From 'La Mole' to Penge

On our last full day in Mallorca, we headed back to the north-east of the island on the same road we travelled on two days earlier





This time the road wasn't blocked and we managed to get to our destination, the Cap de Formentor.

On the way we stopped at Pollença, a town founded by the Romans and now famous for its Via Crucis.

Here we had a look a the Convent de Sant Domingo











and at the church of Nostra Senyora Del Angels on Placa Major













then admired the Via Crucis from a distance (oh all those steps!! our knees begged us not to, and we didn't!)





before having a drink in the square and setting off for the Cap de Formentor.

The drive to the lighthouse on the Cap de Formentor is quite spectacular, but it felt that every car on the island was on that stretch of road! At the end of it, we had to queue for quite a while until we managed to find a space to park... a bit of a nightmare.











There was a thunderstorm in the distance











but it was sunny if you looked the other way!



Luckily the drive back was much easier and we even managed to park at a viewpoint





The views were spectacular!















We drove back to Sóller through the middle of the island, after stopping at Alcudia to look at the city walls:

















Back in Sóller, we went out for our last dinner at our favourite restaurant.
The food was lovely again, and it turned out to be quite a fun evening as well.
We were sitting next to an English couple: the lady was from Leeds and knew many of Adrian's old haunts.











The following morning we had time to breakfast and we got ready to leave.
Unfortunately when back in the room, I had an attack of my Ménière's disease. I was very unsteady on my feet but tried to put on a brave face as we had to fly back to London.
I was sick at the airport and didn't feel well at all when boarding the plane (I certaily made sure I there was a sick bag in the seat pocket in front of me - plus I always have a couple of plastic freezer bags in my pocket these days).
Anyway by the time we landed I was starting to feel a bit better. The tinnitus and ear problems I had for at least a couple of weeks suddenly disappeared and the following day I was almost back to normal.

Adrian was rather worried that morning but hopefully it didn't spoil his birthday holiday!

As it has become tradition now, every year I try to organise a surprise for Adrian's birthday. It is normally a short holiday away and usually I manage to keep the destination secret until the very last moment.

I had told Adrian that we were going camping in Skegness (although I said it was more 'glamping' than camping), but the weather forecast I provided a few days before gave me away (not that Adrian really believed we would go camping/glamping: I know he would hate it). He realised that we were probably going abroad because the temperatures were higher than in the UK, but he only discovered the destination once we were at the boarding gate at Gatwick!

He was thrilled as he had always wanted to go to Mallorca but never been. It was my first time too.
He really loved the trip (we have now been back a week) and I enjoyed it too, although I had some health issues with my Ménière's disease.

It was an early flight (8:30 am) which means that when we got to Palma and picked up the car, we still had time for a stop on the way to our destination.

We visited the



Apparently the name mean 'Jar of olives' in Arabic. The gardens were created by a local Muslim governor who, when the Christian army retook Mallorca in 1229, supported the soon-to-be King Jaume I and was given that estate to compensate for the loss of power.

The gardens are really lovely and we enjoyed them very much.




















A button activates hidden jets of water along the arcade













The house is beautiful too. I think Adrian would have loved to move in straight-away!


















(A mudéjar ceiling)

I had chosen Sóller in the north of the island, in the Sierra de Tramuntana region, as our base and booked one of the 2 terrace rooms at a small hotel, Can Isabel (it has only 6 rooms).
According to one website, the hotel used to be the house of the mistress of the stationmaster, and there is a secret stairway that he used to get to his lover.

Adrian loved the hotel (and I did too).




(View from the terrace)

He described it as a boutique hotel and, I guess, it was.









It was all very relaxed and we had breakfast in the garden every morning, which was lovely.

After we checked in, we decided to catch the old tram that links the town to its port, 3 km away.





Adrian loves old trams and trains, and he was very happy indeed as you can see!







Port de Sóller:





Sóller has some interesting buildings in the Modernista style.







That night we had a fantastic meal at a restaurant called Luna 36, which I had spotted online.




(Tagliatelle with fresh truffle)

I said birthdays not because london1952 is like Her Majesty who has two (one real and one official) but because this post is a list of what we did on Adrian's birthday over the years. The list starts with 1999, which is the year I met him.
(I originally posted this in 2010 before his surprise trip, so now there are 5 more to mention).


1999: Dinner at an Italian restaurant in Putney, London (Buongustaio). He later found a wristwatch hidden in a chocolate box.

2000: This one is a bit fuzzy. Dinner out but then I flew to Italy the following morning (Adrian joined me in Turin a few days later, and then we went to Bergamo, Mantua and the Monferrato).
He had a belated birthday surprise trip to Paris in November.

2001: Tuscany. I believe that we were in beautiful and romantic San Gimignano for his birthday

2002: 50th birthday!! Dinner out with family and friends on the evening of his birthday and then we went away for a week the following day to a mystery destination.
It was Taormina, Sicily.

2003: Rome and Umbria. We were in Rome on the evening of his birthday. We went to see "La Traviata" performed in San Paolo dentro Le Mura (an Anglican church). It was also the night of the big blackout in Italy

2004:Sitges. But don't remember what we did on the day, only that we had dinner at a restaurant outside Sitges, near where we were staying.

2005: London. We had a full day out. The Freda Khalo exhibition at Tate Modern, lunch at "Fish!" near Borough Market.
Then an afternoon wandering around and casually ending up on Old Compton Street. As we  walked past the Prince Edward theatre, Adrian mentioned that he would have loved to go and see "Mary Poppins" some time... I said "Let's go now!" and produced the tickets out of my pocket! [That's a hard act to follow!]

2006: London, again.
Another full day out.
Lunch at the Quirinale Restaurant in Westminster (and during that meal we decided to get officially married), followed by a recording of  the "Paul O'Grady Show" at the BBC, cocktail at the Waldorf and surprise show at the Peacock Theatre ("Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo" in "Swan Lake")

2007: Day trip to Dublin, for afternoon tea at Shelbourne hotel

2008: Toronto. We were staying with the lovely bobalone and paulintoronto and had a great meal out with some other fabulous LJers: shawnsyms , brunorepublic , jeffbriggs  (and 'Tall Paul')

2009: Krakow (surprise week-end trip). But we spent most of Adrian's actual birthday in Auschwitz.

2010: Copenhagen (surprise trip). The night before his birthday we went to the Tivoli gardens because they had fireworks to celebrate the end of the summer season. The fireworks at 10:45 pm lasted for about 10 minutes - accompanied by music - and they were rather spectacular. LJ reminds me that we did quite a lot of sightseeing on his actual birthday but we also celebrated it by having an early afternoon tea with a glass of crémant at the oldest tea shop in Scandinavia. Then we enjoyed an hour-long harbour cruise followed a hot chocolate (and more cake) before heading back to the hotel and then the airport.

2011: Arundel (surprise mid-week trip). Arundel is near the south coast and home to the second largest castle in England. On his birthday, after a walk around Arundel we caught the train to nearby Amberley, where we visited the Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre and then walked to the local castle (now a luxury hotel) for a glorious afternoon tea.

2012: 60th birthday!! We were in Spain for a 10-day surprise trip around Castilla, Leon and Extremadura. We spent his birthday in beautiful Salamanca. It was rather chilly, I recall, and we walked around most of the day - apart from a bumpy trip on a tourist 'train' on the cobbled streets! Shock and horror, we had a Mc Donald's lunch but then a rather lovely dinner which included a version of a 'sticky toffee pudding'.

2013: Venice (it was meant to be a surprise but I told him a couple of weeks before we went, when I wasn't quite sure I was up to it after my surgery/convalescence). It was part of a week around Lake Garda and the Dolomites. Adrian absolutely adores Venice - we have been a number of times. On his birthday we took a vaporetto the Lido where we walked much longer than we had planned (and I was still using my crutches), then we a pizza in Campo S. Stefano and visited the Rudolf Stingel installation at Palazzo Grassi (part of the Venice Biennale). We went back to the hotel to get changed and rushed to La Fenice for our favourite opera, La Traviata!

2014: Prague. The birthday celebration started the night before with a trip to the State Opera to see... La Traviata. The following morning we took the funicular railway to the top of Petřín partk where we ascended the tower (a 63 m mini Eiffel Tower built for an expo at the end of the 19th century) and had fun in a vintage mirror maze. We then walked around Malá Strana for the rest of the day - the last stop was the breath-taking Vrtbovska Garden with wonderful views of Prague. We then went back to the hotel, got changed and went out for a surprise 3-hour dinner cruise on the Vltava river.

Pictures to follow. We got back from Prague 2 days ago.

UK 5
Italy 4
Spain 2
Ireland 1
Canada 1
Poland 1
Denmark 1
Czech Republic 1

I normally arrange a surprise trip or a surprise something for Adrian's birthday, and as he had never been in Venice (a city he adores) on his special day, it was high time  we did!
Add to this that La Traviata - an opera that we love - was on at La Fenice, et voila'!

Adrian's birthday started with breakfast in the hotel courtyard








(window boxes opposite our room)

and this is birthday boy looking out of our room




Awww, he looks happy!

One of our favourite things in Venice is to travel down the Canal Grande on a vaporetto. So we took one from S. Stae to the Piazzale Roma terminus, and one back all the way to the Lido.
We managed to get seats outside although it got busy  later on with people standing: an Eastern European tourist invaded my personal space many times, with her arms surrounding my head on each side trying to take photos. But I stayed calm.

I told myself that I didn't need to take yet more pictures of the Canal Grande (I have a large collection of photos taken over the years), but well it's impossible to resist!
















(The gondoliere on the right was on his mobile phone... tut tut!)











I had promised Adrian a lazy day but it's an unwritten rule that on his birthday we always end up walking/marching somewhere.
We decided to have a look around the Lido (we had been before but not on the side facing the sea) but it turned out that the map from the hotel was not quite to scale!
So we walked much more than expected and in the end had to catch a bus back to the vaporetto stop (the Lido has cars) as we were pretty exhausted.

All the beaches were already closed for 'winter' (but it was so warm that we had to remove all but one layer)


This is the Palazzo del Cinema, famous for the Venice Film Festival


You get a different view of the lagoon and of Venice from the Lido






We took the vaporetto back to Venice


and got off at Accademia. Crossed the bridge




and had a pizza at a restaurant on Campo S. Stefano





We then walked to Palazzo Grassi, a palace on the Canal Grande which is used for art exhibitions.



The palazzo - as part of the Biennale - houses a retrospective of Italian artist Rudolf Stingel.

The main attraction was the palazzo itself because it had been transformed into an art installation by fitting carpet on three floor - and from the first floor up - on the walls too. The carpet is a photographic reproduction of Turkish rugs; they have the peculiarity of looking blurred close by but sharp from a distance. (Apparently the inspiration was the rugs that Sigmund Freud had in his Vienna studio).

It's quite impressive











Some of the art left me rather underwhelmed...






(now this is Art!)



We really enjoyed our visit at Palazzo Grassi.
When we left we had to rush to catch a vaporetto (water bus)





back to our hotel to get ready for the evening.
The vaporetto was packed; just before we got off at S. Stae, an old lady pushed through the crowds complaining about how busy it was. She went on to state that she was a Venetian, 100% disabled and that she had to put up with all that.
Fair enough, I thought (although my 2 crutches won over her 1 stick) but couldn't help smiling considering that without the tourists the vaporetto wouldn't probably be running. In many ways, she represented what most Venetians think of tourists: we want your money (a vaporetto ride is 7 euros!) but not you!
If it wasn't for the tourists, I don't know where Venice would get the money to survive.

Anyway, we got back to our hotel, changed and we were back waiting for a vaporetto in the opposite direction (luckily we had bought a 24-hour pass for 20 euros each).



The vaporetto was rather late and there was a lot of traffic on the canal (rush hour!), so we got to La Fenice only 10 minutes before the show





I had booked (last October!) 2 tickets in the gallery, in central position. I was expecting 2 seats in a row but it turned out that it was a little (unadorned) box with 4 chairs. We had the 2 front ones and there was no-one else in the other two. Eccellente!







The performance was preceded by the Swedish and Italian national anthems (to honour the presence of the Swedish ambassador in the audience).
It was excellent and we loved it.
I expected a modern staging (which it was - it was directed by Canadian Robert Carsen) but it was quite lavish at the same time.

It was wonderful to see La Traviata at La Fenice as the opera had its premiere there in 1853.

We noticed that people dress up much more than they do in London. We had a drink in the intervals (the first one was very rushed because some of the ushers started yelling to go back to the seats when we still had 10 minutes ago and we had just been served the drinks; a German gentleman got very irate and just thrust his drink into the hand of an usher saying "You drink it then!" Needless to say, in the second interval we just ignored them until it was really time to go back)








Bravi!


Buon compleanno Adriano!

Now how can I top this next year? LOL!

It seems that I'm slow not only on my feet: I still haven't finished posting about the week-end before last.

On the Sunday, we went to Nostell Priory.



near Wakefield.
This was indeed a priory until the Reformation, and then home to the Winn family for over 300 years.


Cows on the 'vista'


and the house.

By the time we got to the house we were famished. Hey presto, some food!


Palladian manor house, interiors by Robert Adam, furniture by Chippendale, 200 year-old Chinese wallpaper, what's not to like?


"Welcome to my humble dwelling!" Adrian looked quite at home there




Ancient Chinese wallpaper

in one of two rooms that were turned into bathrooms (apparently Prince Philip used this one when he stayed at the house)










A huge 18th century doll's house


Fewer than half of the bells. Those poor servants had to learn to recognise the sound of each of them.

We didn't really have time to explore the huge grounds, but only managed to have a stroll in the garden.
Here are Fiona and Adrian grinning because they had just seen my head popping up from a hedge

It was a Bank Holiday today, the last before Christmas and we had visitors.
First Paul, and later Michael and Christopher - they did overlap for a while and it was all very social.

Adrian baked a smashing cake: "White chocolate and raspberry melting cake", a recipe by John Whaite, last year's Great British Bake Off winner.



It was superb. The sponge was unusual: made up with melted butter and white chocolate, and with whole raspberries in the mix.
Adrian put the ganache not just in the middle but also on the top. I think he improved the original recipe!

I managed to make something as well. My first bit of baking/cooking in 9 weeks!
Orange Natas (Portuguese-style custard tarts) from the same book.



They were very well received, and I'm glad I baked them, although I found it quite exhausting with my limited mobility.
(And this evening I made tomato and basil crostini).

I like this picture of Adrian with the evening sun



And now I have to get in the mood for work (from home) tomorrow. Tomorrow morning I'm also going to see my GP to get a referral letter (hopefully) for some private physiotherapy through the medical insurance I have from work. Nothing wrong with the NHS (they have been excellent and I am very grateful) but it's really to speed things up.

Today I had my first shower in 7 weeks. It felt fantastic!
It wasn't easy to step in the shower and felt almost impossible to get out because you need to lift and drop the legs in one step, something that in normal circumstances wouldn't be a problem at all.
Luckily Richard had the brilliant idea of using the wheelchair so that I could back out of the shower by sitting into the chair.

Ricardo has been here a week and has looked after me while Adrian was up in Leeds.
I wore him out! Poor bazanges! LOL



Today Sheila should have come for tea but unfortunately she wasn't well.
Adrian tried some new recipes: a plum and pine nut loaf, and white chocolate and limoncello tarts. There were both wonderful!





london1952 and bazanges together:





At the hospital on Thursday they adjusted my knee brace to bend at 60 degrees but due to the swelling I think I can only manage about 30 but it should be enough to be able to sit at the table for a while.
I'm going to try to work from home from tomorrow, probably alternating between sitting at the table and sitting in my armchair. I am not looking forward to the stress but well I have to start sooner or later!

The Open Gardens on Sunday went well. I saw many neighbours and their friends walking past the dining room windows, and some people came in to say hello to the invalid.

Adrian had invited Sorrel and Pete, and Michael and Christopher. Sorrel - who is the Garden Museum's chef - was so sweet: she arrived with some chicken and vegetable pies, and some panna cotta she had made especially for us in the morning.

The pie flavoured with tarragon and lemon was just superb!



Adrian has been pushing me around (lol!) in a wheelchair. This evening we went to a local park.
He has also brought me in some sweetpeas flowers from the plants I grew from seed.





It's nice to get out for a bit of fresh air, especially as we are in the middle of a heatwave.
That beard is going tomorrow...

Some good news on the credit card front. American Express have refunded the 2,000+ euro fraudulent charge already!

No news from the office regarding working from home while I'm off sick but then the HR person is on holiday. I'm not even sure how much sick benefit I'll get - that information has been removed in the latest version of the staff handbook. Fingers crossed!

And oh yes, same-sex marriage has become law in England and Wales! Her Majesty rubber stamped the law yesterday.
I can't go down on a knee at the moment (and Adrian said that if he does, he'd need help getting up) but we're planning to convert our civil partnership into marriage next year, when the law comes into effect. Whether we'll have a celebration or not, we don't know yet...

We travelled up to Leeds yesterday. Adrian hired quite a large estate car but even so it was a bit of a struggle to fit my long, injured leg in the front seat.
We managed but after a 4 hr 30 min journey (1 hr of which just to get out of London) my leg was very stiff/sore when we got here.

The hotel room (with a disabled toilet) would be OK if it wasn't for the fact that there's no air-conditioning, the small desk fan provided cannot be plugged in anywhere near the beds (because there are no sockets) and we are in the middle of a mini heat-wave.
This combined with the fact that the window can only be opened ajar got me a bit panicky last night but luckily I/we managed to sleep. Needless to say we didn't need the duvets and the blankets provided!

We ate at the Italian restaurant of the hotel which just reopened last week. They ran out of jugs for the water, of ricotta for Adrian's pizza, the cocktails arrived after the starter and my Disaronno Sour was a Mojito instead. We waited ages for the pizzas and at the end sinceI was in quite a bit of pain sitting on the wheelchair, we had them boxed and ate (some of) them in the room.

Today the plan was of having a rest before the funeral tomorrow.
Adrian ran a few errands this morning while I sat on one of the sofas in the air-conditioned hall and this afternoon he took me for a bit of fresh air to Otley, a market town 10 miles out of Leeds,
We had a stroll in a park by the river.










(the double ice-cream is mine of course, as I'm poorly! lol)





While we were in the park, I had to talk to my boss's boss re work.
He's wondering whether I'm well enough to do some work from home (despite having a sick note until the end of the month!). I think I'll be able to do some work next week or the week after (depending on what they say at the hospital on Thu) but I don't quite understand how it is going to work legally: one is either sick or isn't, right? I cannot sit at the table and workin with the laptop resting on my thighs is rather tiring, plus I need rest and I'll have hospital appointments.

In the last couple of weeks or so my injury, surgery, etc. has been a bit of a distraction for Adrian, and his mother's passing has felt - in some ways -almost unreal to him. Now on the evening of the funeral it has started to feel much more real and, of course - for lack of better words - very final.
I'm sure he'll get through tomorrow: he's made of stern stuff. And of course, I'll be there for him, and vice-versa.

This evening we're going to have a small family gathering here at the hotel...

We spent the week-end in Cardiff, guests of our dear friends David and Richard



We went to the RHS Floral Show on Saturday morning











We bought 4 new auriculas. including this one called Grey Day


and some bulbs.

The weather was brilliant. It really felt like spring.







It got very busy in the late morning and we 4 left at around 12:30 pm.

Adrian and I decided to visit the nearby castle







which was quite wonderful, but that's for another post!

We travelled back this afternoon on the coach... a slightly unusual way of celebrating our 6th civil partnership anniversary perhaps. But nevertheless Happy Anniversary my sweet Adrian!!

And a bit thank you to David and Ricardo for a lovely week-end!