New bedclothes, lunch with friends, an hour long massage, Black Book and an anti terrorist demonstration in Madrid

Hello again

The title above is actually a pot pourri of what I have been up to this week, believe it or not. And now on to what actually happened:

I hesitated on including news about our new bedroom fabrics but actually the news is big, very big because Eladio and I haven’t changed them since nearly 20 years ago when we moved into our previous house in Parque Boadilla. And the picture to illustrate this post is the bed with its new finery – whether you like the fabric or not is immaterial because we were very practical here and chose it to match the curtains the previous owners had left behind. Thanks Anne for your help in finally getting us to make the change and here is the result.

I managed to slip in some lunches with friends and ex colleagues this week; so Monday I met up with Jorge López who now heads up an English owned PR Agency in Madrid, Lewis. He doesn’t work for me now but he has done in the past and we have great fun exchanging information and keeping up to date in the PR world. He took me to the Centro Riojano in Madrid and I did the terrible thing of ordering white wine (well I was having fish) and I’m afraid Rioja white is not the thing to ask for. Of course, we then changed to red and that was quite ok considering where we were. http://www.centroriojano.com/ It’s definitely a good place to eat in Madrid.

Wednesday was lunch with Mónica, Paloma and Cristina at Ginos – one of our favourites. They were all doing fine and in any case I will be seeing them again as they will be coming to my birthday party next week.

I mustn’t forget to mention that it was Alicia’s birthday this week and she was sweet 15 on Friday. Alicia is my goddaughter and is the daughter of Eladio’s youngest brother, Isidro and his beautiful wife, Yoli.

Midweek and after work I had a little experience of how the rich live as I went to have a massage at the Caroli Health Club near where I work in La Moraleja. I have to point out that I only went as I had been given a free voucher by Nokia at their New Year press party. And how was the massage you may ask? Great, relaxing, sheer luxury which lasted a whole hour. They tried to get me interested in all sorts of treatments afterwards but I said I would ring later but of course I never will. So I walked out and will never go again. It’s the sort of place I’m sure Victoria Beckham frequented when she lived here. Lovely, lovely.
http://www.carolihealthclub.com/

On Friday night Eladio and I went to see the latest Paul Verhoevn film called Black Book which is described as a tough yet strangely sexualised Second World War epic set in the Netherlands and made by that master of leering eroticism Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Showgirls). The leading actress is Carice van Houten, a native of Amsterdam who plays a Jewish hideaway during the second world war who ends up working for the Dutch resistance. Highly highly recommendable. Afterwards we went to dinner but this week we changed and went to La Vaca Argentina instead of La Alpargatería.

And in León yesterday Eladio’s sister Adela was operated for goitre (I think it’s called that) and had 2 big tumours removed – so a pretty long and nasty operation which took at least 3 hours. On the bright side of things the tumours are not expected to be malignant thank God. We wish her a quick and painless recovery.

On Saturday afternoon I accompanied Eladio to Madrid to a demonstration against ETA or negotiating with ETA. I am never a one for demonstrations but Eladio wanted to go so much and I didn’t want to let him go on his own. So we went and unfortunately it was very politicised against the present government. The experience was pretty interesting but the worst thing that happened is that we got trapped in one street and could not move forwards or backwards until it was over – so there I was in the cold trapped by hundreds of human bodies getting crosser and crosser until it was finally over and we could move away. Quite a few people couldn’t take it and we witnessed at least 4 people fainting and the ambulance personnel having to make their way through the dense crowd to get to them. Afterwards we walked all the way to Eladio’s brother’s flat for dinner – it took us well over an hour as it was impossible to get a taxi. My feet were killing after the experience which I know now will never be repeated again.

And next week at this time I will be reporting on my 50th birthday party which is taking place on Saturday. Andy and Amanda are coming for that and I cannot wait to see them.

Till then my friends

All the best
Masha