FerWatch ...

Well ... as I've introduced a FeliWatch to the blog, I can't leave Fer out, can I? He might get jealous and have a hissy fit. :D

But Lord ... I don't like the shaved look anyway, although Fer seems to be adamant in flirting with the Colombian Drug Lord look, and here he is wearing a jacket that's too small and bloody awful white pants in some sort of fashion shoot for an Argentinian magazine (I think).

Lets hope this "Watch" series gets to erm, monitor his change of look. Ahem ...

Taiwan videos ...

You might want to turn the sound down for these. :D

Taipei, Taiwan, Tai Kwondo, Thai Green Curry ...

... where the hell is he?? :D :D

Rafa arrived in - let's call it Taiwan - today for his exho with Daveed, full of smiles, full of fun, welcomed by yet another adoring public. He had a tennis clinic today and will play the match tomorrow.

But how happy does Rafa look? Good stuff. Come on ... lets vamos in the Far Eastern leg of the season!!

Juicy Tube Lip Gloss Alert!!!

The ATP released its new "mug shot" pictures of the players today. But what a hoot ... they all look like they've been let loose with Mirka's lip gloss!! Which shade do you think Rafa applied?? Spring Fling or Toffee Pop. :D :D

I think Andy applied his in the dark ...

Rafa and Daveed to exho in Taiwan ...

Rafa sets off today to the Far East where he will make a stop off in Taiwan to play an exhibition match with David Ferrer, before moving on to Tokyo where the Rakuten Japan Open starts on 3rd October.

Rafa is defending champion ... and this time, will he actually manage to retain a hardcourt title? Hehe ... ;)

Of course there's a war of words erupting about Rafa and his participation in exhos, bearing in mind that he was central to the player outburst at the US Open and one assumes, will remain so when the players re-convene at the Shanghai Masters where the tennis schedule is high on the agenda. I accept, that he doesn't help his cause somewhat with his participation in these events, but I have no qualms about the Taiwan one (no pun intended), as he needs to head off and acclimatise to that region anyway and frankly, an exhibition will be a walk in the park as compared to his usual, rigorous training sessions.

The trouble is though, it doesn't end with this one. During the summer, it was announced that Rafa and the Prince of Darkness would be playing an exho in Mexico, some time in October/November, although an actual date was never announced. However, subsequent to the PoD's sacking of Benito and the fact that Rafa can barely now even look at him, never mind play in some chummy exho with him, the PoD announced via Twitter that he wouldn't be participating. However, its now been confirmed that this exho will still go ahead - against David Ferrer (again) - in December, and following the Davis Cup final.

You do actually wonder just how easy/difficult it really is to pull out of these things when Rafa's management have obviously made commitments. And once again whilst the other top 6 players finish their season at the WTF, Rafa will have to soldier on and lead Spain in the DC, following which, there will be a journey to another continent to play a fruitless tennis match. And your rest time Rafa? and preparation for the start of the season? I don't think exhos exert him at all, but travelling and being away from home does ... so I just don't get why he does it. Equally, he complained last year of only actually having 4 days off at the end of the season will his charity exhos with Feds, sponsor commitments and the like. And yet here we go again. Exhos have and always will be part of tennis, but in his down-time at the end of the year? I'm struggling to support him on that one.

And the Shanghai Summit will more than likely render fruitless as Federer has already pulled out and the Prince of Darkness with his glass back, has now pulled out of Beijing. Shanghai will be next, just you wait and see ... playing charity football matches and bending down to pick up poor unfortunate kids for the publicity shoots, excepting. So with 2 of the top 4 missing, what "player power" will come from that? It will be toothless. Federer has managed his schedule fantastically well over the years citing fatigue and "nagging" injuries along the way and not giving a single stuff about letting down the tournament and fans alike. And the PoD is following suit. He didn't show at Monte Carlo and his Oscar winning performance at the Davis Cup the other weekend has bought him time off from the US Open with a lovely little rest up until Paris and the WTF ... mark my words.

Trouble is ... Rafa should follow suit (but its not within his make up to do so), and the exhos just leave him wide open for criticism. I wish he would be more ruthless in both regards.

Buy hey ... he's Rafa. Would we have any other way? Just saying ...

Hands up who hates water marks?? ...

:D :D ... But here's more of FeliFer before the Davis Cup semi-final ...

FeliWatch ...

Feli - bromancing it up - this time with Marcel Granollers at last Saturday's Real Madrid match in the Bernabeu Stadium.

But again ... where is Fer??

Los putos vampiros !!!

And no, for once I don't mean the Prince of Darkness ... :D

After their DC semi-final success, Rafa and Marc! helped Feli to celebrate his 30th birthday at the Budha Bar in Madrid. As seems to be customary, the boys went out on the eve of his birthday and were together as the clock struck midnight to welcome in Feli's new decade and perhaps some new maturity. *cough*

I think its a bit rich though, that on HIS birthday, Feli ends up being the designated driver. Although with the revelations in Rafa's book that he is a bit of a wuss when it comes to driving, maybe its not such a bad idea. :D I like how poor Marc! gets shoved in the back though. :D But where is Fer??? :whistle:

But the real story came some few hours later when obviously after a late night, Feli was awoken to rat-tat-tatting on his door at 7 am in the morning (bearing in mind these Spanish boys probably hadn't been in bed that long ;) ) and at first he was concerned because Marc! was staying with him and flying to Barcelona that day and they thought they might have overslept and were about to miss his ride to the airport. But no ... who was at the door but none other than the "putos vampiros" as Feli so eloquently tweeted. The :censored: vampires, as the drug testers are called in Spanish. Yep, they'd come calling that early on his 30th birthday so that Feli had to let them in and have a wee whilst one of them stood there watching. Charming! Poor Feli!! And what a way to treat him on his birthday. :shakesfist: Doesn't Rafa look hot in those white jeans? *thud*

And here's a vid clip of them entering the bar and fending off the paparazzi. As Rafan has pointed out, how funny is it that the valet would have driven off with Marc! in the back until Feli let him out! Hehe ... :D :D :D

New Armani pics ...

After all the excitement of Cordoba, I'm on Rafa catch up. So here are the latest pictures from Armani. I like the undercrackers picture ...

This is quite soxy ...


But this is more Rafa, the Cross-Eyed Lion ... hehe. But I love the hint of the V ... ;)

We just had to have this one ...

... didn't we? Because he's simply gorgeous in it. <3

Some random DC videos ...

Davis Cup semi-final on Flickr

The lovely pictures I've used in my Day 5 report are Rafan's and here's a link to her Flickr account to see them all.

My camera has a rubbish zoom, so mine are not that great. But hey ho, they're actual pictures so have a look at them here.

Day 5 – Tor-ero! Tor-ero! Tor-ero!

It had all come round too fast ... Sunday, and our last day. Its funny, but as quickly as you get into it all, its over. After our first couple of days, it then became the most normal thing in the world to walk around streets in Spain that were centuries old and to wake up in the morning and think, “I’m going to see Rafa today”. But Larky Lark Rafan had a bit of a shock when she went to her usual newspaper stand on her paper round, as I did when I turned the corner expecting to see our little place for breakfast ... cos everything was closed! Sunday really is treated like Sunday there and there was nothing open or about ... so we went up to our saviour Plaza Tendillas and found somewhere for breakfast. And spied the handsome cocktail waiter from the previous night. ;)

Spurred on by our successful venture “off piste” from the previous evening, we negotiated the little streets in the Old Town on as we made our final trip to the bullring ... and got lost. :D We ended up coming out onto the big avenue a lot further up than we expected ... but hey, what’s a few more steps when you’ve walked miles in 4 days. Hehe. As we approached the bullring, Rafan’s phone beeped off. Victor!!

Now I know you’re going to be very surprised to read this, but I may be guilty of a tad of exaggeration now and then. And whilst I may have built Rafan’s new friendship up with Victor ... she really only handed over her address and phone number so he could give her a price for sending the R-A-F-A picture on to England for her. For 75 euros. Whilst she didn’t take him up on that offer, I’m not sure she’s deleted his number from her phone yet though ... Especially seeing that Valencia are playing Chelsea in the Champion’s League and so he could be in London any time soon. :cough:

So on to the tennisss, and Rafa was up first. The local newspapers had the headline of “In the hands of Nadal” ... so no pressure then? I’d also thought that France had pulled a fast one by putting up Tsonga to play him. Now when the draw was first announced, Tsonga didn’t even feature as a singles player and I just assumed that he was a bit injured from the USO so France had decided just to put him out for the doubles and chance their arm with Gasquet and Simon. But as they were back in the tie after the doubles, I thought it a bit underhand to suddenly put Tsonga in there from nowhere, in the hope perhaps that in spite of Rafa’s great performance against Gasquet, he could be showing signs of fatigue and hamstring tweaks (although Marc!’s head might have other ideas about that ...). I was a bit nervous about this match, but Rafan wasn’t ... and had every confidence.

There wasn’t quite the pomp and ceremony today to bring the players on court and each player just took to the court individually. But Rafa’s reception ... unbelievable. Once again the Spanish crowd had come out in full fiesta fashion, dressed in the country’s colours, more flags, more horns, more fans ... more “Raa-fa, Raa-fa, Raa-fa”. Brilliant! And boy did he not disappoint. I should have listened to Rafan because he blew Tsonga off court in that first set – 6-0. I’ve forgotten the finer details of all the points of the match now, but there was a period in the match where Tsonga didn’t even score a point on Rafa’s serve. He had a double break in the second set and a single break in the third to take the match. He was positively superb ... what a fantastic couple of matches from him, and it was just a joy to see him playing so freely again ... loved it!

So Rafa had taken Spain through to the final ... fabulous! Cue tons of singing and chanting and flag waving. Brill. The stadium started to empty though, and we weren’t sure whether or not the second singles match would be played. But eventually it was announced that it would ... and it would be FER against Gasquet, not little Daveed. Now after Fer’s woeful performance the previous day, we weren’t sure whether or not that was a good idea, but we should have feared not. If there was one player who simply DID NOT want to be out there on court, it was Gasquet.

Shame for Fer, but the biggest cheer of the match came for ... Rafa. As I’ve said, that boy is never still, and during the second singles he came out from the matador’s entrance and just literally ran round the side of the bullring with people clapping him as he went past, and then he left via another entrance. I think it was reported that he went outside for an interview or something, but the cheering for him was so loud that people within the bullring could easily hear it and were going “ssh” “ssh” so as not to distract the players. :D Then Rafa came bounding back in and successfully negotiated the fake garden area they’d created at the end of the court so that he could go and re-join his team-mates.

As Fer tonked Gasquet, the matches and the tie were over, and it was time for the team to celebrate. But before the full party started, Fer went to his bag, un-zipped it ... and pulled out a custom made trackie that had been designed to look like a matador’s jacket which was red, with black braiding. And he walked to the centre of the court and put it on and with the crowd shouting Tor-ero! Tor-ero! Tor-ero! he did that gesture with his right hand from his shoulder to sweep before him just like a matador does ... hehe, brilliant! He then started to go to his team-mates, but then went back and turned around so that he could do the same gesture to the other side of the court. Show off!

Then the team and Costa took to the court and Costa spoke to the crowd and offered some kind words to the French and then they all took their celebratory lap of honour around the court. We were hoping for some happy-dancing, and whilst there were one or two jogs up and down, what we got was perhaps better described as “Dad Dancing”. Feli looked fit again in his flip flops, and someone threw a hat into the arena that he wore very well, and then it got passed around. The players stopped to pose in front of the word CORDOBA that had been painted on the court, and that was a nice picture. So then one by one, they left the court and that was it. It was over.

We made our way out, passed Victor’s stall, and walked down the main avenue. Now you know how we say that Rafan can smell Rafa? Well ... I never even noticed a car go zipping past with a police escort, but she stopped me and we waited on the pavement to watch the next one go past. And sure enough ... there was Rafa sat in the back messing about on his phone and Marc! was sitting by the window. So that was our absolutely final, final glimpse of Rafa for this holiday.

It seems we can only manage going “off piste” correctly in the “going home” version of the journey because we once again made it straight back to our hotel without any detours. So we reluctantly packed, Rafan went through her papers and tore out the pieces she wanted for her :scrapbook: and we got ready to out for our final dinner. We earlier had thought that we might try this tapas bar that had been recommended ... but thought nah! we want to be able to eat ;) so we ended up back again at the same restaurant in Plaza Tendillas where we ate steak and drank cocktails and toasted our lovely time.

So that was it, readers. Adventure over, and back in the hotel room in bed, we said our customary words to each other ... “Night night, lovely Rafan”. “Night night, lovely Wooffs”.

THE END.

Footnote : As its now a week since this all this happened and with penning these tales during the week and looking at all the photographs and stuff, as is usual ... it now seems like such a long time ago, and you can barely believe it all happened. But looking back, what a fantastic experience and I would not for the whole wide world have missed a thing of it. Spain as a country will never capture me like Italy does, but I still really enjoyed all that we saw, from the squares to the palaces, the churches and gardens and of course, the arches ... even if they all became a bit “samey”. Beautiful ... all of it.

But the tennis, and the Davis Cup ... it was like nothing I have ever witnessed before. You tend to mostly have to support Rafa in a quiet sort of way if you know what I mean, because tennis over here is like that. Not so with Davis Cup. And I just think watching Rafa and the Spanish team in Spain, with that heat, in a bullring, with the colour and noise, chanting, bands playing, fan wafting ... I mean, its an experience that will stay with me for a very long time.

And although we hope again to be able to go to the final, I just think the setting and being in that ancient old town just made it what it was ... perfect. My heartfelt thanks to our lovely Rafan, Rafateer extraordinaire, but above all, great company and a great pal.

And VAMOS RAFA!!!

Day 4 – Ain’t that a kick in the head ...

So Saturday morning came around and although there was only the doubles match today, we had a packed day planned. Larky Lark Rafan was up to do her morning paper-round, and whilst out, also took the opportunity for a look around Cordoba’s famous Mezquita – the Mosque – a 12th Century throw back to when the Moors ruled and which had then been overtaken by the Christians who decided that rather than pull the mosque down, they’d just build a Christian church inside it. Simples. As she knew the place was full of famed arches (which could get a bit “samey”), she was well in there before the tourists pulled up and you had to pay the princely sum of 8 euros to get in.

I stayed in bed.

However, she then came to collect me and we went off for breakfast. We split up as we got to the Mezquita cos I wanted a good wander around inside, and she headed off for a mozy around her beloved souvenir shops – a guilty pleasure (so it turns out) that she shares with several of the VB girls who she bumped into along the way. As for me ... well, once again I found myself blown away by what I saw inside. Yes, its column after column all topped off by pink/red brick arches ... but the area is vast, huge. And its one of those things where you think that I have seen nothing of its kind anywhere else in the world before. It was amazing. But then as you walk around it, you find yourself coming upon the central church, and there’s a high altar and all the ecclesiastical trappings that you usually find in a Catholic church that’s hundreds of years old ... and yet it was surrounded by all these Islamic references and obvious throw backs to a very different style of architecture. It was yet another thing that I found fab on this holiday.

But whilst walking around the mosque, I felt some stirrings. And no, it wasn’t just my geeky obsession with architecture ... motion, not E-motion type of stirrings, if you get my drift. I hadn’t been since the day before I’d left England, whilst Rafan proudly told me that she’d scored 3 times. Now it wasn’t as if I could have gone quietly behind a column, so I thought I’d just have to control this the best I can and I let the feeling pass. And chucked in the odd Hail Mary whilst I was in there for a bit of succour. Anyhow, once I taken my 72nd arch picture and therefore deemed that quite enough, I left the Mesquita and met back up with Rafan.

I’d done a quick scoot into BurgerKing before seeing her, just to see if there were some aseos in there ... nada ... so when I met up with Rafan, I told her of my stirrings and that I was popping into this restaurant come shop thingy and was going for goal. And yippee! I scored!! I was back in the game at 3-1, only for her to then tell me that whilst I was in there, she’d rounded the keeper and successfully slipped the ball in the back of the net for a 4-1 scoreline and to maintain her 3 goal cushion. Rotter!! She had, however, purchased 2 small flags which we could wave excitedly with the Category 4 riff raff during her souvenir shop foray, so she was almost – but not quite – forgiven. She had actually taken her big flag with her the previous day, but even though it was like gossamer silk, in that heat, Rafan felt like she’d brought her eiderdown with her. :D

So the next stop on the itinerary was the Alcazar Castle where the point of interest was to be the gardens. When we entered though, we found out that the castle had actually been the seat of the notorious Spanish Inquisition. And its subsequently dawned on me that we should haul Djerk into there to get him to confess what the eggy secrets to his success really are. Anyhow, we went in the castle bit and a quick wander around led us to a narrow staircase that you could go up to lead you to the top of the tower. Now I knew the views from the tower would probably have been fab and great for taking pictures, but I have a bit of a phobia about century old, tiny winding staircases as they bring out my mild claustrophobia ... plus, I’m too much of a un-fit heap to cart myself up there.

But as we all know, I was on holiday with a mountain goat, who promptly started on her skip to the ascent of the tower. A somewhat different looking Rafan made her way down though. Through her exhaling and puffy-out cheeks, she’d revealed that the gradient of the steps had got that deep towards the top that she’d felt like she’d done a massive series of squats, and she collapsed in a heap on the floor as the work to her muscles had turned her legs into jelly.

First lie.

But she felt the strain though. So out into the gardens we went, and once again, they were stunningly beautiful. Very landscaped, very structural, with ponds and fountains all bordered by lovely looking flowers. The whole place smelt beautiful too, and there were columns of trees and more flora and fauna than you could shake a gato at. Someone’s picture portfolio is going to be HUGE. ;) It then, of course, got to the time where we needed to be making our way to the bullring, so me and JellyLegs set out on our way.

We got to the bullring just a bit earlier than the previous day, so we didn’t really have to stand in a Spanish version of a “queue”, we knew which Tendido we had to enter by, and for some reason, I almost huffed and puffed my way up those steps as quick as a mountain goat with jelly legs. Our luxurious concrete slab with the numbers 25 and 26 painted on it awaited, and as the French team were practicing down below, I started to eat my lunch. Which reminds me. The previous day during the match, there had been a camera doing a ‘pan shot’ along the crowd during the end of games. Cue enthusiastic flag waving and cheering and waving from the Category 4 riff raff – which Rafan also excitedly joined in with in a self promoting way to get on the telly. And what was I doing at this precise point ... yep, stuffing my face. :doh: I would like to apologise to the Spanish TV public for doing that and for once, am thanking God that Sky show adverts at this point.

Anyhow, what a feast of hotness for us today as FeliFer were to take the court. Now I’ve seen Feli play, and I’ve seen Fer play ... but I’ve never seen FeliFer play together.

And I’m still waiting.

What the bloody hell sort of a match was that? I mean, the whole event started off with a very similar pomp and ceremony that we’d seen the previous day. The flag bearers were once again on court, the band was on court, the ball boys and girls were all lined up. The French team together walked onto court following the French flag, and then the Spanish team walked onto court lead by Feli and Fer as they followed the Spanish flag. Feli bent down to adjust his socks and we were treated to the marvellous curvature of his wonderful ass. We had both countries’ national anthems again ... so the atmosphere was once again rife and exciting and we couldn’t wait for play to start.

And it seemed to start so well. FeliFer were receiving at our end of the court and had a break point. We thought they’d done it, but no, Llodra got the ball back ... and it all quickly went downhill from there. It was as if neither of them had ever played together before, they were seriously that bad. Fer in particular was awful. At least he did seem to get very frustrated by it all, but this scratch pairing of Tsonga and Llodra were playing out of their skins and annihilating them. At 6-1, 6-2, Costa decided to take them off court. Like that worked ... they came back on and got stuffed 6-0.

Poor FeliFer ... I would willingly have taken them to my heaving bosom to help them feel better. *cough*.

But as with yesterday, one of the best things about live tennis is watching everything else that is going on ... and today’s bench action came from Rafa. Now we know that away from the court, he is essentially a boy ... forget the image he tries to portray in these Amarmi pictures, he’s really the dork ... and that’s why we love him. But it was with some amazement that Rafan and I sat there and watched him aim kicks at Marc!’s head! (See above photograph captured by Rafan!). And if we had doubts about his hamstrings before, they were quickly quoshed. He then played a game of lobbing empty water bottles in the bin to see if he could score off a first hit (he did). He bounces around a lot on the bench, but equally, it seems that his time is still very much in demand even when he’s just supposed to be having a day off and watching his team mates, because he made several disappearances behind the scenes. He was out for the end of the Greek tragedy happening on court and seemed a bit stunned when clapping the flakey FeliFer off.

But a quick match meant us getting back to the hotel a bit earlier for a rest, so we left, but not without making a last port of call ... to “Javier” ‘s stall. Erm, sorry ... “Victor”, because Rafan still fancied that R-A-F-A picture (or she said it was the R-A-F-A picture that she fancied). “Victor” greeted her warmly with a kiss to either cheek. Now who am I to sully the character of our lovely Rafan whom we all know is as a pure as the driven snow. But perhaps she was drifting, because she gave “Victor” her address AND telephone number. For once ... I am saying nowt, but the previous day “Victor” had said that he’d been over to England a couple of times to Old Trafford, Manchester, to watch Valencia play. I did wonder why Rafan was quizzing me about when the next round of Champions League fixtures were ... ???

Anyhow, we made our way back to the entrance gate to the Old Town, and this time successfully went “off piste” and made our way back to the hotel without the aid of the map and without getting lost!! A couple of hours later, we were out again in the Plaza Tendillas, at our “safe” restaurant and eating some “safe” food ... Rafan with a seafood pizza and me with some chicken turned into cannelloni. No bulls tails. We also ran into the VB girls again and rolled our eyes at how absolutely terrible FeliFer had been. Although we did feel a tad guilty and selfish in that with now being at 2-1, the chances were that Rafa would take to the court first on Sunday as he’d been drawn, as it was now crucial that Spain won that match so as not to leave it to a tense 5th rubber thriller.

And even though we’d packed tons into our day, it wasn’t over, because we headed back towards the Mesquita as we’d booked to go and see a traditional Flamenco show in an outside courtyard just near to the mosque. Now the courtyard was all bedecked out nicely with white linen covered chairs and even though it was 10.30 pm at night, it was still balmy hot. The guitarists took to the stage first, and then the couple of (male) singers came on. Now ... have any of you ever heard traditional flamenco singing?? Strangling a cat comes into mind. And when they started up, Rafan emitted the now immortal line which is still making me laugh when I think of it now ...

“They’re not a patch on the Gypsy Kings ...”

:D :D :D Rafan’s joke ... 10/10. But one by one, the dancers came on stage and with their traditional costumes and with much clacking of heels and stomping of feet, and castonettes and clapping and the like, they drowned out the cat-a-wauling that was going on. It was a great show, really entertaining and again I’m glad that we experienced another bit of Spanish culture.

So then it was off to our beds, to catch some zzzzzzzz’s and to look forward to our final day in Cordoba. It had taken us a good couple of days to get into this holiday, what with our early experiences, the travel, the heat, the food and the like ... but by this point we were totally into it and loving it. Spain had started out at 4/10 ... but by this point, I’d give it an 8 (and Feli’s ass, a 10).