Casa del Cuetu, Asturias, Sunday, 16th May, 2021
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| Me on the beach on the one sunny day during our stay here. Playa de Póo (sorry for the name, one of my favourites) |
Good morning all.
Well, today I am not writing from Madrid for once. That's because the State of Alarm decreed at the end of October officially ended last Sunday 9th May. We were not allowed to do many things during this period, the worst of which for me was the prohibition of travelling outside the area of residence. So, we like, many people, took off to another province this week and I am today writing from our new house in Asturias which we hadn't been to for 6 months. Spaniards partied when lockdown ended in a way they shouldn't. Of course it wasn't all Spaniards but there were celebrations in many cities with gatherings of too many people. It looked as though they were celebrating the end of the Pandemic but it hasn't ended. We may be allowed to move more freely but we still have to be careful. The average number of cases per 100.000 is around 140 but in Madrid where people gathered in the centre of the country (Puerta del Sol), the figure is 245. In Spain the percentage of those vaccinated is about 31%, not bad but not enough to be able to party and not be infected. We are still seeing far too many daily cases reported as well as deaths, so I wish people wouldn't party after lockdown.
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| Revelers in Madrid last Sunday celebrating the end of the state of alarm |
We, of course, didn't go anywhere near the centre of Madrid. We haven't been for months and months and would never want to join large crowds. Thus last Sunday was quiet, even if the state of alarm had ended. Even if we were at home as we usually are, I did, though feel the lifting of the burden of lockdown and somehow felt freer, as if my rights had been restored. Well, some of them have. Curfews though are still in place in many areas as is the limit of meeting people (up to 6) in most places. As the vaccination programme ramps up, I am hoping we will be in a better place vs a vs Covid. According to our Prime Minister in 100 days from now Spain will be reach "herd immunity". Let's hope that is true.
Globally though the numbers are still rising with India being the main worry at the moment. Today as I write the number of deaths and infections has risen from 3.297.081 and 158.336.434 to 3.338.966 and 163.191.707 respectively.
So, last Sunday was quiet. The warm weather went and it rained although we managed a rain free walk in the morning. Rain was forecast for most of the week in most parts of Spain, including Asturias on the north coast of Spain which is notorious for wet weather. That of course is why this area is called "The Green Coast". Even so, we decided, precisely on that walk, that we would travel to Asturias on Tuesday. Apart from enjoying the new house and being away we had some important tasks to get the house ready to receive guests in the summer. So far I have 8 reservations for July and August and hope to get more.
For me the biggest news item that day came from the British Royal family. The Times and Channel 4 had done an investigative piece of journalism on Prince Michael of Kent, the Queen's cousin. He has links to Russia as his grandfather (and the Queen's grandfather) George V was the late Tsar Nicholas' first cousin. Russians will tell you that Prince Michael looks just like the Tsar. They both also bare a great resemblance to George V.
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| Tsar Nicholas II and Prince Michael of Kent (now 78) |
A native speaker of Russian, he is revered in Russia and many people would like to see him as the person to restore the monarchy. That won't happen of course. So what was the investigation about? Well, his links, business links, to the Kremlin, aka Putin. In the set up zoom call with South Korean businessmen who were actually journalists, he used his royal status "as the Queen's unofficial ambassador" for personal profit by offering access to Putin and the Kremlin for a fee of around 50.000 pounds! Maybe you think this is legitimate or not illegal. It may not be illegal but it is not moral, especially from someone from the Royal family as sanctions have been imposed on Putin's Russia for many aggressive acts such as the murder of the defector Alexander Litvinenko or its role in the assassination on the opposition leader Navalny. The sanctions are supposed to cut off investment into Russia to put pressure on Putin. And here we have Prince Michael of Kent promoting investment. He should be ashamed of himself. This is one more nail in the monarchy's coffin and I'm sure the Queen is most upset.
Monday came and we had lots to do to get ready for our trip to Asturias. That morning saw us at the post office to pick up some damned hoover bags ordered on Amazon. I am always annoyed when Amazon parcels are delivered by "Correos" (Spain's Postal service). Correos, at least where we live, does not deliver parcels. Instead they live you a slip and you have to go to the post office, about 7km away, on a tiny one way street with nowhere to park, to pick up the parcel. We also went to a Yoigo shop (mobile operator and my old work place) to get a sim card for a 4G wifi router to replace the Telefónica one we have at our house here. We did that because we have been paying 38 euros a month to the former and with Yoigo it's just 9 euros a month. While at the shop we were offered all sorts of services we didn't want, none related to telecommunications. Mobile operators these days are looking for new ways to make money (the same as our bank wanting to sell us a TV) and are doing so with doctor apps, electricity and alarm services and, I suppose, anything they can come up with. We did listen to the conditions of the electricity service and realised it would be the same as we were paying with our own supplier so left it at that.
After a coffee and a snack at Gran Plaza 2, a huge "mall" in Majadahonda, we made our way home. Oli and Miguel were coming for lunch and I had left Lucy making the preparations. I also did some extra cooking to leave food at home and take with us. Among other things, I made my flagship potato salad dish. It's a recipe I inherited from my mother who inherited it from her Russian father who got it from a Swiss recipe book. As I pointed out on FB, in Spain potato salad is called Russian salad for some unknown reason as it is not called that in Russian. I read up the origin of the dish and it seems to come from Germany. In Spain too a plain omelette is called a French omelette to distinguish it from a Spanish omelette made with potatoes and onion. I wonder why these dishes are attributed to Russia and France. But back to potato salad. In Spain they use tuna fish rather than prawns and always add olives which I don't like. For my recipe, everything has to be chopped and/or boiled and the ingredients are: potatoes, carrots, peas, hard boiled eggs, spring onion, prawns and home made mayonnaise. I am quite good at making mayonnaise but for some reason that day my first two attempts at it curled. I was desperate but then remembered I could make it with my Kenwood which was a success. This is the end result.
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| My potato salad |
I may have told you before that this is a dish my mother would make for special occasions. I do too like at Christmas but I also make it in between although not often as there is lots of peeling and chopping etc and it takes quite a while.
I saved some for Oli and Miguel as my daughter loves my potato salad. It was a pleasure to have their company at lunch and funny to have them without Elliot. He was still at the nursery and they had been to the local gym for an hour's swimming. We won't see them until our return to Madrid. The rest of the day was quiet and panned out as normal.
Tuesday came, the day of our departure. We left by 11.30 after saying goodbye to my father and Lucy. I prayed he would be fine while we were away. We didn't rush and stopped a few times, for petrol and a coffee and then we tried to find somewhere to have lunch. There are hardly any places on the motorway from Valladolid to Santander so we would leave it to find a restaurant. We were in luck on Monday when we stumbled upon the very pretty village of Alar del Rey in the province of Palencia, a very unknown area for me. There we found a splendid restaurant called "Restaurante La Cueva", a family owned business where I learned later the food is based on recipes from the great grandmother of the owners.
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| The restaurant we found in Alar del Rey |
We had a menu of the day at 15 euros each with lots to choose from and all home made. Later we took Pippa out of the car to stretch her legs and then we saw a beautiful bridge over the River Pisuerga.
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| The bridge over the River Pisuerga in Alar del Rey |
The river and river banks were a beautiful sight and we couldn't resist a short walk to discover it further. It looked like a great place to come back to when traveling here; especially a place to have a picnic.
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| Walking after lunch by the river in Alar del Rey |
We could have walked all the way to the Picos de Europa via a scenic pathway but that would probably be more than a day's walk. The whole place was very picturesque and a great discovery.
Shortly before our arrival we stopped to get wood for the wood burner in the kitchen which we had actually never used. Eladio has though as wood burners in Montrondo, his village, were the source for heating and cooking. They are not a luxury item in this part of the world.
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| Buying wood on the way |
We arrived in "our village" at about 5.30 to warm weather and brilliant sunshine, despite the rainy forecast. It was wonderful to be back again after 6 months of the State of Alarm. Our neighbour had left a welcome pack: beautiful gladioli and her own lemons (yes they grow here) and eggs. What luxury. She had also watered the plants in our absence and had switched on the central heating for us. What more could we want? Loli is a lovely neighbour and she looks after the house well.
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| Welcome gifts from our neighbour Loli |
We took a while to unpack and then I took a while to get my new 4G router with the Yoigo sim card inside to work. It didn't. That had me on the phone to my old employer with no success. Thus we had to use the previous 4G router from Movistar. That worked. Eladio, meanwhile, switched off the central heating as the house was far too warm. Instead he lit the wood burner in the kitchen with the wood he had just bought. It was so cozy and I wondered why we hadn't used it before.
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| The old fashioned wood burner in action on our first night here |
Time flew and soon it was dinner time. We weren't hungry but in any case I made Eladio fried eggs with the ones Loli gave me from her hens. The yolks looked spectacular. I had some of the remains of the potato salad.
By then it was too late for the 9 pm news, so eager to see if the Amazon fire stick I had brought would work with the TV here, we set it up and it did. Voilá we had Netflix, Prime Video and other TV streaming apps. We started watching a British series called Mrs. Wilson but were both soon yawning. I think I was asleep by 1 am and woke up bright as a button on Wednesday at 7.30. That for me was a good night's sleep. Unfortunately we woke up to no hot water. The gas heater had broken down. We rang the nearest certified gas company quite far from here in Cangas but he didn't come until Thursday morning. That meant washing with cold water; no joke but doable (*hit).When he eventually came, he did a quick fix but told us we needed a new one as this one may last a month, a week or a year. He didn't know. For the time being we are keeping the old one.
I spent a good part of the morning trying to get the new router to work with no success. I was told to put the sim card from the router into my mobile and set it up for mobile data (which it already had). That didn't work but what I didn't realise is that later I had left the router sim card in my phone which would bring me problems.
Before leaving to do the shopping I wondered up and down our street admiring all the green - well it's always green here because of the rain hahaha. Here is our street.
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| Shopping in Posada de Llanes |
We were home late so I made an easy but delicious lunch of steak and chips. Yummy. It was a lazy afternoon for me as it was raining outside. I actually slept for 2 hours on the sofa. Eladio was more productive and was up in the attic spraying petrol of all things to get rid of some woodworm we had found.
Dinner was a fine affair. I made "almejas a la marinera" , a Spanish recipe for clams. Unfortunately I hadn't read the paprika label and only learned it was the spicy and hot type when I tried the clam sauce. Big mistake. I have since thrown it away. Our kitchen table was quite merry though as we were joined by "Isidrín", a mechanical cider pourer.
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| Our festive table with "Isidrín" and my "almejas a la marinera" |
I had a quite a good night's sleep but Thursday morning would be a nightmare. We had spoken to Suzy the night before and she was desperate to come home and get out of Nicaragua. Thus that morning I set about searching for a ticket for her on internet. The cheapest one way tickets, at around 700 euros, were on eDreams, a travel platform I have used countless times. I found the found the flights, chose the date - 21st May - but had difficulties when it came to my bank asking me to confirm payment. Thus I tried over and over again. I had to ring my bank's customer care line and in the end I realised this was happening because I wasn't getting the sms to confirm payment and that was because - damn it - I had the 4G router sim card in my phone and not mine. I immediately changed the sim and then was able to confirm the purchase. Great I thought. It took a while but I had done it. My euphoria soon turned into a nightmare when I received three emails from eDreams with confirmation for three tickets - all issued to Suzy on the same date and flight. How the hell could that have happened when I only authorised one payment on my bank app?
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| eDreams charged me for and issued 3 tickets instead of 1. What a nightmare |
And, how on earth didn't eDreams realise they were issuing 3 duplicate tickets for one person but with different booking numbers? I immediately rang them only to hear, that yes I could cancel two of the tickets but that reimbursement would take from 90 to 180 days - yes 6 months! I was furious and set about making noise on social media. I also found the contact of the Communications Director, the CEO and Chief of Operations and wrote to them all. I did get a standard reply from customer service to say they were working on my case but it may take up to 11 days. Oh my God what had I done? This upset me for the whole day. Then Suzy told me the flight was far too soon and could I change it? Well, imagine my reaction. eDreams turned out to be not a dream but a nightmare.
By the time I had finished it was nearly midday. I had to make lunch and that day I cooked a local dish; "fabada", a sort of bean soup. It was delicious. I felt as if that was the only thing I had done right that day.
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| My bean stew (fabada) cooked on the wood burner |
By the end of the morning we had run out of wood. We had bought 3 sacks for 20 euros and it hadn't lasted 3 days. So we had to resort to the electrical central heating instead which is nowhere near as cozy. .
My afternoon was cheered up by my weekly call with Kathy and Phil. Thank God for them. They are dying to come and see us here and we are dying to see them. They have to come in June, if that's possible when, hopefully, it will be sunny. I was thinking this week about our plans to live in Asturias when I retire on my next birthday in February. But I am thinking twice now as it's no fun living somewhere where it rains a lot and that's what it does in Asturias.
We had a makeshift dinner of kinds - not my best and then sank on the sofa in front of the TV to carry on watching a British TV series, Mrs. Wilson, based on a true story. I later watched more of Grey's Anatomy. Would you believe I am now on season 11.
Meanwhile in the world all eyes were on Israel and Palestine as violence spread and escalated between Arabs and Jews. It's the same old story isn't it? It looks like it may lead to a full blown war. We don't need wars do we?
The other war of course is Covid. The numbers are getting better in Spain and in the UK, where so many have been vaccinated, the numbers are great. However, there is a big worry in my birth country about the spread of a new variant from India, a variant that is highly transmissible. There will always be new variants and probably lots of tweaks to the vaccines. So, yes, my friends, no doubt, we shall all have to learn to live with Covid. Damn it again.
I was awake at 7 am on Friday and for once it wasn't raining. The sun was shining, our only day of sunshine here apart from the day arrived. We were determined to make the most of it.
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| Me outside the house on our first proper sunny day |
We decided to visit one of our favourite beaches. It's called "Playa de Póo" which sounds strange in English. This beach which we had to ourselves is surrounded by the rocky coastline and also the mountains. It's breathtaking. As the tide was out we were able to walk nearly to the end at the foothills of the mountains. Eladio took a photo of me and I have chosen it as this week's feature photo as it's such a happy photo.
The hotel and restaurant overlooking the beach were closed still which was unfortunate as a coffee or lunch there would have been marvelous. Instead we did something equally delicious and walked up the path to the top where you can see the most wonderful coast line. Here we took more photos. One I particularly like is of me with little Pippa. As you know, our pampered chocolate miniature dachshund goes wherever we go.
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| On the rocks overlooking the Póo beach on Friday with Pippa |
We took lots of photos of the rocky coastline I never tire of. I think it must be similar to Scotland, Brittany, Cornwall or even Yorkshire. I do so love the sea. Here is one of my dear husband who was clearly enjoying our day.
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| Eladio "on the rocks" so to say |
From the Playa de Póo, we drove to nearby Llanes, the capital town of this area of Asturias called "El Concejo de Llanes". We love Llanes. On our way along the road that runs parallel to the beautiful coastal walk way of San Pedro we admired the magnificent houses. It is an area we have had our eye on, as it's the perfect place to live in our minds. I made my husband stop the car when I saw an amazing house with a For Sale sign outside.
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| The house we visited in Llanes on Friday |
On the spur of the moment we decided to ring the bell and see if someone was there to show it to us. There were two people there, a brother and sister who were looking after the house. We loved a lot about it. It is huge, far too large for us. It has a fabulous plot of land right by the walkway and we just adored the style, a sort of French Basque style. So we spent the best part of an hour examining it. We loved it but it needed so much restoration it would be a non viable project for us at this stage in our life. The price was too high although I'm sure we could get it down but the house is just too big for us to retire in and far too much work. But we can always dream can't we?
After that unexpected stop, we drove to the car park by the Sablón beach - another lovely beach - and wandered into the pretty town of Llanes. Here we had a coffee in the main square where numerous films have been shot. We love sitting there. I also love a shop there called Aramburu which sells the most exquisite local fare. I bought some of their delicious "cecina" (smoked beef, similar to jamón ibérico), some chorizos and then a local pate called "pastel de cabracho". We then walked around the town and ventured to the other side where the second beach belonging to Llanes is; Playa de Toro. It's another beautiful small beach nestled in between the mountains and the rocky coastline. While admiring the views I was happy to see a response from eDreams on Twitter. Someone called Fred wrote to say they had cancelled the 2 extra tickets and would be reimbursing me within 10 days - not 90 or 180. That was such good news. I hope it's true as when I rang customer service again I was told it would be anything up to 180 days. Cross your fingers please.
From the Playa de Toro area we walked back into the town to look for somewhere to eat a "menú del día". There were plenty of places on offer so we decided on one near the port. The food was not bad at all for a "menú del día". The only snag was I broke one of my new onlays - a semi crown. I shall have to go the dentist when I get back.
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| The yachting port in Llanes |
We had a lazy lunch and then drove home via Posada de Llanes where we stopped to stock up on a few more provisions. The rest of the day was spent lazily. Dinner though was splendid thanks to my purchases at "Aramburu" as you can see in the photo below.
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| Our cozy and delicious dinner on Friday |
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| With my beautiful brother George when we were young. Photo taken in Guadalest, Alicante, in the mid 70s. |
He was talented too especially at languages and music. He was gentle, had a wonderful smile and personality except for his black moods of which there were many - later in life he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, partly brought on by drugs. He loved travelling too, as we all did in my family. But he travelled more than any of us. I remember him hitchhiking to Afghanistan of all places and getting cholera there. I remember calls from Colombia in the middle of the night asking for money to be sent to some bank in Bogota or elsewhere in South America. But I also remember him playing the piano and writing songs to which I sang. I remember too when we were both at University how we would be so happy to be together again after term time. We would sit up in my bedroom until the small hours, talking and smoking. I only wish I had understood him better and had been closer to him when his troubles started. I wish I had helped him more. For that I feel forever guilty. We became close when he was dying, one of the worst periods of my life. Since then I carry him in my heart always. Oh George, how I miss you and love you.
I thought about him all day as I'm sure my father did.
Today is Sunday and it is still raining. The good news is that the sun will come tomorrow and stay all week. We shall thus enjoy going out and exploring the area or returning to places we know and love, like the San Pedro walkway in Llanes.
So that's it now for this week my friends. I hope you enjoyed the read. I wish you all the very best until next Sunday.
Cheers Masha
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