On Tuesday evening I fly out to Spain again for another one of the European projects I work on. This meeting is a strange one really. At the last meeting we had in Edinburgh the project leader proudly announced that the members of the project must coddle the ‘young ones’ because we’re (yes – young, that’s me) the ones who will actually build the system that will make the project a success. So, it was decided that the programmers could organise a meeting where-ever they liked and my fellow programmers decided on Lloret De Mar.

Great! Well, that was until I read about it in my guide book. It says of Lloret:

[Lloret] has been built up in a willy-nilly fashion since the 1960s to create a package holiday behemoth. In summer, hundreds of thousands of sun-and-sea tourists cram into Lloret de Mar, one of the biggest coastal resorts in Spain. Hotels, apartments, bars, tacky stores, discos, casinos, super-markets, malls, car parks – endless ranks of concrete slabs – cater to the annual invasion. By night, Lloret lights up like a Christmas tree in what could pass for an attempt to emulate Las Vegas. Through it all, vast crowds from all over Europe slope around in search of amusement. Not a few find it in booze, drugs and (they hope) summertime sex.

That’s pretty much all it has to say: quarter of a page. I’ve looked at it on Google Earth (in high-res) and it looks nice, although I expect that aerial photo was taken at 4 in the morning, because the beach looks very quiet! Actually, Google Earth was very useful in finding where the bus station was compared to my hotel; it looks walking distance, so that’s great.

I bought a new case that fits within Ryanair’s carry-on baggage size limits yesterday, and having half-filled it up I think it’s going to be tight to fit in 7-days-worth of clothes and stuff in there, particularly as I’m hoping to fit my laptop in there too. Oh well, we shall see – it was only a £12 bag, which, let’s face it, is a bargain.

So, it’s a nice roast dinner tonight and a bit more work tomorrow, then off to the sun, sea and sand of Lloret. Oh joy.

Remember a few weeks ago I posted a couple of pictures of me playing my guitar at a talent night I took part in? Well, now there’s video — it’s pretty crap video; it’s dark, echoey and actually jumps and ends up repeating itself half way through, but it gives you the idea. It’s kind of a shame that Google video doesn’t have a way of running video at half speed, because due to nerves I ended up playing everything at about double speed.

Anyway, here it is:

It’s been scorching here this week (and last, in fact — geez, is it that long since I updated?). Yesterday it reached 30 degrees Celcius, which is just too hot for me; makes me want to do nothing at all. The chickens don’t seem to mind too much despite their feathers. On Saturday Daisy and I sat out in the garden, and I worked on my laptop and she read a book. Unfortunately, as she sat there a little tick took a fancy to her blood and clamped on. Daisy didn’t spot it until the morning, and it wasn’t easy to get out, but we managed it. Here it is:

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I’ve got rather hooked on Big Brother (shame on me). Still, it doesn’t take up too much of my time, it just sits there at the corner of my computer screen as I work.

We’re off to Wimbledon this week!! Yay! We’re going to visit Kew Gardens on Thursday, then we’ll see The Rat Pack west-end show at the Savoy Theatre, then on Friday we’ll be off to Wimbledon, and we have tickets for Number 1 court, which will probably be juniors final, veterans (which are always fun) and mixed double final. I’m looking forward to taking photos.