Travelling to France from Spain

Saturday June 7th 2008

Through Spain to France

And so the six week block of breaks in Spain has come to an end. A major learning experience throughout, but the feedback we received was generally very favourable and offers a lot of promise for the future.


The courtyard at the hacienda - another sunny day

A pause while packing the land rover for the journey

The hacienda from the path up the mountain

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But our tentative planning for 2009 has suggested that the two venues per country idea is not a necessary part of what we are about and so may well be dropped. And if that is the case, then we will definitely be basing the future Spanish breaks at the "Moorish Farmhouse" rather than here at the hacienda

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The main question for the journey was whether I would have time to get to the Chateau de Rodie and then back to Toulouse for my flight. It was about 1400 km from the hacienda to the chateau and that increasingly seemed to be too challenging in the time I had available. But for the first day of the journey, I did keep an open mind on this question. This early part of the journey took me to Cordoba, then Madrid and at that point a decision had to be made.

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Nigel had mentioned that they had travelled to France across the Pyrenees through a long tunnel that came out near Lourdes. He had said this was a really great drive and I had begun to think more about this as I headed towards Madrid. And then as I looked at my map and plotted a possible route I noticed that the route close to Lourdes would also mean travelling close to la Mongie and the Col de Tourmalet, key features of recent Tour de France races. So maybe if I did abandon the plan to reach the chateau, I could go and visit these places instead. At Madrid, therefore, I turned right and headed towards Zaragoza, reaching there at around 9:30 in the evening after a day's drive of over 1,000km. Never has an Express Holiday Inn being more welcoming!

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I slept for close to 10 hours straight through and was on the road again by 8:30 the next morning, heading towards Huesca and the Pyrennees. Around 10:00, I had a quick chat to Linda, stopping with the foothills of the Pyrennees in the distance (cloud hugging the tops, but definitely some snow still there)

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Stopped for a call home - mountains topped with cloud and snow in the distance

North of Huesca towards Sabinanigo, I stopped briefly by a river where there was the most incredible noise coming from a collection of toads living in the rivers margins.

"Toad river" - looked an ideal trout water but I didn't spot any fish. It might run dry of course each year.

At Toad river I turned right again and headed towards Boltana on an incredibly scenic road that stayed close to the Rio Guarex and features some amazing waterfalls, and fields of wild flowers.

The Pyrennes getting steadily closer

Cyclists in front of a beautiful (and incredibly isolated) house on the way to Boltana

One highlight of this backroads route was the occasional totally unspoilt village that I came across, the best being perhaps Campodarbe.

Campodarbe

The descent towards Boltana - another hairpined road.

Boltana in the distance.

Poppies in a field close to Boltana

First sign to France - maybe 40km from the border

One of my better photos - poppies and mountains on the way to the border

As I approached the border, it was more and more clear that there were huge banks of clouds stuck on the mountains. As I passed through the tunnel to France, the weather was noticeably different on the French side. Low cloud, much cooler.

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At Arreau, I turned off the main road and started the ascent that would ultimate get to La Mongie and the Col du Tourmalet. First pass was the Col D'Aspin, also a famous cycling pass. There were loads of cyclists making the 12km ascent from Arreau, with helpful signs every km telling them the average gradient of the next section - not information I would have wanted to know in the circumstances. The top of the Col D'Aspin was really cold - most people huddled in coats. Well done to the two cyclists who got to the top just as I was there.

Down the other side and a stop in a little village for some food at a spot obviously used by cyclists for the start of their ascents from this side. A "plat du jour" meals of steak, chips and salad followed by ice cream. Not bad for 8 euros.

As I approached La Mongie, the weather got much worse and visibility really dropped. There were banks of snow on the sides of the road as I came up the Tourmalet, indeed I barely realised I was there when I got to the top the cloud was so thick. So a bit disappointing that this wasn't better.

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And from there it was a drop down towards Lannemezan and the motorway to Toulouse. Still 150km to go to Toulouse at this point and I was very glad that I had decided to not try and make it to the Chateau. Instead the car is now parked up at Toulouse airport for a couple of weeks. I was in bags of time for my flight - perhaps 3 hours early - only to find that it was delayed 2 hours. I arrived at Gatwick just after 1:00am just missing the coach to Oxford and had to wait for the 3:00am departure instead. So I arrived in Oxford just after 5:00am and ready for a really good rest. Emma was home for a couple of days before her exams start and so I did see her for the first time in nearly two months, which was really nice.

Spain week six, day five

Wednesday June 4th 2008

Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

It is really hot today and we basically have a day out in the sun. - such a shame it wasn't like this throughout the time here, it would have made such a difference. Lots of reading done - I have started re-reading a biography of Martin Heidegger that I first read a couple of years ago and am also re-reading Lucy Edge's "Yoga school dropout", one of the funniest books about yoga in India. I very nearly went in the pool at one point too.

Two yoga sessions today again and the classes are really beginning to loosen Julia's shoulder - it's so amazing the impact of concerted efforts is on something like this.

A beautiful sunset tonight across the plains from the main terrace

Spain week six, day four

Tuesday June 3rd 2008

Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

Yoga first thing after a day off for the Seville trip. Zoe participates, but Nigel thinks better of it. He remains more of a Pilates man! Shortly after, my modem seems to stop working and that is why so much of this blog is being uploaded a week or so later now we are back in the UK!

Then off to Ronda for another day out. The weather has now been really good for a few days in a row and the photos are so much better than my previous visit with Fiona


The north entrance to Ronda's bullring - the oldest in Spain

The view towards the Grazalema National park from near to the New Bridge

Looking down on a cafe overlooking the river gorge

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Nigel has a relative who they think used to work at one of the cafes that is adjacent to the New Bridge, and so we settled in the first one we came to and had some tapas to set us up for the walking round. But it turned out this probably wasn't the cafe he had worked at

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Looking back at the cafe we ate at close to the edge of the gorge by the New Bridge

A famous Ronda walkway starts in front of the building above and travels round to the left.

As we made our way up the main street we passed a museum that Fiona and I had somehow missed on our epic trip round Ronda last week. This was a shame as its main current feature was about the Spanish Inquisition and that would have been really good to see I thought.

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There were also several art gallaries that we also didn't find last time and we would have enjoyed. One had lots of oil painted copies of famous works which were very interesting.

Restaurants in a back street

Julia and Zoe outside one of the best looking houses in Ronda

By mid afternoon, we were due another stop for a drink and a snack. Julia and Zoe each ordered lemon juice and received a glass made up of just the squeezed juice from several lemons - a quite extraordinary drink. Nice cakes to go with drinks as well

Last picture of the New Bridge for this visit - still haven't made it to the floor of the gorge for the classic views.

Bullfighting postcards - odd how these events feature in the sports section of tv news each night.

Back for paella night at the hacienda - always one of my favourite dishes, both to cook and eat. It was warm enough to sit outside reading this evening before dinner. I have just finished Naomi Wolf's "Promiscuities", a book I had intended to just dip into but then found far more interesting that I had expected.

Spain week six, day three

Monday June 2nd 2008

Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

A day out in Seville today - my first proper visit if you discount the trip a week or so ago when I took Jonathan to the station and collected Eve. Today we are returning Eve to the airport and then carrying on for a day's sight seeing.

It is about 12:30 when we arrive in the city centre and our first is finding somwhere to park. This was a good example of where having Nigel and Zoe with us really helped as they could make more sense of the parking meters. The confusing thing is that the siesta period from 2:00 till 5:00 is free, so if we could find a meter that we could stay at this 2:00, we would then have parking till 5:00 for free - which should be enough time for us. So we are sorted eventually and parked up near the Plaza de Espana and associated gardens.

On the way towards the centre I was disappointed to find that the battery on my camera had just about run out and so I only have one picture from today's trip. But oddly enough, this did mean that I looked at the city sights rather differently. Rather than focusing on taking pictures, I found myself looking much closer at things than I might have done normally. An interesting experience, though I would have preferred some pictures - Seville is just so beautiful. Maybe Linda and myself should return there at some point for a few days.

The park we passed on the way to the city centre - today's only picture of Seville

So we walked towards the cathedral and Alcazar (leaving a visit till later), before heading off through a shopping area and looping round towards the bullring. Then, as shops started closing for Siestas, Nigel asked someone local where a good place to eat might me and we ended up in a spot well off the beaten track. Nigel is quite a connoisseur of Spanish dining being a great fan of tapas and other food. So he was very happy to have found a new spot well away from the major tourist areas.

From here we made our way back to the Alcazar only to find that it wasn't open on Mondays. Fiona would never have made this mistake! So instead we visited the cathedral (the largest of its type in the world) including the Girolda tower, from where there are some great views of the city. Unusually, there aren't steps up the tower, instead there is a sloping ramp the whole way up.

Finally, as we worked our way back to the car, we went round the Plaza de Espana and gardens - one of Seville's absolute highlights.

Back by early evening and then a trip out to Villamartin for dinner. The only place open is a tapas bar but this proves to be a real find and Nigel is completely in his element as he orders around a dozen portions of various things. And it proves to be an absolute bargain at less than 10 euros per person, including drinks. I can tell Nigel was very impressed!

Spain Week six, day two

Sunday June 1st 2008

Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

Fiona's departure this morning - back to Seville to drop in her car, then onward to Cordoba for a few more day's sight seeing. She has been a lot of fun to have here this week and seems to have had a really good time. We have had loads of chats about all sorts of stuff - mainly art, which Fiona is passionately interested in. She is planning to try and develop a business that will involve her interest in art and I can only wish her well with this.

A day in at the hacienda today. Some sun but the breeze makes the best sunbathing spot to be the inner courtyard. Nigel and Zoe arrived for a few day's visit this afternoon. They used to live near where Julia is based in Cheshire and it turns out that they have quite a few friends in common. So they were able to have a good chat about everyone they knew there.

Eve's last night with us as well today. Tomorrow we are all going to have a day out in Seville dropping Eve back at the airport on the way. Weather forecast is finally good as well for the next few days.

Spain week six, day one

Saturday May 31st 2008

Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

Early away this morning down to Malaga airport to pick up a new guest, Julia. The drive down took me passed Ronda and down to the coast at San Pedro. This is a quite spectacular drive and one that I really enjoyed. Some of my favourite music on the ipod, amazing views, etc. I even stopped for 15 minutes on one viewpoint and called Linda to say how nice the drive was and how it would have been really nice if she had been with me to share it. Our current time apart is the longest we have ever had at 3 weeks and I am certainly starting to really miss her.

The pick-up goes fine, though I do feel a bit of a twit holding a sign up for Julia - I've never done that before and might, in future, work out how to do a nicer WBB sign. We have a good drive back the same way I came down and realised, much to my surprise, that one of the things we could see in the far distance was actually Gibralter. I had thought it would have been much further away.

It is sunny enought for Fiona to be sunbathing when we got back. Bit of a breeze though.

We have an extra yoga class tonight as Fiona had missed one or two on our travels and so a first class for Julia. She has a very tight left shoulder, probably from carrying a laptop around at work, but this should perk up over the week.

A call to Linda tonight and news that my mum isn't very well. She has been short of breath lately and had a really bad experience while out with one of her friends. So she is going for a heart test in a few days time and has to take it very easy for now.

Spain week five, day seven

Friday May 30th 2008

Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

A thunder storm first thing this morning for several hours and the possibility that we wouldn't be able to go out anywhere today. But we decided to take a chance on going to Jerez - if nothing else we could visit our nearest hypermarket and re-stock with some of the things we can't buy locally.

But as we passed Arcos, the weather started to improve and was fine by the time we got to Jerez. So another decent sight seeing day was in order. Fiona had her trusty guidebook to hand and a good plan for the day.


Sherry barrels and blue-flowered Jacaranda trees

The facade of a building that featured Julius Caesar on the left and Hercules on the right - I forget what it was

The main entrance to the Cathedral

A statue of the founder of the Tio Pepe sherry bodegas in front of the cathedral

View of the Tio Pepe bodegas with the cathedral behind

The only disappointment on today's itinerary was that the Alcazar was closed for some work of some sort and doesn't re-open until next week. But we enjoyed the cathedral, had a delicious plate of seafood in one of the squares and another good day out.

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I did get a parking ticket though, and the instructions on how to pay were really complex even though they were translated into English. It would seem I could pay a charge at the ticket machine and enclose the ticket for this in a little envelope into a letter box below the machine. I have no idea if I did this correctly or not.

Spain week five, days five and six

Wednesday May 28th and Thursday May 29th 2008

Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

Two more days sightseeing in the local villages. Our Wednesday trip is to Arcos, a medium sized town about 35km west of the hacienda and marking the boundary of the "white villages" area. I had passed by it last weekend on the way to Jerez and some of last week's group went there one afternoon. Like so many of these villages, it is perched on the apex of a hill, with a clearly defined centre arranged around the church. We parked at the bottom of the hill and made slow progress up through the streets till we came to the main square. This had a church that was being refurbished and a "mirador" or viewing point with some very dramatic views over the valley below.


The church in the main square that is currently being refurbished

We missed the Tourist Office being open by ten minutes but have discovered that The Rough Guide to Andalucia is actually very good, even including some maps of the white villages. So after a spot of lunch outside a bar, we are off down the south side of the town towards the bigger church.

More narrow streets through the town

Throughout all the white villages, you come across ceramic tiles painted with religious pictures, usually of the Virgin Mary. This was one of the most elaborate.

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There were several art gallaries in the town which we had a quick wander round - original oil paintings costing about Euros 40 but usually rather garish colours. But some were much better and I was definitely tempted by one or two.
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We eventually made our way round to the main church which was notable for containing a couple of the most unpleasant religious displays that I have ever seen. Under each of the small alters around the main alter was a glass case containing the dessicated remains of a saint who was said to have died in the third century. These had been recovered from a crypt somewhere many years ago and were dessicated rather than decomposed - a sign, apparently, of their purity. They were dress in some sort of outfit and their glass box was filled with all sorts of bits and bobs. Apparently, the display of corpses of saints is quite common in Spain (and indeed in other Catholic countries).

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The main entrance to the church - suitably ornate

The lower class case containing the desicated corpse of a Saint - the head is towards the left, garlanded in flowers!

Later on, back at the hacienda, the puppies were out again. Getting bigger by the day, though still rather wobbly!

My favourite puppy - one of the two white ones

Our Thursday trip is to Zahara, perhaps the most photogenic of the white villages, perched on a hill above a reservoir and with a ruined castle at the top of the town. As usual, we arrived in the early afternoon just as the siesta was starting and we had another walk up through the streets from the car park. We are certainly feeling that this is providing another decent work out to go with the yoga each day.

A street in Zahara on the way to the main square and cobbled centre street

Zahara's beautiful main church - close in to the rock face above on which the castle sits

Village rooftops on the way up towards the castle

Poppies on the side of the path up to the castle - the main church behind

As we came up to the top of the hill with the castle on, one of the local vultures was just make a turn over the castle and I was able to get the closest view I have had of one so far. Luckily the camera was at full zoom already. At its closest it was maybe 20 yards away. These birds are just an amazing size - maybe 8 foot wingspan. We saw another half dozen today in the far distance.

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Slighly enlarged picture of the vulture that flew past just as I reached the castle

Another staue of Mary, against a wall of ivy, close to the church

We spent about four hours in the town in the end and this is definitely one of the highlights of the local area.

Tonight we decided to watch a movie on Fiona's Apple - the first tv anyone has watched for some while. Our selected movie was "Juno" which I thought was really good. I think the screenplay may have won an Oscar - I wouldn't be surprised if it did. And a great soundtrack - Cat Power, Sonic Youth, Mo Tucker, etc. I loved the final scene when the two lovers were playing their guitars together. Very moving film I thought.

Spain week five, day four

Tuesday May 27th 2008

Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

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For our last yoga classes before our rest day, we always try to make things a little harder, so people can feel the work they have done throughout the day and then really benefit from the rest day. So lots of strong standing poses, balancing poses, lots of down dogs, and so on.

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At lunchtime, far in the distance way beyond Villamartin, a thunder storm gradually rolled in. We estimated that it was perhaps 25 miles away, but it was enough to persuade us that this afternoon's trip out should be to Ronda rather than Arcos or Jerez. As we drove down, we spotted the turning for one of the prehistoric cave sites in the area. This is privately owned and getting the chance to go round it can be a bit hit and miss, but this is something we'd like to try to see.

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The rain has caught up with us by the time we reached Ronda, though no lightning and thunder. Walking down past the famous bull fighting ring (the first in Spain and the "spiritual home" of bullfighting), our first stop was the "new bridge" which connects the newer part of Ronda to the original white village. This is quite a short bridge but it is over 100m high and the sides of the cliffs are virtually vertical. With the bit of rain that had fallen, none of us were keen to go near the railings to get the most extreme pictures!

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We continued down towards the Mondragon Palace. This was the residential palace of the Moorish kings which, on the conquest of Ronda by the Christians, was given to a Captain Mondragon. It is now the Municipal Archaelogical museum and, given its relatively small size, it is actually a really good museum, mixing Arab and renaissance history with prehistoric and roman elements. And all housed in a typically beautiful Moorish palace. There was even a music trio (piano, violin and cello) who were really excellent. In all, we spent about two hours there, it was that good.

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The inner courtyard by the main entrance

Fiona in the stone-age exhibition

The second courtyard

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The gardens from the second courtyard

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The second courtyard

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Tiling on the courtyard floors

Detail from one of the courtyard doors

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From the museum we made our way around the edge of the town to the main square, dominated by the unusual Church of Santa Maria. This was originally the mosque of the town and the bell tower is a Mudejar tower built on the foundations of a minaret and then topped off with a renaissance belfry. The church itself is a mix of Moorish, renaissance, baroque and even gothic. One of our guidebooks described the inside as dull, but we were very impressed.

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The standard elaborate main alter, common to many Spanish churches

Some of the religious statues are stunningly beautiful

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Downstairs in the crypt was an exhibition of illuminated manuscripts. I am a huge fan of these and the examples were really impressive. One was the "book of hours" belonging to King Philip. They certainly knew how to make books in those days.

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Just one of about 30 illuminated manuscripts.

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A beautiful wooden statue included in the manuscript exhibition.

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Another stunning alter display

By now we had massively exceeded the time we had expected to spend in Ronda. The caves would have to wait for another trip. Instead we walked to the far end of the town to see the original town gates and then back around the top of town. We had hoped to find the ancient Arab baths but took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up back at the New Bridge. But by now it was mid evening and many places would be shutting. So we strolled back along the Carrera Espinel, one of the main shopping roads.

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Last picture I took from the New Bridge. 8:30 in the evening and just beginning to get dark. The last sun of the day is shining in exactly the right place for the picture. The drop behind the buildings is over 100m to the river below.

So we missed tonight's scheduled yoga / pilates. But we probably walked enough miles to make up for it. A great day out despite the bit of rain.

Spain Week five, day three

Monday May 26th 2008
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Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

As is the recent pattern, the day starts out nice and sunny and clouds over a little as the day goes on. But we are able to do yoga on the front terrace with the great view, rather than be tucked under the side terrace.

Down by the side of one of the farm buildings is a kennel where a dog has just had a litter of puppies. Usually we catch a little peep of the puppies in their kennel (usually asleep). But this morning, Diego, the farm manager has the puppies out of the kennel and is letting them have a wander around on their own a bit. Mum is not too happy about this as she is chained to the kennel and has to just watch as the puppies do some exploring on their own. They totter about looking at things - all very cute.

After today's life coaching class we head off to Villamartin for a walk round and a bite to eat. Our waiter turns out to be from Scotland (via New Zealand) and lives here married to a local Spanish lady. He inspires us to have some of the local specialities and these are very good - especially the grilled swordfish steak.

Villamartin is quite a pretty village in places but doesn't have the dramatic location of many of the other white villages. We do find the nesting storks again and they are pretty amazing, having built their nest on the apex of a sharply pointed roof. Other birds seem to be nesting in the lower branches of the stork's huge nest.

Tomorrow's tentative plan is to visit Ronda - definitely one of the region's highlights.

Spain week five, day two

Sunday May 25th 2008

Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

Up at 6:30 to see Ellie off. I have really enjoyed her company over the week, and am extremely grateful for her help with everything. In all the years we have worked together, this was perhaps the nicest week. And Ellie's yoga practice was just amazing by the end of the week. I will be sending her hi-res versions of the pictures that we used for this blog and Ellie is intending to frame them and put them up on her wall at home! Ellie may be able to come out again for part of the last week. Fingers crossed we can do something then as well.

Just after Ellie departs at 7:00 it starts to rain really hard! A quick rush round the courtyard to retrieve some drying clothes and then some reading on the terrace as the rain comes down. Even some thunder in the distance. This wasn't quite what the forecast had said! But then around 9:00 it stops and the skies begin to clear and the sun comes out. So maybe it was a one-off storm?

Our group does not make it to yoga, scheduled for 10:00 this morning. Sometimes people just have to let the requirement for sleep take over and get a really good twelves hours. We definitely notice that this often happens when people have come to us. But we are all up and sorted out by lunchtime and decide on a trip through the Grazalema national park.

There is evidence of a recent festival in Grazalema village. Huge amounts of vegetation or stuck in the metal grills that cover windows and are lying in the streets, especially the area around the main church. No idea what this is for but Zahara (another white village we visited later today) was celebrating "Corpus Christi". We have a good look round, taking in some of the souvenir shops, the main viewpoint over the valley and finally some tapas in one of the little bars - calimari, chorizo, patatas, the usual things.

Sign of a recent festival in Grazalema - vegetation like this covered the village today

Grazalema - a classic street view

From there we drive up to the "puerto de las Palomas" - the "pass of the doves" - at around 1100 metres high. The weather has continued to improve all day and by now there is a lot of blue sky around among the fluffy clouds. As before, we are able to see loads of the Griffen vultures (called "Lion vultures" in Spain) which circle around above us.

At the "pass of the doves" with the Sierra de Gaidover valley far below

Looking north-west from the pass showing the twisting road that descends to Zahara

The "Garganta verde" gorge passed on the descent to Zahara

Then the descent down to Zahara - a series of amazing hairpin bends which really test the nerves. As Fiona said this afternoon, she would never do this drive herself, didn't like some of it at the time, but was really pleased she had done it afterwards (when back on flat land!). By the dam of Zahara reservoir, we are able to get some really nice photos of this most picturesque of the many white villages nearby.

Zahara from across the reservoir - the pass we descended is to the left of the village, where the cleft appears in the mountains!

We manage yoga tonight and have a gentle 75 minutes on the side terrace and tomorrow we hope to be back on our regular schedule.

Spain, week five, day one

Saturday May 24th 2008

Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

So our first week at the hacienda ends with Kate managing to get away for her earlier-than-expected flight first thing. I have really enjoyed sharing the last week with Kate. She is really beginning to blossom as a mum-to-be, even if, at times, it still feels such a big change to her. Her yoga practice was really excellent. She has done a lot of fitness related stuff in the past and it really showed through her strong and straight back. We are definitely hoping to stay in touch and find out how it all works out over the year.

Elle and I went to Jerez this morning in two missions. Firstly to see if there was a hypermarket there and then to try and track down the small bar where the prospective mother-in-law to Ellie's brother works. The hypermarket was pretty easy to find in the end - a Carrefour just as we entered the city. Ellie and I had a short trip round picking up most the the things that we are missing more locally. Ellie also bought herself a few items to take home.

Our plan for finding the bar consisted only of the name (Estella) and rough location (near the Hotel Jerez). We found the hotel easily enough and after one or two other stops for directions, we finally managed to find the bar and, as luck would have it, Ellie's friend was there. Moreover the barmaid spoke English so they were able to communicate to some degree. For Ellie, this was one of those memorable experiences that are so important in life. To make the effort to visit, even though we don't know the location - the delight for each other of the meeting. All very good. And I managed a beer and a plate of potatoes, chorizo and pepper!

A nice drive back as well as we talked about how the week had gone

Back to the hacienda and enough sun to make it worth while sitting by the pool. Quite a lot of cloud still though and a bit breezy. But Ellie was determined to sit out some more. I had a chat with Linda. She and Emma have had a good few days together (including seeing Indiana Jones which I would really like to see) and Emma is returning to college tomorrow.

Then a couple of calls from our guest, Fiona, who has been delayed and is having problems with her hire car. We had hoped to maybe have one more yoga class today - Ellie has become a huge fan of yoga and has really made some great leaps in form over the 10 classes we have had. But in the end we don't quite manage it. Elle has to pack for her journey home tomorrow. I am really hoping she might be able to come out for a few days next week as well.

Fiona arrives just after 7:00. She is an Australian girl though lives prety much permanently in London now and she seems full of life. She has just quit her job and is really excited about what she might do next. She has been in Seville for the last few days and will be going to Cordoba after her visit with us. And she hopes to do quite a bit of sight seeing as well. We have a nice first meal together - Ellie's last for this visit due to her early start tomorrow.

She has also arrived with a huge pile of books and is clearly an avid reader. She has a root through the boxes of books we have with us and selects nine books from our collection to have a look at while she is here. We stay up quite late talking about books and various other things. I already think Fiona will be really fun to be with this week.

Spain week four, day seven

Friday May 23rd, 2008

Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

Jonathan's last day with us before he travels on to Cordoba and then Granada. He seems to have had a great time this week and is really pleased with how it has gone and the progress he has made in the areas he wanted to.

So it is our last yoga class as a trio and another really nice class. It is sunny first thing and we can do the class on the main terrace but it does start to cloud over soon afterwards and we have another grey day.

Our last session of the "learn to relax" course is our wrap up summary. Everyone has things to say about what they will do going forward. Ellie is thinking seriously about learning to teach Tai Chi. This is one of her great loves and having the time here to think has really motivated her. Everyone else has their own ideas for the future.

Then its off to Seville with Jonathan. Ellie and Kate have also decided on a short trip to Seville and follow behind us till we lose them in traffic. Our journey goes ok though there are a few moments when we have little idea where we are and we are held up by several accidents on the way. We drove passed the famous Plaza de Espana where I noticed it was quite easy to park. That could be a good thing to know forwhen we want to have a day out there.

Our planned meeting with Eve at Seville station goes surprisingly well and Jonathan is in plenty of time for his train. I have really enjoyed getting to know Jonathan over the week and really hope that things work out for him as he hopes.

Ellie and Kate are back around 6:00 with tales of fine dining in Seville, so they don't want much for tea. Our last yoga class of this week and we are back on the side terrace under cover. Now there are just two class participants as we end the week with a lovely restorative class. Ellie has gained several inches of flexibility over the week and Kate looks great as an expectant mum doing yoga. She has a beautiful strong and straight back which I'm sure will really help as she goes through the next few months.

We have one last fire in the main lounge and play a card game called "Uno" that Kate knows and teaches us all. A gentle end to the week it seems.

Then Kate discovers very late that she is actually on a plane at 9:30am not 2:30pm and so our plans for tomorrow will be redically changed. Only a tiny last minute hiccup!

Spain week four, day six

Thursday May 22nd, 2008
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Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

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At last we wake to a day of clear blue skies and sunshine. The owner of the hacienda came visiting yesterday and says it has been the least sunny May for twenty years. But maybe our luck is changing now (though the forecast isn't great for the next few days).

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So yoga this morning is on the front terrace in the early morning sunshine. After our rest day yesterday, everyone is feeling really good and there are some great postures done today. Even Jonathan, who has a very tight back (after years of bending over tables working as a teacher) is moving far more freely. It never fails to amaze me how a few days yoga can begin the transform people's posture and the way they feel. Today's classes were really amazing.

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Ellie, Jonathan and Kate in downward dog

Trikonasana (Triangle)


Three great Warriors (Jonathan's tight back stops him keeping his back straight - but he is improving fast!)
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An intense side angle pose - one of Ellie's best
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Three sturdy trees (one of the few posture that shows Kate's baby bump!)

Ellie's lovely pigeon pose

A nice open twist towards the end of the class. The view is towards Villamartin

We all have brunch outside and decide that a slight change in our usual day's plan is in order so we can all take advantage of the sun. So we are all soon settle out by the pool for several hours of dozing and reading (even a bit of swimming). As a result of taking maximum advantage of the sun, there are a few pink limbs later on but no one is really badly burnt. And Ellie has gone very brown really quickly.

This evening's yoga is slow and restorative on the terrace in the sun. More beautiful postures from everyone and we are all feeling very relaxed.
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Kate had a small craving for steak tonight (so many changes occur when pregnant!) so we have that with a Moroccan dish of vegetable tagine. We are able to sit out on the terrace and watch the sun go down - just like seeing the sunset over the ocean with few clouds in view.
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A lovely day.

Spain week four, day five

Wednesday May 21st 2008

Tangiers, Morocco, Africa

Hi everyone. It's Ellie here and I'm going to tell you all about our trip to Tangiers in Morocco. As it says on the Well Being Breaks website, this is a long day out from the hacienda but is well worth it. We had a great adventure.

We decided to aim for the 1:00pm ferry from Tarifa (on the southern tip of Spain) which gets into Tangiers at 11:30am (there is a minus-two-hour time difference between Spain and Morocco!). This meant that we had plenty of time for the drive down and could go a more scenic route rather than stick to the dual carriageways. Our route took us down to Jerez and through a most amazing valley which was covered in wind turbines

We got to Tarifa about after a drive of about two hours. We decided we would take the Tangier tour organised by the ferry company as we thought this would be the best way to spend a relatively short visit to the city. This was absolutely the right thing to do, and was only about 5 euros more than the cost of the ferry (55 euros in total for the trip) You simply ask for the day trip when you buy your ferry ticket and then you are met at the ferry port in Tangiers. You do have to get your passport stamped on the ferry, which can involve a little bit of queueing. Oh, and you shouldn't take photos of the port as you could get arrested!

The crossing took about 40 minutes and we were met at Tangiers by Ahmed, who escourted us to our tour minibus along with the various other groups of day tourers. Our first stop was in one of the residential areas on the way to the centre of town where there were a number of really beautiful villas. There were also some camels (aahh) which you could pay one euro for a short ride on (we declined) .

From there we were taken to a local restaurant for a meal of kebabs, vegetable tagine and couscous. This was really good, and was included in the price of the trip, though you did have to pay seperately for any drinks you wanted.

Next stop was a carpet shops with a wide range of carpets on offer - some really beautiful, some not so. Lots of haggling went on and some of the tour group (not us) actually did but something. Then to a spice shop. It was really easy to get swept along with the excitement of it all and end up spending more than perhaps you had intended. We did buy a few things and were happy with what we got. You can also pay in euros, so you don't need the local dirams.

We stayed in Tangiers till late afternoon (local time), about five or six hours there in total. Overall, this was a fabulous trip out and we would recommend it highly - a great adventure. I can't believe we've all been to Africa! Love Ellie

Back at the hacienda

A change in the weather this evening as the sun finally breaks through and we have three hours of sunshine in the evening. The forecast for tomorrow is pretty good as well.

The Tangiers expedition is back in by 10:00 or so in time to see the extra time in the Manchester United / Chelsea champions league final (on local Spanish tv). Most people are supporting Chelsea so it is a slightly disappointing end to the day.

Spain week four, day four

Tuesday May 20th 2008

Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

Grey skies at first but then some blue patches and for a short time we were all quite optimistic that today would be the day we could bake in the sun. Unfortunately, our hopes were dashed by late morning as the cloud thickened again. Kate logged onto some weather satelite sites which showed the growth of the cloud sitting over us and suggested it was being trapped by the mountains nearby. The forecast for later in the week is better again.

But at least it is warm and there was no problem with having yoga outside again. Today is Lou and Nicky's last day of their short break and so we wanted to make the yoga a little more challenging prior to their departure and the other's rest day. So I chose a series of short vinyasa sequences that would give a really good work out to those who wanted it while allowing the others to go at their own pace with a smaller number of postures. This is not a style of yoga that I have taught a lot but it was nice to do.

The "learn to relax" course also had to accommodate Lou and Nicky's departure and so I picked out a few of the sessions from the next three sessions, ensuring that I could produce some sort of conclusion even though it was only day two of the four day course. Most of the participants got the key insight that there are often no "black or white" answers to these questions and that change does require some effort. Both Lou and Nicky said they would be certainly trying to incorporate yoga and pilates into their lives going forward.

After much deliberation, the afternoon is spent in Arcos de la Frontera, the last "white village" before Jerez and perched on the top of a hillside as most are. This is larger than most in the area and has a lot of very attractive shops in the old part of town. Plus a rather odd uniform shop that a couple of the group went round. More complex driving to exit the town as the one way system takes everyone out to the edge of town.

As we were back a bit later than planned and had booked an evening out, yoga / Pilates is reduced to 45 mins but also aims at a slightly higher level that previous days, prior to the rest day. I took quite a few photos of this session as everyone is beginning to look very good at the postures we have been practising the last few days.

Some nice downward dogs

Everyone has done some excellent Tree poses this week

For some reason this posture seemed to reduce everyone to fits of giggles everytime they did it

. . . . . and a nice strong crescent moon pose near the end of the sequence

Dinner tonight was at the Hacienda Buena Suerte which is next door to us across the fields. This is a riding school and has about 30 horses, all of which Ellie loves. The guests seem to be mostly French and German. They serve a simple buffett dinner which was salmon tonight and very good. Everyone had a very good time, though Kate is ultra-sensitive to smells at the moment - a side effect of her pregnancy - and found the slightly smoky atmosphere a little difficult. So hopefully Luigina and Nicky had a good last night.

Jonathan and Luigina at the Hacienda Buena Suerte

Spain week four, day three

Monday May 19th 2008

Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

Still cloudy this morning but at least the wind has dropped. So yoga is still on the side terrace this morning and brunch is inside. Ellie hurried round with setting up breakfast and so was able to attend this morning's yoga class (she can always do the evening one).

It is also the first day of our second "learn to relax" course. I have been thinking about the structure of this over the last week and trying to take on board some ideas that we had after Eve's week. As always, we have an interesting group, with lots of different issues. Interestingly, the general test we do at the start - "how stress prone are you?" - threw out some genuine surprises for several participants. As always, however, we don't go into the detail of such things in this blog.

We were able just about to stay on the front terrace for the first meditation session, though everyone had to make sure they were warm enough before we really got started.

Everyone fancied a trip to the supermarket afterwards and Ellie and I did the next house shop including lots of new things that she thought it would be good to have. Our main problem is the lack of wholemeal bread and fresh herbs in Spain. Then Luigina, Nicky and Jonathan went off for a drive in the direction of Ronda, while Ellie and Kate went on a trip nearby, checking out a nearby hacienda that does evening meals and might be available for dinner one night this week, and then Villamartin for a wander round.

So I had an afternoon in at the hacienda catching up on admin and having a bit of time to think about things. I am rather missing Linda and Emma at the moment, especially after I had a quick call to Emma this afternoon. She is returning home on Wednesday for a few days revision. It seems ages since I last saw her.

Tonight's class included some harder Pilates exercises for Lou and Nicky who particularly want to do these. Then the highlight of the day - Jonathan's (the guest, not me) paella night. We just did one - chicken and seafood - and it was a total triumph I thought. He seemed very pleased to be the centre of a bit of attention and everyone seems to really likes him. I was a little nervous about having a gues who has suffered from stress related illnesses in the past, but I think it is going fine so far and he seems very pleased with his break
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Our guest Jonathan busy cooking paella

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His dish is unveiled to the group

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. . . . . . and gets a great reception

Ellie did dessert tonight - our baked bananas, with orange zest and ice cream recipe - and we had another evening with a fire which was very nice again. But the weather doesn't look like improving much at the moment, which is bound to be a bit disheartening for everyone, even if it is just 5 degrees back home in the UK.

A nice chat to Linda tonight before bed. Things seem to be ok so far with everything.

Spain week four, day two

Sunday May 18th 2008

Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

After yesterday's trials and tribulations, everything was delayed an hour today, so we started this week's yoga at 10:00. It was really nice to have a slightly larger class than I've ever had before and with one member pregnant as well to add to the experience. As always, the first class to quite gentle and we'll build up during the week. But also, without Linda here, I am doing a second class each day this week - so that will also be a first for me.

But we are forced to do our class on the side terrace as the wind was pretty strong directly along the front terrace, which would have been my first choice. The hacienda's rooster's are close to this side terrace which makes for an interesting background noise. Brunch is held indoors, as dinner was last night. We have decided to cook from the smaller kitchen and are using the big table in main lounge of this wing.

As the weather was too poor to consider sitting out, I offered to take everyone out for a long drive this afternoon through the Grazalema National Park. With Ellie in the boot of the land rover, we only need one car for us all. We make our way to El Bosque and from there up into the hills towards Grazalema iitself where we stop for a walk round. We were not exactly prepared for it being so cold (though we were over 4,00o feet up) so everyone had hot drinks in the town's main square and several plates of tapas, including plates of ham, cheese and potato tortilla. Ellie, Kate and myself also had scrummy cakes from a little close to the centre of town.

Everyone in Grazalema - Luigina, Jonathan, Nicky, Ellie and Kate (foreground)

From here we drove the incredible route to Zahara that Linda and I had done last year. As we approached the top of the pass, we saw a number of the huge birds for which the park is famous - some sort of vulture, huge birds with wingspans of at least 8 feet.

On the road to Zahara near the top of the pass

A quick stop for some pictures at the top and then down the incredible road towards Zahara. This route is a brilliant series of bends dropping steeply to the village below. We briefly went through Zahara (which also features some incredibly steep roads) and then out towards Algondalares and home.

Thirty minutes after getting back it is time for yoga again, a relatively gentle restorative class in which I tried to feature some pilates variations of yoga postures I knew. Over the next couple of days I am going to try and add some more of these which could be fun. And then it is cooking time - fish with pesto topping and a summer vegetable risotto - and an evening in the main lounge in which we had decided to have a fire. It probably isn't really cold enough for a fire but it was really nice - not sure if it was legal though!

Spain week four, day one

Saturday May 17th 2008

Hacienda, Villamartin, Spain

A couple of days of poor developments back home have resulted in Linda having to return to the UK. So I have wrapped up the end of our run at the Moorish farmhouse on my own. Luckily our friend Ellie is coming out for next week when we have four other guests. Things would certainly be much harder if Ellie wasn't with me to help.

Last photo of the Moorish farmhouse at 7:30 this morning - already looking forward to going back again.

All packed up and ready to depart. Among other things, the car was loaded down with a complete food shop

It would be fair to say that today has been quite an experience all round. My own journey was fine and I arrived at the hacienda at lunchtime, meeting the owner, Angel, exactly on schedule. And on first go round, I was actually really pleased. Every query we had left over from our visit last year turned out to be no problem. And the house even looks better than I remember it.

Fields near Granada - the first poppies I've seen this year

Ellie rang just after lunch to say she had only just got her car sorted out but was on her way. She made it by about 2:30 after a couple of hairy moments and then agreed to drive off and get one of guests from a local train station. While she was gone, Kate arrived, our first American guest, coming in from Germany where she lives (Heidelberg to be exact, one of our favourite cities). She has recently discovered she is pregnant so I have been checking the details of my class plans to ensure that I have the correct modifications for her.

Ellie arrived with our next guest, another Jonathan just to be confusing, after what was apparently quite an adventure of their own. And then a number of further mishaps seemed to start. Firstly Kate couldn't get any hot water in her shower but this truned out to be just that it hadn't run long enough to get hot. Then, as we started to prepare dinner, we lost all power in the kitchen. The local housekeeper, who speaks no English, had to phone Angel till we finally discovered that we had tripped a fuse somehow.

And as time passed during the evening there was no sign of Nicky and Luigina, our two other guests. Finally we had to eat and soon after we'd started, we got a text to say they were at Seville airport and sorting out their car. A while later they called so say they were a little bit lost and could we help. Actually it is really difficult to find the driveway for the hacienda in the dark. So Elle and I went down to find them in the nearby twon of Villamartin. This went quite well and we finally had our full group around midnight. So our opening things have been been delayed an hour tomorrow so everyone can get a good night's sleep.

Spain week three, day five

Wednesday May 14th 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

For our day off today, and to celebrate Linda's birthday tomorrow, we had another drive up to Granada. This remains a real treat and we are not the slightest bit bored of the place yet. Today we visited several of the sites on the western side of the centre, failing yet again to see the inside of the Basillica of San Juan de Dios. Last time we were told it opened at 3:30. Today we were told 8:00. So seeing this will have to wait till next time

What we did visit again was the shop selling enormous jigsaw puzzles that we stumbled on last time, one puzzle of which had 18,000 pieces. I suspect that would take maybe 50 times as long as a 1000 piece puzzle. Linda bought a Rosina Wachmeister cat jigsaw.

Linda in the puzzle shop

I wonder how many of these they sell - 18,000 pieces for Euros 150

Linda and I had dinner out tonight at La Limonero, the same restaurant that we ate at last week for our anniversary. There was a flamenco guitarist playing tonight who wandered round the various tables playing a little at each. Another really good meal there, though it does seem to be a real effort for him to turn the stuff out. His food is at quite a higher standard than the usual for the area, but well worth it. A really nice night out again.

Spain week three, day four

Tuesday May 13th 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

A couple of our guests have wanted to do trips down to the coast, so this afternoon we went on a trip to Marina del Este, one of the more picturesque villages on the coast just past Almunecar. In the first intense heat for a few days, we walked along the sea front at La Herraderra, close by, popping into only one ice cream shop on the way, and having a very long look at a restaurant on the beach which had huge paella pans outside.

Paella pans on the beach

Marina itself was quite a pretty village though very close to the built up towns. Linda and I had lunch at one of the sea front cafes - deciding to try one of the seafood platters which feature more or less everywhere locally.

Seafood at La Barca restaurants

Polytunnels on the coast

From Marina, we drove along the coast to La Ribetta, where we turned inland for a drive across the Contraversia mountains - the same road that had defeated us last week due to low lying cloud. The area closest to the coast (south facing) is dominated by hundreds of polytunnels that smother the landscape. In some places, these fill valleys and look like some of the Christo wrapping art from the last thirty years. Just as we came over the summit of the Contraverias, we could see the entire range of the Sierra Nevedas, still carrying a reasonable amount of snow. And at exactly that point my camera's battery expired!

Like a Christo art project - polytunnels in the Contraversia mountains

All Hide all

Spain week three, day three

Monday May 12th, 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

Today's drive out is to the end of the valley to see the actual location of Chris Stewart's place - as featured in "Driving Over Lemons" and his two subsequent books. Again this turns out to be an ideal off-road drive for the land rover but probably pretty tough in any other vehicle. The nearest settlement, El Duque, turns out to be about two houses. At the bottom of the pathway that forms part of the GR-142 long distance walk, we do find the little bridge over the river that leads to his house, but decide to stop at this point - he probably has far too many visitors and we were getting a bit close to celebrity stalking.

The footbridge over the river that provides access to Chris Stewart's property

Chris Stewart's property from the road to El Duque - the small white smudge to the right of the hillside just to the left of centre!

Later, at Pilates, we hear a little more about him. The house is very rural, far more so that the villas that most of the English ex-pats own, despite the success of the books. Presumably, therefore, that is just how he likes it. We have certainly enjoyed the eggs that we had from his wife, Ana, via Nigel and Zoe.

Spain, week three, day two

Sunday May 11th, 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain.

A long journey home after the exam yesterday. We finished just before 6:00 and by 7:00 I have reached Gatwick and checked in. Fairly quiet at the airport on a Saturday night. On the way back, I finished "Driving over Lemons" and am definitely planning a trip out to see his part of the valley. Collected the car at 12:30 and back at the farmhouse at 2:30 in the morning!

So today was as quiet as I could make it.

For this weeks blogs I have decided to focus more on some of the local sights and trips out, rather than the usual daily routine we have had for the last couple of weeks. So today's blog is mainly about driving up towards Pampaniera and visiting the O Sel Ling Tibetan Buddhist monastery high in the mountains.

This involves a drive of several kms off road and the land rover is ideally suited to this. We parked well before the start of the buildings and walked the last couple of kms, gasping somewhat in the slightly thinner air when we are high up.

Orgiva in the valley, on the way up to O Sel Ling

The entrance sign - visitors are welcome between 3:30 and 6:00. We were a bit early!

A massive prayer wheel - the traditional Buddhist mantra, Om Mane Padme hum, is the message on the side. Oddly enough, it revolves easily with a slight push.

The Stupa at the monastery

The monastery is actually a collection of rustic local buildings on the hillside, mainly consisting of tiny buildings built into hillside, most of which seem to be the tiny rooms occupied by retreatant monks (of whom we saw none during our walk). It is a sparse location and would be very bleak in winter. It does have some nice views of Pamaniera and Bubion though. A visit during actual visitor hours would be excellent. Maybe we can include a visit when we are doing the "learn to relax" theme which includes an introduction to meditation.

Afterwards we went to Pampaneira for a walk round and some lunch - my chance to have the (im)famous Patata a Lo Pobre, "poor man's potatoes", which is just potato, onions, green peppers, and egg. Combined with black pudding, ham, cheese and chorizo, this makes a "plato alpuharran", a plate of local delicacies. Linda stick to a vegetable tortilla - perhaps wisely.

We had a long catch up call with Emma, who is approaching exam time at college but seems to still be enjoying herself. She has been keeping up with us using this blog (while we use her facebook account) and feels that we don't mention her enough. So this is her mention. Later in the year, Emma will be staying with us in France and Italy so will feature lots no doubt.

Yoga teacher training course - final assessment

Saturday May 10th, 2008

Yoga Teacher Training Course, Victoria, London

And so after 10 months, it is the day of my final assessment on my yoga teacher training course. From our original 12 or so, we are down to five being tested today, one being tested very soon and several who have rolled onto the next course following behind our one. Four are unaccounted for - lost somewhere along the way!

But today is a tough day. One hour classes by the five of us plus Romana's pre-assessment. Also some news before we start. Sarah is pregnant and won't be doing the day's classes from us, but will do her own. Well done Sarah!

First off is Rhea, who has struggled for a lot of the course with feeling unconfident, but today she did the best teaching we have ever seen her do. A class programme that was ideally suited to her strengths. Hard to tell for sure straight away that she had definitely passed, but it seemed good to me.

Next up was Tracey, who is perhaps our best participant. Her class was actually quite a challenging one, but very well taught. No doubt at all in my mind that she has passed.

Sarah was next. She has also occasionally appeared nervous in the past, but really shone today. And she definitely has the glow of a mum-to-be.

And so to me. A little nervous at the start, resulting in my breath being a little short, but soon into my stride. A decent enough first bit, then some challenging postures for the main section - Vrkasana, Gomukasana, some flowing sequences using twists. My explanations seemed ok, if a little wordy. I did plenty of adjusting, used a lot of props, etc. Overall I was pretty happy, though Elena had written a lot down on her marking sheet.

Finally Eve, who also really pulled out a good performance, playing to her strengths as Rhea did. I was aware that Eve was a bit behind with her homeworks and wondered if this might affect her pass or fail today. Hard to tell, it seemed to me - maybe just done enough.

So then there is a hour when we all sat downstairs while each of us was called up and taken through a review by the two external assessors and Elena. Ten minutes in and there is a cry of delight from Rhea who has got through. Her Q&A went ok and she was delighted with the outcome. Tracey and Sarah then also pass.

For my part, my Q&A was relatively straightforward. Both assessors thought I had done very well - one even said they would have really liked to have been able to have done my class - perhaps they say that to all the people they pass, who knows. Elena has a few points but mainly chatted about what a challenging student I have been for her and what a transformation in me over the course. She could tell I have been teaching lots of real people recently as I was, in her words, "teachig like a real human being". So I have passed as well!!

Eve is last and doesn't get an immediate verdict that worries us all, but she eventually gets the news that she has passed too. So 5/5 for the day.

After all this we then have to regroup for Romana's pre-assessment - her mock exam. We are all really tired and overwhelmed by now and it is really hard to keep going. Romana's class starts to get a little out of control and Elena decides to roll it in to tomorrow's practicum with the other class. Romana can definitely teach better and we all have our fingers crossed for her exam in a few weeks time.

Our group - standing left to right: Rhea, Rod (Elena's husband), Elena, Sarah, Justine (one of the assessors), Romana and Eve. Kneeling, Tracey.

Spain, week two, day seven

Friday May 9th, 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

For my last yoga class of the week, I basically did my plan for tomorrow's test, focusing on getting the opening body awakening to flow nicely and plenty of assisting and use of props. And we get a couple of hours sunshine for the class before it went a bit grey again.

Eve and I left for the airport mid afternoon. Eve is a bit nervous of flying and so we made sure we were there in plenty of time. We had a rough idea of where we might be able to leave the car and this worked out very well. For most of the period before the flight I read through my class notes for yoga and rehearsed a few bits of what I wanted to say.

But for the flight itself, I have started to re-read Chris Stewart's "Driving over lemons" which is, of course, located just up the valley from us. In fact this morning saw a visit from Manola, one of the local Spaniards featured in the books, to discuss the sale of manure to Nigel and Zoe. One day next week we plan to have a drive up to the end of the valley and see exactly where the books are set.

Arrived at my hotel at Gatwick about 10:30. A quick chat to Linda, one last read through my material and that was that. Hope tomorrow goes ok - I am a bit nervous now.

Spain week two, day six

Thursday May 8th 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

Yesterday's weather forecast for this area suggested that it was now going to be hot and dry until October. As a result, we actually had some rain this morning - a shower for a couple of hours and enough to require yoga to be indoors. But by lunchtime it had blown over and there was sunshine this afternoon again.

Rain in Spain

This afternoon we drove up into the Contraversia mountains hoping for some views down to the coast. But as we got to the top of the mountain pass, we hit a thick blanket of cloud and could barely see the end of the car's bonnet, let along the sea! So foiled by the weather again.

That said, it was warm enough late afternoon for Pilates to be outside in the courtyard as usual.

Tonight was the last evening meal I would have with this week's guests as I have to return to the UK for a yoga test on Saturday. Tonight we aimed for a slightly more delicate bit of cooking doing two risottos - asparagus and spring vegetable - both of which came out quite well we thought. This week's guests have been a lot of fun.

Tricia and Laura examining risottos!

Spain week two, day five

Wednesday May 7th 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

Today is Linda and mine 20th wedding anniversary and there are few nicer locations to spend it than where we are now. Today is our usual rest day from classes, and our guests surprised us first thing by announcing that they didn't want us to do anything at all for them today as it was our anniversary. So we were all set to take some people with us to Granada but no one wanted to come! They would sort out their own breakfast, have a relaxed day by the pool, perhaps a trip into Orgiva later to a cafe. And so we could go off and do our own thing

So we travelled up as we did last week and were soon settled into our favourite cafe where they serve the local do'nuts. Winding through the back streets we stumbled across a jigsaw shop where they had a Da Vinci's "Last Supper" jigsaw with 13,200 pieces. We might pop back next week for a Rosina Wachmiester cat jigsaw that Linda liked.

Our initial destination was the Basillica Juan de Rios which has one of the most ornate alters in a city full of ludicrously ornate alters. After some initial confusion we found that this was accessed via the entrance to a hospital, but once inside we found it wasn't open till 3:30 anyway. So maybe next week.

Instead, we went round the nearby Monastery of St Jerome and this also had a quite extraordinary alter

The Monastery of St Jerome

The alter of the church inside the monastery

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Close up of the alter - the figures are only slightly smaller than human sized!

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I was very struck by the complex ceiling

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Yet another religious statue on a street corner in Granada

We had to head back home early afternoon as Nigel and Zoe were being paid a visit by a Polish film crew who were making a documentary. One of the group had translated Chris Stewart's "Driving Over Lemons" into Polish and they had been filming earlier at his place just up the road. They are making a film about foreigners living in Spain and what they get up to. So part of this programme could feature us. After a long series of filming and interviews, we staged a short pilates class for them to film. I also gave them a brochure about us. Later it turned out that they were also going to be writing something for a paper so we might get a mention there as well.

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After many changes of plan, we settled on the "El Limonero" restaurant for a dinner out to celebrate our anniversary. This was actually very good - the first time I have eaten a good steak for some while. And they had a delicious almond liquer that we should try and find.

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So an interesting way to spend our anniversary.

Spain week two, day four

Tuesday May 6th 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

I am now such a regular at the local bakery that the lady who serves me baquettes and pastries each morning saw fit to make sure that I knew that they were closed tomorrow ("for a rest" as their sign says). Our well-being strategy for serving pastries is to cut them into four pieces each and then people only have a quarter of one rather than a whole one. Linda is concerned in case people go home having gained weight during the week. However apparently some of our guests have their own emergency supplies of chocolate and crisps!

Chris left today after her short break, returning to Malaga for a friend's birthday party. She seems very happy with her stay with us, especially the help we were able to give her with her photography. We are trying to work out how best to include our guests comments into our website. Like many businesses of our kind, the comments of our customers will probably be the best marketing we can have.

We are trying to get a little video footage of our exercise classes this week, so a few minutes were shot tonight in the courtyard. This is a really terrific venue for both the yoga in the morning (as the sun rises over the mountains) and the pilates in the late afternoon as the house provides a bit of shade from the heat. Several locals also attended tonight's class so 6/7 participants in all.

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Pilates in the courtyard - some good form from our guests

Views towards the courtyard with the Sierra Nevada mountains in the background

Over dinner tonight the conversation turned briefly to the status of the capybara, a large rodent that lives in the rivers of South America and which was, briefly, re-classified as a fish by the Catholic church so it could be eaten on Fridays. For some reason, there was considerable scepticism about this story from everyone at the table. So for probably the only time ever, our blog now features a picture of a capybara

Spain - Week Two, Day three

Monday May 5th 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

Our yoga class participants are generally beginners this week, so everything is a little gentler and more slowly explained. But they are certainly very keen to give it a good go this week.

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Brunch for the group on the outside terrace

Today is the first session of Eve's "Re-invent yourself" life coaching theme, which seemed to go very well. Linda is attending this theme, while I am using the time to do other work - today mainly processing the photos that Chris and I took in Pampaniera yesterday. Later in the afternoon, Chris and I spent some time running through the exposure compensation controls on her new digital SLR camera so she could try and take some pictures in tricky light around the villa.

It is paella night tonight and one of our group is keen to participate in some cooking, so we give a small cooking demo tonight. Our vegetarian paella is getting more and more elaborate with artichokes, water chestnuts, oranges, etc, added to the basic mix. We think this meal has about 12 portions of vegetables in it! We are joined by Nigel and Zoe again tonight which always makes for an enjoybale evening. And tonight the local goat herd is being moved up through the valley, so food is accompanied by the clanking of their bells as they move through.

Spain Week two, day two

Sunday May 4th, 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

Our guests this week are slightly more a beginners group for yoga than last week, which is good for me in that things are at a more basic level and I have to work harder on my presentation skills. Eve also attends the class and is our most experienced participant this week. So today's class is very gentle, lots of explanation (perhaps too much?) and slow work.

Unfortunately, Linda wasn't feeling very well today and decided to have a quiet day in, mainly sleeping. She has been developing a bit of a cold over the last few days and this seemed to really break through today. But this does mean that I can fit all our guests into the Land Rover and so our expedition to Pampaniera need only take the one car.

One of our guests this week, Chris, has a small walking disability and so it is very important that we try and get as close to the centre of the village as we can before getting out. But luckily we are able to park in the car park near the middle of the village and so this should be ok for Chris. She is a menber of a photographic society down in Malaga and is keen to try and take some pictures that she could enter in this years club competition. Their themes are things like "shape", "colour", "texture", etc, and I am also going to have a go at taking some on these themes.

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One of my first pictures of the day - on the theme of "colour"

After a little while wandering round on our own, we all gravitated back to the main square where some sort of fiesta has been taking place it would seem. Chris and I have beer and a ham tapas. Then things take an interesting development as a brass band of twenty something Spanish guys takes the the stage and plays some excellent salsa-style music. I am very hopeful that I will have got some good footage of this for our home movie. I can't help thinking that back home, a group of guys who decide to form a band, would not have this sort of thing in mind.

Spanish brass band - very, very good

Having run out of video film, it is time for another walk round with my main camera in order to try and get some good pictures that might help Chris with some ideas. Loads of these have been loaded with this blog entry and are mainly on Chris's themes of shape, colour and texture.

In the back streets of Pampaniera - I

II

III

The nearby village of Capilleria

Traditional Alpujarran rugs - I

II - and the theme of "Colour" and "shape" again

III - more abstract shapes

IV

Later on, just as the entire village seemed to be queueing up for paella, we drove to a promentary up the road where there are some great views back to Bubion or down the valley towards the coast. We also stopped in some lay-bys on the way back home for more photos.

Tricia at the promentary - not really as scary as it seems!

Capilleria in the far distance, under the Sierra Nevada mountains

Tricia and Laura on the promentary

The view down from the promentary

Orgiva from the road to Pampaniera

A view abstract view of "shape", "colour" and "texture". Rocks in a cave on the road to Pampaniera

Back home and Linda was well enough to do her Pilates class and while this takes place, I loaded mine and Chris's photos onto the laptop so we could have a detailed look at each set and see what has worked and not worked. As usual, maybe one in ten is o.k.

So everyone seemed to have a good day. This week's group doesn't seem to want to drink as much as last week (!), or stay up as late, so dinner is over by just after 10:00. That might aid Linda's recovery if she can get one or two early nights. She is in bed by 10:30 and I have a little quiet time to read the papers, dominated, of course, by the extraordinary results in the council elections in the U.K.

Spain - week two, day one

Saturday May 3rd, 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

Our first transition day of the new season. Our first guests are leaving and new people are arriving later on. We were really surprised to receive some very detailed feedback on the week and, it seems that all our guests were very pleased overall. One persom said they had arrived with high expectations because of what they had seen on our website, yet we had exceeded these expectations in virtually every area. So that is definitely a good start.

Then down to Motril to do a big shop. This is absolute hell. The store is completely jammed up with people, far more than we would have expected. Later we realise that due to this being a holiday weekend, maybe lots of people have come to the coast from Granada and Cordoba and they are all shopping today. As I join a queue to pay, there are seven full trolleys ahead of me, and when I load up the car, there is a queue of people to get the next trolley.

So I am a tiny bit later than intended at Malaga airport to meet Eve, but we find each other easily and are soon on the way back. One or two issues to discuss, but nothing too serious.

We got back just after 3:00 and only a few minutes after Chris, our guest from Malaga, had arrived. Everyone has arrived by 4:30 and we decided on a quick trip down to Orgiva so people could get the bearings and see a little of the local town (as so that I could pick up a few things that I had missed at the superstore this morning)

Tonight's meal is our "blockbuster" first night special. Lots of tapas, including the fiery prawns and marinated mushrooms. Then chicken with peppers, escalivada, and salad, followed by fruit with the hot chocolate, cream and honey source. So hopefully everyone is wowed by that. One problem this week is that one guest is allergic to peppers (on which Spanish food relies) and another is allergic to prawns. So some of the food is cooked in Nigel and Zoe's kitchen to avoid contamination! This is not a great success and we'll need to think about this further.

But everyone seems to enjoy it all and everyone has now met each other. And we have plans for a big trip to Pampaniera tomorrow for everyone as well.

Spain - week one, day six

Friday May 2nd 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

Our last day of yoga for the first week and a slightly more energetic sequence to end with. Overall I have been very pleased with the first week's teaching. I have made a few little tweaks to my class plans but overall, what I've done seems to have been appropriate and enjoyable for the participants. The location is lovely, the time of day is good (not too hot yet, but the early morning chill has passed), and a good way to get the day underway.

We have a quicker brunch than usual and curtail the last life coaching class so that our guests can fit in a trip to the coast and along the Costa Tropica. They are heading for Salobrena, which always looks very nice as we pass by it from Malaga, and then off in the direction of Almeria. So we can have a quiet afternoon, sort out yet more stuff and start to plan next week, when we have four guests with us.

I even manage a 20 minute swim while Pilates is on.

Our final dinner is our chicken, pepper and rice casserole which is one of our favourites and which we made a good job of tonight we thought (sometimes we get the rice to be slightly too firm for the dish).

And so far, the feedback on the week from our guests is excellent - some very satisfied customers to start us off this year!

Spain Week One - day five

Thursday May 1st 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

For our yoga today, we tried to work in a bit more flow into the postures, and included three short sequences of postures into these "vinyasa". This is not really my speciality, but was quite fun to do and is a sign of my growing confidence I would think. Feedback remains good, so I am pretty happy.

It was the May day holiday today and this meant, sadly, that the regular market in Orgiva was postponed. We had hoped that our guests would have been able to go there today (as I really enjoyed seeing it last week). So instead we have the next class of the "learn to relax" theme slightly earlier than expected and a really nice learn to meditate session under the lemon trees in the garden.

The temperature continues to climb and reached the mid thirties today. I had a little sun bathing session outside by the pool, but it was too hot for me after quite a short time. So we had a quiet afternoon sorting out more stuff. My thoughts are often on marketing and how to really develop our breaks going forward. So much we don't know about this at the moment.

Dinner tonight has a North African theme (as it is possible to see some of the mountains in Morocco from the tops of the Sierra Nevada mountains behind us) and was very nice indeed. Stuffed aubergines to start, followed by a chicken, artichoke and vegetable tagine (served in Nigel and Zoe's authentic clay tagine). Dessert was a cake we had bought at the local bakery this morning and which was really nice - light sponge with cream and honey.

And a little bit of star gazing tonight as it is another really clear evening. Saturn is high in the sky directly south and I was surprised that we could get some good views of it - enough to see the rings clearly. Also it's moon Titan was visible (I think). Still too early in the year for views of the star fields of the milky way,but the first time any of our guests had seen the rings of saturn.

Spain Week One - day four

Wednesday April 30th 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

Our "rest day" today so no classes and a chance for everyone to have a long day trip somewhere. Granada is the most popular choice this week, and that includes Linda and myself. We gave two of our guests a lift up there as well (if nothing else to experience the excitment of trying to park the Land Rover in the tiny spaces in car parks that Spain seems to have!)

We split up at the Plaza Bim Rhambla just by the cathedral and Linda and I were soon settled in a cafe eating a selection of the really light do'nuts (no really, they are a local delicacy called, I think, chuiso).
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One of the six do'nuts that we had as a "mid-morning snack". So light, so delicate . . . .

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From there, via an ice cream seller near the church of St Anna (!), we made our way through to the Albaycin (the Arab quarter) where we found the same cake shop we visited last year and which still sells pistaschio pastries which we love. But if this is beginning to sound just like a food excursion, I probably should point out that we then heading up through the Albaycin all the way up to Sacramonte, which is a walk of at least a couple of miles. Some great views of the amazing Alhambra Palace as we walked up the hill. I shot about 20 minutes of video footage, though as yet we haven't really viewed any of this and have no idea whether it is of suitable quality (we are aiming for a home movie, but not a poor one!)

Linda and the Alhambra Palace on the walk to Sacramonte

Lunch was at a small, but very popular, square just below Sacramonte. We just had a beer and some tapas, while a businessman on the table nearby had a huge seafood platter that was just amazing. Squid, octopus, prawns, huge fillets fo fish - this was very impressive. A flute player wandered round and was very good, getting one euro from us. This was all very pleasant I must say.

Some of the old city wall in the Albaycin with snow-covered mountains in the distance

The view of Granada from just below Sacramonte - the cathedral is in the centre of the picture

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The facade of the church of Santa Anna

That afternoon we made our way to the Alhambra and discovered, much to our surprise, that it is actually possible to walk round quite a lot of the interior of the site for free. It is only the Nasrid Palaces, the Generalife (wonder how that is pronounced?) and some of the towers that require tickets to get in. For the Nasrid Palaces, this involves applying two weeks in advance or getting there by 8:00 when the ticket office has some for sale. We still haven't seen the inside of the Palaces (which are amazing from the pictures we have seen), but it was nice to go round some of the other bits. Particularly odd was the photo place that would give you an Arab costume and photograph you against a palace background for that authentic oriental look!

The entrance to the Nasrid Palaces at the Alhambra Palace - the most visited tourist site in Spain!

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More of the Alhambra Palace

More ice cream late afternoon and meeting up for the journey home. Nigel and Zoe had offered to do a barbeque this evening which was very good. We are not actually very good at barbequeing, so this was an excellent plan. Everyone seemed to have a good day out as well, so that seems to vindicate the plan of having this mid-week day free.

Spain week one - day three

Tuesday April 29th 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

Our 9:00am yoga class is developing well. Two of the group are beginners and the remainder have done some yoga, but no one is prepared to be classed as experienced. So we are still working through the classic sun salutation step by step. Today we were focusing on the forward bends and the movement into baby cobra. This is our third class and everyone seems to be progressing well - or at least they are enjoying it. Tomorrow is the rest day so various newly worked muscles can have a break

Most people went out today at lunchtime, travelling to the local villages. Lanjaron seemed to figure highly in plans. This is a very interesting place based around the local bottled water industry. And there are some great views down the valley from by the main street.

There is a big turn out of locals to Linda's Pilates class as word has spread following Zoe's email and the first two classes. So tonight the courtyard is pretty full and most of our kit is being used. Later in the week we are hoping to persuade people to let us shoot a little bit of our planned home movie at the class.

We all dined out in Orgiva this evening. Drinks in one of the many bars in the main street by the church and then down to one of the nice places at the bottom of the main road. This is Nigel and Zoe's favourite place in town and was pretty good.

Then back to Nigel and Zoe's to watch the second half of the Barca / Manchester United match (for those who were interested!). One of our group is a keen Man City fan so he was rooting for Barcelona throughout. So a disappointing night for him

Spain Week One - day two

Monday April 28th 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

Another add-on to today's schedule with the start of the life coaching classes - the first day of "learn to relax", our stress management plan. So a very busy start to the day, with a trip down to Orgiva for bread and pastries first thing, followed by our second yoga class (at which I remembered a clock and so timed things better). Then brunch and the first theme class.

We have not yet really got a good idea of how much our guests will be wanting the life coaching or whether they will be more interested in sight seeng or crashing out by the pool. But today's class seemed to go as well as we hoped.

PM we have an interesting conversation with the head of a small PR firm who has seen our adverts, looked at the website a little and is keen to act for us. We had not really thought we woud go the route of employing a PR firm, but some parts of the marketing have proved very tricky for us (e.g. getting editorial coverage) and it seems that this is basically the service that we are being offered. They are preparing a detail proposal over the next week or so and I will have a ponder on it then.

While Linda teaches another Pilates class, this time with four locals, I prepped the paellas for tonight. The first is our regular meat and seafood paella, with chicken, prawns and chorizo. But the second is yet another variation on our vegetarian paella, this time featuring artichoke hearts, leeks and broad beans for a first time. We like to think that this is another showcase meal by us and is, as we thought the other night, clearly something that we can do to a better standard than the local restaurants. Nigel and Zoe came round again and we seemed to get their thumbs up for it. So things continue to progress well we think.

Paella night - a slightly chilly evening as we ate later than usual (10:00pm or so)

First full day . . . .

Sunday April 27th 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

Our yoga and pilates start today, though we do pitch today as a bit of a transitional day. So I have now taught my first official Well Being Break's yoga class to our guests and Zoe. All the participants are beginners and that does add a little tension to how I feel, but after a slightly nervous start when I kept forgetting my own breathing, things seem to go pretty well, though I did overshoot in time by about 20 minutes. Tomorrow I will have a clock with me.

The only major change in plan was that we couldn't hold the class on the grass under the lemon trees as there was too much dew overnight. So. like Linda, I am doing my classes in the courtyard. I was very pleased with how it went and the participants also seemed happy. Zoe has done quite a bit of yoga and she was also very complimentary. So an ok start for me. Zoe has plans to invite loads of local friends to attend the classes with Linda and myself, which would be good.

Meanwhile Linda had prepared brunch which I thought was really nice - lots of fresh fruit, muesli, yoghurts, cheese, pates, etc. Afterwards I took Paul and Meg down to Orgiva for a quick walk round so they could get their bearings, and then they were off into the mountians to visit Pampaneira and Trevelez, the latter of which is several thousand feet up. Meanwhile, Linda and I have time for a bit of relaxation and the it is time to re-group and prep for dinner.

Linda's class attracts two locals. Across the valley in Tablones there is a fiesta taking place and a very concerted blast of fireworks went off about a quarter of the way into her class. I bet there aren't too many Pilates teachers who have had to suspend a class for a minute or two while a firework display finishes.

Tonight's meal is a little simpler than last night. The escalivida left over from last night (which tasted even better), followed by fish with a homemade pesto topping, rice and salad and a fruit platter with raspberry coulis for dessert.

Much to our relief, our guests have had a good first day and seem very pleased. So that is promising.

First day of our first break

Saturday April 26th 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

So our first week's break starts today, and it is far to say that we both have some nerves. Have we thought of everything? Will people like what we are offering? Will it turn out to be a success or not?

Linda does another exercise tape while I ponder on the yoga course for the week and continue to work through al the boxes sorting things out a bit.

Mid-morning I had a trip to the big superstore for fresh things and the remaining things we have remembered. There is a strange sequence of bollards all the way to the coast which I later learn is a traffic calming scheme in place over the weekend. It didn't seem to have calmed the traffic much to me (and would cause the people coming to us some confusion I thought)

We were not really sure when our guests would arrive as they were coming down from Madrid where they had been staying with friends. With no sign by 4:00pm, Linda and I set about the prep for that evening's food - just so we kept busy and helped the nerves. So, our first people actually arrived just after 6:00, having had a good journey and not had too much trouble finding the farmhouse itself.

Nigel and Zoe joined us for dinner tonight - one of our best meals we think and which should set us up very well for the rest of the stay. So we had some tapas (including the marinated mushrooms that I really like, and the fiery chilli prawns) followed by chicken with peppers and escalivida (a Spanish roast vegetable dish) and topped off with berries and a chocolate, honey and cream sauce. Plus a selection of local wines. Hopefully this sets the tone for what we are trying to do wth food this week.

So our first guests are here and we are officially off and running . . . . .

A day of rest . . .

Friday April 25th 2008

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

So both of us have had a really tiring few days and so has very few plans for today other than get a good amount of rest and get ready for 42 days of work in a row!

So lots of unpacking, sorting out boxes (which were not really packed in a very user friendly way, with all sorts of stuff all over the place). Linda managed an exercise video this morning to get her going again.

It turned out that today would be the hottest day of the year so far with the temperature moving into the low 30s. As so often happens in such circumstances, I stayed outside a little too long and have a slight pink hue as a result. So easy to overdo it slightly when it feels so nice to be out. 30 minutes less and it would have been fine

So a nice bit of reading this afternoon and a few hours chilling out.

Late afternoon we finally made it out and got to the other side of Orgiva to a shop that sells local pottery. So we will be serving food on the new stuff we have acquired, which looks really lovely.

Back home and we manage to cook nothing more complex that a risotto - we have been cooking these for the last few months and they have become some of our favourite food. Tonight is a simple asparagus risotto. But from tomorrow we will be cooking much more complex dishes. I am actually really looking forward to this bit of the breaks.

First full day in Spain

Thursday April 24th

Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain

A fantastic night's sleep after two days of "sleeping rough". No rush to get up and going first thing, but as the sun rose over the mountains to the east, I was inspired to find our new camcorder and take a few minutes footage outside. We are really excited about using the camcorder over the summer and plan to create a number of clips of the various properties we are staying at, the local sights and even some of the classes.

It was market day in Orgiva, the local town, this morning and I had a quick call in on the way out to collect Linda at Malaga airport. I was able to get another 10 minutes or so of film of the market. But I have to admit, we really don't know anything much about making this sort of thing, and I can tell it is probably a lot trickier than it looks.

The drive down to Malaga to meet Linda was uneventful. Since we were here last year it almost seems like there are even more polytunnels. The other way along the coast towards Almeria has become swamped with polytunnels that have transformed the local agriculture as well as the view.

Linda had a late night last night finishing her admin after her last sessions at Active Pilates. She got to bed about 12:30 and was up again at 3:30 to get her cab to Oxford and the coach to Gatwick. Her journey to Malaga went fine, but she was pretty tired.

We stopped off for an hour at the supermarket at Motril for a first shop up and then back to Orgiva and a small amount of unpacking and rest.

We went out for dinner at one of the small restaurants in Orgiva that had been closed last time we were here. Linda had a vegetarian paella, but we are sure that we can do better than this (and have scheduled paella for Sunday night with our guests).

Travelling to Spain . . .

Monday April 21st to Wednesday April 23rd 2008

Travelling through France and Spain

Monday

A day of packing and final admin, transferring files to the laptop, paying the remaining bills we have before we leave. The Land Rover is pretty full but does look like it will be able to accommodate Linda and Emma’s additional luggage in mid-summer. But there is just the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that we are taking too much stuff.

All packed up and ready to go!

I am ready to leave for Portsmouth around 4:30. The initial mileage on the Land Rover for our journey is 123,593. I think I’ve got everything, but am bound not to have!

The ferry port is pretty quiet when I arrive. I have a couple of necessary purchases for the car, things like headlight adjusters, warning triangles and a GB sticker. On board and the lounge I have booked a reclining seat in is also pretty quiet. Armed with my sleeping bag and some spare blankets, I don’t wait very long before trying the get to sleep, laid out on the floor in front of several seats. I barely noticed the ferry start moving and was probably asleep by 9:30.

The adventure begins . . . . .

Tuesday

A good night’s sleep on the ferry. I woke at about 6:30 and the ferry was stationery outside St Malo. The sea was extremely calm, barely any waves at all. I didn’t fancy any breakfast and stayed reading in the lounge as the ferry inched into port and docked exactly on time.

Driving on the right hand side of the road always takes a few minutes to get used to, and driving a U.K. car on the right hand side is even odder. But St Malo was pretty easy to get out off and I was soon on a dual carriageway heading towards Rennes, the first major city on my route down through France, that would take in Nantes, Bordeaux, Bayonne, the Spanish border, Madrid, and Granada. Maybe 1,750km in all.

Leaving the ferry at St Malo

My plan was to drive for three hours then have a one hour break, repeating this for as long as possible through the day. My first stretch takes me around 250km. I listened to five albums by Kate Bush, and had some problems at the toll booths when I couldn’t reach the ticket machine from the right hand seat, and could work out which buttons to push. But overall it was going ok. It was a misty morning in northern France, the sun only just beginning to break through as I stopped for food at a service station at Poitou Charante. Food at French service stations is supposed to be very good and I was not disappointed by the chicken and ratatouille that I had.

From there it was onwards to Bordeaux and then Bayonne with an hour’s stop for some sunbathing in the late afternoon sunshine. I crossed into Spain at about 6:30 and past the foothills of the Pyrennees which were obviously getting some heavy rain from what I could tell. By now I was listening to the first four Cat Power albums.

A car park made for sunbathing . . . .

Several hours later and I have passed Burgos and was wondering where to stop for the night. By now I had travelled over 1,000km and was beginning to wonder about staying in a hotel, rather than my original plan of sleeping in the car. The terrible meal I had at an “Autogrill” service station may also have sapped by resolve. As it got dark I reached the town of Lerma and parked in a small car park on the edge of town with no one else around, had a quick chat to Linda, rolled out my sleeping bag across the front seats and was asleep in about 2 minutes

Wednesday

Not a bad night’s sleep though I did wake up a few times when I got into some really uncomfortable position across the front seats. It rained most of the night and the end of the sleeping bag was quite damp where the rain had come through the partially open window. And then after just five minutes driving this morning I passed what looked like a really nice hotel that would have been perfect late last night. I stopped for some breakfast there and was a bit annoyed that I hadn’t just gone the little way further. But at least yesterday’s drive got me two-thirds of the way to Orgiva and made it pretty certain that I would get there today – so i wouldn’t have a second night in the car.

I was surprised to see snow on the hills as I approached Madrid. I had always assumed that Madrid was really hot all the time and didn’t have any high mountains. But apparently it has its own skiing resorts!

South of Madrid the landscape opened up to wide plains and clearly a very sparse population. Lunch was at a cafe by the side of the road – a small piece of fried steak, chips and a really badly cooked green pepper.

Lunch south of Madrid

A brief stop approaching Granada

Eventually I reached the Granada turn and it was not long till the snow-covered mountains of the Sierra Neveda appeared in the distance. As I passed through Granada I got the occasional view of the Alhambra Palace low on the horizon - a quite magnificent sight.

The snow-covered Sierra Nevada mountains above Granada

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Orgiva with the snow-covered hills behind

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I turned off for Orgiva at the Lanjaron turn and made it to Nigel and Zoe's late afternoon. Beautiful weather - the temperature is already into the high 20s. The pool has only just been filled and is a little cool but should warm up quickly. And the foothills of the southern Sierra Nevada are still covered in snow which is pretty strange given the temperature in the vallies. Aparently Nigel and Zoe were skiing last week nearby.

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After a couple of beers, it was time to unload the huge about of stuff we have and try to get some of it sorted out before meeting Linda tomorrow. A frozen pizza and another beer from Nigel and Zoe is absolutely perfect. I managed to stay awake till around 9:00. Great to be in a bed again!

Yoga Teacher Training course - nearing the end

Saturday April 19th and Sunday April 20th

Yoga Teacher Training Course, Victoria London

Saturday

It is our penultimate weekend of the yoga course and we are all beginning to focus on the final assessment in three weeks time. Today is something different though - our elective presentations. This is a piece of research on anything to do with yoga which we present to the class and then take questions on.

First up is Rhea talking about Chakras and who wants to go first as she is then off straight after to the Midlands for her cousin's wedding. Rhea has emailed me a few times over the past weeks discussing her elective plan and she has been a bit worried that it won't go well. I had said I would try and ask some easy questions to get a discussion going and so fill the time. But in the end she didn't have any time issues at all and it all went really well.

But afterwards it became apparent that Elena and Rhea had different ideas about Rhea missing tomorrow as well. Elena obviously thought the wedding was today and hadn't realised that Rhea would also be missing tomorrow's Pre-assessment (mock exam). Elena was obviously not happy about this and was seemed to suggest that Rhea wasn't really ready to take the final test if she didn't do the practice version tomorrow. Rhea got quite upset about this as she has found the course pretty difficult anyway and anyhing that reduces her confidence is bad. But they are going to try and work something out next week instead.

I was up next for my elective on the theme of Buddhist and Yogic approaches to meditation and how these diferences resulting in very different ideas of each when the West came in contact with each. If nothing else, this is educational about the history of each in the West. Overall the presentation went as well as I would have hoped. Elena seemed very happy with it. But then again, I should be able to do this sort of thing well, given my educational backgroud, etc.

Next up was Tracey on "Yoga and Running", which contained a lot of really good anatomical information, and then Sarah on Complementary medicine and Eve on Yoga for lower back pain. So a very different set of topics. Overall I thought everyone did a pretty good job.

My last overnight stay in London tonight and I have a tiny room in a hotel near the Natural History museum. Not enough room to practice my class for tomorrow, but I do have time to run through it all and I am feeling ok about it.

Sunday

A last minute change of family travel plans means I won't be able to stay all day at Yoga today - after Elena's comments to Rhea, that might not be a good thing. But Elena seems ok about it and I will be first on today for our practice classes.

Elena has also got a couple of people from the February course as well as husband Rod to attend today's pre-assessment. So it promises to be a very challenging session.

I did some more work this morning on my opening sections which I think improved things and though I was nervous at the start, things did start to fall into place mid way through and I was pretty happy with the overall effect. As I had gone first, this meant that Elena would have a large number of other more-general points to make that the later participants would have to try to include or take account of. So the review of my class was quite long and detailed but I didn't feel that any of it was too bad.

I will make one or two changes to the final version, but by then, I should have actually taught a few classes and so it should be settled down quite well.

Next up was Tracey, who did a particularly tough sequence, but who is already a really good teacher and so was really good today.

By now I was beginning to get a bit tight on time but I did want to see at least one more class and so stayed to watch Sarah do hers. She was quite nervous and went very red-faced at one point, but again things settled down nicely and she did a good job. Everyone agreed that her voice is just lovely for teaching yoga (while mine isn't I'm sure)

Unfortunately, I couldn't stay to see Eve or Rhea (who had changed her plans about attending the wedding to be here today) Both are finding this last bit of the course rather tricky and it would have been good to see in that Elena would have had lots of tips for them. But my change of plans couldn't be avoided.

So now is is just three weeks till the real test and I have lots of practicing to do to be fully ready

Vitality Show 2008

Thursday March 27th 2008

Vitality Show, Olympia, London

Emma is currently back with us from University for her Easter break and stumbled across a Vitality Show flier in one of the back issues of the many fitness magazines that she has been ploughing through since she got back. A quick look on the internet threw out a whole series of classes and talks that she was interested in attending, so I travelled up to London with her for the day, while Linda would be going with her tomorrow.

The venue is the same as for the "One Life" show that we went to a few weeks back - the Grand Hall at Olympia, one of my favourite buildings. Today's times are a late opening but a later finish than most shows, so we arrived at lunchtime and have time for one of Pizza Express's yummy thin crust pizzas before we go in.

It is Emma's first time at such a show and she is actually really excited by going round all the exhibitors. We are soon firmly settled in the food section trying out lots of fruit juice and little samples of various fitness foods. For the next couple of hours we looked round the stands in some detail before Emma decided she'd like to try a hypnosis session to help relaxation. While she did that I watched the Dru yoga demo.

Soon after, there is a demo of belly dancing on the "Zest stage" and Emma rather surprises me by decided she is going to do this class. The teacher (Mia Serra) is really good and she soon has a pretty good crowd doing the class with her. Afterwards Emma is really pleased with this and buys her belly dancing dvd.

We next attend a lecture by Matt Roberts on fallacies related to getting fit. He doesn't pull any punches and tells everyone that it is a hard task to get really fit. Apparently at least twice a week we should be reduced to total breathlessness by our exercise. But his comments on the longer-term metabolic effects of hard interval training are really interesting. I, for one, have been doing too much yoga and not enough intense cardio.

Emma then has another class she wants to do and I go for a wander round on my own, pausing for a 15 minute Shiatsu neck and shoulder massage which is really good. Emma's last class finishes around 8:30 by which time I am slumped on a bean bag reading a fishing magazine.

But a good day out and Emma seemed to really enjoy herself.

And on Friday it was more of the same. Linda and Emma both did the belly dancing sessions and Emma did a further couple of classes. I, meanwhile, visited LSE, where I am hoping to do a further degree starting this October, if they'll have me

Yoga Teacher Training course

Saturday March 15th 2008

Yoga Teacher Training Course, Victoria, London

Saturday

As usual, I don't arrive at the course feeling I have done enough preparation despite this being one of the most important days - 8 hours of practical tests. I managed about one full day's work on the course over the past week or so, so at least that is something. But a month or two back I was vowing to do 45 minutes a day of my own practice and other course work and, of course, that hasn't happened.

But it does feel like we are on the last bit now. Just about all the posture labs are finished, and most of us are more or less up to date with homeworks. I finished my last yoga philosophy homework last week and now just have the elective and final asana coaching notes to do. But with Well Being now getting increasingly close to commencement, time is getting squeezed a little.

The day gets off to a poor start when I forgot that I had the roof box on the land rover and hit the maximum height sign as I entered a car park. Then I discovered that I could have parked outside the yoga course centre for just a few pounds rather than the £18 it ended up costing to park where I did. So not in a good mood to start the day.

So today is 8 hours of practical tests on all manner of subjects. Perhaps the toughest day of the course and very important as it is being marked. Today's morning session is with Elena and has a strong emphasis on assisting and adjusting. As usual, there is a huge amount to take in and a number of innovations introduced that I find difficult to blend into the knowledge I already have. But overall it seems to go ok.

After lunch, Camille takes us for our last session of the course with her. Four more hours of practicals focused on backbends and twists. My backbend asana demo is one of the hardest we ever do, Urdhva Dhanurasana, the wheel pose. Only myself, Romana and Tracy can do this one - in fact Romana is really good at it. For me it is also a great deal of effort and so it is not one that I expect to teach going forward. My twist asana is also a tough one, Parivrtta Trikonasana, so I have a tough time with my postures demos today!

It is pretty clear that everyone is worn out by all this so Camille lets us out 15 minutes early tonight!

Tonight I stayed at a rather poor hotel near Victoria station. After a short trip across town to collect the car, I was pretty much done for the day. An early night was very much in order, especially as I hoped to wake up in time to see the Grand prix from Australia!

Sunday

Really tired today from the day of testing yesterday. A call from Emma first thing and we agreed that I would try and leave early from today's course so I could get to Cambridge before it gets too late.

I did 30 minutes of so very gentle stretching this morning based on some current reading I have been doing (Mark Evans book "Easy Yoga Stretches") and then rather spoilt it all with a cooked breakfast at a greasy spoon cafe near Victoria.

Our teacher today is Nita, who I have really enjoyed the previous sessions with. Most of the morning is taken up with a technique lab on restorative postures - something that I need to pay close attention to as the evening Well Being classes are aimed at being very restorative. This is then followed by a lecture on Ayurveda which I found surprisingly interesting. We had all had to prepare a questionnaire to identify our body type and I am a very clear "Pitta" type.

But I missed the afternoon sessions while on my way to Cambridge. Emma had tried to see if she could leave her stuff in her room as it isn't needed over Easter, but the cost truned out to be too high. So we have the full pick up - 20+ trips up the three flights of stairs carrying heavy boxes. After the weekends intensive yoga, this is quite a challenge and I am forced to have a break and a restorative meal before we set off for home.

Emma now has five weeks at home and goes back just before we travel to Spain for the first of this year's breaks. She is also planning to work on 9 of the weeks over the summer (all of France and Italy) which should be good.

Achieving a personal goal

Wednesday March 5th 2008

Longworth

I think it is important for everyone to have some idea of what their personal goals are at any time - even if they are poorly defined or are wholly unrealistic at the moment, they still provide some motivation in the long term. I have sometimes seen it suggested in Life Coaching books that long-term goals should be formally written down and reviewed every so often, perhaps once a year. I have done that on occasions and keep a little file in my desk with my current and past lists in it. Sometimes I would delete something from the list and add something else, but more than half my list has been unchanged for quite a number of years.

Perhaps this suggests that my goals are unrealistic, but in many cases they were things that I thought of as very long term goals that might not be feasible to target for many years. So, for instance, my goal to climb a mountain over 20,000 feet has been on my list for 20 years and is currently pencilled in for November 2010. My goal of returning to University to do an MSc might happen this autumn.

Yesterday I achieved one of the goals that I've had for over ten years. This related to fishing and my quest to catch a chub weighing over 5lbs from my local River Evenlode. In the past 10 years or so I have caught loads of 4lbers including 5 weighting a tiny fraction under 5lb. Yesterday I caught one weighing 5-01. My other fishing target - to catch a barbel over 10lbs - has not been under any threat for some years. So my new chub target for the Evenlode is 5 1/2 lbs, my target for any river remains 6lbs.

These are perhaps not goals that will inspire many people but are 2 of the 20 or so things I would like to achieve long term. Challenging, but not impossible.

My Evenlode chub of 5-01 - hopefully I'll catch it again in a year or two's time when it will perhaps weigh 5-08+

Masterchef competition

Tuesday March 5th 2008

Longworth

Like many people, I have grown rather hooked on the current series of "Masterchef" which finished last week. It is a curious competition in respect of some of the ways the show is set up. For instance, there are only a few really good chefs in the show and yet they occasionally come up against each other in the early rounds and so one is lost - one of the very best was lost in this way in the first round I thought. On other days the contestents can be relatively poor. The initially elimination round is quite a good test, but the professional kitchen test rarely seems to matter much in the final assessment. And so on. . . . . .

Last week was the final with the three finalist going through various challenges, some of which seem to bear little relationship to what might be required of a materchef. And these do reveal that part of the problem of the show is that it is unclear what it is really seeking. It could address a variety of different questions and these are hinted at by the presenters at different times.

For instance, they might be looking for "someone who can make it as a professional chef" in which case the only real relevant test is the professional kitchen test as most work by professional chefs is the consistent preparation of identical dishes and does not require any sort of creativity. That was definitely the case when I worked in a kitchen years ago. No creativity, just consistent quality produced at the right time.

Alternatively, the question could be "who is the most creative and interesting amateur cook?" where the aim might be to see who could really wow a series panel of judges. Or maybe the question is "who could be a Michelin-starred chef in the future?" or "who has the greatest potential for greatness?"

And as the standard of the show has got better each year, the precise question being asked becomes more and more relevant. This year's final showed exactly this. James was clearly a very good cook and could turn out food of an exceptionally high average standard. But he was already in his 30s and most of the very best chefs have already been practising their craft for years by then. And he didn't produce anything that was completely amazing.

By contrast, Emily, the 18 year old, probably had a lower average quality but the range between her highs and lows was much wider. Hence she produced probably every one of, say, the best six meals. At 18, this suggests an extraordinary potential for absolute greatness and, to my mind, is more what would be looked for in such a competition.

I can see why the judges did go for James in the end but it seemed an overly safe choice to me and results in the rather odd circumstance, in my view, that the producer of all of the most amazing food didn't win. This seems a mistake to me.

Still I did learn a lot from the show - especially about presentation. Well Being Breaks doesn't aim at fine dining, it provides full-flavoured peasant food, so much of the cooking content is not directly relevant. So no subtle sauces for us, no complex ingredients, no strange flavour combinations, no small portions, and so on.

I had a dream the other night in which I was cooking for Gordon Ramsey and I prepared a complex dish of warm tomato sauce, oven cooked haricots, served on a grilled slice of bread with a butter dressing. It was on the plate with the swirls of sauce that often grace fine-dining plates but was, despite the presentation, just baked beans on toast.

One Life - Live show, London

Saturday March 1st 2008

One Life - Live Show, Olympia London

I went to this show last year - in fact it was the one where I met Teach Yoga and decided that there teacher training course was the one that I wanted to do. This year we had the added incentive of trying to appraise whether we might have a stand there next year. It features a lot of stuff that is very relevant to us. Psychologies Magazine, with whom we have a lot of our advertsing, is a major sponsor of the show and there are lots of the stands based on the sort of things we are trying to do. But it is odd to attend a show when you are mainly trying to appraise how good the various stands look, rather than the detailed content. Some stands are pretty poor, it must be said.

There were a few speaker that we had thought of seeing, so while Linda attended a life coaching session, I watched the talk by Tom Hodgkinson, author of "How to be Free", one of my favourite books of the last few years. His talk was partially on the historical circumstances that generated the "Protestant work ethic" as distinct from the "merriment" enjoyed by the non-Protestant countries of Europe. The last 25 years or so have seen a very large shift in day-to-day living conditions, but it is hard to see how many people can opt out. From a game theory point of view, modern life has an "arms race" character in which people as a group end up with outcomes which they probably wouldn't want on a case-by-case basis, and it is very difficult to avoid this outcome. But Hodgkinson has and did share some details of his day-to-day life now. Overall though, I would have though that most people would have found the lecture a little above them, what with the many literary references, and so on.



Tom Hodgkinson at the One Life show

There were one or two promising leads from the show that we will be pursuing over the next week or so. But the decision of whether to have a stand of our own next year was not clearcut and we'll have to leave it till we get to the end of the current holiday year before we can really assess it properly.

Progress on lots of things . . . . .

Monday February 25th 2008

Longworth

We are now about 2 months away from the first week of the 2008 season. Bookings are beginning to come in every few days and we are working on the fine detail of our plans for the weeks. Our "to-do" list is about ten pages long and covers everything from kitchen items we think we need to take with us to the slightly ambitious plans we have to shoot a short "holiday movie" onto DVD as part of next year's marketing. We ask ourselves every day whether we have missed off something really important from the list. The pressure to get everything perfect is pretty high, but several weeks of watching old Gordon Ramsey series have focused us on the attention to detail that is required to do things well. We hope we are doing just that!

The main business matters relate to current advertising and whether to add more into the late April to June period (it probably doesn't make much sense to advertise after that date as there are so few weeks left of the summer season). Most days we get a phone call from someone who has seen one of our adverts and wants to sell us advertising in some other publication.

I haven't often commented in this blog about my current reading material but I have been recently preparing a "resources" page for the website including all sorts of books that I thought might be of interest to people who might be interested in out breaks. My current reading is Richard Sennett's "The Craftsman", a really fascinating look at why people take pride in their work. It is a deeply philosophical look at practical activity of all kinds, ranging from obvious crafts like carpentry, to activities like cooking and child care. The basic defining feature is that little of the learning required to become skilled can be written down. Instead, craft is something that must be learned by doing. In its widest context, the book suggests that many of our working practices strip us of our self-esteem, but that everyone can be a craftsman. Highly recommended.

And current listening, which I also haven't mentioned for a while, is mainly the newest cd by Valet, "Naked Acid", which I read about in the current issue of The Wire and is available from http://www.emusic.com/, and a live recording from last week of Sonic Youth playing the wonderful "Pink Stream" (a track from the recent album "Rather Ripped")

Yoga Teacher Training Course

Sunday February 17th 2008

Yoga Teacher Training Course, Victoria, London

Saturday

Loaded down this morning with lots of posture notes for today's course sessions. This is our last Posture Lab weekend and we should know pretty much all the postures we cover on the course by the end of it. I had turned in my "Preparation for Practicum" homework just in time but do have a few gaps in my schedules which I will need to fix as soon as possible.

Turnout is up on last time - six today versus the four last time. But no Rhea, who had been in touch by email in the few days before and who I though was coming. Some people who had been regulars haven't been seen for many months - Brigitte, Zev, Claudia, and so on. But Sarah is back after her wedding in South Africa (bearing some pictures for us all to see).

The morning is with Camille doing the Posture Labs for backbends (and a couple of twists left over from last time) As always, I really enjoyed her teaching. After our meeting a couple of weeks ago, we decided that it would be a good idea for Camille to have her own website as I could get Darren to do one based on Linda's site. So Camille has sent me loads of text for the site which I will be editing next week. But today we needed to take one or two additional pictures for the site - some portrait shots and some photogenic postures.

Over lunch I had a chat with Victoria who, it turns out, is a philosophy graduate from King's College Cambridge and is trying to raise funding to do a further degree in Anthropology and Philosophy at UCL. I was telling her about my own MSc application and was a bit alarmed by how much work she had put into her applications compared to how much I did. I have had acknowledgement emails from LSE about my application but I think I need to be proactive in respect of getting my references to them and so on. I am worried that I didn't put in enough effort on this.

The afternoon is entirely set aside for Swami who is taking us through the Bhagavad Gita, chapter by chapter. It is at least 20 years since I read this all the way through, though I did read a bit last year. Though it is a three hour session, it rattles along pretty well and is one of the best lessons we have had I thought. Tomorrow we are having a similar lecture on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras which I would have really liked to have seen but have to leave early as Emma was coming home for the weekend and I didn't want to not see much of her.

My hotel tonight is at somewhere called the "Hyde Park Apartments" near Queensway tube. These are hotel rooms with small cooking areas in them - 4* and among the best places I have stayed during the course, though I have yet to find somewhere with a bath which would be nice for a change

Sunday

Breakfast at a small cafe by Queensway tube and then rather a pleasant walk across Hyde Park and down to Victoria, which took me longer than expected and resulted in me not having time to buy food for lunch, etc.

Elena was teaching us for most of today. We started with a lecture on adjusting and assisting which was very interesting and has left me with loads of stuff to think about. Then we we split into pairs to prepare a short body awakening sequence followed by some preparatory postures leading up to a particular pose - in our case, Marichyasana C. I was paired with Tracy and I thought we did a pretty good job overall. A reasonably nice warm up sequence, so good prep poses. Not bad I thought. But Elena did raise lots of points for us which was a bit disappointing. We were the first group to present and that may have had something to do with the long discussion we had about our sequence. That did leave a little less time for the other groups.

Departure at 2:30 so I could get home in good time to see Emma and cook a meal with her tonight. We now only have two more practice weekends left before our final assessment weekend. So we do all need to be working hard now on our planned assessment classes, etc. Next time we have practical tests all day on the Saturday - that will be a very tough day i would think.

Village Wine Tasting

Saturday February 9th 2008

Longworth Village Hall

Most of the day was spent in Cambridge visiting Emma at college. All seems to be going well and it was nice to see her. Remarkably, Linda hadn't seen her for 5 weeks - possibly the longest time they have ever had apart.

Back home and we just have time to make it to the "Call my Wine Bluff" event at the village hall, hosted by the local Oxford Wine Company. This is a wine tasting in a somewhat unusual format. We are on a table with 8 others and there are three wine experts on the stage. We are given a bottle in a black sack so the name is obscured and have a sample each. Then the three wine experts get up and give their descriptions of what the wine might be, two of which are, of course, entirely untrue. Then each table has to guess who is telling the truth about the wine and also what we think it should retail at. There is a complex points scheme and an overall winning table.

Neither Linda nor I are particular expert at wine tasting and do not have an extensive list of wines we have tried (particularly all the New World wines that are about these days). But we are very keen wine tasters (drinkers) and as we plan to include a (friendly) wine tasting in each Well Being Break, then we thought we ought to try and raise our knowledge (at least about the way in which wine can be talked about)

Oddly enough, Linda is really good at picking the wines and gets 7 out of 9 correct (when I did about as well as chance and got 3 right). Unfortunately, Linda's view was drowned out by the few people on the table who considered themselves very knowledgeable about wine, but who didn't score as well as Linda. We would have won easily if we'd followed Linda. As it was we came third overall, just a couple of points behind the winners.

But a very enjoyable evening and one that gives us a few things to think about for the Breaks.

Yoga Teaching - sort of . . . .

Sunday February 3rd 2008

Yoga Teacher Training Course, Oxford Circus, London

A trip up to London to give a talk to the newest of Elena's Yoga Teacher Training Courses. After a phone call earlier in the week, we switched the order of the sessions so Elena would now be leading off with her first Body Awakening session and I would be following immediately before lunch.

The main gain for me from this is that I got to see a session from a different viewpoint than being a participant. This is the first time I have really been able to focus on a class in this way and it was pretty odd to see the wide variety of "bodies in action" - in other words, the wide variety of ways that people sought to do what Elena was asking them to. I did a little bit of adjusting to a couple of people, but not a lot.

My session was called "An introduction to the course" and was focused on picking out relevant points from the syllabus and explaining what the various things meant. So hopefully, unlike my own course, participants will know exactly what they are doing as the course develops.

For the first part of the lecture Elena sat in, which did throw my timing off a little as she expanded on what I was saying. And then when she did leave me to it later on, I got a whole raft of questions from virtually everyone on the course. Maybe another illustration of the way that feedback is hard to get. My lecture also featured a short anatomical lesson which I did with Christina (who has switched off my course onto this one). That was rather fun I thought.

So I was a little late finishing but not too bad. And the initial feedback was quite good from people. I have now taught on a YTTC course - I wonder when that will happen again.

Then off to the Angel to meet up with Camille (and baby Ina) for a chat about Well Being. This was a wide ranging discussion with lots of interesting points arising from both sides. For instance, we are going to try and make a good standard DVD when we are in Italy at the end of the summer. Camille reckons we could do a really good job on this - afterall, she is a dance and theatre director and so is bound to be better at this than Linda or myself. We are also thinking about sorting Camille out with a website of her own (if I can sort out an appropriate way for it to be done really cheaply)

So an interesting day overall - with much to think about.

Later on I got a really nice email from one of the course participants, Caitlin, who had seen our website and had spotted where she was briefly mentioned (in the post about the Yoga show). And she thought the Well Being Breaks idea was very nice. Nice to get some feedback so quickly.

Planning for Spain 2

Monday January 20th 2008

Que Pasa, Bristol

A trip down to Bristol to meet with Ellie, my former business partner. Though our business finished a couple of years ago, we have stayed friends and it is really nice to see her today.

Our aim is to talk about Well Being and, in particular, to see if Ellie would be available to help for one of the weeks in Spain (or maybe a couple of weeks). Ellie has been reviewing our website over the past few weeks and I am also keen to find out what she thought. I feel we are rather short of feedback at the moment on the website, so any comments are very welcome.

We settle in for a few hours in Que Pasa, a Spanish bar and restaurant next door to the shop we met in. I think there is one of these in Oxford, but we haven't ever been to it. We decide we will sample a selection of the various tapas and critique it against what I would hope to achieve when we are doing the cooking. Overall the food is ok, but I would expect to do better.

And Ellie should be able to do the first week of Spain 2 and maybe some more time as well. Lots of detail to sort out about this, but a promising discussion.

First blog of the year - about time too

Sunday January 19th 2008

Yoga Teacher Training Course, Victoria, London

Saturday

I can't believe I'm only just getting round to updating our blog - a month after the last entry.

Our yoga teacher training course re-commenced today after more than a month off and what a surprise - only four people turned up. One person - Sarah - was getting married this weekend so she has a good excuse. And Christina has apparently moved off our course onto the new course starting in a few weeks time. A shame as I thought she was rather a fun member of our group. Still she was a bit behind everyone else so maybe its not such a bad plan. But no one has any idea about any of the other people missing. The September course is also running this weekend and it is apparently full today over at Oxford Circus

So today it is just Eve, Tracy, Rhea and myself. Elena decides to re-organise her plan and start with a class for couple of hours. This is actually very good, though extremely tiring. Lots of postures held for longer than normal to get our alignment sorted out. All of us are rather struggling to keep going. No doubt we have not been practicing enough over the past few weeks. And Rhea has a bad cold as well. Much to my surprise, Elena is quite complimentary on how I'm doing with my practice - my downward dog is now excellent apparently!

For most of the rest of the day, we complete the missing posture lab notes on standing positions and then do the first half of the seated postures. My working sheets are now completely covered with additional notes and I am going to have to spend quite some time updating them all.

I am staying at a new hotel yet again, this time in Victoria and not far from the course setting. And it is even worse than the really dreadful one that I stayed at last time. I have decided to re-think my choice of hotels for the remainder of the course. It would be nice to stay somewhere that actually had a bath for a change. Instead I am left to ponder on whether it is worthwhile to troop up to Leicester Square for a back and shoulder massage at the Chinese medicine centre. But tonight I am too tired and I have a bit of food and am back at the hotel for an evening's reading and listening to music on the new ipod.

Sunday

Things are even odder this morning as only two of us turn up - Eve and myself. Indeed at 10:00 there is just me and Nita there. We are supposed to be doing a Posture Lab on seated postures together with some work on adjusting and use of props. As a result of there just being the two of us, this turns into a really intense day's work with both Eve and me able to really get into the detail of what we are doing in a way that isn't possible when there is a full class. So in a strange way, it is actually better for us two.

Nita only teaches a couple of the course sessions but is very good. Eve and I take turns to try and teach various seated postures and I can clearly tell that I am getting better at explaining postures to other poeple. Nita has a lot of additional points on teaching technique so I felt the day was actually really good.

The afternoon is taught by Elena and it is clear that both Eve and I are flagging as the afternoon moves on. So we take advantage of any opportunity we can to take a breather and chat about a wider range of yoga things.

Elena also asks quite a bit about Well Being Breaks and the financial aspects of the business. I bought the new Yoga Journal today and we have our small advert in the Directory section. This might be the only time that I am mentioned in Yoga Journal! Elena seems to be moving towards the idea of doing retreats again at some point in the future.

A terribly slow journey home on the coach for some reason. An odd weekend - wonder what the next weekend will turn up

Trip to France - Monday

Monday December 17th 2007

Chateau de Rodie, Courbiac, France

Last day at the chateau and no need to rush - just soak in the atmosphere a bit more. No doubt at all, this should be an excellent location for next year and I'm already thinking about doing a longer break the year after!

I had time to call in a couple of places on the way down to Toulouse airport. First stop was Montaigu de Quercy to fill up the car with fuel. Much to my surprise, the tourist office there was open and I was able to pick up a couple of dozen leaflets on local attractions that should allow me to build up a much better list of things for people to do. One leaflet was for a cave site quite close to the chateau. If I'd known it was that close, I might well have tried to visit it.

Then on to Lauzerte to visit the Tourist office there. This turned out to have more or less the same information as the one in Montaigu. But nice to see the centre of this little city again

From there down to Moissac, which contains one of the areas most famous sites - the cloisters next to the Abbey of St Peter. I arrived during the long lunch break and after quite a bit of walking around I was finally able to find a restaurant that was open - and jam packed it was too. It did do a very nice pizza though.

Then back to the Abbey and a walk around the cloisters. I do always enjoy walking round cloisters for some reason.

The Abbey of St Peter

Views of the cloisters

Then off to Toulouse airport with plenty of time for some reading and listening to music.

This has been a really useful trip and confirmed to me that we definitely do need to see the properties in Italy as well. Don't know when though - maybe February?

Trip to France - Sunday

Sunday December 16th 2007

Chateau de Rodie, Courbiac, France

After the efforts of yesterday, today would be far more of a recuperative day. A short 20 minutes or so of yoga first thing - mainly based on one of the "energizing" sequences from Tara Fraser - then a long bath while working through loads of notes for one of next year's theme. Breakfast at sometime around 10:00. It had been a colder night than the last couple and the swimming pool had frozen over.

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The frozen swimming pool

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The chateau from the main road that runs past it to Courbiac

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My trip out today was pretty short but did cover some good stuff. First down to Montiegu de Quercy, only about 4km away, for a look round the "Ecomarket" supermarket which opens for a couple of hours on a Sunday morning. This does have just about everything we might need in a emergency, so its good to have it so close. The town also contains a bank with cashpoint, a pharmacy and even a tourist office.

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Next on to Lauzerte, a well-preserved medievel "city" on a highside about 20km away from the chateau. This might be a really good place to point people towards on their first full day - somewhere really nice to see yet not involving too much driving. I was able to buy a guidebook to Quercy which looks really good as it has loads of sights close to the chateau, rather than just focusing on the major sights that are slightly further a field.

The Church in the main square in Lauzerte

Some of the older buildings in the main square at Lauzerte

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Then back to the chateau and a final run round all the rooms checking I'd taken the pictures I wanted in each, and could remember the full layout. The occasional new view is found, such as the roof detail below.

It had actually warmed up rather nicely by early afternoon and so I decided to tackle the walk around the entire property, something that takes about 90 minutes. Firstly up onto the hillside opposite and along the top in search of a good view of the chateau

The chateau from the hillside opposite - virtually all the visible land belongs to the chateau

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At one end of the hill opposite, there was a small clearing in the trees and a long view out towards the Atlantic, which can apparently be seen from here on a very clear day with binoculars. The nearby hilltop town of Tournon D'Agenais is on the far horizon, slightly right of centre, just where the mist kicks in.

On the way round the southern tip of land, I came across a whole area filled with cut logs, which had remained covered in frost all day and looked really interesting. So I spent an hour or so taking 50 or 60 close up pictures of wood, leaves, moss and so on. None quite to the standard of, say, Andy Goldsworthy, but an interesting way to pass the afternoon

This would probably look very nice printed to A3 size.

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Back to the chateau just as it began to get a bit darker. Spent a couple of hours going through my notes from yesterday's trip out - only about half of which are fully legible! Then a trip down to the "professional" kitchen to look at the various bits of equipment this has. It is quite small but will be ideal for our use I think. I am particularly taken by the large skillets, which I will definitely be making lots of use of I would think.

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Dinner again tonight with the family. A totally amazing scrabbled eggs starter (due to the use of their own eggs) and then another chicken meal with roast potatoes and sprouts with chestnuts. All very nice. More 1E a litre red wine and more pointers on what we might face next year from our guests. Apparently some people can be awful - but I guess that is inevitable. Paul and Pippa's comments on this will be taken very seriously.

Trip to France - Saturday

Saturday December 15th 2007

Chateau de Rodie, Courbiac, France

One of the most challenging aspects of our plans for next year is due to the decision to run back-to-back breaks in a single country, moving from one location to the next on a changeover Saturday. When we tested the run in Spain a month or so ago it was a pretty long trip but certainly do-able in the time available. However, in the last week or so, I have come to appreciate that the France changeover was an even longer journey, and might be quite difficult to do in the time allowed. Today would be an initial test run for next year.

So I departed the Chateau at about 6:30am with the temperature at -5 degrees. It was pretty slow going for the first hour as I made my way back to the motorway, but then things speeded up quite considerably once I did get on the toll roads. The road sign that said Montpellier was 275km away was an unwelcome reminder of just how far my planned jourmey was. It was brightened a bit by some fine views of Carcassonne from the motorway, as well as some decent music on a French radio station.

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But just after Montpellier, it actually started to snow! Now this hadn't really been something I had expected so close to the Mediterranean. For an hour or so it was actually quite heavy and my speed took another dip. Once off the motorway near Avignon, I stopped and took a couple of pictures of the snow on some baby fruit trees.

Another highlight was a brief glimpse of the Palais des Papes in the centre of Avignon - a definite visiting priority it seems to me.

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Once past Avignon I was making my way towards Apt - the nearest decent sized town to La Moliere and containing a large supermarket and at least two wine co-ops. But I didn't really have enough time for a longer stop, making my way straight out of Apt and up to Saignon, perched on a hillside above Apt.

Saignon from the Apt road

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Saignon was totally deserted - not a single place open. So when I did meet up with Tim, we had to return to Apt for something to eat. Tim wasn't totally sure of the way to La Moliere from Saignon but we found it ok. We met two people on the property doing some work outside and then hit rather a snag. They didn't have the key to get into La Moliere and they needed to try and call a local cleaner to get it. So while I wandered round taking some pictures, they made a series of increasingly frantic calls to various people

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The view towards Mont Ventoux, hidden by clouds in the distance

The central courtyard of La Moliere, such a contrast to the summer views when all the vegetation is in full bloom

In order to allow more time for the cleaner to get our message, we went down to the sister property to la Moliere, just through the olive trees. This would also be available next year if we wanted it, should we sell out. Oddly enough, we did have a key for this one and so had a good look round. I thought this one was pretty good inside - 7 double or twin bedrooms, all en suite, a decent kitchen, etc. Tim assured me that La Moliere was decorated to a higher standard that this one, so it should be fine.




La Moliere from the swimming pool area of its "sister" property up the hill

But the main concern when we knew we wouldn't be able to get into La Moliere was my failure to be able to draw some sort of plan of the interior so I could get an idea for room allocations, etc. So we will have to try and cobble something together over the coming months and then link them back to Tim's photos of the interior. Not ideal. However from what we could see from peering through windows, La Moliere is really lovely inside and so none of this should really be a major problem.

One other thing though could be tricky. Apparently, this part of France will get completely jammed up on certain weekends next summer as people from Northern France make for the south for their holidays. This could easily double the length of the journey for us and it is about 5 hours already. But we think the first holiday weekend is the week after we make the journey, so maybe we'll be ok

After being dropped back in Saignon, I decided to have a short drive back to La Moliere to make some notes on directions, etc. Then I drove down to Apt and stopped at one of the wine co-ops, "Chez Sylla". This turned out to be a very good move as they had loads of detail about local wines as well as many other leaflets for things in the local area. So I am fully stocked with info now. And this place also sold numerous wines by the litre, priced around 1E each. So definitely a good place for us to buy from I think.

I set off back about 5:30 intending to stop for a meal somewhere. But my progress was pretty good and I made it back to the Chateau just after 11:00. A total journey of just over 1,100 km taking over 10 hours. French radio broadcast an opera this evening which helped pass the time and Carcassone looked great lit up as I passed by. But a very tough day overall.

Trip to France - Friday

Friday December 14th 2007

Chateau de Rodie, Courbiac, France

The temperature dropped well below freezing overnight and there is a thick mist around the Chateau this morning. After a quite late night and a long day, I slept really well and had a very leisurely start to the day. A bit of yoga first thing, some reading in the bath and breakfast in the Great hall at 9:00 or so.

First photo of the Chateau , the view from the apartment across to the gallery first thing in the morning and -3 degrees

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I discovered this morning that the children are home-schooled and their routine is set around their work on the farm. I am very interested in home-schooling as we would have done this for Emma if we'd had to stay in London longer than we did do.

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Pippa had time to give me a quick tour of the entire house and then she had to take one of the dogs to the vets. I was free to explore as much as I then wanted to. So I have started to draw a plan and take the first few pictures of what will probably be loads. The Chateau has a very complex design and it is actually quite hard to really see how it all fits together. But it is an amazing place and will be perfect for us for next year, I can tell that already.

The Great Hall

One of the twin bedrooms - this one is the Tour Forge

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After a long and detailed go round the entire property, I took a walk down to the far end of the valley on the pool side of the property. This shows just how vast and imposing the place really is.

The fog seemed to be clearing slowly so I then set out for a drive to Villeneuve-sur-Lot. I hadn't got very far before the fog descended again and rather wiped out any more photography for today. Villeneuve is a biggish town about 25km away and had quite a pretty cathedral in the centre. I was mainly looking for hypermarkets (of which I found two) and tourist offices where I could pick up loads of leaflets for local attractions. There was a Christmas fair in the centre of the town with a very cute highland calf.

As it would be dark by about 5:00, I didn't stay long and travelled down to Agen and across to Moissac. I should have come through this town on the way last night but missed it somehow. On the way back to the Chateau I had a call from Linda and Emma who had reached Boston in a blizzard, which might cause problems for their return if there is more snow. When they rang they were waiting for Victoria's Secrets to open, so seemed well set for some shopping.

Back at the chateau and two hours spent drafting some ideas for the "Learn to Relax" themed week, listening to Amina on the ipod - an Icelandic group I saw supporting Sigur Ros and one of my favorite new bands. I have a very rough outline with one or two sections beginning to get filled in. Today's work was mainly on introductory ideas. Also, in order to get myself better acquainted with the chateau, I have been trying to sketch out our introductory talk to the group, explaining everything they'd need to know.

Another terrific dinner with the family this evening. A thin soup that was delicious (not sure exactly what it was, but it may have just been a homemade chicken stock), followed by chicken and vegetables. Pippa called it typical local "peasant food". Given the conditions, it was perfect. And interestingly, the house red wine, which I'm really enjoying has turned out to be from a local co-op and can be bought in 10 litre plastic bottles for about 1E a litre! This will be an excellent way to serve wine on our breaks.

An earlier night tonight before tomorrow's early start and huge drive.

Trip to France - Thursday

Thursday December 13th 2007

Chateau de Rodie, Courbiac, France

An early start - 4:15am - to take Linda and Emma to Heathrow for their flight to Boston, then onto Gatwick for my trip to France. I have about five hours to wait for my flight but have already checked in for the flight and only have hand luggage, so I can go straight through into the departure lounge. We are hoping that some of our travel next year can be done with just hand luggage and so speed us up considerably.

My journey was pretty uneventful. Gatwick was very quiet but then so was Toulouse airport when I got there. No queues at the hire car office for instance. I tried to follow the suggested route to the Chateau given by Google maps but this was harder than it could have been in the dark. The last 30 km seems very slow, passing through many tiny villages (some of which seemed very nice looking I thought)

I arrived at 8:45 and was met by Pippa and her youngest daughter who I think is called Janine but seems to be known as "Mole". The chateau looks amazing already, even in the dark with a couple of spotlights on it. The chateau is battened down for the winter and only a few of the rooms are being heated so it does feel quite chilly walking round to find my room. I am in the "apartment" which is the room they recommended that Linda and I have next year. It has two bedrooms, and a lounge and kitchen of its own, so it will be better for us for running the business, etc, when we are there.

Dinner is held in the Great hall with all the family. I meet Paul (Pippa's husband) and Uncle Richard who is down for a few days, plus the two kids, Suzanne and Mole, and several dogs. There is a huge fireplace at one end which is kept going all day at the moment with some very large logs. We have hot mulled wine and a three course meal which is really delicious. I start to explain where we are up to with everything - how things have changed and developed since the summer when we had our first contact, how we still have gaps in our planning but that things are falling into shape. Already I am getting lots of useful points to bear in mind, mainly because they have had courses of various sorts run at the Chateau before. So, for instance, it is very important that rooms be allocated to guests in advance so guests don't try to race down to get the rooms they want! Apparently that has happened before.

So we stay up till after 12:00 chatting about stuff. I'm sure already that this is going to work out really well.

Lots of things . . . .

Friday December 7th 2007

Longworth

A varied few days with plenty of interesting developments/ideas. We have had quite a few telephone messages requesting information on the breaks next year. Are these people who don't have access to the internet? I am not expecting too many people to get in touch with us directly - at least until they want to talk about a booking - as the website contains so much info. We do have a rather nice brochure, available off the website, and this does print well. But we don't have glossy, professionally printed brochures.

On Wednesday this week I went up to London to see Elena. We are hoping to finalise the new Teach Yoga Syllabus document over the next few days. As always, Elena has loads of interesting views on things. I get her firm views on a range of course topics and should be able to finish the document now. We met at Pret a Manger at Marble Arch, sitting upstairs as it poured with rain outside.

Thursday morning was spent finishing the changes to the syllabus document and giving it a last polish. I sent it to Camille for comments and she got back to me quite quickly with a few interesting thoughts on more general matters. She hopes to review the syllabus over the weekend.

And then an email from one of my yoga course fellow participants, with some questions about the most recent weekend. We exchange a few emails over the course of the evening and more interesting points arise.

In respect of Well Being Breaks itself, this week has been mostly about finalising the last of the planned ad spend for this time of year. Now to sit back for a month or two and see what response we get. The last couple of ads we signed up for were one offs for quite cheap rates, one in the launch issue of a new magazine called "Soul and Spirit" and another in a free magazine distributed around some of the posher bits of London.

The website still needs some stuff completed as well, but I haven't really made much progress on this over the last week. This time next week I will be at the chateau in France that we are renting next summer. I am hopeful I will be leaving a relatively clear slate at that point.

Now to get ready for Linda's Christmas meal out with her colleagues from Active Pilates!

More yoga teacher training . . .

Sunday December 2nd 2007

Yoga Teacher Training Course, Victoria, London

Saturday

A change from usual today as I drove up to London for my yoga weekend. At 8:00am, the A40 flyover at Paddington is already congested - not idea why. For once I am a bit better prepared for this weekend, mainly as it is a weekend I am pretty nervous about. Four hours of posture labs each morning followed by a four hour assessed practicum each afternoon - all the standing postures.

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So the morning is spent with Camille teaching. The posture labs are aimed at being a sort of revision session for each posture. This would be fine except that many people haven't been able to prepare their initial working sheets and so have nothing to revise against. This is mainly due to now knowing this was the course procedure until quite late on.

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Course attendance is also down as there are just 8 of us today. Most people seem to be under quite a lot of pressure from the course workload. But that said, there are clearly some people who are relatively well on top of things. Romana and myself are fully prepared and one or two others have quite good notes, even if they are not complete. But most people are saying they are doing little in the way of actual yoga practice at the moment. I have had a dry cough for the last few weeks and this has certainly been enough to stop me doing anything else. But this lack of practice does meen that a day like today is really tiring.

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Camille's teaching is really focused again and I'm sure we all feel that is really good at this stage. We cover 7 postures today and have 6 more to do tomorrow. My draft posture notes certainly get loads of new points and embellishments. My main concern is the lack of practice on adjusting and modifications - something I expect to fine really hard.

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After lunch, our practicum is with Elena. We are split into two groups and have a go each at teaching the postures from this morning to each other. Elena stops us every so often in our groups to run through some detailed points, and at other times she calls the whole group together to run through a few things. This usually involves her picking someone to demonstrate a posture and then have the others critique the posture. My decision to initially test myself on the postures I find personally to be the hardest therefore backfires slightly as I then have to demo the ones I am worst at - for instance, parivrtta parvakonasana.

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Mid-session, Elena pauses for a brief digression into the dangers of overworking in yoga and the effect it can have on your immediately relationships. She and husband Rod are off to Thailand for three weeks over Christmas and there seems to be the suggestion that Rod had insisted on this in some way. I can certainly relate the the impact lost of teaching can have. Linda is out four night's a week teaching and is usually not in the best mood when she gets in - tired and with various grumbles about things - and it does have an impact.

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By mid-afternoon I am feeling pretty low. There is so much to know for each posture and we are continually being picked up on what seem like dozens of points. But by later in the afternoon I feel a bit better. My attempt to teach the entire class one posture without notes actually goes better than it might have done. Elena's format for the afternoon also encourages us to be a bit less serious and more relaxed, even thought he practicum is technically part of the continual assessment marking for the course.

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As the course finishes, I am entrusted with key duties for tomorrow but within half an hour I have lost the codes for the doors. I have to call Linda to find Camille's mobile number and then leave it with Camille to sort out for the morning. I am totally exhausted and was barely able to drag myself out of the hotel and find somewhere to eat. I am in bed by about 9:00 in what has to be the worst room I have had so far in my times up in London. I certainly won't be staying here again

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Sunday

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Awake early after quite a good night's sleep. The exhaustion of yesterday obviously needed fixing. I've time to read some of my current book - Kenny's The Great Books - then off to collect the car and drive down to Victoria. I passed a girl walking close to to the hotel who looked very worse for wear - either drink or drugs related. She said she was ok though and wobbled off in the opposite direction to me.

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It is raining quite hard as I sit in the car outside the Light Centre where our course is held, waiting for Camille to show up hopefully with the code numbers. Sarah and Bridgit both arrive as I'm waiting and sit in the car with me, before Camille arrives on her motor bike. She managed to speak to Elena only 20 mins earlier, but at least we are able to get in. Otherwise our class might have to have been held at Victoria station!

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Six more standing postures to revise today. Victoria and Rhea don't make it in, but Christina and Eve are here today - so 8 again. Today's lesson also includes much more anatomical info on the postures than we have had before and I, for one, think this is really good. Word leaks out as well that we have all passed the anatomy test from last time. Camille thinks this test should be more related to yoga postures and I would be inclined to agree. I felt I had definitely passed the anatomy test, but, at the same time, I don't feel that I really know the material as well as I'd like to. So I am going to try and keep doing some anatomy reading, maybe from one of the books specifically aimed at yoga teachers.

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People are increasingly tired as the day goes on and we are all crashed out in restorative postures when Elena arrives after lunch for our afternoon practicum. I am paired up with Romana, Christina and Claudia for the afternoon's session. Things proceed as they did yesterday but with a slightly greater emphasis on making adjustments. I am paired with Romana for the first of these little adjustment sessions. She and I generally sit next to each other on the course and get on pretty well - lots of teasing of each other but quite friendly (I hope). Then later I am paired with Christina for Warrior II. Christina always looks really great when she is doing the postures but I make one or two little adjustments and this goes ok as well. I still think this will be a really hard part of the course though.

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This afternoon's breif digression includes a chat about how long people on the course have been married. Sarah is missing the next weekend as it is her wedding in Cape town. Elena is coming up to 10 years I think, but everyone seems surprised that Linda and I have been married nearly 20 years. This surprise is mainly due to those people who saw Linda at the Yoga Show and thought she looked really young. Linda didn't believe me when I told her this later on!

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At the end of the afternoon everyone is pretty exhausted again. We now have a seven week gap till the next weekend and I am filled with good intentions of getting up to date and even a bit ahead. Elena reminds us that we ought to be well advanced in our thinking about our chosen elective and that we can send her a one-page summary so she can check it is suitable. I have already done my first draft of the slide presentation for this so it would be unfortunate if it turned out I couldn't do this topic. But they are not due till April so everyone does have a lot of time left. I might try and write the text for mine quite soon and get it out the way.

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Elena and I have arranged to meet up in the next week to go through the last points on the new syllabus document, which she wants to use on the course beginning in February. As she is away a lot till January, it would be really good to get this finished for her.

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No quiet trip home tonight where I can sleep on the coach. Instead I have a drive to Cambridge to collect Emma whose term finished last week. Luckily she has some friends on hand to help carry boxes down the three flights of stairs and we are soon sorted out and on our way home. And as we haven't had an photos on the blog for some time, I thought I would put up a couple of Emma rowing for her college team in the Fairburns 2007 event a few weeks ago.

Emma looking like she's been working hard

Emma's team competing in the Fairburns 2007 event in Cambridge. Emma is the third rower away from the cox and is about to get covered in water from the rower in front!

The Yoga Show 2007

Sunday November 25th 2007

The Yoga Show 2007, Olympia, London

Friday

Linda has two days teaching on the Stott Pilates stand at the Yoga Show so we have an early start and a drive through the rush hour into London. Not something you'd want to do everyday but not as bad as it probably could have been.

The Yoga Show is scheduled at the same time as the Erotica 2007 show and I am keen to discover how many people will be going to both. Dita von Teese is performing at the other show and I'm sure she'd like to go on a Well Being Break next year. I thought it was interesting that the other show started several hours later than our one and goes on into the evening. Perhaps people who go to Erotica shows are not early risers.

We found the Teach Yoga stand and then the Stott area, checked where Linda would be working and then had time for a quick explore. I am weighed down with Well Being leaflets to distribute on the Teach Yoga stand, but the stand is dominated by acroyoga who are performing on the front of the double stand. I think this will really distract people away from both Teach Yoga itself and from me trying to get rid of as many leaflets as possible. Still acroyoga is very spectacular to watch.

Some acroyogis performing

There are a few people at the show that I have come across before, including Julie Hanson and Sue Woodd who I met in June on the Chi Yoga holiday I won at least year's Yoga Show. I spotted them from a distance early on but was keen to meet them with Linda later. Meanwhile Linda has started her work and was soon demonstrating Pilates matwork on one of the big stages.

Linda (on the raised stage) demonstrating STOTT Pilates matwork on one of the main Demo stage at the Yoga Show

On the way round to see Linda I met Tracy from my Yoga Course and her friend Ruth. We sat and watched Linda doing her stuff and it turns out that Ruth is interested in becoming a Pilates instructor. We arranged a short chat with Jill, the STOTT examiner and Ruth is planning to sign up for a course early next year. Ruth is a massage therapist which is something we remain interested in for next year. Meanwhile Tracy and I chatted about the yoga course and the next homeworks due for the practicum this weekend.

Linda has a few breaks during the day and we have a wander round looking for nice tops that Linda could get. Last year there were loads of really nice hippy outfits but this year is pretty sparce and we can't find anything she likes. I bought some old copies of Yoga Magazine and various other bits and pieces.

We also watched the most amazing demo by Duncan Wong, a martial arts and yoga person who was able to do some amazing things. Later I saw him doing a spot of adjusting on one of the acroyoga girls that might have been more appropriate in the Erotica show next door. I also saw Sharon Gannon, this year's star of the show, who, oddly enough, seems to have hair died the colour of broccoli. I don't see her partner, David Life, who always reminds me of Iggy Pop for some reason.

I had a short session "working" on the Teach Yoga stand answering questions about the course. Once or twice I spotted the odd Well Being leaflet disappearing off the stand. Not flying off in vast numbers, but the odd one going every so often. I was hoping to get rid of between 200 and 500 over the weekend. No sign of anyone wandering in from the Erotica show though.

More work for Linda through the afternoon. We managed to get Linda to meet Camille for a few minutes at one point. Camille seems very pleased with the proposed work next year, which is good.

And I eventually had a quick stop by the Chi Yoga stand and talked to Julie for a short while. They have done three sessions today on various subjects connected to their new book. She isn't planning any more retreats but was interested in how our plans were going.

Towards the end of the afternoon I met Natasha who was one of the poeple I met last April when I attended a couple of hours of their final teacher training exams. We had a talk about the course and I mentioned I was doing some editing of the material which she seemed to think was an excellent idea. She seems to have worked really hard for the last few months of her course and that has set me thinking about the sort of work load I should be planning for. I also met Rob, another person I first met in April at the exams. Both Rob and Natasha are teaching now and seem very happy with how the course went for them. But it turns out only 5 passed out of 12 who started it - something which has also given me something to think about.

Sunday

Another early start to drive down to the Yoga Show. I don't think either of us would have been very pleased to have been doing the Saturday as well. On the other hand, it turns out that the STOTT girls who stayed in London on Friday all went to the Erotica show after the Yoga Show finished having wrangled some free tickets. On that basis, Linda and I would have gone as well. They were full of stories of odd looking people as was Julie Hanson who also apparently went on Friday it turned out when we met her later that morning.

And so to another day very like Friday but probably even busier for Linda as one of their team was sick. I spent several hours on the Teach Yoga stand today as acroyoga were doing workshop demos elsewhere. I even made a sale of a yoga course to a nice blonde haired girl who was there with her mum.

Linda supervising some Pilates matwork teaching

The Teach Yoga stand has a beautiful file full of the current course information and looking so much better than our copies do. I was joined late morning by Romana, who I often sit next to on the course and we were comparing notes on how things are going. She did a demo class with Camille and Elena while I sold the occasional cd and manned the rest of the stall. Camille had baby Ida with her who is really quiet and very cute.

And talking to Elena, I noticed she had added an "introduction to the course" session for the course beginning in February. I asked if I could teach this and was rather surprised when Elena said yes. So I hope February 3rd is free for me to do this.

Linda and I managed another walk round and a longer chat with Sue Woodd, the tai chi teacher from June's holiday. Meanwhile I had spotted a Thai massage place and after Linda returned to her teaching, I was able to book a short session which was pretty good. It would be really good to know how to to this properly.

And that was just about it for the weekend. A few hundred leaflets seemed to go eventually. Wonder if any will produce hits?

Progressing a few things . . . .

Wednesday November 21st 2007

Longworth, Oxfordshire

Now that the website is up and running, it is time to move on to other things. Generally we try to focus each week's work around a small number of ideas and by changing each week, things move forward in all areas. This last week's main ideas are food and travel.

Over the years we have, like many people, accumulated a vast number of recipes from all sorts of different sources, stored in all sorts of folders and files. We have recently collected these together and are trying to impose some sort of order on them. In part this is to arrive at a more focused idea of what we will be cooking on the breaks next year. We need to get a better idea of what menus might look like and we have developed a list of ten food principles which we are applying as we sort through the piles of stuff. For instance, would we want to eat it? Does it have any sort of consistency with the idea of well-being? How much would it cost to feed twelve people? Does it have any sort of "wow" factor. And some dishes might be far too complex to cook for a dozen people but might work in combination with a lot of simpler dishes.

When I was younger I worked for 18 months in a professional kitchen and the main thing I learnt there was the discipline and organisation needed to cook for larger numbers. Since then we have been "keen amateurs" but have built up a pretty good repertoire. So now we have some order to our cooking plans and for the next six months we will be practising a number of proposed meals each week. Last night it was marinated mushrooms, grilled asparagus wrapped in ham, monkfish with tomato and olive sauce, and peperonata with a salad. Little portions of each as a tester of each.

Our travel plans for next year are somewhat complex. We are planning to take the land rover with us round Europe and so the logistics of moving from one venue to the next are not straightforward. And Linda will need to return to the UK during some of the weeks for various reasons. We have also been sorting out the travel plans for Eve - our life coach. Her plans need to link closely with ours. But the low-cost airlines are now taking bookings well into next year and there are some bargains to be had. Flying to Rome next August costs just over £100 return. One of the Toulouse-Gatwick flights is only £30. And the ferry to France with the land rover is only £150. So we have started booking a few things.

On other matters, we have managed to sort out some dates when Camille Litalien, one of the teachers on my yoga teacher training course, will be able to come over and teach the daily classes for us. These will occur at two of the bigger break venues when Linda and myself will have to be concentrating on food and other admin, etc. Camille will be bringing her "little family" and it should be fun to have a baby in residence. The breaks in question are the Chateau in France in late June and the second Italian break in Barberino next August.

Other work this week is centred around this weekend's Yoga Show in London. Linda is now teaching with Stott Pilates for much of the day on Friday and Sunday. Elena rang me the other day and I will be meeting her early on the Friday to see when I might be available to answer questions from prospective students. In return, Elena has said we can have some Well Being leaflets on her stand so I am furiously printing them at the moment. In the room next door to the Yoga Show is apparently the "Eurotica 2007" show where the burlesque artist Dita von Teese will be performing. I wonder how many yoga fans will be distracted by this other show? And if Dita von Teese comes round the yoga show, I will be more than happy to give her a leaflet about our breaks.

And finally, Linda and I saw "Into the Wild" last week. This is based on the book by Jon Krakauer and is one of the few books that Linda and I have both read. This was a very long film at just under 3 hours but was a really great adaption. I was particularly struck by how it avoided over-romaticising Chris McCandless but including a lot about the hurt that his actions caused to his parents and sister. Recommended highly.

Another yoga teacher training weekend

Sunday November 11th 2007

Yoga Teacher Training Course, Victoria, London

Saturday

For most of the last week or so I have had a bit of a cough. It does seem to have got a bit better in the last few days but is still a nuisance and has resulted, once again, in me not doing as much preparation for this weekend as I had wanted. It is Anatomy test weekend and quite a few course participants are feeling stressed out as a result. When I first arrived this morning there was just Rhea around and she seems very concerned at the moment, not just about the test, but also about the workload for the entire course.

But first off today is Swami's next lesson on yoga philosophy. She seemed a little put out that she had only had four homeworks in since the last weekend. I sent mine in during the week and it came back with quite a few comments. She didn't agree with a lot of what I had written, that's for sure! This morning we are learning more about yogic physiology - prana, nadis and charkras to be precise. I tend to take much of this with a pinch of salt but I am also aware that most of it can be viewed in less literal ways. For instance, the chakras can be viewed psychologically.

Next up is Ivor lecturing on the digestive system. This is rather late as it could be tested in the Anatomy test tomorrow. The group's anxiety about this test does break through into some questions to Ivor about it, but he seems to think we should all be ok and gives a few hints about the format of the paper. For instance, we now know it contains some diagrams of the skeleton and muscles and asks you to label various features using a list of possibles. There are several extra items on the list, so it can't be entirely done by elimination. But at least we aren't just given the pictures and told to label them, which would be much harder. So I for one feel ok about it.

On Thursday this week Elena rang me and we agreed that I would do a short speech to the group about the way this course teaches the asanas, the posture labs, practicum, etc. This would be the first thing this afternoon. I can tell the group are a little puzzled when I announce that Elena has asked me to talk to them all. But armed with a short handout, I am soon in full flow going through the detail of how the course is set up. The response is rather as expected. Few people have really got to grips with what is involved and what needs to be done between now and the final exams. And as I suspected, this would have been an ideal session to have included in the very first two hours of the course back in June. We overshot my half hour slot but I thought the session went very well.

Elena starts the next session by emphasising that she does see the feedback process as being important and she does want us to take it as seriously as she does. Then she launches into her next technique lab - twists and inversions - and follows much the pattern that she has done to date. A long flowing sequence to warm us up and then a run through the specific postures in her usual playful and spontaneous manner. Tracy called it passionate during our session but I think many of us feel that a more analytical and detailed approach to each posture, with time to take notes, would probably be better.

I stayed after the final session for a little while distributing a few copies of the Well Being brochure to Romana, Eve and Elena. I would like to get rid of a few more and see what feedback I can get from them. Elena and I have a brief chat when we are packing up and Elena suggested that I could put some Well Being leaflets on her stand at the yoga show in a couple of weeks, which would be a very interesting idea. She and her husband were kind enough to give me a lift to my hotel, which was just as well as I had entirely the wrong idea about where it was.

As always I was pretty tired after a day's course and didn't go that far for some food. No doubt I should have done loads of revision for the test but probably managed less than 30 minutes all evening. Instead I read more of Nooteboom's "Roads to Santiago", a really fascinating travel book about Spain which has loads of stuff about the country's history.

Sunday

Time for another hour or so revision first thing this morning at the hotel and then a half hour walk from the hotel down to Victoria through Hyde Park. It lightly drizzled the whole way down but didn't really spoil the walk. I was totally hooked on a couple of tracks on the ipod this morning as well, especially Sonic Youth's "Pink Stream" from their album from last year.

Elena had appointed me "master of the keys" as she wasn't going to be at the course today. So I actually arrived at 9:00 to open up early and had time for another hour of revision, focusing on diagrams of the body and labelling muscles, bones, etc. By just before 10:00 there was only Swami, myself and Sarah and I did think that maybe everyone had bottled out of the test. But most people turned up soon after.

Swami's lecture this morning lasted three hours, which was perhaps a touch too long and covered the rest of her chakra lecture and an examination of the contents of the "Hatha Yoga Pradipika", one of the earliest yoga texts to mention specific asanas (16 in all). This was actually very interesting stuff I thought, but three hours was a very long lecture.

A brief lunch break during which I talked to Sarah about Well Being Breaks. She has just finished a management course of some sort and was telling me last time that she was really keen to get involved in project work. So I wondered if she might like to review our brochure and website and see what things she might do differently if she were in charge. I'm hopeful this might produce some interesting feedback but I'm also aware that she is getting married in a month or two and so might be busy with far more important things.

Then it was the anatomy test that we have all been fretting about. And I thought this turned out to be a bit easier than it might have been. I reckon I scored somthing like 58 out of 77 which I think ought to be enough. In the brief ten minutes break afterwards there were a few people who found it really tough, but you never know. I think the test format should have helped people do better than they might have thought.

After this we have a class of over three hours on the use of props. Again I found this to be a really long session and I was just about finished by 6:00 when we finally came to a end. A brief chat to Christina and Suzanne who were here today but hadn't heard my talk yesterday and then a dash for the coach and sleep most of the way home.

Post website completion, I had thought this week might be a little more relaxed but I have already thought of loads of stuff that I need to get started on.

Website launch

Wednesday November 7th 2007

Longworth, Oxfordshire

An important day today. After over three months of work, the website has finally launched on the world. True, it isn't perfect and has one or two little gremlins (one of which currently stops the online booking system from working!) but it is good enough for the moment to get us started.

Since getting back from Spain I have worked just about non stop on the website. Last minute projects included getting Google maps for each property location. For a while I thought we might be able to include directions from the nearest airports but that proved slightly too much at this stage.

But I am already working on the list of enhancements for the first major upgrade which we are tentatively setting for two weeks time.

Our first press advert appears tomorrow and I have made a decision about some of our next advertising, selecting "Healthy" magazine, the one sold at Holland and Barrett. This apparently sells over 250,000 copies and is precisely the type of readers were are targetting. I have signed us up for three adverts beginning with the January edition published on Boxing day. This means we have now spent about 75% of our planned marketing spend.

Now to see what impact this all has. A nervous time as we wonder whether our product will find its market.

Spanish Trip - Saturday

Saturday November 3rd 2007

Cortijo el Castano, Nr Orgiva, Andalucia, Spain

The trip to Spain has been a great success and we feel much more certain of our ability to deliver the breaks we want to in these locations. We can now visualise ourselves actually there doing the breaks and we have loads of great ideas to fine tune what we are doing. So a very good trip we feel.

We have a late flight back this evening and Nigel and Zoe were happy for us to stick around most of the day. After packing up (and trying to find ways of bringing lots of goodies home with us) we met for drinks and delicious lemon sponge cake (made with their own lemons) in the main outdoor courtyard. We only had one or two things we thought worth discussing further - things like the plan in respect of keys during the week, and so on.

Afterwards, Nigel and Zoe took us on a tour of their house. This is decorated quite beautifully and full of features that we really like - especially the huge open shower with the sloping tile floor. We'd both like something like that back home in the UK.

It remains lovely and warm and we sit outside for the last couple of hours before we set off back. Next week is a really busy week for both of us. The website finally launches on Wednesday and our first adverts also appear this week. Linda has her final lot of exams and I also have some tests coming up. So lots to do and things could look very different in a few weeks time.

Spanish Trip - Friday

Friday November 2nd 2007

Cortijo el Castano, Nr Orgiva, Andalucia, Spain

So finally we manage to do our trip to Granada, postponed twice previously for various reasons. This involves a drive of about an hour past the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the east. Our aim is to check out some of the cultural sites and the shopping situations. After all, Zara is a Spanish brand - so Linda says - and it is important to find out whether things are much cheaper than they are in the UK.

After we manage to squeeze the car into the smallest parking place ever in the underground car park Nigel had recommended, it takes us less than 10 minutes to find a Zara store and confirm that, yes, things seem much cheaper here. Then it is off for a potato omelette for breakfast and the chance to see some sites

Fountain close to the cathedral

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Our first stop is the cathedral, one of those buildings that took years to finish - 180 years in this case. It is tucked in among the other buildings around it and has very few open vistas. But it is a fine building.

The cathedral from the Plaza Bib-Rambla

The main nave of the cathedral

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We are too late to get into the Royal Chapel to see the tombs of the "Catholic Monarchs" Ferdinand and Isabella. The chapel shuts for a siesta at 1:00 and re-opens at 3:30. So we wandered into the Albaycin, the city's arab quarter and soon came across a cake shop selling pistachio-topped pastries, which were very good.

Linda with cakes outside the cafe Baraka in the Albaycin

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We made our way up through the numerous shops selling clothes and various other middle eastern bits and pieces eventually approaching the Sacromonte area of the city and with views out across to the Alhambra Palace - one of the great buildings of the world and Spain's most visited monument. But we had decided to leave the tour of the Palace for another day though.

Our first view of the Alhmabra Palace from the Albaycin.

A later view of the Alhambra with Mont Veleta in the Sierra Nevada behind it, covered with the first snow of the new season.

We did make it to the park next the the Alhambra though and then back round towards the main shopping area so Linda could acquire a few choice items. Then a much needed beer at a cafe after all our exertions. It was 25o C in the city today yet Mont Veleta has snow on it already and this won't fully melt until the middle of next summer.

Then we just have time to go and visit the Royal Chapel and see the tombs of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, together with their daughter, Joan the Mad and her husband, Philip the Beautiful. The main alter in the chapel is quite extraordinary - a huge gold covered piece about three stories high featuring dozens of lifesized statues of various christian figures. Yet even this is surpassed by other alters in Granada - the Chantel in the Basilica of San Juan de Dios or the main alter in the Basilica of Neustra Senora de Las Angustias are even more elaborate.

After this, we are just about fit to drop but make it to a supermarket for two pizzas to have back at the house (and which turned out to be very nice indeed)

Spanish Trip - Thursday

Thursday November 1st 2007


Cortijo el Castano, Nr Orgiva, Andalucia, Spain

A quiet day today after the long day out driving yesterday. While Linda got herself ready, I worked through quite a large amount of the information I had brought with me about Google Checkout and the booking system details. I am also starting to think about how best to incorporate lists of "other activities" that could be done at each location. I have a good list for this property and a modest list for the second Spain. Other properties will, hopefully, get their own lists later.

One of the other activities we hope to have available for this property is a range of massage treatments and the house book has one or two suggestions. So I gave Jo Hopkins a call to talk about the treatments she and her husband offer and sketch out what we were trying to do for next year. This all sounds very promising and is a good add on to our other stuff.

We had intended to visit Orgiva market this morning but when we get to the square in the centre where we assumed the market was held, it wasn't there. So we had another wander round, finding another hippie shop and reviewing more cakes and pastries in the shop on the main street. We also had a good look round the "Olive Branch" English secondhand bookshop opposite Orgiva church. And the kiosk by the church stocks English newspapers every day brought in from Madrid.

Back to the villa to drop things off and a chat with Nigel and Zoe about yesterday. We discovered that today is a holiday in Spain (all-saints day) which is why the market wasn't on. Then we were off to the nearby village of Lanjaron for more research, checking out the shops on the main street, several restaurants - including one with great views over the valley - and the spa which attracts people from all over Spain (the Balneario de Lanjaron to give it its full title). Some of our guests might fancy visiting a luxury spa for a day




Local whole hams in one of the produce shops in Lanjaron

Linda in the park opposite the spa in Lanjaron

The view south from Lanjaron - the ruined building to the right is a muslim castle

Back to the villa for the afternoon and more work for each of us. Linda continued with her Pilates work while I read some material on sales and marketing that I'd brought with me - not very thrilling but also not areas that Linda and I have much experience in. And it is less than a week till our first national advert appears now

I also managed a little swim - November 1st, 25o C air temperature and an unheated pool still at 22o C. Not bad at all.

We decide to try out the stove in the lounge tonight. We are big fans of open fires at home and it was really nice to have one tonight while we had tea. A phone call from Emma while we were making tea to see if we'd go and visit on Sunday just after we get back from Spain, which will be nice. And tea tonight is the rest of the chicken we bought earlier in the week with loads of fried peppers and more patatas bravos. A bit spicier that the version we did for Nigel and Zoe.

Spanish Trip - Wednesday

Wednesday October 31st 2007

Cortijo el Castano, Nr Orgiva, Andalucia, Spain

Our big day out and one that we were approaching with some trepidation. After we have done the first three weeks in our Moorish Farmhouse next spring, we then do a further three weeks at the Hacienda across the other side of Andalucia. On the middle Saturday we have to move from the one property to the next, leaving after everyone else has left the first and arriving hopefully before anyone at the second. We figured the drive couldn't be more that four hours, but that we should test it. We would also try and draw a plan of the second property and take lots more photos. And hopefully we would also have time to see a little of the immediate area.

So we set off around 10:00 travelling up towards Granada on the dual carriageway and then east on a road that ultimately leads towards Cadiz on the western coast of Spain. Our main surprise on the journey was the beautiful landscape that we were in throughout. For most of the journey we passed through vast fields of olives with large mountains on all sides. This is nothing like the Spain that people are used to and could be a very interesting aspect of the holiday for people coming to stay with us.

The journey ended up taking just over three hours and was 265 km. But it was actually a really nice drive and I don't think we'll be bothered too much by it next year. When we got to the right general area we decided to try and find the property straight away although we weren't due to meet Angel, the owner, for several more hours at 5:00. When we got to it we were rather surprised to meet a number of local Spanish people who appeared to be living in an attached farm bulding and were working round the back of the property. They spoke no English and phoned Angel to discuss the strange English people that had turned up. Angel does speak some English and despite the phone line being really bad I was able to agree with him that we could see the property straightaway as the poeple there had keys. That suited us much better than seeing him later on.

The property is very different from our Moorish farmhouse and is a genuine hacienda basically all on its own on a hillside. It is arrange around three sides of a central courtyard and has a number of terraces around it, together with a pool and sun terrace that has views out across the open countryside for miles and miles

So where we can have some help from Nigel and Zoe at the first property, for this one we are very much on our own. The property was also closed up for the winter and so we weren't seeing it at its best. But nonetheless, it was very possible to get a reasonable idea of how we might organise things. However, though we had about 30 minutes to go round, it turned out that we missed lots of stuff we should have looked at - mainly on how the main kitchen is organised. But nothing that would be likely to cause us a major problem for next year.

And we did get some pretty good extra photos, some of which are shown below with others on the gallery pages of the Well Being Website.

The main entrance to the Hacienda

The main lounge / dining room of the south wing

Linda making her way from the main lounge of the south wing to the second, smaller lounge in that wing.


One of the bedrooms in the north wing

The inner courtyard looking towards the entrance to the south wing

One of the main undercover terraces - this one is attached to the south wing


The view from the pool terrace towards the "white village" of Villamartin in the distance - the pool hadn't been used for several weeks before our visit and will not be this colour when we next stay!

View back to the hacienda - mid picture half way up the hill - from the road below

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So the property has some really big rooms, plenty of space to sit outside, eight large bedrooms (only two of which share a bathroom) and some great views from the pool across miles of open countryside.

But much of the attraction of this property relates to its location on the edge of the Grazelema National Park and we now had time to explore this over the course of the afternoon. First stop was Villamartin for food and drink in the main square of the old part of town. We were remindered of a little version of San Francisco with all the roads going up and down steep hills. We found a tourist information office where we could collect our usually armfuls of leaflets for local sites and the girl inside was also able to give us a large map of the village and tell us where the nearest large supermarket was. So more extensive research on the contents of local supermarkets and the produce we can buy nearby.

One of the streets on Villamartin that reminder us of a tiny version of San Francisco

Then we set off into the National Park itself for a drive to Grazelema via several other Pueblos Blancos. Again this region is so unlike what you would normally expect of Spain with lush forests despite it being very late summer here. And all the villages we passed through were exceptionally beautiful.

We had time to stop in Grazelema itself for a walk round, collecting more guidebooks and leaflets on the way and examining several more cake shops. Then it was back towards the route home. This took us from Grazelema to the village of Zahara de la Sierra on a winding road that continually revealed some fantastic views. We also saw some of the local eagles circling round one of the major cliff faces we passed. Yes, this could certainly be an interesting area to explore further.

A typical bar in the centre of Grazelema

We were on the way back about 6:00 - our first experience of a really long drive in a European country at night. Our rental car has a daily display of info such as how long you have been driving that day, how far you've gone and what your average speed was, etc. By the time we got back to the villa we had been in the car for nearly 9 hours today and had travelled 625 km, with less than 3 hours outside the car in all that time.

As we walked towards the villa I saw a shooting star, the second I have seen in the past three weeks (after over ten years without seeing one). I take this to be another good omen, especially after what had been a pretty tough day (though very useful)

Spanish Trip - Tuesday

Tuesday October 30th 2007

Cortijo el Castano, Nr Orgiva, Andalucia, Spain

After last night's late night we decided on a relatively quiet day today. We had originally thought of going to Granada but have decided to leave this trip till later in the week. We did have a brief talk this morning with the agency we have booked the second Spanish property with and we have arranged to go and visit that tomorrow. It is at least a three hour drive each way to this property and we have been quite tempted to not do the trip but we really have to.

So Linda did some more Pilates work and I started on my anatomy revision for my next yoga weekend in a couple of weeks time. I also borrowed Zoe's laptop and had a quick look at the Well-Being website to see if there had been much progress while we've been away. There has definitely been some moves in respect of the online booking system, so that's good. I also logged on to our account at Google Checkout and our test payment appears to have been released to our bank account, so that system has passed its first test.

My other main project through the day was in drawing a plan of the entire property and taking loads of photos so we can really get it all set in our minds. Some of these are shown below with more on the galleries pages of the website

The "blue inner courtyard" - very cool in the heat of the day

The open outer courtyard where the evening Pilates class will be held when fully shaded

The house from the Petanque pitch under the olive trees


Linda studying her Pilates manual on the villa's terrace - this is where the evening meals will be served on our breaks (with a bigger table)


One of the twin rooms in the property

The view south towards the village of Los Tablones and the Contraviesa mountains from the terrace of the apartment (the Sierra Nevada mountains are to the north of the property)

The view towards the inner courtyards, with the blue courtyard hidden in the shade. Above it you can just see the terrace of the apartment

Another evening meal out in Orgiva tonight - delicious gazpacho soup with cut up peppers, tomato and onion followed by a shared paella "of the house". Not bad but we can easily match this standard ourselves we felt.

Spanish trip - Monday

Monday October 29th 2007


Cortijo el Castano, Nr Orgiva, Andalucia, Spain


We spent much of this morning in Orgiva having a good look round all the shops, tapas bars and restaurants. Last night we had eaten at one of the places we thought Nigel had drawn on his map but it turned out we were in the wrong place. Moreover, the one he had recommended closed last night for the next month, so we've missed out on that one. We are still pondering on whether it might be possible to have a meal out with everybody at least once during each week. If we can find somewhere good enough, that could be a really nice thing to do.

We did manage to find one of Orgiva's health food shops and bought some frozen berries for tonight's meal with Nigel and Zoe, and took a good note of all the things they stock there that we might use next year. We are also testing out the bakeries. At least one opens really early and we would be able to buy pastries for breakfast. There are quite a number of interesting cakes that we could also try out on people. The Spanish are not great dessert eaters apparently, either having fruit or various tarts.

Then we had a drive down to the coast calling in at the large supermarket for another check on what we can and cannot buy there. Today's main challenges turned out to be flaked almonds and cream, both of which took us ages to find. On my travels round the supermarket I did discover that local kitchen equipment is really cheap. We had been planning to buy a basic kit at home and carry it down in the Land Rover but instead we'll probably buy it all down here instead. For instance, large paella pans are about £6, compared to more than £20 in the UK.

So we finally settled on our meal plan and were then able to have the afternoon back at the villa. Linda is working for her next Pilates exam whereas I spent the time mainly reading the 50th anniversary edition of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, a book I haven't read for nearly 30 years! I had forgotten whole sections of it - for instance the really beautiful section about the Mexican girl, Terry.

Orange trees in full fruit by the pool - these will apparently be still available in the spring next year

So after a couple of hours of this we were set to start doing the meal for Zoe and Nigel. We had selected a somewhat ambitious menu of marinated mushrooms, prawns with chilli and an orange and avocado salad for starters, followed by peppered chicken, mojete and patatas bravas for main course, then forest berries with chocolate, honey and cream sauce for dessert. A couple of these we had never done before, but some are among our favourites back home.

We thought the evening went very well and we got the all-important thumbs up from Nigel - a committed foody. Just about everything was eaten, which is always a good sign. Once change from previous times was that we cooked the mojete for much longer - well over two hours - and that seemed to really make a big difference.

We stayed up talking till well after midnight and we now have even more ideas to think about for next year. Nigel and Zoe even offered us their house if we sell out our main bookings!

Zoe and Nigel hopefully enjoying their meal with us.

Spanish Trip - Sunday

Sunday October 28th 2007

Cortijo el Castano, Nr Orgiva, Andalucia, Spain

As forecast, today is slightly cooler and with a bit of cloud about. Snow may fall today on the highest peaks nearby (11,000 ft). We are trying to think about how our guests might approach their first complete day and so have decided that our first trip would be somewhere local - a trip into the foothills of the Sierra Neveda mountains to see some of the local "white villages".

So we drive through the local town, Orgiva, and out on the winding roads to our first stop - Pampaneira. This is a typical example of a small "white village" and has loads of local craft shops, which we are soon having a good look round. Linda is keen on rugs and pottery, I am buying loads of guidebooks to the whole Alpujarras region and to places like Granada. Every shop seems to have Chris Stewart's three books - Driving over Lemons, A Parrot in the Pepper Tree and The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society - which are set in this area of Spain. His books are even available in Spanish. He lives very close to Orgiva and has really put the area on the map. Linda has been reading his books over the last week or so to put her in the mood for the trip. Nigel and Zoe also seem to have quite a lot of dealings with Manola who features in the books.

Linda outside one of the many craft shops selling rugs and other local products

We have lunch in the main square. Linda has potatoes with peppers - which is a dish mentioned in Chris Stewart's books as a major part of the local diet - while I have a plate of various local hams and sausages, which also comes with potatoes and peppers. We are joined by a scraggy dog who obviously knows how to get titbits from people. A scraggy haired guitarist who looks quite a lot like the dog plays in the square while we eat and is pretty good.

The scraggy dog in Pampaneira

Scraggy guitarist in the main square of Pampaniera surrounded by local rugs


Capileira and Bubion - more white villages - from the road above Pampaneira

From Pampaneira, we drive on towards Trevelez. This is one of the places I most wanted to visit locally as it is the obvious starting point for a walking attempt on Mount Mulhacen, the highest mountain in the Sierra Nevada mountains at about 11,400ft. Some of the walking guides I have for the area feature this walk, but it is a tough one. Maybe five or six hours to the summit. Also next May it will still have snow on it, so a far tougher proposition. Trevelez is a famous producer of hams and there are loads of stores selling complete hams, yet we haven't seen any pigs. Do they import the hams and bring them all the way into the mountains to process them? We continue round the valley to Torvizcon and then back down to Orgiva.

For dinner tonight we decide to try Orgiva, just a couple of kms down the road, so armed with Nigel's hand written map showing tapas bars and all the restaurants they know, we set off for a look round. We settled in a place that looked quite promising, for fish soup (which was excellent), tuna steaks, more ham selctions and more potatoes, washed down with a bottle of local red wine which we'd never heard of. Not bad at all we thought.

Spanish Trip - Saturday

Saturday October 27th 2007

Cortijo el Castano, Nr Orgiva, Andalucia, Spain

We are slightly late arriving at Heathrow and can't get seats together on the plane. Then we have a wait of nearly two hours at Malaga airport to collect our hire car. Apparently there was a special offer on pricing by our car company and they have been swamped with customers - over 400 today compared to a normal 200. So we don't have time to call in at Nerja and have paella on the beach (as per Nigel and Zoe's suggestion), which was rather a shame. But this is a great idea for us to suggest to our guests to avoid them arriving too early at the start of a break.

We do manage to find the big supermarket in Motril and stock up with some stuff there. This might be the main big supermarket we use for the breaks next here next year so we have to have a very detailed look round, checking that we can find all the obscure bits and pieces we think we'll need for the food we want to cook. We are hoping to cook a meal for Nigel and Zoe in the next couple of days and have to work out what we'll do for this. We are hoping they will give us some good feedback on whether our cooking is suitable or not. So the pressure is on to do something really nice.

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A nice drive inland towards the mountains. One of the main attractions of this property's location is that it is near both the coast and the mountains. The region is unlike any other part of Spain we have been to before and we are sure it will prove very popular with our guests.

We met Zoe outside the property and then have a tour round by Nigel. He starts in the part they call the "apartment" and then we work round the various courtyards to the part they call the "villa". It is all really beautiful as we hoped (and expected) and we are really pleased with our choice. We have a lot of detail to work out, but broadly speaking, we can already tell that it will be fine. It is warm enough to sit outside for a couple of drinks and a chat. They seem really nice and have loads of suggestions to help us develop the breaks here.

We are staying in the double room in the villa for our trip. This is the room we will aim to have for the three weeks next year as it has greater privacy than the other rooms. Next door is a twin room and the apartment has three further bedrooms. So we can have a maximum of 8 guests staying here in addition to us. We already think this property will be a big success.

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Neither of us fancy a meal out tonight so we cook up a huge plate of prawns with green chilli and have that with loads of bread and wine - one of the nicest meals we've had for ages - and then we decide on an early night. There is so much we need to do this week and we already have extensive plans for tomorrow's trip out.

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View of the Cortijo El Castano from the pool - the villa part is to the left while the apartment is in the two-story building. The undercover terrace on the far left will be used for evening meals as it gets the last sun of the day.

Preparation for our trip to Spain

Thursday October 25th 2007

Longworth

The last few days have been really hectic as we try to get as huge amount done before leaving for Spain this weekend. The website takes another jump forward with the specification of much of the underlying database structure for the booking system. This is fiendishly complicated and it takes a fair bit of testing to ensure that errors aren't lurking in it somewhere.

Part of the database structure - one page of many - dealing with payments

On Tuesday I spoke to Nigel, one of the owners of the property we are staying in next week in Andalucia. This is the first property we are using next year for three weeks from late April, so our trip next week is very much a reconnaissance for next year. We have an enormous list of infrastructure points we need to try and cover as well as seeing as much of the local area as we can. He and Zoe seem keen on what we are trying to do and have sent us a list of local activities we could consider offering through our breaks. I am very keen to assemble some "a la carte" lists of things people can do each week for each property but it is extremely tough to do this without some local knowledge.

We have also sorted out our merchant account so we can accept debit and credit cards. I have processed one test payment so far and we wait with baited breath to see whether it can work its way through the entire system without hitch. It will be several days before we know if the processing has worked fully.

And I have come across the wonders that are Google Maps. I was able to create maps that showed all of our planned properties and sort out links that Darren can, in theory, post to the website. I think these would look very good.

And this weeks major problem - the planned online brochure, though looking lovely, is much too big even as a PDF file, unless you have broadband to download it. But until I can work out why it is so big and correct it, it will have to go out at 2mbs. The problem is possibly the graphics on each page which are occasionally made up of a dozen frames and cause each page in Word to average about 3mb.

Lots of packing still to do and loads of papers to take with us. So definitely a working trip - I doubt we'll have much time for relaxing.

Yoga Teacher Training

Saturday October 20th / Sunday October 21st

Yoga Teacher Training Course, Victoria, London

Saturday

The next weekend of my course has come round really quickly, mainly due to us being really busy for the last few weeks with Emma going off to college, etc. But unlike last time, I have actually done my prep for the two practicum sessions this weekend and, post Qi Gong at Gaia House, I feel I know a little more about the body awareness sequences that Elena likes so much. Not confident exactly, but feeling ok about doing it.

But first off today it is an Introduction to Yoga Philosophy with Swami Saradananda. It turns out that she wrote one of the yoga books we have at home - "Yoga Mind and Body". I actually quite enjoyed this lecture as it contained quite a lot of material that I have some familiarity with and is does make a big difference to what you do in yoga if you have some more of the background ideas. So we reviewed the five main branches of yoga - Jnana, Bhakti, Karma, Raja, Hatha - the time lines of Indian philosophy, the six main scriptural types and the major philosophical schools. A nice start to another busy weekend.

After that, we have Camille taking us through the Seated Asanas in our syllabus. Having studies the syllabus in great detail together with Elena's document on teaching methodologies that she submitted to the British Wheel of Yoga as part of her accreditation process, I now know much more about how this first block of teaching on these asanas fits into the overall programme. But from a couple of conversations this morning, many other people are still very unclear.

Over lunchtime I had a quick chat to Camille. We discussed where I've got to with Well Being and she hinted that she might like to look at helping us with some of the yoga teaching next year, which would be very good if we can work something out. But we mainly talked about my work on the syllabus, etc, and I had a few questions for her that also suggested some additional points.

Overall, I have to say that I think Camille is the best teacher on the course as she is totally focused on the issue of "Yoga teacher training". No distractions, no wider issues, just a relentless focus on the key points we need. And from what I could tell from the others, they also thought this was a very good block of teaching. But I did ask several people whether they realised that we had actually finished the first teaching for standing asanas and there are quite a few who didn't realise we had. Also few people really understand the Practicum / Posture Lab interaction.

Our last two hours this afternoon are given over to a Practicum on seated body awareness. We are split into groups of three and each have a turn at working through our plans (if we have them). I am teamed up with Romana and Vicky who have been seated either side of me today. As always, I am happy to leap in and have a go first no matter what a mess of it I make. So while Camille and Elena circle round taking notes I run through my sequence based on a whole series of Brad's Qi Gong lessons from Gaia House. Romana is also well prepared and does an excellent sequence. Vicky hasn't prepared anything in advance but I thought she did do a very good job of improvising.

So then Elena runs through what she thought of everything. We are asked in turn to say how we thought it went and then our guinea pigs are asked for their views. Finally Elena gives her views. I am reviewed first and it seems to go ok. My guinea pigs were reasonably happy but Elena is critical of my own movements - I hadn't really paid as much attention to what I was doing as I should have done. Afterall, I am the teacher and I need to set an example!

And Elena has some common themes throughout her review. She thinks it is obvious that we aren't doing enough practice ourselves. In her words, we all look "lazy". We need to practice our teaching in front of a mirror and take care with what we are saying so we avoid saying too many negatives. But she does surprise me by also saying that she would definitely come back to a class of myself and Romana - however I think that is more because the two of us were very well prepared, while many others simply weren't. I suspect Elena was actually really cross about this but if so, she didn't let on.

So we finish the first day of the weekend - another very tiring day with loads to take in and digest. Tonight I am staying in a cheap hotel near Paddington - the cheapest Lastminute.com had to offer. And I can see why. Another tiny narrow little room, though compared to the other recent ones, this one did have a shower. I would have been quite happy to go straight to sleep but I felt I should try and go out and see the Rugby World Cup Final. So I settled into a little pub round the corner, had a couple of beers and watched the game. No doubt my fellow yoga trainee from South Africa - Sarah - was pretty happy with then outcome. I was close to falling asleep by the end!

Sunday

Awake at 5:30 and plenty of time to have a couple of run throughs of my practicum for this afternoon, focusing on some of Elena's points from yesterday. I also have time to draft a new version of the Well Being Brochure so it goes out to 8 pages. This could then be available to download off the website as it would print much better. I will also print some up for the coming month and for the various people we'll be seeing.

I left the hotel around 8:00 and set off to walk to Victoria through Hyde Park. The sun was only just rising and the morning was cold enough to produce mist rising from the Serpentine. I was surprised by the variety of birds on the lake. Not only were there the ubiquitous ducks, geese and seagulls, but quite a few herons and loads of cormorants, most of whom were sitting on the tied up rowing boats with their wings extended out. Most joggers were wearing furry hats but despite the cold there was one guy swimming in the lake!

Our first course session today is a second session by Swami Saradananda, this time an introduction to meditation. I probably have more experience than most of meditation, but mine comes from the buddhist tradition, not yoga, and there are some very clearly differentiating points. But the practical advise is sound enough, though her view that we should all be doing 20 minutes a day is unlikely to match what people actually do.

Next up is a two hour block on backbend asanas with Camille - another excellent session I thought. Elena starts the afternoon with a partial review of what she expected that Camille had covered but her questions are often not precisely related to what we were taught and I suspect that Elena was a bit annoyed that we didn't always have snappy answers to her questions. Much of this can probably be put down to us not really having digested the material yet.

This afternoon, Elena take us through more anatomy - this time on the shouders and upper back. We don't have the handouts available before us and so much of the lecture to me is a confusing list of various parts of the body, questions that I don't know the answer to about various joints, and so on. These next few weeks are when I will be studying anatomy much more - especially while away in Spain - so maybe I'll know something in time for the test in 3 week's time.

Then on to the second Practicum - kneeling body awareness. I am paired with Bridget and Rhea and again am happy to go first. I try to correct the errors of yesterday in respect of my own posture but apparently I talked too much this time. Still I was pretty happy with the progress. Despite what Elena said yesterday, Bridget hadn't been able to do any prep for this and Rhea had done a little. So Elena was a bit more strident in her grumbling about the need to prepare.

We finished the afternoon with another run through the 10 week sun salutation programme. I'm still very unconvinced by this idea but it is the was she wants to set it out.

At 6:00 Elena and I settled down for a chat about the work I have been doing on the syllabus etc. We look at a few of the points in detail and I learnt one or two surprising things about the behind-the-scenes situation for her. We have a possible plan for a one hour session about the syllabus for next time, but will perhaos decide on this nearer the time. Elena's husband tells me that Lewis Hamilton as failed in his attempts to win the F1 championship and Raikonen has pipped him, which is a bit of a surprise.

Yet again I am feeling that there is loads to do for my yoga course and I need to get going with some of it urgently. So as soon as the Well Being Website is working . . . . .

Silent Retreat Day Five

Wednesday October 10th 2007

Gaia House, nr Newton Abbot, Devon

Five Day Silent Meditation Retreat - Day five . . . . . .

Another good night's sleep in the yoga room and awake at 5:00 feeling very good.

I am aware that much of my blog about the retreat has tended to deal with the distractions and small amount of activity that we have actually done, but of course the main part of the retreat is spent sitting in silence in a room of strangers for hours on end, focusing on the breath, noting bodily discomforts, noting the various distractions as they arise and returning all the time to the breath. There is not much more to it than that, but it provides an ever-deepening practice. I haven't yet really got the words to describe it more fully, other than by the statement I made in the last entry that slowly it all begins to work its magic.

My fear that someone would hide the bell during the retreat and I'd have no way to wake everyone up proves unjustified and I am soon into my yoga routine joined by Chrissie again.

We have a slightly different routine as it is just a half day. Qi Gong and the first sitting are slightly curtailed so one of the managers can do a small admin speech. Attempts are made to arrange car pools so people can get to the station, etc.

Our longer morning sitting includes discussions of Dana giving - the manner in which the IM tradition arranges income for teachers. I have no idea how much to give as there is no opportunity for discussion of this as we are still in silence. I pick my figure and write them a cheque, plus one to the general trust fund. Other parts of the closing session cover taking things forward. We have one last walking session in the hall and a full circle sitting where we are encouraged to make eye contact with people for the first time in five days. We repeat the chant from a few days earlier - Lokaha Samastaha Sukhino bhavantu - may all beings find wellbeing (!!). Finally there is a closing circle to share any last thoughts and a short guided metta meditation of just a few minutes. For the first time in a long time I feel part of a community of like minded people.

Our silence is then lifted. We put away all the mats and cushions and make our way to the library where there is a book sale (I buy three!) and out to the garden. I have a few people I'd like to say something to. To Chrissie, about her yoga. To the girl whose name I never knew who had wanted to quit on day one but stuck it out to the end and who did, in the end, really enjoy it. Back in my room I talked to both the snorer (who apparently used to work at Hartwell Landrover just up the road from us) and to Karl. He has slept two nights in the lounge it turned out having also had the same response to the snoring. And it turns out that Matthew, who killed the rabbit, is a G.P. and so might be thought to have rather more knowledge of life and death than many of us.

And I had a brief chat to Phoebe, the girl who had passed me with such purpose on her walk yesterday. She hadn't known the location of a shop but had just wanted to walk quickly - she didn't find a pub either! She mentioned she was a journalist and was planning to write about the retreat for London Lite magazine and felt a bit guilty about writing some things down. But when I mentioned that one person had killed a rabbit she seemed less worried by her breaching of the five precepts we were trying to live by. I mentioned we were keen on knowing more about how journalists come to write articles on things like WBB's plans and when I described WBB to her she thought it sounded very good. When I said we were pitching to the sort of people who read "Psychologies" magazine and that our first adverts were appearing there soon, it turned out that she was going to be working for them in the future. So she scribbled down her email address for me and wants to find out more.

People have mostly left by 2:00 and I was all set to meet with Kate, who, it turns out, I had been sitting next to at lunch that day. We settle in her office at the top of the main building and I take her through my carrer in finance and also the sort of thing I would be looking for in the work they need doing. The upshot is that she will have one of the trustees call me very soon and we will take things from there. If I do go ahead, I will be expected to attend more retreats but I wouldn't have to pay for them.

And so I departed from Gaia House at about 3:30pm. I'm soon on the motorway with busy traffic and noise. I listened to the radio and some music for the first time in days. And speak to Linda, who has had a rough few days. One of the ladies who attends her aerobic class in Longworth has been knocked down and killed on the A420 at the end of our road. Linda cancelled her Tuesday class as a mark of respect and had to call everyone to let them know. So not a good period.

Back home I have a long hot bath and start to get my thoughts toegther for writing all this!

Silent Retreat Day Four

Tuesday October 9th 2007

Gaia House, nr Newton Abbot, Devon

Five Day Silent Meditation Retreat - Day four . . . . .

Awoken again at 11:00pm last night after just an hour or so asleep. Karl, my other roomie, is on the move it seems. I leave soon after and am nicely settled in the yoga room for another decent night's sleep. Awake at just after 5:00 and I have time for 30 minutes yoga and washing, etc, before bell-ringing, which I perform with increased gusto now I am feeling less tired.

I am joined at 6:15 by the super-fast yoga person who zips through her routine in ten minutes. Her name might be Chrissie as I have noticed she does the 8:15 bellringing. My yoga is based on backbends and hip and shoulder openers - postures like half pigeon, Gomukhasana and so on. Also I remembered to have some aspirin before each of the sittings today, which helped alot.

So Qi Gong goes well first thing - Brad's energising playful session is now going very well. I will have to try and remember the sequence. For the first time in a sitting meditation, I think about Emma at college and Linda at home and hope they are both fine.

An even bigger bowl of porridge is consumed this morning with banana and an amazingly sour apple. My hour of house work has a small change and after washing up I peel, core and cut up dozens of windfall apples that are going to be made into chutneys later that day.

So far I haven't mentioned one possible development that arose as the retreat started but today there is a short note from Kate Fyfe, the executive director of Gaia House, asking if I could meet her on Wednesday after the retreat finishes. Not sure how this will progress but is an interesting possibility. More later

In Qi Gong we have moved onto more flowing sequences linked to breathing andI find myself really getting more into it. Late morning we have another group meeting with Catherine and I talked about the conflict I was feeling between the results of the creative burst I have experienced and the goals of Insight Meditation - she sets me some exercises to ground me back to the breath. I am just not sure that is what I want at the moment though

One woman is now finding much of the retreat to be funny and she says she keeps bursting out laughing about things. One guy (Tom who sits near me in the hall) is worried about fears and anxieties building up in him as he sits. The oriental lady - Cher - says she has barely slept for three weeks and is really struggling with her life at the moment, but that she is beginning to see a new path for herself going forward. Silvie, a creative person, is finding some element of grounding coming through her practice and another girl is feeling better about herself. Finally it is Mathew's turn and he surprises us all by announcing his confession - yesterday he killed one of the rabbits that live in the garden outside the meditation hall! Now I hadn't expected anyone to say that! It turned out that the rabbit was in obvious distress and close to death and so he had felt he was putting it out of its misery. But when he first spoke it sounded like he had killed just one of the regular bunnies.

After lunch I went for another walk along the public footpath behind the house. As I wait at a gate looking at the cows I am caught up and passed by the young girl who sits to my right in the hall. She is strinding along with great purpose and it occurs to me later that she might know the location of a secret shop - why walk with such purpose otherwise?

I missed one of the afternoon sessions as my back was really hurting and dosed up with aspirin I stretched out on the floor of my room thinking about the meeting with Kate tomorrow. I am really keen to be involved more with Gaia House and the possible role we are to discuss would suit very well. They need the assistance of someone with a background in finance and I can do that for them.

The late afternoon and evening sessions are the best I have had - the constant stream of ideas is dissipating and I am beginning to make some progress in my sitting it seems to me. It is a perfectly clear night and again my walking meditation is dominated by star gazing. It is our last full day today and I don't rush off to bed. Instead I return to the garden and sit looking at the stars, then have a quick wander round the library, getting to bed about 11:00. Gaia House is beginning to work its magic . . . .

Silent Retreat Day three

Monday October 8th 2007

Gaia House, nr Newton Abbot, Devon

Five day Silent Meditation Retreat - Day three . . . . .

I had a new sleeping plan for last night. I would go to bed as soon as we finished and aim to be asleep before the snorer arrived. Then, if I woke up at any point prior to 2:00am, I would get up and find somewhere else to sleep - the yoga room seemed a possibility as it had beds in it, or possibly the lounge downstairs.

I was awake at just past 11:00! My second roomie gets up to go to the loo and I depart while he is away. I settle on the yoga room, though it turns out the beds are stacked on top of one another and that they slope slightly as a result. I settle in one at the far end, hoping that the retreat does not contain anyone who likes to do yoga in the middle of the night. In theory my bellringing duties will ensure I am up before any early morning yogis. I avoid rolling over and falling out of bed due to the slope.

So I do get a decent night's sleep and feel tons better today. I even do a short 20 minute yoga sequence after bellringing and pre-Qi Gong. I am joined briefly by a woman who does one of the fastest sun salutations I have ever seen. To continue the sense of re-vitalisation, I have four spoonfuls of sugar in my porridge, but I do manage to restrict myself to the half banana we are allowed.

So it is with a much better outlook that I set out today on our meditation journey. But Dharma instruction focuses on some of the questions that I thought I might look into for my yoga course elective. Prompted by Catherine's talk, I am beginning to remember some things from my reading of the classic scriptures of Buddhism years ago. For instance, when she mentions the quote from the Buddha that his monks are radiant because they "do not regret the past nor brood over the future. They live in the present" I remember that this is from the first book of the Sam Yutta Nikaya - part of the Pali Canon of Buddhist scriptures. Other distant memories of reading classical Buddhist texts begin to resurface during the day.

And so began, for me, a whole flow of connected thoughts linking much of my reading of the last 25 years. I rarely have such surges of flowing ideas and I found myself really excited by them during the long morning sitting. Of course, restlessness is one of the five hinderances identified as obstacles to Insight Meditation - and I was certainly restless. But here are my thoughts . . .

We yoga students continually refer back to Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. This sets the postures of yoga into an eight-fold path, where it is quite clear that the aim of these postures is to prepare the body for the practice of meditation. This leads on to the later stages of the yogic path into the state of union of the individual self with the Eternal Self. The word "Yoga" means "union" of course. So the famous scene in the Bhagavad Gita written centuries before Patanjali where Krishna gives Arjuna a glimpse of this union shows why the Gita uses the word Yoga without mentioning any postures!

But the classical Vedas also set out a path for life - a model that I find great sympathy for. A person is firstly a child, then a student, then a householder. The householder stage is the main engagement with the outside world - careers, marriage, your own children, etc. But later, there are further stages where the outside world is renounced and a person may throw off their worldly ties to pursue their spiritual life - the so-called "forest dwelling" stage. So the postures of yoga are practiced through the householder stage to enable the body to practice the austerities of meditation required for the later stages.

The Buddha rejected the classical Vedic model and argued that there was no Eternal Self with which the individual self could be in union. Instead he argued that the real ultimate reality was the ever changing world of impermanence. The practice of meditation would enable practitioners to understand this ultimate reality and see that it is the source of the suffering that affects the world and everyone in it (the First Noble Truth).

Now here is a key point it seems to me. Classical Vedic scriptures place the activity of meditation towards the end of life while the Buddha's First Noble Truth can apply to every second of everyone's life. So Buddhist meditation can be applied to anyone at anytime. This is why, when Eastern philosophies start to come to the West, people were drawn to Buddhist meditation throughout their lives while Yoga remains, in effect, solely an exercise programme.

I also seem to remember that certain Buddhist texts refer to various yogic meditators - the ascetics with whome the Buddha lived prior to his awakening. These text provide more detail on yoga meditation from which the Buddha drew heavily for his own teachings in Insight Meditation, even though the Buddha rejected the ultimate goal of yogic meditation. If I could just remember where these discussions are . . .

So if I add to this some material about the history of how Buddhism and Yoga have each penetrated into the West, I will have my elective thesis.

And all of this springs up virtually fully formed during this morning's sitting.

Following this we have a 75 minute session of Qi Gong - lots of arm circling and quite a bit of aching afterwards. Then it is lunch - brown pasta with tofu and tomato sauce which is really nice and which I wish I had had more of.

Post lunch I went for a walk out past the church next to Gaia House and along a public footpath across the local farmland. It is amazingly quiet - just the birds, sheep and cows, some geese somewhere. Virtually no sound of vehicles. I also went on a short trip round the grounds of Gaia House itself, found the vegetable patch at the back, saw the very tame rabbits in the back garden and made my way up through the trees to the stone stupa covered in prayer flags and the small pergoda at the top end. This is certainly a fantastic location.

The huge activity in my mind keeps rattling along through the afternoon and I think of a number of relevant examples to go through in my elective paper. I gradually lose energy as the afternoon progresses and my back and shoulders ache more and more from this morning's Qi Gong. For our last meditation session of the afternoon, we are on our own in the hall while Catherine and Brad have group sessions. For some reason I find this much more relaxing and I am able to focus better on my sitting.

Supper is leak and potato soup - odd how I have really enjoyed the simple veggie diet so far - and a far cry from the plans we have for food at WBB.

The post-supper Qi Gong session is truly awful - four postures, very little movement. I am constantly waiting for it to get going but nothing happens. When it is finally over, Brad gives us the Dharma talk for the evening and it turns out that the Qi Gong we did was a build up for his talk, which is about boredom! He asks us how many times we have read the material on the notice boards (twice for me), how many times we have looked to see if there is a message for us and whether we feel sad when there isn't. All very perceptive points. He reads us some poems by a Sufi mystic (not Rumi). The upshot is that I feel a bit bad about all my writing and thinking about my elective. But on the other hand, it has been an exciting period of thought.

So for me, the loss of external stimulation has led to a flurry of creative thought rather than boredom.

I do my walking meditation outside again tonight and spend most of it stationary with my head looking upwards at the Milky Way around Cygnus. As my eyes become accustomed to the darkness, the level of detail I can see is amazing.

The last meditation session of the day remains painful and I have resolved to consume lots of painkillers from now on, now I have remembered where the first aid cupboard is.

To bed slightly earlier at 9:15 and the same plan as last night if I wake up early.

Silent Retreat Day two

Sunday October 7th 2007

Gaia House, nr Newton Abbot, Devon

Five Day Silent Meditation Retreat - Day two . . . . . .

Things have already taken a turn for the worst - it appears that one of my roomies is a cronic snorer. Not just a little bit of a snorer, but an amazing snorer, both in frequency of snore and volume. I am woken at about 10:00pm, just 25 minutes after going to bed. I reckon the sound is louder than I can shout. The hours slowly drag on as I fail to get back to sleep. At one point I timed some of his breathing and he is clocking up a rather rapid 55 breaths a minute. Then all goes silent for a minute or two and I become convinced that he has had a heart attack and died. Suddenly I am concerned at the thought that I will know his time of death to the exact second. And when the police ask me how it is I come to know this so exactly I will be able to tell them it is because I was timing his snores by the light of my little alarm clock in a spirit of mindfullness and enquiry. It is rather a relief when he starts snooring again soon after.

Eventually it is time to get up to prepare for some bell-ringing but 30 mins sleep has not set me up well for the day. I decide not to skip as I move through the building hitting my bell.

Qi Gong at 6:30 features lots of tapping of the body, hip rolls and various other playful moves, almost all of which could have come from one of Elena's sessions. All through the short first meditation my back hurts and I'm tired and grumpy. Breakfast is porridge with fruit. As I am in bad mood I decide to have a whole banana when it clearer says we can only have half each. I also eat half a Fruit'n'nut bar which I seem to have brought with me by accident. Almost certainly there is a rule somewhere about contraband chocolate.

My first hour of work for the house is spent helping wash up the stuff from breakfast. We seem to finish quicker than perhaps intended so I crept back to my room for a brief rest.

Our first meditation instruction this morning and my back really hurts so I take some painkillers. I am unable to keep coming back to my breath and am not happy. It occurs to me that the main reason the retreat is silent is so that we can't complain to each other. I can't wait for lunch, our main meal of the day. This turns out to be the classic retreat food - lentil stew with brown rice. Actually very nice, much to my surprise, but I am still forced to finish all the remainder of my chocolate bar that I had hoped I might make last for the entire course. I do get another hour of sleep over the lunch break though.

For the afternoon's sitting I decide to try a new posture - kneeling in hero pose on two cushions. This is much better on both the knees and back, though the latter only really seems happy if I am lying down. More Qi Gong that sorts of passes in a blur, and the final meditation sitting of the afternoon - a short 30 mins that I manage in half adept pose.

Then we have our first group session - 7 of us with Brad, our Qi Gong man. I volunteer some thoughts first and talk about how I am distracted by thinking about their teaching technique - the "how" of their lessons, not the "what". Next to me is a rather scary biker from East London who goes next and explains that away from retreats, he is a pretty tough sort of guy - overall I might have guessed that. Brad thinks we both have issues due to the continuing momentum of the world before the retreat - good to know we have something in common. One woman says she has no idea what she is doing here and is hating every minute. She looks pretty unhappy and is wrapped up in her coat - perhaps so she can make a fast getaway if needbe. I decide not to mention my almost total lack of sleep as that might not seem a sufficiently serious issue at this stage. We are supposed to overcome such inconveniences. Lots of others seem to have issues as well - mostly far more serious than mine it must be said. Perhaps I shouldn't have gone first.

Tea is courgette and potato soup and a hunk of bread with jam on it. Again I am regretting having eaten all my chocolate. I wonder if there is any in the car.

But during one of the evening meditation sessions I do have an idea for my "elective" on my yoga course. It will be called "The purpose of Meditation - Yoga and Buddhism in the West" and will address why yoga in the West is viewed principally as a form of exercise, while meditation in the West is almost always from a Buddhist perspective. Or something like that. The first success of the retreat - I have a title for my elective!

Later on, at one of our breaks, I scribble some notes on this. We are not supposed to write anything down while on retreat but I feel that I need to get a few things down else I'll forget them. I then fall asleep and miss a Qi Gong session. Things are not going well.

Our "Dharma talk" this evening features a discussion of the distractions caused by a fly in the meditation hall earlier. It is refered to as the koan of the fly. I can't remember what was said about it though. Perhaps I should buy a recording if it as apparently they record all the Dharma talks. It crosses my mind that we could record my snoring roomie and could play it to meditate by - that would sort the easily distracted from the less distracted.

Our first walking meditation can take place outside and I wander up and down the garden looking at the few stars that are out. For the first time in 5 years or so, I see a shooting star. Any significance? Probably just that I need to go star gazing more often .

And remember - "the meteorite is the the source of the light and the meteor's just what we see"
Bed by 9:31 - I virtually ran up the stars when the day end.

Silent Retreat Day One

Saturday October 6th 2007

Gaia House, nr Newton Abbot, Devon

Five Day Silent Meditation Retreat - Day One . . . .

I have been attracted to the idea of retreats for years now. I first went on one in 1979 when I was only 16. I remember that as being pretty strange, but nontheless the idea had stayed with me ever since. My interest probably dates from hearing that the guitarist Robert Fripp, whose music I have always really loved, had spent 9 months at Sherborne House in Gloucestershire in, I think 1975, on a course in "advanced education" run by JG Bennett, a disciple of the mystic Gurdjieff. His Guitar Craft courses (http://www.guitarcraft.com/) follow a retreat pattern and I would have gone on one were it not for the fact that I can't play the guitar.

A year or so ago, there was a brief article in the travel section of a newspaper about a 10-day vipassana retreat in New Zealand, and this was followed by an article in the spring 2007 edition of Tricycle magazine about a US rock star who had been on 6 or 7 10-dayers. Finally I was reading Sarah McDonald's Holy Cow in the spring and that featured her account of a 10-dayer in India. So the idea was set, and last spring I booked myself on a small version of a silent vipassana retreat.

So I am set for five days at Gaia House (http://www.gaiahouse.com.uk/) on "Embodying the Dharma", in which, according the the website, the "complimentary practices of Insight Meditation and Qi Gong [would] cultivate a sustained and gentle attentiveness to the movement and stillness of body and mind". And five days of silence of course; no TV, music, newspapers, phones, etc . . . .

Day One . . . . .

The drive down was pretty uneventful. To put myself in the right mood I had carefully selected some appropriate music but ended up listening to England's shock victory over Australia in the rugby World Cup. Not the most calming start.

It seemed I was among the early people to register as many of the voluntary jobs were still open. (Or maybe the early people know not to volunteer, that thought did cross my mind!). Thinking I'd like to do something other than just the one hour of work required each day I signed up for bell-ringing duties. I would be the guy who gets up before 6:00am and walks round the house sounding the bell to wake everyone up. I will probably be the most dispised person on the retreat.

I also discovered to some surprise that the retreat actually finishes on the Wednesday, not the Tuesday as I had thought. So a quick call home to correct this and my last contact with the outside world.

We have a tour, and are assigned rooms - I am sharing with two other guys on the top floor - and then we have our small bowl of soup for supper and its off to our introductory sessions. First up is the house keeper to discuss some admin - toilets are not to be flushed between 10:30pm and 6:00am, that sort of thing. Myself and seven others then have an intensive course in bell-ringing technique. I am under firm instructions that the 6:00am bell ringing must be done with gusto! The house keepr - who is male - feels we should lightly skip as we move through the house. I'm sure no one will be awake to see what I do, but it probably won't be skipping.

And so to our first session of Qi Gong - about which I know next to nothing. I am surprised when the first session is a "playful" session that is virtually exactly the same as Elena's "Body Awakening" on our yoga course. So that's where it comes from!

Then a quick opening meditation session. I am sitting by the left hand wall (as you face towards the Buddha alter) about two thirds of the way back - suitably anonymous I thought. There are about 50 of us and the hall seems very full. A glance around reveals quite a mix of people. There are a couple of girls who are maybe in their twenties, a couple of ladies perhaps in their seventies but most seem to be thirties or forties. Hard to tell though. One or two look like novice monks with closely cropped hair. There is the odd strange looking guy, but overall a perfectly normal mix. Quite a large number of men I thought - maybe 40%. Our first session doesn't last too long but already my back is sore. I pulled a muscle a day or so ago and the sitting causes it to flair up a little. Not a good start.

We are all packed off to bed at 9:30 and I am more than ready for sleep. Not the usual way to spend Saturday night perhaps!

Lots of progress . . . .

October 5th 2007

Longworth

Lots of progress this week. With Emma now firmly settled in at college, I have thrown myself into Well Being work and lots of things have slotted into place well.

The main progress has been on the website. This now has lots of its pages up, pictures and text in place, etc. We are ironing out the remaining formating issues and, in our view, it is beginning to look really good. We have spent hours on sorting out things like pictures and they all look really nice. I have been amazed by the huge amount of really good photography available to buy off the internet. Text writing has been slow but steady. Printed out, the text would now fill over 100 sides of paper!

One book I have been using for a last check on everything has been Jon Smith's Web sites that Work. This has loads of suggestions about configuring websites and I have taken many of the points to heart.

An email from Elena, my yoga course director, to say she was very happy with the work I did on her syllabus document and would I have a look at another document that she has been working on recently. This concerns her specification of how the techniques and teaching methodology sections of her course should be linked. This has provided me with a lot more insight into how she has arranged our course but has also raised loads of further questions.

So this spot of writing for the blog is the last I'll be doing this week. Tomorrow I am off to Newton Abbot for a four day Vipassana meditation course at Gaia House (www.gaiahouse.co.uk). Not entirely sure how that will turn out but this is something I wanted to do after reading a lot about this type of retreat over the summer.

I shall be writing up my experiences on this next week.

Big Changes . . . . .

October 1st 2007

Longworth

A few days of big change for us with Emma setting off for college this weekend.

All last week we inched slowly towards being ready. A steady flow of boxes were packed, various important appointments were kept, and Emma kept herself busy as many of her friends had gone off to Uni the previous week. As the stuff to take grew, I bought a roof box for the Land Rover which I then broke entering a multi story car park.

As a diversion we have been watching old videos that Emma recorded years ago. One of her favourite tv shows used to be "Xena, Warrior Princess" and we have been watching some episodes from some videos we found in the garage. We are both agreed that our favourite villain was Callisto. While other villains were just after wealth or power, Callisto was just bonkers. We always felt she could have made a good series of her own.

This set us wondering what had happened to the various stars of the show since it finished five or six years ago. Searching the internet for info on Hudson Leick, the actress who played Callisto, we were somewhat surprised to discover that she is now a yoga teacher, working through a company called Healing Heart Yoga (http://www.healingheartyoga.com/) and, apparently, leading retreats all over the world. She specialises in Kundalini and Hatha yoga. The thought has occurred to me that maybe she'd could teach at one of our breaks but that is probably wishful thinking. I am tempted to contact her though!

So Saturday was moving in day and everything went very well. We got there at the right time and found our way through the complex one-way system to get to the entry point we needed. Emma's room is an attic room on the top floor of an old building with beautiful views over the chimney tops of the nearby buildings. But it was hard work to carry everything up to. She seemed keen for us to stay and help her gradually unpack which was nice. We had a meal out at her lucky restaurant - the one we went to before her interview last December - and she met her neighbours, who all seem nice. We left her to it late afternoon after she had spent an hour or so with one of her neighbours drinking hot chocolate and chatting.

Linda and I spent the night at her mum and dad's, planning to return to see Emma again on Sunday. She rang us first thing to say she'd had a great time the night before and had made lots of friends, who she had arranged things with for Sunday already. So there was perhaps just a one hour window for us to see her. It's good to know she is settling in quickly, but both Linda and myself found it quite tough going. After we saw her late morning, we had a quiet walk round the city for an hour and then set off home.

I know I will miss Emma greatly and I can't help feeling really sad that she isn't a part of our day-to-day life anymore, but we are so pleased for her to be where she is and doing what she is doing.

And I now have to focus on finishing the Well Being Website and progressing on my yoga course.

Yoga Course feedback & website progress

September 25th 2007

Longworth

After last weekend's yoga course, I had promised Elena, our course director, that I would write her a detailed review of what I have thought of everything so far. There is always a risk with such actions as you never know whether the person really wants feedback to the sort of level that I might go and so I could be really annoying her - which may not be the best idea on such a course.

And as I worked through my points I became more and more convinced that what was needed was a re-edit of the basic syllabus document just to bring out the key features of the course a little more clearly. So I have spent some time on that in the last couple of days and sent off my thoughts a day or so ago. No response back yet. Hope I haven't made a big mistake!

My daily yoga practice is going ok but I do really need to get out to a few classes. I missed Bikram on Sunday and Iyengar of Monday this week and tomorrow's ashtanga class is already in doubt. I am hopeful that I will focus more on this next week after our daughter Emma has been dropped off at college.

Most WBB work is focused on the website and other marketing. The website must be up and running perfectly in less than four weeks. We have finished working through the "internal logic" of the booking process and are now trying to fix page formatting issues. Once these are set, pages should come streaming out - I hope. The three pages we have done so far look great though. Only another 50 or 60 to go!

We are also drafting our first press ads - slated for the December issue of Psychologies magazine, out in early November. There is the listing for January's Yoga Journal Directory to sort out - compressing everything about us into 50 words. And finally we are hoping to list on the Retreat Company's website in a few weeks time and need to work out what we want to say there.

Finally we are in discussions with a person linked to one of the properties we've booked who would like to set up what he calls an "a la carte" list of other activities people could sign up for when they stay with us. These might include vineyard visits, or trips to see olive oil manufacturing, days out on art themes (e.g. a Cezanne tour in Aix-en-Provence of his local haunts), maybe a day long cooking course. We wouldn't gain financially from this but it would boost the look of our product and we are willing to try this at one of our locations with him.

I feel we are entering a crucial period for our project now. A good few months and everything could fall into place very nicely - or not, as the case may be.

Yoga Teacher Training and more

Sunday September 16th 2007

Yoga Teacher Training Course - Victoria, London

Back in London for the next weekend of my yoga teacher training course. No surprises this time in respect of content as I had studied my timetable a bit better than last time!

I am just beginning to get to know a few more people now and can sit and chat before we start on the day. Most people are more or less up to date with the homeworks and everyone is saying they are doing very little actual yoga at the moment. One person I spoke to hadn't realised that we have our anatomy exam in November and that has set me thinking about the course in general. Overall I think the course is very good, after all I did quite a lot of research on such courses before I signed up to this one. But some aspects of it are quite unclear. I have studied all the paper work in great detail and feel happy I know what's what, but it does seem apparent to me that several other people don't have this degree of understanding.

Most of our day was spent on lectures. The morning covered the anatomy of muscles and circulation with Ivor - favourite quote "yoga only cures not doing yoga". I like Ivor a lot as a lecturer. Apparently Elena used to do virtually all the course herself in the past and Ivor is relatively new. I'm sure it's better to have a range of people involved. Myself and Claudia have our backs compared - apparently I have quite a lot of muscle surrounding my vertebrae, which is a bit of a surprise.

Lots more discussion of the course over lunchtime and I began to wonder whether it might be worthwhile for me to actually prepare some feedback for Elena on what I think of it so far. This might help me check I have everything straight as well.

The early afternoon session is on Vinyasa and Bhandas with Elena. I feel I know a reasonable amount about this subject and tried to contribute lots to the discussions. This was followed by another body-awakening session which I continue to find very difficult - the absence of structure and the playful nature of the practice just not suiting me at all. Still my notes were much better this time and I am working on finding a better understanding that suits me more for each type of practice.

At the end of the day, I stayed for a quarter of an hour with Elena chatting about a few of the points that I'd thought of during the day - that people don't know when the first exam is, my theory that not everyone has read the syllabus properly yet, etc. I was thinking more and more about proposing something more formally to Elena giving her feedback.

A quiet evening at Passfield Hall in Bloomsbury - the LSE hall of residency that I stayed in when I was a student in 1981/82. It has been completly refurbished since I was there but the room I have is tiny. It is narrower than my arm span and, oddly enough, higher than it is wide which looked kind of odd. If Emma had a room this size at college she would probably only be able to get about a third of her stuff in it.

I walked down to Victoria from Bloomsbury on the Sunday morning - about 3 miles and a nice route. I had a quick chat to Elena to see if she would be interested in me preparing some feedback more formally, which she is. She is quite right that if people don't read the material they won't know what is going on, but the fact that so many don't know is also a sign that perhaps more needs to be done to communicate this to them. For instance, my brief sample of four people this morning revealed three of them who didn't know that the anatomy exam was in November. Elena did cover a few of my points at various times later in the day, but I'd quite like to look at it all myself over the next week or so. I can see how annoyed she must be by this

Sunday was mostly spent with Elena. First up was a model for building up the teaching of sun salutations over a 10 week class. From what Elena say, I am sure she believes that we should already know this but when I asked a few people at break about it, they too are sure we haven't covered it so far. Elena's detailed teaching of this was one of the best sessions we've had so far as it gave a great structure for developing teaching over a 10 week programme.

Later that morning Elena took us through our first "hands on" session. I was her guinea pig for her demo and she showed us a few "inappropriate" methods before we were paired up to try it for ourselves. We had to do various hand placements and encourage our partners in savasana to breath into the hands. I was paired with Christina who seemed incredibly relaxed when I had my hands on her - indeed she suggested she might well have fallen asleep if it had lasted much longer. Oddly enough, she was really light when doing one of the placements on me and really firm the next time. This was the first tiny bit of adjustment we have done and will be one of the hardest things to learn I think. After all, Linda doesn't like doing them and she had taught over 1,200 classes!

Lunch outside sitting with Sarah. She is South-African and hopes to return there in a year or two after her wedding. I wonder if Yoga is big in South Africa? Like everyone on the course that I have spoken to so far, she is really nice. We are joined by Tracy, who lives quite close to me near Oxford and who I think is a massage therapist. I am continuing to ask people about the course and keep getting some interesting comments back.

Late afternoon we have a two hour lecture on Sanskrit from a lady who was involved in one of Iyengar's earliest ashrams in India. I am hopeless with languages and find the whole section on the various consonent and vowel sounds to be very confusing. Several people on the course - Christina, Claudia, Romana, Suzanne - are from overseas and already have the challenge of understanding the English. Maybe they find another language to be ok. Later we go through our list of asanas and our teacher explains the various parts of the name and how it all fits together. This is very interesting and few people are bothered when we overrun our finishing time - so now I know why Parsvottanasana is a side-stretch posture. I was also really surprised by the discussion of the posture svatikasana - which I discovered is the the origin of the word swastika in German. So one of the most interesting sessions so far despite my almost total lack of understanding of the rules of pronunciation.

So that was our third weekend - loads of stuff I now need to do. Try to get the next homeworks out the way quickly, sort out my notes on the various body awakening sequences, think about anatomy revision (maybe do that when we are in Spain at the end of October), write up some of the other notes I've accumulated. And so on.


Friday September 14th 2007

Longworth

An interesting development first thing when I have a call from Tim, who is the property agent dealing with the replacement property I found in Provence after our first choice wouldn't let us use their place. He had spoken with the owner and had a look at Linda's website and they both seem very excited about what we are trying to do. We talk for about 45 minutes on all sorts of ideas that we could explore together.

For instance, there is the recurring point about food provision for such big groups. Tim said he would be able to find a chef who could come and cook on one or two nights each week something more authentic than I can do. Or he could also sort out a local restaurant we could all go to for a night. He has someone he knows who does "off the beaten track" trips in the area we are in and maybe we could hire them to take people out. And all the other activities like cycling, walking, horses, water sports, etc are things he could also help us with. He even asked if we would be happy for them to use us in their own marketing.

So that was another very promising development I thought. Funny how quickly I can swing from feeling disappointed by one development to feeling really fired up again as another opportunity presents itself.

More properties and our first advert

Thursday September 13th 2007

Longworth

Even though it is still six weeks or so before the website goes live I have decided to test some blogging ideas that I have been collecting for the last few months. So this blog is my test blog ready for the real thing later.

In addition to blogging, today has been spent on sorting out another selection of properties in Provence that we might try and rent. I have one new favourite and have sent off my enquiries noting all the Well Being stuff that we want to get permission to do. I have also pencilled in an extra two weeks at the Chateau if I can't find something in Provence and we finally heard again from one of the earlier French enquiries who seems happy to allow us to do our breaks (this could be "France 2" but is not that far from the Chateau)

I have also drafted the first print ad for use in the December issue of Psychologies magazine to be published on November 5th. I wonder what I will have decided on by the time of the magazine deadline in 3 weeks

And Emma has been wondering why there aren't any pictures of her on the blog so far, so here is one of her on holiday in Italy a few weeks ago

First entry - everything since June

Wednesday September 12th 2007

Longworth

A quick response from a couple of the properties we tried to book. We get our first choice for the later break in Italy and the owner seems very keen to have us. He lives nearby and has already said he would be delighted to organise tours of his vineyards for us and help us with catering or restaurant booking. So a big thumbs up there. We then get our second choice property for the earlier Italian break, the first choice simply saying the villa isn’t available the weeks we wanted it.

A bit of disappointing news as the owner of the property we were looking at in Provence is not keen for us to use the property for the planned breaks, citing insurance issues as the main problem. His conditions for going ahead are too difficult to meet so we can’t do that one. A shame as it looked a really nice place. I should have thought about this issue before as I could have said to the owners that we do have our own insurance in place already, so they would have no risk from this. But I also discovered that this particular villa booking firm has a general restriction on using its properties for commercial ventures which I hadn’t noticed before.

Also the owner of the first French property has taken ages to get back to us and has loads of queries. So we have looked again at France and found a really interesting Chateau in the Lot – a huge stone fortress with loads of land. I have been looking at the area this is in and it seems fine. I may go and visit here in December when Linda and Emma are going to Boston and I did, at least, book the flights for this.



So maybe we should be thinking of extending the booking on the French Chateau for a further two weeks rather than find another property in Provence. It would be a nice variation to stay at just one place for the entire break in one country. Or I could go back and make the point about our existing insurance cover.


Sunday September 9th 2007

Longworth

A flurry of activity linked to booking property for 2008. We had already booked the two properties for Spain and were now seeking two for France and two for Italy. We have a wide range of possible sources for them and have soon got a short list of five or six for each country. But already some of them are booked for next summer so the list is soon whittled down. We also need to outline our plans for Well Being to each owner so we can ensure that they are happy with us running these events in their property. Just like the vicar in the paper the other day who opposed yoga classes in his church hall, there may be owners who oppose yoga in their properties.

We had a visit this weekend from Eve, who will be running some of our themes next year. We had lunch out in Oxford, a quick trip to our village fete and then a few hours going through some details of the weeks planned. Then we cooked her one of the meals we have planned for the breaks. She has a number of foods she doesn’t eat and proved a bit of a challenge. But good practice for us when we have other people staying with us.


Sunday September 2nd 2007

Longworth

Linda’s classes for the autumn have now nearly sold out, which is excellent news (but is creating more admin that we are used to). We have also started to get some good feedback on her website which is nice as it matches the style of the planned Well Being site

My Bikram yoga classes started again in Oxford this morning and it was all quite a shock to the system after a couple of months off. I haven’t looked when Ashtanga restarts but it can’t be far away. I do need to get back to doing classes as my home practice is proving hard to keep to.

I have spent much of the week working on the “learn to relax” course and have sketched out the first two days contents. This basically covers the introduction to the practicalities of meditation and the first couple of guided meditations. It looks promising in draft but still needs a lot of work

Tuesday August 28th 2007

Longworth

A few days spent reviewing in detail where we are with everything related to WBB. Looking through all the press, magazine articles and other material that we have accumulated over the last six months – the big questions; are we making something that people will want to try? What will actually happen when we launch ourselves on the world in November?

Of course we are still months away from the first holiday and we will have progressed things well by then I would hope. But just a little wobble this week as we realise just how much still has to be got right.

One area that has given us some encouragement has been the results of the marketing push for the UK Pilates classes that we run. We created a website for this as a dummy run for WBB’s website and the result is pretty good. We have also made up a small brochure which Linda will start to give out at the classes next week. This mentions WBB but provides little detail though we are hopeful that we might get some expressions of interest early on – which would give us a boost we feel.

The Pilates classes for this autumn are now nearly full – in fact a couple have decent waiting lists and might result in additional classes at those locations. One or two people are asking about one-on-one sessions including on the Pilates Reformer. So that’s all good stuff that we should take heart from. Maybe this will be the model for WBB’s development?

Also some interesting contacts have appeared from someone involved in the media – maybe the chance of some editorial in the lifestyle section of one of the local newspapers around the end of the year? That would also be very good.

Every so often it is a good idea to really critique what you are doing. We have done that, suffered the deflation that this process can often produce, and now need to push on.

On a totally different subject, one of Linda’s oldest friends died suddenly last week – a heart attack brought on by deep vein thrombosis. Linda was at school with him and his wife. Only 47, which seems incredibly young to us.


Monday August 20th 2007

Green Man Festival - Wales

Off on Friday morning to South Wales for the three days of the Green Man Festival. The weather forecast was pretty poor for the weekend and the land rover is loaded down with spare stuff. But it was quite nice when I got there and I soon have the tent pitched and can go for a wander.

Over the last couple of years we have started attending music festivals again, starting with Big Chill a couple of years ago. Linda and I have been going to Festivals for years – indeed the first place we know we both were at any one time was the Knebworth Festival in 1980 when Led Zeppelin played. This was six years before we actually met, but we were at least in the same field. And the Saturday headliner at Green Man was Robert Plant, which was an odd coincidence.

But I was here to see one person and one person alone – no other performer mattered as much. And this was Joanna Newsom, headlining the Friday night on the main stage. Over the last 12 months there is no one I have listened to as much as Joanna Newsom and I could barely wait to see her show. So I settled in at the front of the stage around 7:30pm as it started to rain and stayed there till she appeared around 11:30pm. A magical hour spent with one of the great musical talents around at the moment!

Joanna Newsom playing “Emily”,
Green Man Festival 2007

I was also at Green Man, in part, in order to assess whether this might be a good venue to hold yoga classes at next year. When we attended Big Chill, there was a substantial “healing” area with all sorts of strange new-age practitioners. One group offering yoga classes were rather swamped with people and I thought that might be something we’d do one year. There was no one offering yoga at Green Man this year, but we also discovered a downside to us offering this. In other words, the rain that started early evening continued for the next 18 hours, turning the entire site to mud and probably dampening anyone’s wish to practice yoga.

One group was doing quite well and this was the tent offering 20 minute Thai massages for £15. Less successful was the tent offering 45 minute gong massages, in which the person lay on a mattress while 4 large gongs were placed around them and hit repeatedly to provide a resonation massage. Never seen that before!

Green Man Gong Therapy