Barcelona Balls!

Back blip

I almost didn't do any work today - just an hour of Aptis!  

I met our Spanish friend Mila in the centre for coffee in Cafe Laie, a lovely bookshop with a cafe on Pau Claris.  Great to catch up over coffee and just the two of us - it's been too long.  

After putting the world to rights I then walked one block down to meet up with another friend and colleague Nigel and another coffee and more chatting. The reason for this meet up was to hand over a house key to give to his wife Mireia, who's going to be doing something for us and this gives her flexibility.  

The next stop was Estacion de Servicio, which is a huge multi-floor hardware shop and I was looking for something quite specific and, although I didn't find exactly what I had in mind, I think the alternative might just work.....time will tell and it might be blipped.  While in there, I spotted a woman on her phone, speaking Catalan, and then looked again as she looked familiar.  Sure enough she was clocking me too!  After a few seconds we both remembered each other - I gave private English classes to both her children, Irene and Sergi, who must have been about 8 and 5 at the time. I also gave both her and her husband private classes for a while, as well as her aunt!!  Irene is now 32!!  We chatted, showed each other a few pics, and exchanged mobile numbers.  We both said that we only go into this shop about once a year, if that.  

Back up to our own barrio then for a street community meeting in a hotel up the road.  Crikey the Spanish/Catalan are a noisy lot and with Bb in his position as president, he had the job of trying to keep some sort of order. 

It was now 8.30 and Bb had been up and very busy all day and went straight to the meeting and our fridge at the moment is a little bit Old Mother Hupboard, so we went to La Perla for a light bite of dinner.  

A lovely day and great to see Barcelona city centre in all its Christmas finery, which I usually miss with being in Cairo.  It really is a beautiful city!