The Hollywood connection, a very social week, in love with Norah, Primo won a car and a course on DTV for the elderly.

Norah in her bed and surrounded by her toys, all bitten to pieces of course.
Hi again

I left off last Sunday when we were going out to dinner with Roberto and Mari Carmen. Funnily enough we went to a restaurant called “Hollywood” which is where I got the title for this week’s post. The day afterwards they were going on holiday to Turkey with Roberto’s brother and wife. Luckily for them, they were not flying via Amsterdam as this week a Turkish Airlines plane crashed at Schipol airport upon landing and 9 people were killed.
The Turkish Airlines crash
The “Hollywood connection” also refers to this year’s Oscar Academy Awards which took place last Sunday just as we were having dinner with Roberto and Mari Carmen at a restaurant of the same name.

I would have loved to have been in the real Hollywood to see Penelope Cruz take the first ever Oscar for a Spanish actress, albeit the “supporting actress” category and for a film and role I am not enamoured with, Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona.

She was great in her speech when she mentioned her humble origins, the town of Alcobendas, which coincidentally is where the Yoigo offices are. She was also great when she spoke in Spanish and offered to share her Oscar with those who were watching her and felt a part of it. She was quintessentially Latin and emotional and I love her for that.
Penelope and her Oscar for best supporting actress. Well done!
Equally great or emotional, and don't forget she's British, was Kate Winslet who could hardly believe she had won the best actress award for her role in The Reader. I loved her speech about rehearsing in the bathroom from the age of 8 with a bottle of shampoo and when she asked her Father to whistle in the audience so she knew where he was!
Kate Winslet giving her speech after being awarded this year's Oscar for best actress
The biggest winner of the night however was Slumdog Millionaire which got 8 Oscars including best film and best director. Funnily enough I had managed to see it the Friday before and agree it was a great film but am not sure it deserved so many awards.
The cast and crew from Slumdog Millionaire receiving the Oscar for the best motion picture.
And on Monday I returned to Hollywood, not in California I am afraid, but in Majadahonda. It was for a girly lunch with Ana, Jill, Fátima and Zenaida. Some of us were late, Zenaida and Jill because they went to the “wrong Hollywood”. Ana had to leave early and Jill was in a conference call for part of the lunch so all in all it was not really relaxed. It was not relaxed but it was happy as we were partly celebrating Ana’s new pregnancy. She is into her 6th month and is expecting a baby boy who will be called Tomy after his Father. Incidentally it was Tomy’s birthday this week, so double congratulations go to him from these pages.

I was out and about a lot this week and had lunch too with Pieter at the luxurious golf club in La Moraleja and also with three journalist friends, Miguel Angel, Chema and Aitor. I took them to Sua in Madrid which was not as good as last time. I also had coffee with Elena, my friend and ex colleague who is also my neighbour. And on my way to coffee with Elena I bumped into Edu and Graciela and was pleased to hear that they were also expecting. This must be the time of year I thought to my self.

I am not expecting as such but have my own baby and am totally in love. With whom you will ask? Well with Norah our beagle puppy which turned 3 months this week. She has added so much to our lives since she came, not lest having to clear and clean the kitchen every morning, afternoon and night. But she’s worth it.

We took her for her first walk on Monday and she took to it like a dog to a lead, excuse the pun and she loves her “walkies”. We are lucky in that she walks well and doesn’t pull at her lead or get too waylaid smelling nasty looking objects on the way.

What she likes best is to be on a lap or in our arms, as you can see from this typical breakfast scene I snapped when no one was aware this week.
The breakfast scene with Norah on Suzy's lap which is where she likes to be.
This weekend brought with it more film watching and dinners. On Friday Eladio and I went to see the Curious case of Benjamin Button. We were a bit put off by the trailer but the film turned out to be magnificent if a bit long. It’s based on a story by Scott Fitzgerald about a man who is born in his eighties and ages backwards. Brad Pitt does a great performance. The terrible thing is that when he is 80 he meets a girl, Lucy, who is probably 5 or 6. Eventually they fall in love but time is against them. It is she who nurses him to death when she is nearly 80 and he is a baby. I was quite amazed that the American film academy only gave this film minor awards.
A scene from The curious case of Benjamin Button
Afterwards it was so late that we could only go down the escalator from the cinema to our all time restaurant, La Alpargateria who were reserving table number 7 for us even though we were over an hour late.

The rest of the weekend was taken up with walks with Norah, family lunches and dinner at Mood on Saturday night. When we came back from Mood last night there was an email from Adela, Eladio’s oldest sister, to tell us Primo had won a car in a draw with his local paper, El Diario de León. As he says in the article he has been buying the newspaper for the last 20 years, so this is sweet compensation. He was given the car, a Citroën C1, yesterday in León. You can read about that here too. We look forward to celebrating his lucky win when we next go to León.
Primo and the new red Citroën car he won in a newspaper draw.
This weekend I have also been planning a trip to Yorkshire in the summer. We plan, my two men and I, to stay in Haworth, the home of the Brontë sisters and Robin Hood’s bay, that picturesque smugglers’ village, at the end of July. Hopefully we will meet up with Amanda and Andy and Jill and Simon and all walk down memory lane together. After all this is where we all spent our formative years and my Father being the boys’ teacher must have had something to do with their upbringing too.
Robin Hood's Bay, a picturesque fishing village famous for smuggling on the Yorkshire coast.
And that’s it for this week, except for one last thing. I saw this video posted by a friend on Facebook and wanted to share it with you as it’s so funny. It’s supposed to be a guide for elderly people in the United States on how to switch from analogue to DTV. So, as the Americans would say, Enjoy.

Cheers till next week,

Masha