....a few things for the first time!

This weekend Phil and I had the pleasure of going to Barcelona for my very good friend Cheryl's 30th Birthday. Barcelona is an amazing city with loads to see and do. We arrived on Friday morning after a stupidly early start!! This meant we had the rest of the day to explore. We dumped our bags at the hotel and headed off to the Olympic village area, about 5 mins from the hotel. We both had different reasons for going here, Phil wanted to see what it was like without 5million computer geeks (this was where his conference was at the end of Feb) and I wanted to visit the German Expo pavilion designed by the legendary Mies van de Rohe. I LOVED it, Phil wasn't quite so excited.

Friday night we met up with Cheryl and James for dinner. Cheryl was very shocked to see us in Barcelona but thrilled, we haven't seen each other in ages so it was great to catch up.

The Birthday Girl is the attractive one in the middle!

Saturday was a full day of Architectural sight seeing, Phil wasn't sure about this but by the end of the day was well impressed. Gaudi is a famous Architect in Barcelona so we went to see a variety of his masterpieces. One of the most spectacular was Sagrada Familia (the unfinished cathedral), and I think I'm now in the camp that says it should never have been finished. We got a lift to the top of the towers and had great views over the city, then had to walk back down a really narrow stairwell. Very scary!!

Next I took Phil off to Parc Gruell which if I'm honest I wanted to see because S Club 7 come here in their movie (I know I'm sad but S Club are fab) :) Apart from the monster climb up to the park it was a super afternoon, the sun was shining and we had a picnic on the curvy seats. Then Sat night was the big get together for all of cheryls family, 17 of us piled into a very busy restaurant and picked random things to eat (the menu was in Spanish and all waiters spoke Spanish). It was really lovely to kick back and chat to loads of lovely people that I haven't seen since there wedding day.

Sunday had a slow start to the day due the previous late night. I thought I should really let Phil see something he is actually interested in so we went to Camp Nou for a tour of the stadium and the museum. I have to admit that it was quite spectacular, especially sitting in the directors chair and pretending to be a footy commentator!!



We spent the reat of the day wandering around La Rambla area before we flew home. We will definately go back to Barcelona, but who knows when.

In the midst of all that excitement I have decided to take up knitting. The reasons for this will become clear as you read, but inspired by an old friend from school I bought a book, needles and some yarn. I'm currently a quarter of the way through a Debbie Bliss Buggy Blanket. It is lots of squares of different colours with a lovely blue external trim.



I'm enjoying knitting at night whilst I'm relaxing, but sadly my reading is suffering at the moment. I never was very good at balancing things.

Really the biggest news is that Phil and I are, God willing, having a baby in October. I am now 13 weeks pregnant and we are both very excited. So far I have been very lucky and haven't really had morning sickness. I have been a little sleepier than normal but nothing too drastic. But now that I'm moving into the second trimester I am hoping all signs of nausea and tiredness will be a thing of the past. Although we are absolutely thrilled with our liitle bump it was a bit of a surprise so finacially we aren't as prepared as we had hoped, but good friends and family are already coming out of the wood work and offering clothes, baby things, etc so this should help alot. I'll keep you posted as time progesses but for now here is the first scan images of the baby.