Oli’s graduation, the “abuela” came to stay and a visit from the family

Eladio, happy at home with his Mother.
Hi again

Here I am writing early Monday morning because I didn’t have a moment yesterday and I’ve got a busy day ahead, starting with going to the equivalent of the Inland Revenue office to finalise this year’s income tax return forms which have become something of a headache this year.

Friday was Oli’s graduation in one of her degrees – Audiovisual Communication. She is also doing Publicity and Public Relations as well as Journalism so will be graduating again next year in these two other subjects. So off we went in our best clothes to a very long ceremony at her university, the UEM which is just a couple of kilometres down the road. It was held outside and there were thousands of people – 4 per student at least, as one whole year was graduating. Oli looked beautiful but I’m afraid I have no pictures to prove it as I lost my camera during the ceremony. Miraculously I got it back but too late to take pictures of my daughter. Eladio and I were so hungry that at about midnight we left before the ceremony was over and went to have a quick Chinese meal in Boadilla which turned out not to be particularly tasty. In fact we won’t be going back for quite a while.

The graduation ceremony set up
This weekend, Eladio’s sister, Pili and family (Andrés, Paula and Mario) came to bring Eladio’s Mother to stay with us for a couple of weeks. She was here last Summer and again at Christmas and her visits are now quite regular. This was, of course, a great opportunity for a weekend family get together. We were 11 around the table on Saturday and 12 on Sunday. Saturday afternoon was spent lazily around the swimming pool.

The 3 girls round the pool

Eladio and his sister Pili
In the evening after the walk, the kids went out to dinner to Tony Romas as did we 2 couples to Ars Pasta in Pozuleo. It is fast becoming our favourite but this weekend the service was extremely slow and we ended up waiting more than an hour just to order! There was a fight at the end between Eladio and Andrés about who was going to pay. It was quite a struggle but Andrés won in the end. Thanks Andrés for a great dinner together.

The cousins, dressed to kill!
On Sunday after a roast lunch and just before Pili and family set off back to León, we discovered “bingo”. Susi’s boyfriend has a great bingo game with a proper machine which mixes the numbers and pops them out quite professionally. So there we were nearly the whole family playing at half a euro per game. José Luis was the overall winner.

A good weekend was had by all. And the pictures in this post well prove it.

Cheers until the next post
Masha.