Category Archives: blogging

twitter strikes again

04 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by in blogging, food & drink, friends, sevilla, social media, twitter

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indietravel
As you no doubt recall last Thursday and Friday was spent with food writer Kalyan (@FinelyChopped) and his lovely wife Kainaz from Mumbai. They were in town for a few days and we did a Sevilla Tapas Tour one night and Flamenco & Tapas the next.

Then on Saturday I got in touch with new neighbours and professional travellers Ang & Ryan (@JetsLikeTaxis) from Chicago who are in Sevilla for a couple of months, and who had taken a walking tour with Peter last week. I was planning on checking out a new tapas bar and asked if they’d like to join me, which they happily did. And it was great getting their input as well as just enjoying a nice lunch out with new friends.

Today I met up with world travelling podcasters Linda & Craig Martin (@indietravel) from New Zealand, who have been in Spain since last spring and happened to be in Sevilla for the day with their friend Alba from La Coruña. So we went out for an impromptu lunchtime tapeo which, as usual, got a bit carried away. You can see a bit of what we got up to in that collage. Our extended lunch also meant they missed going to the two main sites they had planned on visiting (which closed at 5 o’clock). Oops!

The thing is, none of these encounters would have happened without Twitter. Amazing, innit?

plum cake

23 Wednesday Jan 2013

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plum cake
Last month I helped my friend Reyes get set up on Twitter and Facebook as well as create her first ever blog Gollerías (a “gollería” is a frivolous but exquisite delight). You see, Reyes is the woman behind all those amazing desserts I keep posting on Twitter from the Vineria San Telmo, including the best lemon meringue pie in the universe. You know the one I’m talking about. She is also the woman behind Juan and the reason he left the life of a rootless world traveller to become one of the most successful restauranteurs in Sevilla.

Anyhoo, after the initial set up we had planned to get together again soon for a couple of “blog classes” so Reyes could get the hang of putting stuff up there on her own, but with Christmas holidays and then me being sick in bed for a week, that day was put off and put off until we finally managed to get together yesterday at my place. Reyes breezed in carrying a massive shopping bag and telling me all about how she’d somehow managed to throw out her iPad with a stack of magazines the other day and then stopping when she realised she’d also forgotten to bring her laptop to “class” (this is Reyes, a genuine force of nature, witty, intelligent and beautiful – and so nice that you can’t even hate her for it). So I showed her how to do some Twitter and FB stuff on her iPhone and explained a few blog things using my laptop, but we’ll still have to do one more class with her computer using her own photo files, etc.

Which leaves what was in the massive shopping bag. Yep, it was this massive plum cake. Thing must weigh at least 2 kilos. And well, you know I’m not big on sweet things but I did really appreciate that Reyes had brought this for me, all prettily wrapped up and all, and so I thanked her for the gift while thinking that Peter was going to be eating a lot of plum cake over the next week. Should’ve known better. We’re talking Reyes after all. First taste of this gorgeous cake this morning and it became clear that Peter will be lucky to get any at all. Turns out it’s perfect for breakfast with a nice hot cup of coffee. A true gollería.

sir and m’lady

16 Wednesday Jan 2013

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top_hat_&_tiaraAs you can imagine, since I can’t seem to get out of bed for more than an hour or so at a time, I’ve been spending far too much time on the iPhone and iPad the past couple of days. So you can imagine my delight when links to this blog popped up again on Twitter (it’s been mentioned there quite a bit lately). And so I thought I would share it with you because it’s immensely entertaining, riddled with quotable quotes and soooo… well, you decide. Do share some of your favourite bon mots here, if you like.

Betcha can’t stop at just one. 😉

Sir And M’Lady Dine Out

learning joomla

13 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by in blogging, geekiness, work

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It all started when my friend Juan wanted a new website for Vineria San Telmo. I’ve been taking care of his restaurant blog and other social media stuff for a couple of years and I was quite excited to hear about the new website, and also that the plan was to move the WordPress.com blog I’d started over to the new place. I assumed that the website designers were just going to copy the WP.com blog over to a WP.org install and no pasa nada. Well… wrong!

And so I am now learning Joomla. I can see how it makes sense for the website (which looks very nice, don’t you think?) but it’s a very clumsy blogging platform. I’ve had one “Joomla class” with the designer and then was able to figure out some other stuff on my own, but there is still some tweaking for him to do so that the blog looks right and functions properly, and still a LOT of work for me to do on the posts, which didn’t arrive at their new home in the same state as they left the old one. Anyhow, I’ve got the first few posts fixed so let me know what you think… New Vineria Blog

For comparison… Old Vineria Blog

Normally I love learning new geeky stuff, and this is actually quite interesting. It’s just that it’s not as efficient for blogging and I’ve read that Joomla can be a bit “buggy”. Well, it’s something else I can put in my portfolio.

the things I do for my public…

01 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by in blogging, sevilla, summer

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Yesterday I had a free morning so I suggested to Peter that we visit a couple of places we’ve never been before, something we’ve been doing a lot of recently to do research for azahar-sevilla.com, the blog and Seville Concierge. And of course we often stop off for a tapita somewhere, which is good for Sevilla Tapas. So off we went to check out Espacio Santa Clara, a relatively new arts & culture space housed in an old renovated convent. Got there to find a CLOSED sign on the door, but I could see someone inside so I went in to ask why they were closed and why it didn’t say so on their website. He said they weren’t closed, but the closed sign was there in case they needed to close. Huh? Anyhow, we were told we could look around but there weren’t any exhibits on in July & August and the lights weren’t turned on either. Okaayyy…

It turned out to be an interesting visit just to see the building itself and to find out more about the “hidden tower” inside that really is closed (they don’t expect to finish restoring it for many years). But I got some photos and Peter got some info for a blog post, and then we headed out to see the Torre de los Perdigones, where they used to make lead shot by dropping hot blobs of lead from the top of the tower into a vat of water. Now there is a camera obscura on top and a narrow ledge going round it that you can walk along and look out all over Sevilla. See photo. Then picture me standing on top of this tower in a panicky sweat trying to take some pics without totally flipping out. No doube you are asking yourself … why does she keep doing this?? Dear readers, I do it for you.

[more about The Two Towers on Seville Concierge]