I have been waiting to visit Bilbao with the sole purpose of seeing this beauty shimmering in the light showing off its curves ever since it opened.  San Sebastían was about food and Bilbao was about Frank Gehry’s glorious Guggenheim Museum.  My photos don’t do justice to this building, they were taken in a rush on leaving the city to make our way back home plus it was already 10.30 am which is pushing it with outside photography.  Having waited for so many years to see it I was not disappointed one little bit.  Even Bikerboy who would not be visiting Bilbao to see a museum out of his own volition, on clapping his eyes the words, “Wow…look at that!” came out of his mouth.  And WOW is the right word.

As you drive into the city from the motorway through the tunnel as soon as you come out of the darkness of the tunnel the building hits your vision straight away.  It’s visible from all sorts of angles around the city, and the site of it from the other side of the river (the last few photos below) give you a very different point of view from the main street entrance. It’s certainly a building that requires you to stand some distance to admire it fully.  Do me a favour if you visit, take a photo of it from one of the little narrow old streets, capturing the contrast between the old city street and these glistening scales rising above it at the end of the street.  It was this photo capture in the Saturday Times magazine all those years ago that caught my attention, sold me the visit and is still imprinted in my memory.  I was just too darn stupid not to take it…but there’s always next time, I hope with all the fast moving construction happening all over the city some of those old streets will remain.

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I know…I know...this is not a post about the mad week leading up to the big event…the wedding… and how it all went so off plan…so off plan in fact we had to draw up a whole new plan on the 11th hour…but I’ve tried now three times to start typing and got stuck.  So just allow me to tell you what I can put down on screen and get my flow back, I should think once it starts rolling out of my fingertips I’ll type about it non-stop.  Right now I feel like a naughty school girl who hasn’t finished her project but I promise to post it this week.  In the meantime I really want to share the two cities we visited two weeks ago.

San Sebastián For A Pintxo Lunch
I can not tell you just how excited I have been about going to San Sebastián, so excited.   It’s described as the food capital of Spain and it’s suppose to have the most Michelin star restaurants per square mile than anywhere else.  Not that I think Michelin starred restaurants are the best but it leaves you with the impression the place is paved with good eateries and delicious Spanish produce awaiting you.  You can see how it made my childlike enthusiasm reach fever pitch when we were driving into the city for a Spanish style pintxos lunch.  Pintxos or pinchos are a variation on tapas, very often served on bread and traditionally has a cocktail stick through it, to keep it all together.

Driving Into San Sebastián In August Is Madness
Urmm…well it was a little frustrating to say the least trying to deal with the traffic mid morning, midweek, mid August!  Madness to drive in.  We drove around for over an hour in circles to find a car park that wasn’t full with queues around the block.  Bikerboy’s patience was wearing thin and we started to make our way back to the small town we were staying in, Getaria.  On the way out of the city through the craze of interconnecting roads we accidently ended up on the outskirts of the city by the university.  We parked to get our bearings on the GPS, decided to give it one last shot to find a way of getting back into the city.  Bikerboy found the article in the Guardian recommending to park for free around the university and  catch the bus into the centre only 3 stops away.  We did.  After asking for some help from a French tourist at the bus stop doing the same.  Should explain here, ‘I’ asked for help.  In my experience men don’t stop to ask strangers for help with directions.

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Doughnut, Donut Nectarines

August 31, 2010
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I saw these for the very first time today.  Have never seen or heard anyone coming across them before.  I had to go into High Holborn to the divorce courts again, fourth time now, for a copy of my absolute, again…you see…I said things weren’t straight forward.  I was walking along Kingsway just past the [...]

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Poaching Peaches

August 25, 2010
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The amount of times I look at a pack of peaches, they can look so attractive with dark peachy colour, fooling you into a sense of ripeness and of course they’re not.  If you’re lucky enough and they ripen at home they still won’t have the natural sugar they should have if they were tree [...]

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It Ain’t Over Till….

August 10, 2010
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Looking at this photograph brings back the memory of 6 years ago, us one afternoon having a drink in a Hotel that sits on top of the hill in a town called Viana do Castelo, an old Portuguese style hotel with a big veranda overlooking the town below, the river and sea beyond.  Every time [...]

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So Here We Go…

August 5, 2010
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Well after being at the consulate from 10 until 5 practicing patience and a taxi ride to divorce courts, we have all the official papers  in hand that are available for us to have.  We have translations done, translations legalised by the foreign office, we have the consulate paper signed again by the divorce court [...]

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Something Is Telling Us Not To Get Married…

August 3, 2010
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We have been bombarded with numerous omens telling us, we are just simply not suppose to get married.  There was the disaster we had five years ago that meant postponing the wedding. There’s an old Steve Martin’s film, I think it’s called the Man With Two Brains, a quirky comedy, where Steve Martin’s plays a widower [...]

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Doughnut Peaches, Donut Peaches, UFO Peaches

August 1, 2010
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I fell in love with these white flesh peaches seven years ago in Lake Guarda, Northern Italy on my first holiday with Bikerboy.  In a picture perfect town called Limone with hilly cobble streets leading to the blue waters of the lake.  They were sublime.  White peaches have an amazing sweet fragrant flesh and these [...]

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Just Because I Haven’t Posted…

August 1, 2010
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…doesn’t mean I having been cooking and photographing!  If you’re a blogger you’ll understand when I say alongside the posts you publish you have these other half finished recipes you haven’t quite turned into entries.  Today when commenting on another friend’s blog Feast with Bron about a cucumber recipe I meant to post this summer [...]

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Mixed Sweet (Bell) Pepper Sauce

July 30, 2010
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This is my oldest daughter’s favourite.  I make a big batch and then have it in the fridge for a few days and after school she will toast some of my semi-sourdough, warm some of the pepper sauce to top the bread with.  If I happen to have some around in the fridge I have [...]

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Finally Success with Dan’s White Sourdough

July 22, 2010
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Dan Lepard’s recipe in his Handmade Loaf book page 28, is a very wet mixture which will give more holes in your sourdough, a good thing, but for traditional breadmakers like me it’s a nightmare working with such wet dough.  My previous attempts have all pretty much ended up with tasty but flat loaves, good [...]

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Happy 12th Birthday!

July 21, 2010
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I use to feel sorry for parents with children who’s birthdays were close together…and now I’m one of those.  Usually by now middle child’s birthday occurs during the  school summer holidays but for some reason it wasn’t so this year.  She just had some friends over after school for birthday cake and will have her [...]

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Semi Sourdough White Bread – My Family’s Favourite

July 20, 2010
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This has become a regular loaf in our household, middle child loves it, and Bikerboy asks for it.  If I  haven’t baked any bread, I get a puzzle look from him to say, “why?”.  Today oldest child rang from the field across our house where she was chatting with her friends, to ask if they [...]

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Lemon & Thyme Chicken

July 19, 2010
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I have made this recently for friend’s coming over for lunch, it’s so simple to put together, packs so much flavour but no effort whatsoever.  I have thyme growing in pots on the patio and I always have a lemon, there would be something amiss in my kitchen if I didn’t have a lemon.   [...]

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Happy 3rd Birthday

July 18, 2010
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Today 2 year old turns 3, that magical number when they are totally aware of everything that’s going on, what a birthday means, what presents are, and what kind of birthday cake they want, “PINK” was the brief given, the first pink cake I’ve made.  Which I must say I shall post the recipe because [...]

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