Helen Findlay


My adventures in Middle Europe and The Colonies. This blog contains my own views and opinions and does not represent those of my employers, or any other organisation with which I am involved. Remember, just because it isn't Singletrackworld, doesn't mean it isn't shite !

Monday, November 20, 2006

I´m on the road again...

Decided to take a wee side trip up to Madrid and Toledo for the next few days. 4 reasons for this:

1. Might be starting work in the mailsort at the start of December.

2. Petra arrives on 10th December so want to get it done before then.

3. Weather looks OK for camping this week.

4. Had a fall-out with James yesterday, and he left on his bike in a huff early this morning and wouldn´t speak to me. On the plus side I guess it is one way of avoiding dealing with emotional goodbyes, but it still hurt.

I’m quite upset by all this, the kind of upset usually only fixable with 2 bottles of red wine, 20 malboro lights and a French rugby team. Sadly these items are no longer available to me, so a day in the Prado, easily the best art gallery in western Europe, should do the trick !

Good ride today, did some road climbs in the Espuna. A combination of being really pissed off and having a local roadie guy trying to chase me up the climb (ha - he won’t try that again) led to me putting over 4 minutes into my previous best time for the climb, 17.5 k of ascent up to 1300 metres or so.

Will sort some stuff out monday, including hopefully a Spanish mobile phone, and leave dead early on Tuesday for Camping El Greco in Toledo . With a name like that its clearly not to be passed by on this mission. Back Friday as I have an arrangement to meet the local guys up at El Berro on Saturday for some offroading. Had to avoid El Berro today, there are 6 stray kittens living in a dumpster in the car-park at the campsite. Have been told that as soon as the man who deals with such things get back from his holiday he will drown them. So want to give them some food, but that would just be delaying the inevitable. Can’t come back from Spain with 6 more cats !!

The house on the end of my street was broken into on sunday, which is a bit of a worry as the neighbours across from me and next door are heading away for a few days and we are all going at the same time so thats the whole street empty. So I guess both bikes and the laptop will be getting a trip to Madrid.

Cheerier blog next time (gentle readers) I promise….