Ski Trip

A few weeks ago Nadia was away in Amsterdam with a friend for the weekend so I decided to have a boy’s weekend away up in Sierra Nevada. Now the guys I was going skiing with had never skied before and one of them had not even seen the snow apart from the snow you see at the back of the freezer as they grew up in South Africa.

So we made our way up the ski resort which is about 3 hours away by car from Gibraltar. As any long road trip it was uneventful and a bit boring. When we got to the resort, apart from it being busy like any other weekend up there, it was also super cold. The car was indicating it was -3, whilst Gib was +15 degrees Celsius a few hours earlier. We settled into our nice warm apartment and it did not take us very long to start having a few drinks before dinner.

 

After dinner we went to a bar called Crescendo which is close to the slopes, as it is the best chill out bar up in the resort. We all had rum that night which was a good idea to start with but we ended up having 4 fairly large rums each, which racked up a bill of 120 euros!!!  And as we were heading back to the apartment I suggested to have one more beer before we went up which turned out to be 3 more. You can see where this is going…

The next day we all discovered that skiing with a hangover is not the best of ideas and even the weather had turned nasty for us. However we still braved it and still went up for a day on the slopes. The two other guys went for their 1^st snowboard lesson and I went to my own lesson until lunch. I spent the afternoon on the baby slopes with my mates as the weather was not very pleasant, but the guys got a lot of chance to practice their new skills, which were mainly falling and sitting on their bums, as it goes for new snowboarders.

The next day the weather had not improved much but the resort was still open. As we all still had our ski passes valid for the day we decided to hit the slopes even if it was for an hour or 2. I also learnt my lesson from the day before and was not hung-over that morning.  When we got the slopes there was very few people walking about let alone skiing as there was a thick and heavy fog, mixed with rain, which for me is the worst condition to ski in.

We only managed to ski until lunch before calling it a day. I enjoyed my weekend away with the lads, and they have picked up a new sport, which they want to continue practicing.

Happy Bunnies

It is around this time last year that we got our little furry bundle of joy called Pretzel, and since then he has grown a lot in size and hair. In the beginning him and his older brother Buttons were to sleep in different cages as they did not like sharing their cages.  

 

But we wanted them to be together and cuddle and be cute. So I did some research on how to make a bunny bond with another, and it not as easy as one thinks. To start off, you need to make sure they can see each other and smell each other through the cages but they need to be far enough for them not to bite each other through the bars. It gets better with outside time but apart from being supervised so they don’t eat the house, you need to be extra careful that they don’t fight each other.

Fighting did happen a lot during these past few tense months as they both needed to decide who is the boss: Buttons is the larger of the 2 but was not always the boss as Pretzel is a feisty little one. After many weeks and quite a few bunny fights later they have finally become the best of friends.

Both bunnies now cuddle together, sleep in the same cage and even share the same bowl of food, which is great as we have a little more space around the house using just the one cage. And we finally have something closer to the ibis bunny ad*.

Wet Wet Wet

No, I am not going to talk about the group but about the strong weather we had over last weekend. In the UK news they have been going on about the weather and the floods for a few weeks now and even though that I feel sorry for these people in the flood hit areas, Gibraltar has also had its fair share of stormy weather last weekend.

Luckily I was away skiing in Sierra Nevada and missed out on the most of it, but I still had to go through the worst of it on Sunday night. Driving back down from Sierra Nevada was nerve wracking to say the least, as the wind and rain started beating the windscreen of my car.

Some us know that Gibraltar has good weather all year round and it only rains a few days a year but unfortunately those few days of rain make up for the all the sunny days, and last Sunday was one of them. To add to the darkness of the day during a big storm, the power to most of Gibraltar kept going on and off which just adds that extra bit of gloom to the day.

Let’s hope spring comes soon to cheer us up.

Good day for a walk

Last Sunday the weather was great here in Gibraltar and I suggested we go for a walk up the Rock. Some friends and us decided to do a track known as the Mediterranean Steps, which starts just behind the entrance to the Upper rock by the Pillars of Hercules.

Nadia also thought to give us a treat when we get to the top by making some cupcakes and taking other snacks with us too, but a bit more on that later. The Mediterranean Steps were originally built by the military as a way of communicating different defence systems and lookouts on the south-eastern slopes of the Rock. Nowadays it is opened to the public and it offers some fantastic views of the strait and the Eastern side of the Rock. However, for this walk you must have a head for heights and must be bit fit enough to climb all those stairs to the top.

 

So we packed our backpacks with cupcakes and wine and we set off. Before long we stopped to enjoy the views from one of the caves on the way. We continued to climb the stairs past an old pumping station and through a tunnel before arriving to what I think is the best view on the Rock. The view is of the Eastern side with 3 beaches laid before you, and as you gaze out over the beaches you can see quite a lot of the Costa Del Sol go into the distance, with the snow-capped mountains of Ronda in the background.

The last bit of the trek is also the longest set of stairs and it finishes at the top of the Rock. When we arrived, I unpacked the backpack and began serving the wine, whilst Nadia was giving out the homemade cupcake – it all went down a treat.

 

Thanks Nadia for the photo

After our wine and cake we started to make our way down back down to the car, but before we headed home one of our friends decided he wanted to try riding his scooter down the Rock. We were a bit anxious as it can be steep but he rode it very successfully without killing himself in the process. All in all it was a great day out.

Living with a Baking Queen

I have been writing a lot about myself, where I go, what I do and what I like about it, but I have been writing very little about the other person I share all of this with.

Well, I am very lucky to have someone like Nadia to share the experiences you read about on my blog  (she does appear on many of the photos). Anyway she has always been a passionate baker and has always enjoyed it, even though that most times she does not eat a lot as normally there is none left by the time she has time to eat any cakes!

So around November 2013 Nadia thought she would participate in a Christmas baking competition for the local TV network, GBC, so she tried out some new cake recipes and they got better and better while my belly got a little rounder. Before we knew it, the big day came and I dropped her off at the studio in the morning.

When I went to pick her up she could not tell me who had won or how she did in it until the programme was shown on TV, and by the look on her face I could not really tell if she had won or not. The programme was filmed on December 1^st but not shown until Boxing Day (December 26th) so I was quite excited to see how it went, and when to my surprise she won, I could not believe it!

So this has also giving Nadia a self-esteem boost or should I say she has become a little local celebrity as I have had many people stop and ask me to give their congratulations to her or has asked if they could try the cake she made for the competition.  

She has also started her own blog where you can read more about her baking adventures. Click HERE to to go to her blog, “Cupcakes &Unicorns”.

Happy New Year

Hi all, I know it has been a while and I have been very busy with work to get down and write anything over the last few months. But as the New Year starts, I told myself that this year I will get back to writing which I miss doing.

Many things and events have happened over the last few months, the one which has been making the headlines in the news have been the pressure that Spain has been putting on Gibraltar with the frontier.

In other news we had some furry neighbours move into the street I live in, Gibraltar’s famous apes, and even though I do love the apes, listening to them going about their monkeys business, I sometimes think I am in a zoo.

Anyways there some stories that I need to tell you all about so watch this space.

Calentita

A few weeks ago Gibraltar held one of its most popular festivals which is called Calentitia. Calentita is an expression of Gibraltar’s people and culture through food. The festival is held every June in Casemates square and it gives everyone the chance to try different foods from around the world – and it is all provided by local restaurants and organisations.

This year we decided to get there early and eat there. In previous years we always ate at home or out in a local restaurant and then just nibble on a bit of food later on at the festival. There were 23 different stalls in this year’s festival and 2 were for drinks only. There were foods from around the world, some closer to home than others, such as Moroccan food, and some from far away – e.g. Filipino food (which I did not get the chance to try)

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The 1^st stall we visited was the Dim Sum one (from China) which was quite a nice snack to start off the night; this was closely followed by a Malaysian soup which was very tasty but a bit too spicy. As I said earlier, there was two drinks stalls one for wine and the other for beer. I tired the beer stall first as it was a closer to where we were eating.

The beer on offer was from a small brewery just 10 mins away from Gibraltar called Ketall and they were offering 4 different kinds of beer and since we were out to try and taste as many different things as we could beer was not going to be an exception to the rule, so I bought all 4 of them. The red and IPA beers were the better ones as I am not a big fan of black beer.

During the whole festival there are usually performances happening and the highlight in past years has been the firework display. This year this was changed and instead of a massive fireworks, a show was performed.

The show this year wanted to show some local talents as well as foreign which I thought was a nice change. The music was quite interesting and apart from some backing tracks the rest was being performed with instruments made from everyday items such as bins, pots, pans and even the kitchen sink. The climax of this performance was a small firework display as well a small mention to the UEFA which Gibraltar is now a proud member of.

Overall the night turned out to be a great night out for all and the changes to the format made it even better.