it until it is!)
PPS Diesel Price Watch. Diesel was 1.30€/litre in Spain yesterday. That's $6.79/US gallon or £1.12/litre. Ouch!
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