Can you run up 1,037 stairs?

Well, I certainly can't, but Adrian managed it in just over 5 minutes - amazing!

Back in May we volunteered through the NZ Women's Business Network for a charity climb up The Gherkin which was organised to provide funds for the Christchurch earthquake relief.  The event, 'Step Up 4 Christchurch', had the morning briefing meeting up the top of the building which was very cool - it's only open to the public once a year and it's really hard to get tickets for it, so it was a neat opportunity to be able to see it without lots of people and for a good cause as well!

We were stationed down the bottom, letting people up into the run and it was interesting to see all the various types of people who were participating.  The guy who won did it in 4 minutes 56 seconds which was pretty incredible...  Our turn was at the end of the day (immediately after eating a late lunch which definitely weighted me down I reckon!), and it was a great feeling to get to the top and celebrate.  I did it in 9 minutes flat (mostly walking) which I didn't think was too bad.  All the volunteers had a glass of fizz up the top, then tootled off home with the left over goodie bags - nice!

More photos are here.

The rain in Spain falls mainly in Andalucia

Having essentially fallen asleep due to the sheer necessity of not wanting to throw up anymore (this is a lovely way to start a post isn't it...), I awoke as we finally arrived in the twisty, turny streets of Ronda.  Pip had been wanting to come here for years, and we were all hoping it would live up to expectations!

Having ensconsed ourselves in our hotel, we went out exploring all the incredible vistas that Ronda is known for.  It's perched high up in the hills with a series of fantastic bridges over a deep ravine, and despite the mist and blustery winds, we managed to get a great sense of the town.  Sadly my stomach wasn't up to eating much, but we tried our first tapas and everyone got stuck into the ham that had been sadly missing in Morocco!

From Ronda we drove down the coast to Cadiz which is on the south-western coast.  It had a wonderfully eerie cathedral and we walked all around the coastline and out onto the piers to see the waves throthing about.  The boys went out for 'one drink' and we saw them about 3am - and finally someone else felt as bad as I had been feeling!

And then it was the turn of Seville.  We did lots of walking around, seeing the cathedral, the Plaza de Espana, the bullfighting ring, and on the last day, the 'Feria de Abril'.  This is essentially a week-long excuse for the people of Seville to dress up in flamenco outfits and spend all night partying and dancing!  Families have their own tents which they've kept for generations, and there are also big groups of people with tents (and the public tents for the plebian likes of us).  There was also a big fun-fair, where of course we managed to try out a few rides - just for quality control purposes obviously.

It was quite an odd experience to be there when it was so wet (the torrents of rain in Seville were unbelievable), and then also personally not to be able to eat anything was a bit of shame (particularly when the others were eating giant skewers of seafood and meat, and all this delicious tapas and sangria), but in the end the enforced starvation killed off the bug which was such a relief.  Since Kazakhstan I seem to have the dodgiest tummy - no more boasting about having an iron stomach that's for sure!

Anyway, here are the photos of Spain - see if you can count some where it's not raining!

Cupcakes and cocktails

As a birthday present from Jeff and Ruth for my 30th, today we had the fun times of going to a 'cocktails and cupcakes' experience. 

The cupcakes were all made in advance, so all we had to do was learn how to decorate them.  We had fondant, buttercream and cream cheese icings to play with, as well as glitter, hundreds and thousands and chocolate sprinkles.

Check out the fruits of my labour!

The rest of the photos are here - go check them out!

Marvellous Morocco

To make the most of the Easter weekend here in the UK where you could get 11 days holiday while only taking two days leave (thanks Will and Kate!), we headed further afield than normal, all the way down to Africa...

Our Morocco holiday was all completely planned by Pip which made life unbelievably easy, and meant we could basically just turn up and enjoy ourselves.  We flew into Marrakesh (Adrian and my flight was delayed which meant the others (Pip, Bas, Erin and Kerryn) had to wait at the airport for a couple of hours which was a bit stink), and then went straight to our first riad.  A riad is a traditional Moroccan house with an interior courtyard, and every single one we stayed in was just lovely.  This one was run by an Italian guy who didn't speak a word of English, only French, so it was good practice for me!  We spent the rest of the day just exploring the souks and having some incredible freshly squeezed orange juice (only NZ 80 cents a glass!) and mint tea.  I also loved the storks which were perched everywhere on the roofs:

The next morning we started our 4WD tour which would take us all the way through the mountains up to Fes.  It started off inauspiciously with our guide not being able to start with us, and having to meet us the next day, but it didn't really matter as we were absolutely transfixed by the fact that it was snowing as we traversed the pass into the mountains!  Even our driver was surprised and was videoing it on his phone as he was driving along the hairpin bends...  That day was also the start of my unfortunate problem which sadly reoccurred pretty frequently throughout the rest of the trip, but considering I was a pretty adventurous eater wasn't too much of a surprise!

Our first stop was a small town called Skoura where we stayed in a mudbrick house with an incredibly friendly family and which had some austere, but beautiful scenery.  They also had some honey which was probably the closest that I will ever come to eating true ambrosia - even the memory of it is making my mouth water!  They also had a pretty delicious couscous - that and the tangines were incredibly basically everywhere we went.  It was also really interesting to see how the houses were made:

The next two days were spent travelling through the Middle Atlas mountains, seeing some amazing scenery, including the Dades Gorge which was absolutely stunning.  It was where one of their major rivers starts and quite cool to see the water just bubbling out of the ground!  We spent the night in Tamtattouchte which was a tiny Berber village and where we spent the night dancing and singing with a group of locals and a group of German tourists...quite a random mix of people!

The next day we headed up to Mergouza for the start of our camel trek!  Well...they're actually dromedaries, but it's much easier to say camel...  Anyway, it was amazing - the sand in the desert (I think it was the Sahara) was the most incredible rose colour, the camels were very cool, the sunset was stunning...I think I'm running out of superlatives!  We spent the night sleeping in tents and rode out early the next day.  I think I'll just leave it to the photos...

We then drove up to Fes and spent a couple of days exploring there.  I have to say I enjoyed it more than Marrakesh - the lanes are narrower and twistier, everything is right up in your face, and heading up the hill to look down on the city is fantastic.  The smell of the tanneries still hasn't quite left my memory, but maybe it's because I'm currently wearing my goat slippers and camel belt! 

Adrian and I also went to a traditional hammam and I got scrubbed down in places I didn't even know I had!  That was definitely a most intimate experience and for once I was pretty pleased that they're so keen on female/male segregation in that part of the world...  I didn't need to exfoliate for days...

After Fes we got a ridiculously hot train up to Tangier where we stayed in the most elaborate riad yet - the tiling was just amazing.  Unfortunately, Tangier itself wasn't so crash hot, and the food poisoning I got from dinner there was not the type of thing I was keen to hit me at 1am the night before we were due to leave.  Unfortunately it continued (along with the previous TD), for the entire duration of a) the 45 minute bus ride to the ferry terminal, b) the three hour ferry ride to Spain, and c) the drive from the port up to Ronda...  Let's just say it wasn't the best experience of my life!!

But overall, there's no way it tainted our experience of Morocco - it was just a wonderful place and I would heartily recommend it to anyone!  The photos really tell the whole story better than I can do in words, so have a look!

Fancy pants dinner

Having had some lamb shanks in the freezer for ages (bought on special, obviously), we finally decided to bring them out for a special Sunday dinner.

I made this recipe for the lamb shanks themselves, and then a modification on this one for a kale and potato mash for underneath.  And it was delicious!

Check out the scrumptiousness: