Week one over

Again I am writing from the U.K, sorry about the lack of pictures but when I get back I will put some up. Yesterday we did another parade which in my view has been the best we have done so far, even the weather held out for a bit.

I have already been a week in the U.K but now I am starting to miss home a bit and I still have another week to go before going home, on the bright side at least I am going away for the weekend the week after I get back to Gib.

Today also sees a change of venue for the parade as it is taking place at the Tower of London, which is a nice change and again the usual crowd of people will follow us.

On another note back home everyone is taking about us, it is on the news, the papers and YouTube every other day, so the band and of course the troops are a like little celebrities back home and making Gibraltar very proud. Anyway got to go, see you soon.

Parade number 2

Yesterday we did the second parade out of 7 that we need to do in front of Buckingham Palace.

This time we were going to be marching on from another angle down the mall. Even though it seemed that the rain was going to ruin it, we went ahead with it despite the rain. For me this me was going to be extra special as my parents had arrived from Gibraltar to watch me and my little sister do the parade.

My sister, although I have not mentioned her before she is in the same band, more on this later on. After another fantastic display I met up with my parents in central London for a little bit of shopping and dinner. I hope I will be able to meet up with them again at a later stage this week.



 Anyway guys, see u soon.

One down more to come

Today has been a long but worthwhile day.

It started with a very early wake up at 4:30am so I can have enough time to get my uniform ready, apart from all my other kit. But this was the plan - I fell asleep only to wake up at 5:10 so even less time to get ready. We set off at 6:00am with high hopes of doing a great performance at Buckingham Palace later on in the day. We got to a nearby barracks where the changing of the guard normal starts from before heading there. The nerves started to set in with just the sight of the palace. A few hours later we were given the word to get ready and head upstairs as we were going to be starting soon.

Shortly afterwards we stood outside, ready to set off to Buckingham Palace and a huge crowd that had gathered there. We set of on a high note of confidence and a huge sense of pride not only for ourselves but also for Gibraltar. After the guard was changed we marched back and soon after we went back to our accommodation with a big smile and an even bigger pride.

Anyway peeps will keep you all updates as the days come.

Hello from the U.K

I am writing this on Sunday. Yesterday I flew from Gibraltar to the UK with the band to perform at various locations in London. Like some of my readers might know already, one of the locations is Buckingham Palace.

Even though the thought of performing there is already starting to sink in as I am feeling a bit of a stage fright, I am only feeling this now and it is the day before. Tomorrow will the first of two weeks of parades. So far the rehearsals have gone fine this morning and I can say that tomorrow we shall impress the public as well as the officials.

Sorry I can't write any more right now as apart from a nice flight over it has been pretty busy so far but watch this space for more updates.

Packing

I do enjoy travelling whether it is for holiday or sometimes work it is always nice to get out sometimes.

But the worst about it is the packing and making sure that you have not forgotten anything behind. Tonight and tomorrow I will be packing my bags for trip to the UK with the band, which I have already mentioned in a previous post (see for the Queen).

Anyway guys, I will still be posting from the UK but there will be less pictures until I get back from the UK.

I just hope the weather is nice and it is not too cold in the UK.

Funny Bunny

The other day after I got home from work I had a good laugh with Buttons as I did not expect this from him.

As always he greeted me in his usual way by trying to squeeze his head through the bars and waiting for me to scratch his little head. Normally after this he quiets down and lies just chilling. But today was going to be another story - he got off the sun deck and stood at the bottom of his cage, and before I knew he was making a very odd sound like wind. As some of you may have already guessed, the rabbit was farting.

I looked at him and found it very funny as I really did not know they did that so I looked it up on Google to see if rabbits really did fart and according to Wiki Answers they do – this helps them digest the food better but that it is not common for them.

Anyway I left for band having found this quite funny, and I left it at the back of my mind just for a chuckle when I needed it. When I got home it just got better - I walked in and he was out of his cage and my girlfriend was not looking very happy by the look on her face.

So I asked what was wrong and then she told me that Buttons had eaten one of her hair bands. Thankfully she managed to save the little bit of metal that was in it. I take it that Buttons could not have chewed through that so that is the reason why that bit survived. So there was Nadia feeding him apple to make sure that his little system was working properly.

After all of this strange new food Buttons enjoyed the other day he is still doing fine and maybe even forgot how the hair band tasted like but he is doing fine and back on his normal diet, I think he even might have a bit more spring in his jump.

New Home for Buttons

This weekend we moved Buttons into a bigger cage as his old one was getting a bit small for him.

Now when it comes to rabbit cages you have a large choice of cages on the market so getting a new one was going to be a mission. Anyway, we went down to the pet shop to see what was on offer, even though that I had some sort of idea but did not expect extras.

We were looking at some of the larger ones and there were built examples of them, but we decided to go for the one that has a small hutch were Buttons could hide and rest inside. The lady brought it down and she asked if we wanted it flat packed, I did not even know they did flat packed cages. But the flat pack that they gave us was a bit bigger and full of extras (just like a new car). Now some of you out there may be wondering what kind of extras can a rabbit cage have? Well, let me tell you, the new cage has a bunny toilet, a hutch he can hide which also provides Buttons with a sun deck if you look it in a way and also a ramp to get on to the sun deck with a spare one just in case, and wheels which is a bit of a luxury for us and not so much for him.

We got home and put up this huge cage with all the extras and then put Buttons in. At first he was looking around his new home but he did not look so convinced about his home or how big it really was. He was not even sure what the ramp was there for so it took him a few hours before he knew he can walk down this to get off the sun deck.

Two days later he seems to have made his own and he is now enjoying it, he is even using his toilet.

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday was a relaxing day, after having a week of bad weather and rain we got a lovely day of hot weather and glorious sunshine. So we decided to have a bit of fun with Buttons and sort of made him the “Easter Bunny” even though he would not really know about it.

So we got him out of his cage and got one of our Easter eggs out and gave it to him. At first he did not like the idea of having this huge egg next to him but he also doesn’t like sitting still at all so he kept moving and when he got the chance, ran away. After a few tries to get him in position with the egg we took the following picture of him:

After that, since the weather was so nice we decided to have a little drive and also a short walk up the Rock. The walk was only through a foot path called Royal Anglican Way which is a set of gun batteries on the side of the Rock and the access to them is only by foot.

After a short walk and we went for a bit of a laugh to Apes Den as I always find the monkeys’ behaviour so funny when there is no one around as they really do their own thing and do not beg for food like they do when many people are around.

Before we went back home and got dinner ready as a friend of mine, Nicholas was going to come over for dinner and drinks; we stopped for a quick coffee at Casemates (coffee for Nadia, beer for me).

Good Friday

Good Friday is a holy day for the Christian world and everyone celebrates it differently but I think no one celebrates like the Spanish do. Some of you out there might not know that the Spanish celebrate it in a big scale and it is ongoing for a week, which is what they call “La Semana Santa” (Holy Week). 

In the south of Spain is where the biggest celebration and devotion takes place across all cities. They do large and elaborate processions of scenes of the Passion, where different religious brotherhoods go out to the streets carrying large and heavy floats or “Pasos”. These pasos can weigh between 1 – 6 tons depending in which city you are in.

This year, breaking with tradition in my family, we decided to go to Malaga instead of Cadiz which is quite different. In Cadiz the Pasos are small in size as the old town in Cadiz has very narrow streets, but the fact the streets are so narrow gives the impression that the floats are huge. The best part to it in Cadiz is that all of them need to go into the Cathedral and there is plenty of seating to watch them go by. 

But the weather was proving to be a bit of a downside as rain was coming and the processions will not take place if it rains. So we went to Malaga instead as the weather was supposed to be better there but the menace of rain still was at large. 

This year was the 1^st time Nadia had gone to watch these processions because even though that she has lived in Spain before she has not really gone and seen them. Now in Malaga the processions are the largest in Andalucía after Sevilla, but it is also different in sense that in Sevilla the men carrying the floats are hidden underneath the float. In Malaga the men are on the outside as if it was floating on a sea of people.

The day started with a seafood feast as meat is not allowed on Good Friday and we headed to Malaga to see the processions. When we arrived in Malaga we spent some time trying to get our bearing and finding out where the different things where happening as we already knew the times. But after some walking and some coffee we managed to find one of them going by. After running around the old town we found a nice spot to sit down and wait for them to come as some locals had informed us most if not all were going to go down this street at some point during the night. 

We saw about 4 before a local woman told us that the next one was a special not only due to the size of the float being the biggest one we saw all night but also that it has a famous patron that would always go with it and also lead it through the streets. The person is Antonio Banderas who is from Malaga and he never misses La Semana Santa. A rumour was going around the crowd that they had seen him leading this float and also directed it out of the church. Sadly if he was there we did not see him as all the people leading this float had their face covered but who knows - maybe he was there.

It was beginning to get late in the evening so we made our way back to Gibraltar for some rest.  

         

Weekend Away

Sorry that I have not written any posts for a while but I have been suffering from a writers block and have not come up with anything to write about.

Last weekend came the perfect opportunity as Nadia and I went away camping with the Scouts which were are both leaders in. Even though the weather in this part of the world has taken a turn for the worst after having such a dry and mild winter so the rain has finally come.

Despite the bad weather the plan still went ahead and we set of from Gibraltar under the threat of a Levanter cloud. But as we were approaching the campsite in Chiclana  (near Cadiz) a heavy rain started for a bit. We got to the campsite, got the scouts settled into the different cabins and by the time that was over the sky had opened up and the rain was gone.

We did the normal Scout camp stuff which includes camp craft, fire building, knotting and some climbing. As you can imagine this all went down as treat for the kids.

Even though I am still recovering from a busy and tiring weekend I think we all enjoyed it.