Outing to the centre of Madrid with Elliot and Juliet, our quiet New Year's Eve, lunch with Julio at El Filandón, Trump attacks Venezuela and captures President Maduro and other stories of the week.

 Sunday 4th January, 2026

On the tube with Juliet and Elliot this week

Good morning everyone and thank you for reading my first post of the year. 

 I hope the New Year has started well for you. It has for me in many ways, not so for those who lost their lives in a bar in Switzerland on NYE when it set on fire, nor so for Nicolás Maduro, now ex President of Venezuela and awaiting a trial in the US. Wow! That is huge but let me come to it later

Our Christmas continued quietly and last Sunday was not much different. It was  the day Brigitte Bardot died, the famous French actress and pro animal activist. She would not see in the New Year and neither would many others who lost their lives this year. Names that come to mind are Robert Redford, Claudia Cardinale, Giorgio Armani, Pope Francis, Diane Keaton, Marianne Faithful, Jane Goodall, Frank Ghery, Boris Spassky, Gene Hackman, Richard Chamberlain, Jean Marie Le Pen, the Duchess of Kent, Aga Khan, Frederick Forsyth, Joanne Trollope, Tom Stoppard, Jilly Cooper and Mario Vargas Llosa. Neither did our friend Benito who died on 23rd December and my heart goes out to his widow Loli. 

I cooked a lot of veg that day as after so many carbs, my body was crying out for healthy food. It's terrible how badly we eat at  Christmas. In a way I look forward to back to normal on 7th January when Christmas is officially over in Spain. Suzy had lunch with George who gave her a bottle of wine for me - thank you George. 

While I was watching the BBC Call the Midwife Christmas Special, Zelensky was in Mar A Lago with Trump for a peace meeting. It may sound good on paper but Putin won't back it so we are back to square one. 

On the bright side, that day we got a wedding invitation from our goddaughter, Alicia, who is getting married at the end of August. That will be another lovely family wedding to look forward to.

My cough continues, mostly thanks to my smoking and that night was one of the worst. I  was up later on Monday morning. We had lots to do that day. The Volvo was towed to the garage to get a new battery, fuel came for the central heating and only then could we venture out. We went to do the Kings' day present shopping and now I have everything ready for Kings' Day on 6th January. It's a big thing in Spain although they also have Father Christmas. 

Tuesday was the highlight of my week when I went into Madrid with Oli, Miguel and the kids. We left the car at the metro station. Taking the train into the centre was very exciting for Juliet and Elliot. I have chosen a photo of me with them on the train as this weeks' feature photo. I love it.

We got off at Plaza de España and joined the crowds walking up Gran Via to the Puerta del Sol. The place was very crowded. The kids don't usually venture much further than Boadilla where they live so Tuesday was exciting for them and us. And here are the four of them in the Puerta del Sol where the next day people would be ringing in the New Year to the chimes of the clock in that most famous square.

Oli and family in Puerta del Sol this week

From there we took the kids to the Plaza Mayor to the Christmas market to buy them joke items from the stalls there. They were in their element, especially when Miguel bought them bangers from the street sellers, who looked as though they were mostly from the Indian Subcontinent. 

Oli and family in the Plaza Mayor 

Miguel did the typical thing people do in the Plaza Mayor and that is buy a "bocadillo de calamares" - a sandwich filled with squid. Sounds awful but it's tasty. It was then that I bumped into Carmen, or "Carmencita", a lovely girl, now aged 50, who used to be my intern at Nokia. How lovely to see her again. We spoke for ages and Oli took a photo of the two of us. 

With "Carmencita" who I bumped into this week in Madrid

Carmen left Nokia to set up a music school with her partner Mupi, called Marand. They had huge success and it is now an academy that feeds Madrid's "Broadway" with young singers. Very sadly, Mupi passed away last year which must have been a huge set back for my friend. But she is soldiering on. It was lovely to see her.

We came home for lunch and all ate spag bol which I had prepared before we left. 

Wednesday 31st was the last day of the year. I did lots of food shopping as we were hosting the New Year's Eve dinner at home. My contribution was perushki and Chicken Waldorf Salad. Oli came with bags of food to make at home. And thank goodness we had Tana to help. She made two lovely dishes; little red peppers stuffed with prawns and mushrooms and phyllo pastry rolls stuffed with some pork creation. It was lovely to cook together and the table looked divine when we sat down. Only missing was Suzy who rang in the New Year with her friend Copi at a small dinner party nearby. 

New Year's Eve dinner this week

As usual, Oli borrowed one of my dresses to wear that most important of nights and she looked lovely. Here is a photo of her with her beautiful children just before we sat down to eat.

Olivia and her gorgeous children Elliot and Juliet on NYE

We are not great fans of celebrating New Year's Eve and I think if Oli and family hadn't been coming, we would probably have gone to bed early. In fact, for the first time ever, we did not stay up until 12 to watch the New Year come in and thus we didn't eat the grapes. Oli and Miguel took them home to eat at 12 midnight. 

Thursday was the 1st of January and the first day of the year. It was to be just the four of us for lunch that day and I made roast lamb with all the trimmings which even Suzy ate with gusto. But first for our walk in the cold. I can't wait for better weather and longer days. Once home I got my lovely iPad out to watch the Vienna  New Year Concert while creating our wonderful lunch. I was soon joined by my two daughters and we watched it together. And this was our lunch which we were still eating yesterday, hahaha.

New Year's Day lunch, roast lamb and all the trimmings including Yorkshire pudding and mint sauce.

As we had no one to take a photo, we took a selfie. 

Our New Year's Day lunch with the girls

Dessert was apple crumble made by me which we are also still eating. Oh dear, this has got to stop.

Oli and Suzy later went to be with Copi and her mother while we had our proverbial siesta. I was going to watch more of Line of Duty when I spied The Sound of Music on the BBC iPlayer. It's such a Christmas thing to watch.

Friday came, 2nd January, the day of our second Christmas lunch engagement with Julio. But first for a walk and this time I naughtily took Eladio to have some churros except that only I had them  - well, a "porra" with coffee actually. 

We left for the lunch just before Oli came with her family as they were going to have theirs with Suzy and eat all the leftovers from NYE. We drove to El Filandón, a restaurant we always love going to. Julio was there waiting for us and we had lots to talk about while eating the delicious food this popular and upmarket restaurant has to offer. Afterwards we exchanged Christmas gifts. I bought a three piece outfit for Julio from Zara and he got Eladio a wonderful bottle of wine and a new perfume for me by Guerlain. It's Aqua Allegoria Forte Florabloom. I usually use their Mandarin Basilic but wanted to try their more flowery version. I love it.

As we left, we got a passerby to take a photo of the three of us outside El Filandón which is so beautifully decorated at Christmas.

Lunch with Julio this week at El Filandón. Superb

We came home to find Oli and the kids here and all their usual mess, hahaha. We had hoped for a siesta but Elliot and Juliet weren't having it. It was lovely having fun in our bedroom with them. Eventually Oli gathered them up and took them home and we resumed our siesta. Would you believe I slept until 7 pm? Wow, I needed it.

On Saturday we woke up to the news that Trump, as he had threatened, had attacked Caracas. He had also captured or kidnapped Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Weeks before Trump had urged Maduro to resign which he didn't but I didn't think he would have the nerve to attack a foreign country and kidnap its president, even if he is a despot and fixed the elections to continue in power. Trump wanted his guts for garters. In a huge military build up, not seen since the Cold War, the US President threatened him, accusing him of narco-terrorism and of filling the US with lethal drugs and of course immigrants. Since he took power, 8 million Venezuelans fled the country - the population is 28 million. Over a million of them are in the US and half a million in Spain. I don't like Maduro but I don't like the way Trump did this with no international legal backing. We had our eye on the news all day and it was only in the afternoon when we learned that Maduro and his wife were on a US military ship on their way  to New York. Trump published the first photo of the ex President with his eyes covered and in handcuffs. What a picture.

First image released of Maduro in captivity

In a press conference held from Mar A Lago later in the day, Trump confirmed the couple would be tried in New York  for Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, cocaine importation, among other crimes. He will probably live the rest of his life in an American prison. Not nice. We watched the press conference and my conclusion is that Trump wants his hands on Venezuelan oil or rather that this was hi main objective. He also wants to make sure the whole of the American is under his control. The US will be governing for the moment until a transition can take place. Does that mean the Nobel Peace prize winner María Corina Machado will take his place? You would think so but when answering one of the journalists, Trump said she didn't have the support of the people and that she had been put there by Maduro.  If it's not her, who will it be and what does all this mean for Venezuela and its people? Time will tell but I am still reeling from this news of another American invasion. How Trump gets away with everything he does, astonishes me. He may also have other objectives  in mind in the region. So look out Colombia, Cuba or Nicaragua or even Greenland. Trump went against international law invading another country. He calls himself a peacemaker but he isn't. Worryingly, I wonder if this venture could open the door to China invading Taiwan. The whole geopolitical scene has now changed and the future is very uncertain.

Our life continued normally yesterday. We didn't go on our walk though because of the rain and instead went to have coffee out. While out we also cashed in our El Gordo lottery winnings - a paltry 120 euros which Eladio spent on  6 tickets for the Kings' Day lottery.  I doubt we will win anything but there is always hope.

I agreed with Oli to have our Kings' Day lunch a day earlier, so they will be coming tomorrow 5th January. Thus I bought the ingredients for a trifle which Suzy has been at me to make this Christmas. I shall do that for her. 

Today is Sunday and promises to be quiet and we shall be following the news from Venezuela as most of the world will be too.

Cheers then until next Sunday when Christmas will be over and the new year just begun.

Masha