End of the holidays, a visit to Salamanca, Usain Bolt the fastest man in the world, a new face for Spain, our anniversary and more.

Eladio and I in the lovely Plaza Mayor in Salamanca. The new pink fan came in handy to fight off the heat. Funnily enough Salamanca was the first place we visited soon after we met nearly 30 years ago and this was our first time back since then.
Hi again

This will be the last post of these holidays. I have been acutely aware all this month of August which is now coming to an end that it was coming to an end the whole time. I sometimes think I prefer the time running up to summer rather than the holidays themselves which seem to go past far too quickly. It’s often true you get more joy out of anticipation and preparation than the actual event or events themselves. Isn’t that so for example of Christmas??

We have been all over the place this summer and this last week at home has been a bit of a downturn. I, at least, have missed the frantic activity of all our travels and found the activity-less week a bit of a bore. On top of that we have had to put up with the extreme heat which this year for the first time in all my years in Spain has really bothered me. Every summer is hot but this year seems to be one of the hottest. We are sleeping with the air conditioning on every night (thank God for it too) and are actually abandoning our evening walks which are stifling in this heat. It is also true that this week marked my official return to work which didn’t help to cheer me up, although I usually enjoy my work. But holidays make you lazy I think.

This post was not meant to be a reflection on my feelings regarding time, but on our trip to Salamanca. So let me get on with that and explain why we went and what we did. Amanda and Andy and their kids, Jane and Cordelia, are doing a course in Spanish at the University there this August and we had agreed to go and visit them. We also had an open invitation to visit Javier and Ana at the house they had built in the village of Peñacaballera last year and which is just one hour’s drive from Salamanca. So we chose last weekend, one day after our return from Santa Pola, to hit the road again, this time just Eladio and I. We were to spend Friday night with Javier and Ana and their family in Peñacaballera and Saturday night at the Hotel Rector in the heart of Salamanca.
Ana and Javier, a happy couple.
It took just over 2.5h to drive to the small village of Peñacaballera near Béjar where Javier and Ana and their teenage kids, Ignacio, Laura, Cristina and María spend all their summers.
Ignacio and Laura, Javier and Ana's older kids who are now University students in New York.
Javier and Ana's three lovely girls, Laura, Cristina and María
It is thanks to Javier’s childhood friend, Jorge that they go there. Jorge, whose grandfather is from the village, not only has property there and is the owner of the only swimming pool in the area, but also keeps some of his horses in what could be described as 5 star accommodation. His wife, María and their three girls, Bea, Paula and María are all keen riders. Each of the horses had names of course, but the ones that I remember best are El niño, Príncipe (a pony) and an imposing dark horse they also called “el macarra”, the Spanish for hooligan, the one in the picture here with the equally good looking Jorge.
Jorge and one of his beautiful horses.
These two close-knit families whose houses form part of the same enclosure and share a formidable antique doorway, enjoy a tranquil time together and seem almost like the same family, their children having grown up practically together.The beautiful antique doorway to Javier and Jorge's houses in Peñacaballera

All of their children were extremely well behaved, almost too good to be true. Javier did later explain that, of course, they were on their best behaviour because of our visit which I hope was the reason. They certainly caused a good impression. The child I will remember most is Paula, who at 14 showed an extremely sharp and enquiring mind whilst discussing her impressions of the book we had all read, “The boy in the striped pyjamas” and which we found very unusual for a girl so young. She had a sort of charming cheeky personality also which I found very alluring and I had a lot of fun when I was asked to talk to her in English to check her knowledge of the language of Shakespeare.
Paula on her horse, I think it was actually, "El Niño".
In fact the language of Shakespeare seemed to be important to them all, not least Javier and Ana and their children who moved last year to New York. It was a big move for them all and the impact has been big from what we learned in our conversations.

And conversation was what took up most of our time whilst with them. Only Javier and I knew each other before, both of us being communications professionals in the telecoms sector in Spain, although I had met Ana, once on a trip to Helsinki. As Eladio pointed out, they all knew him because of my blog so only they were new to him. We spent the time getting to know each other. The children were terribly interested to know how Eladio and I had met, me being English and him being Spanish, so I tried to tell my story once again. Maybe one day I’ll write a book about it. When that story included the information that Eladio had been a priest at the time, the questions got more intense, and conversation about it took us into the early hours of Saturday morning over a wonderful impromptu dinner on the terrace.

Needless to say, the hospitality was superb, as was the accommodation and we would love to go back. Their house is very beautiful and built in a country style that befits the place and I would not have changed anything. We specially liked the big open spaced kitchen. As I hate to overstay my welcome, something instilled in me by Mother, we spent just one day and one night. The time went by so fast and we were sad to leave as we seem to have so much in common, especially our likes of books, travelling and cinema and possibly our outlook on life that hopefully we will meet again soon. Who knows whether that will be dinner in Madrid at the end of their holiday, a visit to New York some time to see them there or a repeat trip to Peñacaballera next summer?
Javier and Ana's house in Peñacaballera.
So after a very happy stay in Peñacaballera where we witnessed the village life (mostly pigs, including one big stud with the biggest pair of “vitals” I have ever seen (for want of a better euphemism) and even met some of the locals, like Sebastián and Santos, we hit the road again, this time to Salamanca to the centre of the province.
The stud pig we saw in Peñacaballera. Apparently his only mission is to service the sows of the whole area. He is a very lucky pig. Also it seems he will never be turned into chorizo.
The villagers, Santos and Sebastián with Javier.
We drove past Guijuelo, perhaps the most famous place in Spain for Spanish ham, and decided, on the spur of the moment, to stop and buy one. It was Saturday 15th August, the Assumption, so most places were closed. We did however come by a little shop where we bought a fine ham. The funniest thing was that the lady who sold it turned out to be called “Eladia”, a most unusual name in Spain, much more so than the masculine version. Hardly believing his ears, Eladio gave her a kiss on both cheeks. Here is a photo of Eladio paying Eladia for the ham, just for the records.
Eladio buying a ham from Eladia in Guijuelo, one of the highlights of our trip.
Soon we were in what turned out to be sweltering Salamanca and booked into the very quiet and highly air conditioned Hotel Rector, just across the way from the historic old town. Our room was a cool haven we were to be very grateful for during our long afternoon siesta and later nighttime. We booked there as Trip Advisor ranked it first. It’s a lovely place but I’m not sure it’s the best in town. It was also very empty and there were just 2 couples, including ourselves at breakfast.
The entrance to the Hotel Rector in Salamanca, an elegant and tranquil place.
Amanda and Andy came to pick us up and gave us a quick tour of the old town, the two cathedrals, the University where they had their classes, the old streets and other interesting buildings, such as the register of the records of the Spanish civil war, the House of Shells or the wonderful Art Nouveau museum we were unable to visit.
Amanda, Andy and Eladio next to the University in Salamanca.
Hungry as usual, it was late and hot and monuments always make one hungry, and we set our eyes on what looked like a good place to eat, Casa Paca. It turned out to be great but a bit lacking in air conditioning.
Andy and Eladio at Casa Paca.
We continued our sight seeing and visited the world famous Plaza Mayor but then, finding it too hot we all decided to spend the afternoon sleeping the siesta.

In the evening we were going out to dinner to Hacienda Zorita, a marvelous 15th century old convent turned into a 5 star wine hotel about 10km outside Salamanca, made famous by the Spanish chef, Sergi Arola. Thus the food and drink were to be guaranteed.

The place bowled us over and we took many photos. It was the chance to have photos taken in couples as usually when we travel together, Eladio and I can only take photos of one of us. Amanda snapped this one of the two of us when I was obviously not ready and laughing my head off. I can’t remember why I was laughing, well I always am when with Amanda and Andy, but the picture is just great.
Me laughing my head off with Eladio at Hacienda Zorita
Sunday was a day spent with the kids (Jake too) and after visiting their flat in Carbajosa, all 7 of us set of in our Volvo to explore the Salamanca countryside. It was the first time we were using the 7 seat facility of our new car and it was a good feeling. Eladio drove whilst Andy (or Candy as they apparently call him in the Spanish classes, hahaha) was the copilot and his sat nav from the UK worked better than our terrible Garmin (will be getting a Tomtom soon I’m sure). I sat in the next row with Amanda and Cordelia (known as Cornelia in the Spanish classes) in the middle and in the back row “naughty” Jake and Jane (known as Yane in the Spanish classes). On that drive they all got a lesson in Spanish swear words I’m sure they enjoyed. The main part of the lesson was trying to explain “ser bueno/a” and estar bueno/a” as the meanings here of “being good” can be very different. They were all told not to tell their teacher she was “buena” as they would be in trouble.

Our first stop was at the pretty medieval town of Candelario near Bejar, in fact also very near Peñacaballera. I realised later that we all had cameras except for Jake and sometimes ended up taking pictures of each other taking pictures. It was hot as usual and the walk up the cobbled stone streets made us hungry.
Walking up the main street of Candelario
So we set off again to our next destination which was lunch in the pretty town of Mógarraz. Andy had been recommended the Mirasierra restaurant there by Antonio, his swimming pool friend at their flat.
Restaurante Mirasierra in Mógarraz
It took us some time to get there, as the roads were windy, narrow and very steep but thanks to Andy’s sat nav we made it, if a little late. The restaurant was good but we were disappointed that the part with the views of the mountains was closed as that seemed to be the salient point of the whole place. If you ever go there try the grilled meat, it is superb.

After leaving the restaurant we bumped into Mogarraz’s mascot, their pet pig, San Antón with his collar and bell. We all immediately fell in love with it and spent the next 10 minutes taking photos. The best one I got is of San Antón with Cord. We later were upset to learn that San Antón, named after the fiestas and patron saint of Mógarraz, was to be raffled amongst the villagers and then of course sacrificed to become ham or chorizo. We were, after all, in possibly the best ham and chorizo land in Spain.
Cord and the pet pig San Antón in Mógarraz
Our next and final stop was to visit the famous village of La Alberca in the Sierra de Francia (range of mountains). La Alberca happened to be celebrating their own fiestas. Here we walked down the very touristy cobbled streets to the main square only to find it in preparations for a bull fight. Well, here was the real Spain for Andy, Amanda and family. Some of them found it unique and interesting and snapped away and others, like Cord, got quite upset. I looked for a while but don’t really like the cruelty either and so went exploring the shops. Here we bought a lovely panama hat for my Father and a closed wicker basket for fruit.
Eladio with the new hat for Grandpa in La Alberca with Cord and Amanda looking on.
It was too late to visit the famous Peña de Francia as we had to go home to Madrid that night. We shall have to leave that for another time. So we drove back to Salamanca to leave our lovely friends at their apartment in Carbajosa, said our goodbyes and got back into the car to return to Madrid.

At home waiting for us were Suzy and my Father, as well our lovely pets and a very warm house. It was good to be back of course, but the end of Salamanca meant the end of my holiday as on Monday last I officially started work again.

This week at home has been very quiet. On Monday we got the news that the problem with my Father’s hand is muscular, which is a great relief. I was dreading it being caused by a stroke. In fact he seems to have recovered some movement since and is nearly as active as he was before.

This week has also been the World championships in athletics. In Spain we had good news with Marta Domínguez who won the 3000m steeple chase race which made her the best Spanish woman athlete of all times.
Marta Domínguez with her talisman pink hair band winning the 3000 steeple chase race for Spain in Berlin last week, her first World Championship.
Spain didn’t get many medals but the small country of Jamaica did as that is where the fastest man in the world, at least for the moment, Usain Bolt is from. He beat his own record in the 100 and 200m and got a third gold medal in his other speciality, the 4 x 100m.
Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world
Usain Bolt was the fastest man there and was in all the news. But it was Caster Semenya from South Africa who broke my heart. She won the 800m but was later challenged for her sex and suspected of being a man. The poor woman looks like a man but has genitals. Who knows, she may have masculine genes but does that make her a man if she has female genitals?
Caster Semenya from South Africa. The judges doubt whether she is a woman, poor thing.
This week too was a first for Spain but this time not in sport but in medicine. The high profile Doctor Pedro Cavadas and his team of 30 transplanted a face, the 8th operation of its kind in the world. This time though the operation included the tongue and the jaw which have never been done before. Well done Dr. Miracle as you are known and good luck to the anonymous receiver whose life can only get better after this. The operation was not without criticism though, as details of the donor were filtered by the press.
The high profile Dr. Miracle as Dr. Pedro Cavadas is known, in a press conference after performing Spain's first face transplant. The operation which included the tongue and jaw for the first time ever brought fame to this amazing man who had just returned from operating for free in Africa, thus his kaftan like attire.
This week brought with it too Eladio’s sister, Adela’s 60th birthday. How can she possibly be 60? Women these days look so much younger. I gather it wasn’t a very happy day as Marta, her daughter was taken with one of her terrible headaches and the day was spent in hospital. Luckily they had celebrated the weekend before with a surprise trip to Santander.

It also brought with it our 26th wedding anniversary. On 21st August 1983, at the age of 26 I married Eladio. Friday was the day and we went out for dinner to celebrate. Oli joined us and we went to one of our favourite places, La Vaca Argentina. Last year, being our 25th, we had gone to Amsterdam on a surprise trip for Eladio. I can only say that our marriage gets better every year and that we have it as good as it gets to quote my friend Anne. May we live to celebrate our 50th and even more.

Oli was supposed to travel to Málaga this weekend but due to some mix up with the tickets she couldn’t travel. Thus we had the pleasure of her company this weekend. In fact we hadn’t all been together since the weekend in Santa Pola and it was lovely for me as a Mother for us all to be together.

This weekend marks the beginning of Ramadan and Muslims, some 2 million apparently live in Spain, will be fasting (food, drink, smoking and sex) during the day for the next 40 days. Swine flu is still with us and has even affected Ramadan. Some Muslim countries have prohibited people under the age of 12 and over the age of 65 of making the pilgrimage to Mecca in order to avoid spreading the disease. Fancy that!

As I am not a Muslim and don’t have to fast, although I should if I want to lose some weight, I will be going out tonight with Eladio to dinner with Roberto and MariCarmen to La Vinoteca again. We’ll probably be having some ham too, their speciality.

And that’s it for this week and for these summer holidays folks. Next week will be hard work in preparation for events I am organising in Santander. We will be travelling there too next Saturday for the annual conference. But more about that in my next post.

Cheers
Masha
PS here, by the way, you can see the full set of photos of our trip to Salamanca.

Swine flu, Spanish cuisine, a state visit from France, the Queen emails bloggers, visitors from abroad, a very big party and less social networking

No more kissing due to the swine flu outbreak this week in Mexico.
Hello again,

Today is Tuesday. I normally write on a Sunday but last week and especially the weekend, have been hectic as you will find out if you read on.

My headline starts off with swine flu which is the world hot topic of the moment. It seems it broke out in Mexico this weekend and panic waves have gone round the world as already 80 have died. The first case in Europe was here in Spain and that was big news yesterday. I’m not sure whether it’s a case of panic mongering as with bird flu. Only time will tell. Flu epidemics of different varieties seem to come to a peak every 20 odd years and I heard today on the radio that the famous “Spanish flu” which actually wasn’t Spanish at all, had killed 40 million people in 1918 and 1919.

Who probably won’t be cooking too much pork right now are the 4 Spanish chefs who have been included in the top 10 of the prestigious San Pellegrino 50 world’s best restaurants ranking for this year which was announced last week. Top spot went to Ferran Adriá for the third year running and his El Bulli restaurant. I just checked their website to include their link here and saw what I expected. It is fully booked for quite some time now, plus it only opens from June to December. I wonder if I will ever get to go? So well done for Spanish cuisine, in my view, the best in the world.
The amazing Ferran Adriá, the world's top chef.
Who will be enjoying Spanish cuisine this week will be the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy and his glamorous ex model and singer wife; a sort of modern day JFK and Jacqueline Kennedy who are here on a state visit. The French and Spanish, like the English and French or any neighbour countries have a love hate relationship and one of the countries always considers themselves superior and in this case it is France.

The glamorous French (or French and Italian as Carla Bruni is actually Italian) were received by the King and Queen of Spain.
France though has had to put up with Spain winning the Tour of France or the Roland Garros tennis championships for some time now and I imagine that beating them at cuisine with 4 Spaniards in the top ten versus only two of their countrymen must hurt somewhat.

Any way they are here and causing a lot of media impact. The emphasis so far has been on rather unimportant issues if you consider the crisis we are in. There was comment that Carla Bruni did not curtsy correctly to the Queen of Spain. However what really filled up the newspapers were images of Carla Bruni and Princess Letizia (the wife of the crown prince Felipe and ex TV news commentator) together. The Daily Telegraph coined the encounter as Carla Bruni meeting her fashion match in Spain’s Princess Letizia. They are nearly equally tall, equally thin and wore very similar outfits.
Carla Bruni and Letizia Ortiz, the fashion match!
And in England this week, the Queen, softening in her old age or keeping up with the times, bless her, has sent her first official email to young bloggers to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth. When I read things like this, I wonder if it’s because she’s got a great new PR officer or maybe is influenced by her young and technology savvy grandsons. I suspect it’s the latter as it has been said that she shares video clips with them on You Tube and actually texts them. I’m not sure whether I believe she does this unaided. But, however, she does it, she is definitely keeping up with the times.
The lovely Queen of England. I can hardly imagine her texting or writing e-mails but she does (although it will be done for her:-))
Workwise life was quite hectic last week, mostly because I had two very early mornings. One when I got up at 7 am to get to a 10 o’clock meeting but had to turn back home at around 9 as the traffic was horrendous. The other was for an 8 o’clock conference call with Stockholm. How I hate early mornings, unless they are getting back from a dinner party at the weekend – but more on that later.

I got a feather in my cap or rather good work mileage as I managed an interview with Yoigo on the national TV news of La Cuatro last week. It came out 3 times and the media value is astronomical, plus the fact that you could never buy that time. That actually made my week as it is not often a company, name and logo, are included in the news here. In fact most programmes avoid the mentioning as they consider it advertising. It was all about the price war and Yoigo’s mission since it arrived is to start off that war and continue fuelling it.

This week we launched a great new product, mobile data for pc useage with prepaid cards at a great price and capacity. The news here is that we also used Facebook for the first time as one of our media tools to communicate the new product.

Work this week was made even fun or eventful with a visit of a Finnish delegation who were interested in the Yoigo story. I always love meeting Finns and am very fond of the country as you know from my times with Nokia.

And very unusually we got a visit from some “Brits” from the UK, from Manchester, a place or area close to my heart because of my Yorkshire roots. They were here to do a piece for a corporate film and I thoroughly enjoyed their very British banter and wonderful sense of humour.

The visitors from abroad don’t only refer to the Finns and the Brits at work but also to my best friend Amanda and her husband Andy who came to stay on Wednesday. We all go back a long way, to my St. Joseph’s College school days in Bradford. Andy was my Father’s pupil at Bradford Grammar school. I think I have told their story on my blog before but in summary they were young lovers at sweet 16 who split up at University. They married other people and then only a few years ago found each other and now live happily ever after. That is the short version. The longer one is much more romantic.
Andy and Amanda, my dear English friends.
They were here on a mission, to find accommodation and sign up for a Spanish language course in August in the lovely University town of Salamanca. So we housed them for the beginning and end of their trip, the end coinciding with this weekend and Suzy’s 25th birthday party.

We had more visitors too last week who also stayed on for Suzy’s bash. The girls’ cousins, Marta, Laura and Paula and Verónica, Paula’s friend stopped off at our house on their way to and back from Liverpool. My English friends and me too, were quite astonished in the interest in Liverpool. For me it’s a rather depressing industrial town in the north of England. For them, however, it is the fascinating birth town of the Beatles and home to that Football Club, Liverpool United, which has become important to the Spaniards because of Rafa Benitez, the coach and players like Torres (or El niño as he is called).

So on Wednesday night we had an Anglo Spanish dinner for 10 which was great fun.
Dinner for 10 on Wednesday night.
Finally the weekend came and Suzy’s part surprise 25th birthday bash too. Here we were a team of Ana, Juli, Oli and I and we created a whole lot of surprises for Suzy’s Saturday birthday lunch barbecue to which about 50 of her friends came! She was just told to make sure people came and to make the cakes as she’s the specialist in that field. She was also told to keep out of the garage where all the surprises were kept.
Suzy, Oli,Eladio and the cousins during the party.
We surprised her with badges for everyone with their names, helium gas filled balloons, a specially designed t-shirt and even a candy floss machine.
People's badges made for the party.
Frankly a good time was had by all as you can see in these videos. The first one is of the helium gas filled balloon effect (when you take in the air and then talk your voice changes) and the second one is of the birthday cake moment.
A view of the birthday party
The party went on very late, but we adults, getting tired of people half our age, made our way to Madrid to meet Andy’s friend Alexander for dinner at Casa Paco in La Latina. It took us half an hour to drive there and then an hour to find somewhere to park. I won’t go into detail of the forbidden u-turns we had to do to park but suffice it to say, if we hadn’t we might well have started dinner at 11 at night.

Dinner there was great as usual, specially the beef which Alexander boasts is the best in Spain. I would say it’s one of the best. Afterwards he took us to a Flamenco bar on the Cava Baja street as Andy is a lover of Spanish guitar playing. We went into a den of smoke and listened to Flamenco from authentic gypsy men for what turned out to be at least 3 hours. Thus we didn’t get home until 4 in the morning, quite a record for us. I’m afraid I paid for the sin with a heavy headache the next morning.
The flamenco guitar player
Sunday was quiet and filled with lunch making for 9, as the cousins were still here too, as well as a walk with Norah. It was also the day I spent most time talking to my lovely English friends. Their visits are rare but very cherished.

The final note for this blog is about me rationing my social networking. I must admit I was getting heavily addicted to Facebook and Twitter. Sandra commented on Facebook last week “How does Masha find so much time to be on FB and Twitter? There has to be more to life than this!” which of course got me thinking. Then talking to Andy about it he was making fun of Twitter and the banal comments like “I’ve just sneezed” which also got me thinking. I actually posted this comment the day after: “wonders whether people would be interested to know that she has just sneezed. Is this what Twitter and FB are all about, just banal stuff? Since then I have decided to ration myself to one comment a day. So far, I’ve kept my own promise.

And that my friends, is it for this week, except to say, happy 25th birthday darling Suzy as it is actually today. Here is a picture of Suzy and her cake during the family lunch today.

Till next week
Cheers to you all.

Life is beautiful! And I have some news … Read on.

Hiya again.

This weeks’ post was going to start off with other news but just as I began to write I got a message with some very good news from my best friend Amanda. Amanda and I go way back as we met when we were 11 and had just started at Grammar School in Bradford, dear old St. Joseph’s college. And we have kept up ever since and are there for each other in the good times and the bad.

It was her birthday last week and I rang to say Happy Birthday – the funny thing is I hardly ever ring her or send a card and this was the first time in years, but then again the birthday was a change of decade. So when she replied that she had had a nasty birthday present, in that she had a bad mamograph result with suspected breast cancer, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing – cancer is no stranger to either of us; her Father died early of cancer, her husband Andy lost his first wife to the same disease, my Mother died of lung cancer and not so long ago, my Brother too of skin cancer. So the news was serious. Amanda told me she would have the results today, Monday and meanwhile would postpone her birthday celebrations. Well, she probably had a horrible weekend but this morning she got the result and it was BENIGN!! And, as she says, “will live”. And,. So I say, “Life is indeed beautiful”. Congrats Amanda darling. Now, there is no excuse to come out and see us one weekend!!

Life is beautiful, and, as you will agree from the picture, my dear daughters are beautiful too (Susi on the left and Oli on the right). Oli is finally going to the UK tomorrow and is spending most of the day packing and unpacking until she gets the suitcase to the right weight of 25kgs. We will miss her but I just know she is going to get so much out of this.



And now for some news from me. Most of you know that after a year at home, or rather selling our old house, finding a new one and moving in, I was itching to get back to work. Well, I have been very busy with interviews in August and September. I was actually in 3 job processes. And now I have a very enticing job offer from a French telecoms company and will be starting work on Monday 25th next. Because I haven’t signed the contract yet, I won’t tell you the name until I begin. The job itself is, of course, the position of Communications Manager which, I’m sure is no surprise to any of you.

So, there you have it, Life is Beautiful.

Cheers Masha

Andy and Amanda's wedding party do - 11th September 2005

This weekend I went to a wedding party do in the UK. It was to celebrate Andy and Amanda's wedding. Amanda and I are best friends from wayback (Bradford, UK in the 60's).