After 2 days back in London catching up on washing and going to work we set off for Barcelona for New Years. We hadn't seen the shiny yellow ball in the sky in some time so were very excited to wake up and see it and feel the warmth, although the sea breeze cooled it down a little so light jackets were still needed. We did all the tourist stuff so that when we go back in summer we can just lie on the beach with sangria and swim but Ellen still had to check out the water temperature this time anyway. We did all the Gaudi highlights - Park Quell, Casa Batllo and Sagrada Familia as well as visiting the Barcelona FC stadium (not that exciting).

We visited Park Quell on a beautiful day and took a walk around the park. We got a bit lost but the park was still an amazing place with deisgns, statues and buble men all around the place.

Sagrada Faimilia was also a massive highlight. Having travelled reasonably well through Europe now we were a bit 'Cathedralled out' but the Sagrada Familia was something else. After seeing the designs and thinking that had gone into building the cathedral you couldn't help but be amazed and awestruck.

We then had our 10km race that started at 5:30pm on New Year's Eve; it is called the nose run as many of the 11,000 participants had plastic noses on. We had a great race and both did PBs.

After the race we zoomed back to our hotel to change and have a quick post-race snack and beer and then headed out to dinner with the tour group, 40 of us went to a nearby restaurant for a meal and had Spanish New Year there where you watch the clock in Madrid on the TV and eat a grape for each of the 12 dongs of the clock - different methods were being employed to try and achieve this and not look like a chipmunk!

We then headed off to an Irish bar in Port Olympic for UK New Year (one hour later than the Spanish New Year) and watched the London fireworks on the TV with some lovely accessories provided by the hosts. We wandered back to the hotel some time later and unfortunately are now back in reality in London.