Tuesday, 29 May 2018

BONUS Microadventure #5 - Mountain Sleep-Out

If you had accidentally booked accommodation on your yoga retreat holiday for 4 nights instead of 5, and there was only one room available for the extra night, would you...

a) Share a room with your snoring Mum? 
b) Sleep in one of the retreat's comfy wigwam tents?
c) Borrow a sleeping bag and tarpaulin as a makeshift bivvy bag and sleep on top of a hill?

No brainer, right? Just a shame about the rain... (especially when the rest of the week was sunny!)

Big thank you to Sarah and Martin at Casa de Carrasco for kitting me out at the last minute!

http://www.yogaholidayspain.com/


Setting out about 9pm, aiming for the bit between the trees


Setting up camp on the hill-top yoga platform

Niiiiiight!

My waterproof cocoon/tarpaulin

Morning!

Morrrrre rain on its way

Looking down on the retreat from the hill-top

Microadventure #5 - Coffee in London, Champagne in Paris and Beer in Barcelona... by train!

Terrified of flying, my clever Mum encouraged my Dad to get a campervan so they could still travel but avoid setting foot on an aeroplane. Their first trip was driving from London to Athens for the Olympic Games in 2004, followed by many more adventures around Europe and even to Morocco when I lived there from 2008 to 2010.

But since Dad died in 2014 Mum hasn't been travelling much, so for her birthday this year she joined me at my favourite yoga retreat in the Catalonian mountains of northern Spain. 

By my (self-imposed, unwritten and often illogical) rules, a holiday does not constitute a microadventure, even though I did a bit of trail running (training for June's microadventure) while I was there. But with Mum's fear of flying, a Eurostar from London to Paris and a direct train from Paris to Barcelona, this month's microadventure was all about the journey (which, while a bit cliché, is so often true of life anyway).

The whole thing took about 12 hours, but over a very civilised 9-9 period where we could read, chat, eat, drink, sleep and play A LOT of backgammon. Thanks for being my microadventure buddy this month Mum, and Happy Birthday!

Waiting for the tube from Balham to Kings Cross St Pancras

Coffee before the Eurostar


Opening birthday cards on the train

Waiting for a taxi from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon  in Paris


Waiting for the train to Barcelona at Gare de Lyon

6.5 hours Paris to Barcelona

Birthday Champagne

Whizzing past vineyards

Post backgammon snooze

Beer in Barcelona