brrrr ...

And now for something completely different. Today S drove us up to the Sierra Nevada for some research on possible walking routes. Perhaps doing this on a sunny Sunday wasn't such a great idea -- half of the population of Granada had headed up there with skis and snowboards, and snow cannon were bombarding the slopes (see second extra for a rather more realistic view of the resort than my carefully cropped blip, and add loud rock music blasting from every bar).

Having parked the car we found we hadn't driven nearly far enough up. But the man in the tourist information office directed us to a bus which we took to the point where S reckoned we might try a brief snowshoe foray (see first extra). But the snow was scanty, hard-packed, and covered in kids sledding on snow shovels or plastic toboggans their parents had bought from the African guys who normally sell hats and sunglasses on the beach. After only a few yards, S decreed it wasn't worth continuing. So we got on the next bus down.

By now a lot of people had finished skiing for the morning, and it was even more hellish. The bar where we stopped for coffee was so noisy that we retreated to a smaller, quieter one for hamburgers, beer, and cheesecake. After this we retrieved the car and made a further assault on the mountain. In the hour we had been eating lunch, it had completely clouded over, and up at 2,500m it was -4C with low clouds drifting down to road level. So we didn't hang about but drove back down again; in Granada it was about 14C hotter. Home at five; it had taken us all day to achieve not very much! Nice views though.