a. in M. - Essaouira

while in Morocco, we spent 2 days in Essaouira. i've seen a great many ports in my life, but i'd never seen so many seagulls in one place before. it was a little scary and just a little noisy.

the bal

last night we finally had our delayed New Year's bal. the venue was very grand: the Intercontinental hotel. so was the dress code: formal wear. so we all made an effort (yes, including yours truly, who wore a long blue dress, heels, contacts and make up, and whom some couldn't recognise!) and basically had a blast. it was really nice to see everyone dressed up. i don't think i'd ever seen so many men in tuxedos before. the ladies were also beautiful, but women tend to make more of an effort all the time anyway, so it was quite a sight.

for once, we were treated to a band that could play good music (old 70s classics) as well as the usual DJ. it was great fun. especially when my dancing king showed up: a friend of mine dances incredibly well and it's always fun to dance with him. but dancing in heels is exhausting - either that or i'm getting old. that's probably it - after a short pause sitting down in one of the comfy lobby chairs, my knees screamed at me when we had to go up the stairs again... i silenced them for a while, but then my feet started complaining and at some point, i just had to give up. it was about 3am by then, so all in all, a good performance.

best music of the year

there was a new commercial on tv last night: the best hits of 2009! they do this every year and i don't get it. the first month of the year hasn't even finished! why can't they call it best hits of 2008? and today, it was the turn of 'best R&B of 2009'...

he did it!

i've just watched Obama's inauguration. at the risk of sounding cliché, it was a great moment in history. not a bad speech either. and, as he said, to think that 60 years ago, a black man might not have got served in a restaurant...

a. in M. - paradise

i really liked the Majorelle Gardens in Marrakech. it was a haven of calmness and freshness in the heat...

bad dreams

it all started when i was about 4: one night, i dreamt my mother was dead and it felt very real. i was screaming and crying and my father had to shake me awake, find out what was wrong and when telling me it was a nightmare didn't calm me down, had to take me to their bedroom for me to see that my mother was still alive and well.

i have since 'often' dreamt that a member of my family (including the dogs and, amazingly, myself) had died, and they are not happy dreams. sometimes they are nightmares, the scary and sometimes bloody type. more often, they are just dreams where someone happens to die. i must have had about 15 or more of those dreams through the years. most of the time, i actually know that it's a dream while i'm dreaming it, but it's hard for me to wake up, despite trying to. sometimes, though, it feels so real that i have to check people are alive and well. last week, i dreamt that both my mother and sister died, and while i knew it was a dream because my mother was already dead, i still worried about my sister until i saw that she was active online.

i don't know what it all means, but i've had several such dreams recently (the latest one being last night), and it's just not fun. my sister says she think it's because i either worry too much about them or have issues. yes, that really clears it up...

a. in M. - tranquility

a great moment of tranquility in hot Marrakech.

new tyres

i have snow tyres of the kind you normally (or at least used to) have in Nordic countries: tyres with nails in them, that better adhere to the snow/ice. they're noisy but i feel a lot safer having them on than normal snow tyres. that accident in New Zealand really did have an impact on me...

anyway, those tyres are really old now, and the two front ones actually barely had any nails left in them and one of those was in fact so worn that i had to stop at a petrol station about once a week to put more air in it. not really something you want to do on a regular basis. so i'd gone to a garage and asked if they could repair the tyre, and that's when i found out they were too worn and needed to be replaced. and this was when i had the most ridiculous conversation with the mechanic.

i'd told him what kind of tyres i had, cos let's face it, we must be 2 in the whole area to have such tyres (they were illegal for a while, cos they don't do the roads any good). he went to have a look and came back and said there were nails in the tyres. 'yes', i said, 'that's what i was telling you.' but he thought that might be the reason for the problem. this guy was a bit younger than me, but come on. how can you be a mechanic and not know about this? then he told me they were illegal, to which i replied that they weren't anymore, not since 2 years ago, when the government decided to allow them, although they aren't produced anymore. then the guy told me how much it'd cost to replace the tyres. i said i would then only want 2, as you're not required to change all 4 and i wanted to keep the 2 at the back to feel safer. then the guy proceeded to try to convince me that normal snow tyres were just as good, which i'm sorry but is not the case. he really did my head in.

anyway, i didn't have time to deal with all of this before the holidays, so i went back yesterday to get my 2 new front tyres. another guy took care of me and the car was ready in no time. not a single comment was passed on my weird tyres, although i'm sure they had hours of fun talking about it among themselves.

3 years

moved in 3 years ago. worth celebrating!

coming down the mountain

i had 2 choices of trains home, but i was easily convinced to take the later one. in order not to miss it, however, i made sure i was in the town centre well before the bus down to the train station was due. as i got there, i saw a bus leave. that was odd. it was either quite late, or something was wrong. and something was. as i got to the bus stop, i realised that it being the 2nd, the timetable was different from usual. instead of buses at 8.50 and 9.50, buses ran at 9.05 and then... not before 1.05pm! it was 9.10. great.

as i stood there, seeing my breakfast stop becoming lunch and wondering what to do, a man walked out of the shop in front of me and joked about me having missed the bus. he did, however, also offer to take me down with him when he left 10 mns later. a godsend. the 10 mns became about half an hour, but i wasn't in any particular rush, seen as i'd originally planned to leave later anyway. we got into his car and off we went. it was definitely nicer than being in the bus - the view was absolutely gorgeous but on top of that, i got interesting conversation with this guy who used to be a diamond trader, then moved into furniture trading when he got bored, then bought the bar we'd been at while in La Tzoumaz as well as a hotel. he was getting bored again and wondering what to do next. he made funny jokes about it being like the movies - seeing me, there, having missed the bus, he just had to offer to drive me. and i was so lovely, he was even considering boarding a plane to some island with me. funny and very sweet.

we made it down impressively fast (although i'm not quite sure i would have overtaken those cars, what with all the snow still on the road, him not having got the ice off his tires and the hairpin bends) and i would probably just have caught my train but as there was only one an hour, he drove me down to the next big town (his destination), where i then caught an earlier train home. all in all, an interesting adventure!

sledging

woke up tired on the 1st, but the skies were clear and the view absolutely gorgeous, which just made you want to be outside. on top of that, the snow that had fallen overnight promised to be amazing up on the slopes, so off we went. no skiing for us, though, but sledging.

i don't know what i'd expected, but i certainly didn't expect it to be twice has hard as skiing! it was physically very challenging and let's face it, the person on the sledge has very little control over it. the first run ended up taking an hour and a half (for about 10kms), but that was because only one of us knew how to do it and we kept stopping to make sure we were all there. the second time was a lot faster (45 mns) and i'd got really used to it, but it's still an accident waiting to happen, especially with all those people on the slope. we had three sledges bump into one another at one point, and another time i ended up neck-deep in powder in a bid to slow down (those things should have some kind of speed control!).

a great afternoon, but i certainly suffered afterwards. i hadn't warmed up or anything, and i'd been hanging on so tight for fear of falling off - what with a huge fragile camera in my backpack and a bag that doesn't close properly - and there'd been so many bumps that my entire body still feels like it's been put through a grinder.

New Year

for new year's this year, T., Mr. J. and i took a train up to the Swiss Alps - La Tzoumaz - where Mr. J's girlfriend's family's friends have a huge chalet. after a perilous journey up the mountain where we barely missed driving into another car, we arrived to loads of snow pouring down (see pic below) and met our hosts, who were absolutely lovely - honestly, it felt like we were all old friends. the 14 of us had a delicious dinner, after which we all set out to the town centre to enjoy the fireworks. it was great, walking in the snow (about 30cms fell in the 6 hours we'd been there) although it would have been better if it had stopped - every time we looked up at the fireworks, we were blinded by the snowflakes.

back at the chalet, us young ones had all surrendered by 2am while all the 'oldies' were up till 5! still, a great new year.

pic courtesy of T.