Masha Lloyd's blog

This is a diary of my life today for friends and family, past and present. For those who know me and those who don't, hi, cheers, welcome. Born in the UK to an English Father and Russian emigré Mother I married a Spaniard and have lived in Spain since 1981. Mother and grandmother, I was a PR professional in the telecoms sector until recently retiring. I'm passionate about my family, my new job as a successful Airbnb host, Pippa our dog, travel, food, news, the outdoors, reading and this blog.

Sunday, December 06, 2009

Parties, getting into the Christmas spirit, the up and down diet, and Spain won the Davis Cup.

The 5 of us, Grandpa, Suzy, Oli, Eladio and I wish you a Happy Christmas.
Hi again

This time last week we were in La Rioja for the family weekend which was great. We are now, of course, drinking lots of the Márques de Riscal wine we brought back. It was a nice family trip and we even had snow on the way back as you can see in this picture Suzy took from the car somewhere between Logroño and Burgos.

We hit serious snow on our way back from La Rioja last week.
And now it’s the Constitution and Immaculate Conception bank holiday but this weekend we will not be going away. Before I continue, just a few words of congratulations to my Finnish friends as today is their Independence Day.

The week was short as we came back on Monday but as busy as most of December is always for me with all the Christmas events I have to organise for work and of course for home. On 1st December we also celebrated Yoigo’s 3rd anniversary with a staff party with cake and champagne to boost people’s morale and get them into the party mood. You can see some of the photos here.

The cake we had for Yoigo's 3rd birthday, it was wonderful.
This week too I went to a party not actually organised by me (!!!!!!!). Huawei (the very much up and coming Chinese telecommunications company and not “hu aa thei?” as someone from Nokia commented on my Facebook the other day) invited all of Yoigo to an evening out on Thursday at Lolita’s Lounge in Madrid. More and more I am realising that I prefer to stay at home in the evenings and don’t really enjoy places with lots of people. I far prefer small dinner parties with people I care about.

And next week will be the Yoigo employee party which I am, of course organising. It’ll take place at Ouimad and will be for about 180 people as it’s with partners. So on Friday I went with the girls from my events agency down to Madrid to the Christmas market in the Plaza Mayor to scout for fun stuff for the party. We also visited the newly restored Mercado de San Miguel which is the latest and most in place in Madrid to buy gourmet food and have tapas. It lives up to its reputation certainly and is a very recommendable place to visit. There I actually found an English Christmas pudding and of course bought one as well as some lovely goodies for my Father such as “rolos” (chocolates).

The Christmas market in the Plaza Mayor in Madrid.
At the Plaza Mayor I began to get into the spirit of Christmas and decided to buy a new crib (called “belén or nacimiento in Spain) as ours is years old and falling apart. When I brought it home we immediately put it in the lounge which is very early for us. Usually we don’t put up the tree and decorations until the middle of December. However the Christmas spirit was already in me and yesterday I got permission from the rest of the family to put up some of the decorations. I was not allowed, though, to put up the tree or the lights until later.

The small crib or "misterio" as it is known here which I bought on Friday at the Christmas market in the Plaza Mayor, now gracing our lounge.
Then yesterday Suzy and I went shopping and I ended up doing some of my own Christmas shopping (and paying for some of theirs, hahaha) and in the afternoon Eladio and I wrapped them up. After lunch Suzy, Oli and Juli sent me a Christmas e-card with elves which was just so much fun I immediately started playing with the tool. You can see the 5 of us here, including Grandpa, all dressed as elves and dancing our hearts out. This elf tool is so good. Try it out yourself here if you want. I also did a Christmas photo which is the one illustrating this post.

Happy that I have done some Christmas shopping. Here you can see the parcels all wrapped up in the lounge.
Most important of all, this week Suzy and I began a variation to our diet. I read about the up and down diet in the Daily Mail recently. Basically you eat well on one day and semi-starve on the other. The days you eat well are called the “up days” and the fasting days are called the “down days”. We started after La Rioja last Tuesday and it seems to work. But oh, how I love the up days. Today is an up day and we will be going out to dinner with Roberto and Mari Carmen. Whoopeee!!!

And an up day must have been had by the Spanish national tennis team when they beat the Czech Republic yesterday and went on to win their 4th Davis Cup. Congratulations Rafa Nadal, David Ferrer, Verdasco and Feliciano López. This has been a great year for sport for Spain. Hopefully Spain will perform as well in next year's World Cup in South Africa. We will see.