My birthday, Mallorca, meeting Mr. Cervera, a late cake and other things

The girls having coffee at Mallorca
Hi again my friends

This week has been very busy again; I seem to be working like a slave recently. But you know me, I generally enjoy my job and always appreciate a challenge. I have also been preparing for the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week which, of course, has added some of the pressure. Plus I had a PR crisis as some newspaper in Sweden decided to fabricate the news that my company was up for sale in Spain. The news spread like wild fire both in Sweden and in Spain and I had a heavy time trying to put the media straight with the added difficulty that TeliaSonera our majority shareholder was publishing its Q4 results the next day and we were in the middle of what’s called in PR a “silent period”.

I did manage some quality time with my family though, as you can appreciate from the picture of my stunning girls at a lunch this week at La Leyenda together. It’s a great moment to be a Mother now that they are in their early 20’s and still live at home. I’m dreading the moment they will leave but it has to come one day soon. Meanwhile family life couldn’t be better.

Friday was my birthday. Last year I celebrated my 50th, so this year wasn’t going to be anything out of the ordinary. However, birthdays in our house are very special and there have to be, at least, a present, a card, a meal together and, of course, a cake with candles.

I worked for a couple of hours on Friday then went into Madrid with the girls on some errands, namely giving in Susi’s project on “fluidization” at her University, La Complutense, visiting a shop called Vicente Rico to buy some hawaian outfit for a party at Copi’s tomorrow and finally getting some birthday food from our favourite delicatessen shop, Mallorca. You can see just how good it is from the photos here.

A close up of the sweet display at Mallorca

A view of the inside of Mallorca
As I am quite proud of Susi studying at La Complutense I wanted to take a picture of her outside the Chemistry Faculty where she had to give in her project. But she wouldn’t let me and obviously felt embarrassed that someone who knew her might see her. So, I ended up taking one of Oli in the car outside the Faculty!!

Oli in the car outside the Chemistry Faculty waiting for Susana
At Mallorca we bumped into an old boss of mine from my first job at Defex – how can I confess here that my first job was with a company that exported arms? – Alvaro Cervera was and is a charming red haired gentleman with a constant twinkle in his eye whose origins were in the Spanish Navy. He is still involved in the same industry and is probably still selling ships and airplanes to Saudi Arabia. Seeing him again was a bit of a visit to the past, at least, in my mind.

So lunch at home was all sorted out with the Mallorca food but the funny thing was that when it was time for one of the essential ingredients of the day, my birthday cake, Eladio suddenly realised he hadn’t gone to pick it up and, of course, the pastry shop was closed. There was no option but to have it one day late!

Yesterday afternoon took Eladio and I to an industrial estate in Valdemoro on the outer limits of the province of Madrid and pretty far from here. We went looking for a bargain priced giant wooden table and chairs we had seen on internet for the kitchen terrace. The place was full of stuff I suspected may well have come off a lorry to judge by the prices. We also picked up a great square patterned colourful shirt for Eladio costing 3 euros as well as a pair of designer jeans for 15 euros only.

My birthday ended with our usual walk and then dinner at La Vaca Argentina again.

Dinner together on my birthday
So, today, Saturday 9th, was when we had the cake with the candles, except that Eladio actually managed to lose the ones he had bought with the cake and we had to resort to a short used one. It didn’t matter because the cake, a Sacher torte, was delicious.

Eladio in the 3 euro shirt bringing in my "late" birthday cake with Susana
I would like to thank all my friends and relatives for the lovely text messages, e-mails, messages on Facebook and, of course, phone calls: Dolores, Juan, José Antonio, Miguel, Fátima, Ludy García, Ana Valdivieso, Blanca, Gustavo, Cristina, Ludy Blanco, Paloma, Cristina, Marta Acebo, Alicia my goddaughter, Yoli, Sumit, Anne and Keka. I really hope I haven’t forgot anyone. Someone special did forget me though and that was Julio Navío. We have spoken about the incident on the phone today and he knows he will have to do quite a lot to make up for it!!! Ha, ha, ha.

Ah, and I would also like to say Happy Birthday from here to Juan my nephew and Copi whose birthdays were also yesterday. Hope you had a great day!

Tomorrow Oli, Susi and I will be hitting off to have a great time in Barcelona together. More about that when we come back.

Cheers till then
Masha