Stuff

Just a few flights and car rental to sort out and WE’RE GOING TO THE YUCATAN! Staying here and seeing all manner of things. This is going to be SO GOOD! And I’m not one to use exclamation marks lightly…

Alrighty, with that paradise in mind, back to the translation.

Had a nice long walk this morning through markets and quiet Sunday streets and metroed it half the way back, photos flickrwards as per usual.

Yesterday Monica’s turn to cook came round again and we had bbq’d chicken and other stuff, then round Jose’s casita in the evening and drinks at Cafe Colibri. We’re also working our way through another HBO series, Big Love all about a polygamous mormon family and the special flavour of hell that it all entails. Essential viewing. Righty, back to Cancun research.

There’s 150 of the buggers, not 50 as first thought… Here’s me making friends with Earth Cow in Chapultepec:

I was reading in Sita’s book on the History of Salt (more interesting than it sounds) about how modern cattle are domesticated aurochs– vicious wild beasts that used to leave a trail of destruction across swathes of Europe.

Last night we went to Tinto y Blanco for the first time. It’s owned by a sommalier/chef bloke and is famous for its wines, so we felt quite safe ordering carafes of the house red. Sita reckoned the Pinot was where it’s at though. The portabella appertiser was the best thing we had there, though my asparagus and mushroom crepe was well nice. Having returned recently from the British Isles it’s nice to convert the prices to pounds sterling and feel even better about what you’re eating. Anyroad, then on to bowling. Somewhere along the line, my thumb’s got bigger and thus a shot where I couldn’t let the ball go and ended up chucking it in the air and it landing somewhere half-way down the lane, amazingly without leaving some smoking crater… It was a dodgy game all round, though Monica improved 10 fold, Daniel was consistantly brilliant and Sita’s always been a great bowler. I was not on form… Any road. We’ll play the decider once our scars heal.

Another spanish word of the week: La Baticueva. Bat cave. Bats of course, are called murcielagos… Here’s the one we saw in Los Colomos park t’other day. We also managed not to molest any of the fauna, which include abandoned house rabbits…

M & D are still casa-less, but they’re on it. We’re off for a meal somewhere and then bowling. It’s been a while, not since Ed was here this time last year. I think I’ve seen The Big Lebowski more times in the last 2 years than actually gone bowling. Anyroad, I’ve put on some nice, clean socks especially and am ready for a few white russians and fluking the occasional chuza (strike) at the bolinche…

So I can play my “favourite” game of trying to find a decent program to watch before I finish my sandwich…

Having a grand old time of it with Monica and Sunny D. Events so far have included house-hunting, a couple of parties, Colomnos park, markets, dinner parties, computer repairs, and DVDs aplenty (see Film Reviews).

I’m trying to fall back into some kind of routine which should include more regular blogging, but what with 3am cockroach scares and stuff things are still settling down.

Mexican Spanish word of the week: Tope – A road bump/ sleeping policeman thing. Ubiquitous in this particular part of North America. In Spain they’re Guardias tumbados I think, or sleeping (Civil) Guards

Since I left Gwod the cows have arrived, 50 odd of them I think. Just snapped a fraction of them today with my PDA so the quality’s not grand, but so far they’re an impressive bunch. We’ve now seen cow parades in Geneva, Atlanta and somewhere else that escapes me now… Chicago? Anyroad, little by little things are approaching normality round here.

No word from M & D as of yet… Hope they didn’t turn around and go back to L.A. to check on the cats.

Sita was navigating, so the route taken may vary from the map… Overnight stopping points, Nogales, Arizona and Culiacan, Sinaloa

Fastest yet. We’ve now done the GDL-LA trip 3 times. And this time managed it in 3 days, driving around 10-11 hours a day. My favourite bit is definitely the Culiacan-Mazatlan bit as you cross the Tropic of Cancer and the desert turns into lush forests and mountains. Next favourite, Tepic to Guadalajara- all agave fields and volcanoes. Gorgeous. We also had a quick wander round Tepic. And a pizza. Can’t wait to get back into the Mexican swing of things. M & D should be arriving any day too. Good times. Any new year’s parties happening?

Torta ahogada

Bugger, the alarm didn’t go off…. never mind it’s 7 am, and we’ll be hitting the road in 15 mins or so for Nogales, Arizona. Then Los Mochis, then Guadalajara in Mexico querido y lindo. Monica and Daniel are leaving tomorrow, more of that soon. Monica’s got a blog if you fancy following along their exploits for the next 6 months… the link’s on the blogroll chili cat in LA. Looking forward to the Mexican landscapes and seeing everyone again.

Bienvenida to the latest guestmappee- Karla in Brazil. Gracias por pasar por mi bloguito : )

Hasta muy pronto, enjoy the turkey leftovers y’all…

Sita got me a fiddle… Sorry neighbours… Happy Christma’s y’all

I just sent this YouTube link to Jose. Hall and Oates are two of his favourite all-time recording “artists”. Then I thought it was too good not to share with a wider public.

Enjoy!

Not Los Angeles…

Look it! I’ve rejigged the blog a bit. Film reviews are back along with sporadic book reviews. Some horizontal navegation stuff. Erm.. archives… You name it. Just have to actually write stuff now. And fine tune the Book Review page which is playing up a bit. And change the stars to Lulus… And move over all GwynUnlimited’s content to agaveweb… Another change is I’ve deactivated the human detection type-these-letters comment thing, to see if I get any spam. Cos I’m imagining that was a pain to do each time you comment and if you get it wrong, your comment got deleted. Akismet seems to be handling the spammery quite well, so I’ll see how that goes.

What’s going on here in L.A.? Well, the usual rampant capitalism, christmas decorations aplenty, car repairs, dining out/in, and LOTS of time on the internets… erm… and yesterday I found out that fig tree sap is a powerful irritant. Otherwise all’s pretty quiet really.

Can you do better than 13/20 on this here “What films do these stationery related pictures represent?” quiz? Let me know if you work out what the yellow post-it one is. It’s not “The Wall” nor “The Wizard of Oz” and now it’s bothering me no end…

** 8+ years out of date info! **

Never sure how much info I can safely put up on the interweb without getting my identity stolen so I’ll leave out my mother’s maiden name and favourite childhood pet for now and just give you the basics… if that’s alright… good. Thanks.

I grew up in Kingston St Mary , Somerset with sojourns in Swansea, Seville, Massachusetts, California, Guadalajara, Mexico, Oregon, Maine and New York City. Now we’re in Salt Lake City, Utah and it’s proving to be one of the best yet…

I keep a fairly up-to-date blog where you can read, in more detail than you’d probably like, about my trials and tribulations. It’s more of an online diary than anything else and a handy way to keep me folks and friends abreast of what I’ve been up to. With the shocking state of my memory these days, it’s somewhat akin to a black box recorder… You’ll also find the occasional film review, book review and links to strange and wonderful sites on ‘teh intarwebs’. Chances are you came from it in the first place…

OK, brace yourself, here comes the self-absorption…

My interests include: foreign languages (well, Spanish, French and American “English”), digital photography, photoshoppery, guitar, computing, travel, Latin-American literature, cinema, and graphic design. And scrabble. And Boggle. On an industrial scale.

Dislikes include: Dentistry, MS comic sans and, increasingly, Papyrus fonts, FOX News and US cable television. The adverts more than anything.

Favourite authors: Jasper Fforde, Julio Cortazar, Borges, Louis de Bernieres, Iain Banks, Mil Millington, Garcia Marquez, Charlie Brooker. And okay, I’ll admit it, Terry Pratchett.

Favourite films: City of God, The Game, The Big Lebowski, This is Spinal Tap, Twin Town, Shaun of the Dead, Requiem for a Dream, Ghostbusters, Withnail & I, El Laberinto del Fauno, In Bruges

Favourite TV: The Thick of It, Peep Show, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Father Ted, Family Guy, Ivor the Engine, Spaced, LOST, Colbert Report, Life on Mars, Look Around You

Favourite music: Tricky one this… Black Box Recorder, The Smiths, Julieta Venegas, Suicidal Tendencies, Metallica, Spice Girls (first album), Levellers, Air, Fiona Apple, Coldplay, James, Jose Alfredo Jimenez, Manu Chao, Pixies, Primal Scream, Kylie. I’m also overly fond of Happy Hardcore and is pretty much the only music I will consider dancing to.

My Nanny (Welsh for Granny) lived down the road from us from most of my life. She was 63 years old when I was born, and had had quite a life that I heard about through her many anecdotes and stories. When I was little she still lived on her own in Swansea, then moved down to my parents’ village in Somerset when I was 7 or 8. I have great memories of going to stay with her in Wales when I was little, going to the Gower and Mumbles, cooking all manner of treats, travelling on the top floor of double decker buses up front, pumping the pesticide spray in her garden while she aimed the nozzle at the aphids on her fruit trees, and visiting her good friends and neighbours.

Some of my favourites stories she’d tell were the ones about sending rapidly decomposing laverbread to London in the post, the day she was teaching in a Swansea school classroom and a monkey came in through the window and chased the kids and her travels with my ‘Auntie’ Myf. She also had vivid stories about The Blitz in Swansea when she had to look after the boys and girls in the bomb shelters during the sustained air raids. Despite Nanny’s fair share of hardship she was always stoical and ready with a smile and a conspiritorial wink.

For me, Nanny seemed at her happiest when people were doing odd jobs for her and she could be there looking over your shoulder checking your work and offering Welsh cakes and cups of tea. Nanny taught me how to prune her roses right back so they’d grow with increased vigour the next year “Let your worst enemies cut your roses” she’d tell me and would single out weeds to take out with her walking stick because they grew “like the Dduw”. I also learnt my DIY skills painting and decorating her house probably more times than it needed but it was a good excuse to spend time together and, fair play, she always paid me a very good hourly wage. After working we’d sit down with tea and a well-supplied biscuit tin and natter away or watch Countdown or Eastenders together. Occasionally we’d play Scrabble too. Playing Scrabble with Nanny was enjoyable not just for her impressive recall of the official WI list of two letter words, but also because of her stock phrases such as “Just opening up the board” as she’d place some high scoring word right where you were going to go. Bless. She started my whole obsession with Scrabble thanks to playing Junior Scrabble with us when we were little.

Nanny was always very active and lived very independently right up to very recently. Her social calendar put mine to shame. Visitors would stream through her house and enjoy her hospitality and she, likewise, had many reasons to leave the house and take part in church events, Red Cross meetings, mystery trips, pub lunches… Nanny had an impressive knowledge of where you could get a decent pub lunch, cream tea or fish and chips all over the south west. “Craft Evening” was another perennial favourite where Nanny and several of her friends from the village would meet up weekly and knit clothes for charity. As Nanny’s rheumatism played up in later years her knitting became un-knitting where she’d take apart jumpers etc so others could use the wool. The craft was just a thinly veiled excuse to meet up and keep abreast of village gossip and display her baking prowess though I feel. Nanny was excellent at keeping in touch with people by phone and by post. Last year I even got an email from her. Yearly proof of how well she’d stay in touch with her friends from all over the world came every December when she’d send out the Xmas cards she’d bought in the sales the January previously and start to receive the 100+ cards from friends and family wishing her well. Hanging the cards from strings on the beams was getting to be an industrial operation. Then of course, afterwards, she’d check the senders against her list for next year in case there were any new friends, save the cards and stamps and donate them to Oxfam or somesuch charity.

Nanny had a stroke in March this year and following this, after a stay in hospital, went to Calway House a new nursing home in Taunton where she could get proper 24 hour care. She was comfortable, well attended by family, staff and friends, even dabbling in scrabble, apparently… I feel extremely glad that I was able to visit her over her last two weeks. I got to tell her about what I’d been up to, show her photos of life in Mexico and around and even take her to the Taunton Welsh Society’s Christmas Carol service. She still had her smiles, the occasional wink and offers of Maltesers for everyone. Last Monday we got a phonecall saying she was unresponsive and we rushed to the home to see Nanny having suffered another in a series of mini strokes. She was peaceful, breathing deeply with her eyes closed. Mum, Dad and I kept Nanny company and comfortable until suddenly she stopped breathing and quietly passed on.

That was last Monday. Today is her funeral. I’m sorry I can’t be there. I’m sure I missed a great celebration of her incredible, long life. A friend of hers, Chris Rusling was available to lead the service and I can’t think of anyone better suited to do it. I’m so glad I got to spend some more time with Nanny before she died. She was a truly special person in my life who will be acutely missed.

Last Summer we all rented a cottage in Llangynidir in the Brecon Beacons and had a week’s worth of adventures, picnics, walks and scrabble… Here are some of the photos.

Bath and Taunton and Quantocks

Have I mentioned I’m in the UK…? Off to Bristol this evening, so far no one’s said they’re going to be there. Hope it doesn’t rain too much as I trudge from door to door. Cadbury Arms around 7ish if anyone’s reading…

Cesar- Can’t find any curry powder, but I got some Madras sauce stuff. Should do the trick.
And just to show it doesn’t always rain…