Get over it ...

Lunch La Isleta
Originally uploaded by Nina Pope

This trip to Spain has been my road to recovery in more ways than a bit of Sun. It has also seen a return to seafood after a particularly nasty food poisoning 'incident' some weeks ago I felt to weak too recount at the time!

Some mussels, kindly purchased and deliciously prepared by Mr P&M (from that seafood stall near Hackney Central incase you are wondering) resulted in the most virulent food poisoning I have ever experienced. I was the second to go down with it and perhaps therefore a little underprepared. Getting up in the morning I felt a bit 'odd' and thought I'd just sit down for a minute on the spare bed. When what could have been anytime later I came to cold and sweaty lying on the carpet I just figured I'd forgotten lying down.
I returned to bed to join the first victim, who was disgruntled that I was no longer able to bring up hot drinks. Some hours later, it became clear from what can only be described as a huge strip of carpet burn on my forehead, that I must have passed out rather than sitting down. Later that week when I finally crawled into work even careful fringe management couldn't disguise the damage and I decided to mention it upfront in tutorials rather than leaving the students to speculate on the cause.

This week on the fantastic Cabo de Gata I finally ate another mussel, surrounded by other delicious seafood. That evening, on a very odd camp site, any problems lying down were only caused by the fact I'd let the batteries on the auto-air-bed-inflator run down.

"Green" Travel

Ferry Dog Deck :-(
Originally uploaded by Nina Pope

Since that last posting leaving Hackney has become pretty hard: The car never returned (now presummed stolen); I was knocked off my bike (I was fine, bike was not) and the overland train that normally takes us anywhere has packed up for months (no doubt part of 'Olympic preparations' a current catch all for anything buggered in the East End) so going anywhere by green means or otherwise has been pretty tricky.
In search of some flight-guilt-free sun and time off from the leaking P&M roof, we have been to Spain for Easter by boat. Yes, by boat and that means across the Bay of Biscay - the reputation of which failed to reach me prior to booking. Once we had the tickets everyone we know of course wanted to relate the nightmare they have had on this particular stretch of sea so why should I hold back?
Basically I had been 'off colour' prior to departure anyway so at the first lurch about 5 minutes out of Portsmouth I took to my internal cabin mini-bed, and there I basically stayed for the entire 24 hrs of heaving up and down. My only trip out was at around dawn onto the 'dog deck' to see a couple of the poor confused animals illegally running in circles around their owners on the helipad. They can surely have been the only things feeling worse than me! As we disembarked in Santander I would have happily bought a flight back on the spot ... And yet I type this now on a sunny return deck, 3 hours in and I'm risking a small glass of wine with olives ... This is more what I had in mind.

A quick postcript to the bike/car saga was that the repairs to my bike cost almost exactly the same as the insurance money we got for the Saab -(£250) and not quite as much as two ferry tickets to Spain. The price of green travel it seems.