The clocks go forward, RIP Liz Taylor, my film and book of the week, itchy feet, Yorkshire, my roots and more.

Liz Taylor that violet eyed icon of Hollywood died aged 79 this week

Hi again,

Another week has passed, spring has come and the clocks went forward an hour yesterday, what is called in the UK British Summer Time. However for the moment there is no sign of the latter, although of course we have one more hour of daylight a day, a blessing for our evening walk when we want to go later than usual.

So how has your week been? Mine has been fine, more active than last time but generally quiet and there has been time for travel planning and inner thinking, something I seem to do more as I grow older. Travelling, of course, is part of my DNA but more about that later.

Work wise it has been quite satisfactory. My feat of note this week has been the culmination of many months of work on the film about the story of Yoigo which we have called “the story of the no tricks operator”, the story of Yoigo’s first four years summarised into just 30 minutes. Finally this week we finished work on the short version which we had to pack into just over six minutes. And at long last I can share it with you as it  is now published here on You Tube. Let me know what you think. As I told someone this week, of all the things  I have done professionally  this project is one of those I am most proud of.

Whilst on the subject of films, the violet eyed icon of Hollywood left us this week. Yes, the amazingly beautiful actress, equally famous for having 8 husbands and less famous for her work on aids, Liz Taylor left us aged 79, the same age my Mother died. When I think of Elizabeth Taylor I remember her as Velvet in that wonderful film based on the book called National Velvet, about a young girl competing in the Grand National dressed as a boy. She was only 12 years old but captured people’s hearts even then. Most people will recall her for role in Cleopatra, but I was never very keen on that film. However she is most famous for her two marriages to Richard Burton, possibly the most attractive British actor ever to have walked this earth who had the sexiest voice possible with his rich British rather than native Welsh accent. I read in one of the obituaries that perhaps her best role was playing her own life, and maybe it was. I was a bit upset to read too that she was not considered the greatest of actresses. But how can that be if she won two Oscars? Today there are no Hollywood stars of her stature. For me she is in a league of her own, truly loving life like there was no tomorrow. I do hope that she will finally be left to rest together with Richard Burton as I think that is what both of them would have wanted. RIP Liz, the world will always remember you.

I loved Liz Taylor in National Velvet.  She was just 12 then

Still on the subject of films, and oh yes, I love films, if they have drama, war, biography in them or they are about schools, prisons, hospitals and especially convents and I just loved Black Swan. Take it I like ballet, possibly because of my Russian blood. But you have to admit that Natalie Portman, another Hollywood actress in a league of her own, is superb in this brutal film about rivalry between prima ballerinas. Fragile and puritan, a perfectionist and dangerously ambitious to the end, Nina, will do anything to keep her role as the Swan Queen, both as the White Swan and the Black Swan which will demand of her a sensual side unknown to her before. It’s much more than that; there is a horror side to it too but also exceptional beauty and it has haunted me since I saw it on Friday with Eladio. It is a film to remember and no wonder Natalie Portman won this year’s Oscar for her role as fragile and beautiful Nina.

Natalie Portman is stunning in the amazing Black Swan, my film of the week

If that was my film of the week, my book of the week has left me equally haunted. It’s called Sister and is written by the British novel author Rosamund Lupton who has been equated to Daphne du Maurier.  I think it’s pretty much a wow book as far as best sellers go but actually it’s where literature meets crime fiction as it’s so beautifully and tenderly written. At the same time it has you hooked from beginning to end to find out “who did it”. It is the story of an older sister, Bee or Beatrice, going in search of her lost younger sister Tess. But if you haven’t read it, I won’t tell you anymore so as not to spoil the book for you. I am now looking forward to the same author’s next book which will be coming out in July and is called “Afterwards”. This writer will go far, that’s for sure.

Sister is my book of the week and one of the best I have read recently

This week though hasn’t only been about films and books, it’s been about travel planning and I have lots of trips planned. Right now I have what my Father used to call “itchy feet” when he described my brother’s taking off on a trip; something which in fact both George and I must have inherited from both our parents.

My feet will stop itching the week after next when I will be going to Stockholm for a communications meeting. I will fly from there to my beloved Helsinki for a wonderful weekend with my equally beloved Anne, a pseudo sister for me. My next trip after that is with Eladio to Asturias in the north of Spain just before Easter. We want to use our Parador points and also take advantage of a free night at an NH hotel, courtesy of BMW, so will be going first to Gijon to the Parador and then to Avilés to the NH Palacio de Ferrera. Afterwards we will be travelling nearby to the bewitching little fishing town called Cudillero and there is a reason for going there. Apart from visiting beautiful Cudillero, I want to see the cliff where Father Angel and Victoria from my favourite TV series “La Señora” meet. I think it is called the “Acantilado de Cuerres and is in the township of Ribadesella very near to Cudillero. We will be staying at the highly recommended bed and breakfast Casona de la Paca, for two nights, a gem of a building in the typical “Indiana” style of the area.

I shall be visiting these cliffs in Asturias in April where Padre Angel and Victoria from my favourite TV series "La Señora" used to meet.

And when we come back from Asturias we will be unpacking and packing again on the same day as that night we will be off to the Balearic island of Ibiza. For me it will be a site inspection trip as we plan to organise the Yoigo summer party there this year. I have never been there, nor I have ever been particularly attracted to this small jet set cum hippy-island but I’m sure it has a lot going for it. I will tell you more when I get back.

Our travels will not end there either but we will have a respite of a month at home only as in June we have a long weekend trip planned to Brussels. Yes, Brussels again, to meet up with my wonderful University friends, Sandra who lives there, and Adele who will come from France. We will be joined by our husbands and partners, Eladio, Jeffer and Bernard. We had a memorable time together last year and this reunion promises to be just as good. I feel very close to both Sandra and Adele and am very glad to have them back in my life but I just wish they lived closer.

After Brussels we have another trip to look forward to. This year’s holiday will be to the UK and I am planning it with great love and detail. I would love to take my Father with us, but alas, we both agree the trip would probably be just too much for someone who in May will be 92. We will spend two nights in London, oh London, one of the most exciting cities in the world. From London we will travel to Devon to stay with my best friend Amanda and her husband Andy, who I know and love too from my childhood in Yorkshire. They have moved from Surrey to Devon and I can’t wait to stay with them at their new home by the sea. We will be with them for 5 nights.

Afterwards we will travel together to Yorkshire, where Andy, Amanda and I  grew up, or at least spent our formative and teenage years. It’s a bit like going back to the scene of the crime. When I lived in Yorkshire, and I lived in that black industrial and ugly town of Bradford, I swore I never wanted to live there. But now as I grow older, I am somehow lured back, not to the back to back housing streets or the ugly 60’s buildings, but to the beautiful surrounding areas, Ilkley, the Dales, Harrogate, Haworth, ....

When I go back I am transformed to my past and cannot get enough of walking the streets of, yes, Muslim Bradford, walking on the moors and in the dales, driving on the familiar roads and seeing the familiar landmarks such as Bradford Grammar school where my Father was a teacher of languages for so many years. I must visit Shipley Glen where I often went with the Guides or the Saltaire village which I despised when I lived there but which has now become a tourist attraction and has its place in history. I must revisit my school, St. Joseph’s college, organise a reunion with my school friends and walk through Lister Park, now a no-go area. I must also go to Ilkley to have tea at Betty’s and to the Charlestone cemetery and shed a tear at my Mother’s grave. For old time’s sake too I want to go to a Sunday morning church service, sing familiar hymns, maybe even take communion and shake the vicar’s hand as I leave just as I used to do at St. Peter’s church in Shipley when Brandon Jackson was the vicar there. I must visit the Wrights, our neighbours of more than 40 years (Susan a spinster nearing 80 and her Mother aged over 100) and drink tea out of Spode china tea cups in their ornate Victorian drawing room and talk about the past. I must look at our old house and I must do many more things there and can never really get enough of it.

Our old house at 6 Heaton Grove in Bradford which I shall be visiting when we go to Yorkshire in July

I have always considered myself a person with no real roots. After all I was born in Cambridge to an English Father and Russian refugee Mother from where we moved to Lincolnshire when I was two. We moved to Yorkshire when I was 7 and I lived there until I was 18 when I went to Nottingham University. Then I came to Spain and now live in Madrid and have lived her for 30 years, more than the time I lived in the UK.

So where am I from I ask myself? Where are my roots? The roots of my formative years are in Yorkshire, the place I so despised for the greyness and ugliness and graffiti and for the thick local accent which I refused to get as I knew it wasn’t a place I was going to stay. And I didn’t. I got out and I live abroad. Yet I want to go back there, as if to the scene of the crime, time and time again, to my roots, at least to the roots of my formative years. Why I wonder? I don’t really know the answer. Just that I feel good when I’m there now, unlike how I felt when I was a teenager. I don’t know if you can imagine how much I am looking forward to that trip, another trip down memory lane, to my childhood in England but above all to Yorkshire.

So yes the week has been all about films, reading, walking and planning for up-coming trips and it was good. No social lunches this week, just dinner out with Eladio to La Alpargatería after seeing Black Swan on Friday. Of course I booked table number 7 (our table) and we ate what we always eat, after which we went to Haagen Dazs for me to indulge in one scoop of strawberry cheesecake ice cream.

The only dark cloud is a problem with the bridge in my teeth which has been troubling me for a while and actually keeping me awake at night. So I have been once again to see my wonderful dentist, Dr. Garralda. It’s touch and go at the moment as to whether the bridge will have to be removed and replaced but at least, for the moment, the pain has gone.

And that, my friends is it for this week. I wish you all a great week ahead. Cheers till next week. All the best

Masha

A week of good news and bad

José Antonio, me and Miguel on the walk in the snow in Montrondo on Saturday morning..
Hello again

I have just written the post on Sanya’s story, this week’s really bad news and which deserved a post in its own right. I could hardly tell poor dear Sanya’s story as just something else that happened this week. I won’t go in to that as you can read it below. But will move on to the other things that happened this week.

Tuesday was sort of Black Tuesday because of Sanya’s news. But that day also the majority shareholder of my company announced it might be selling our company off. I had to deal with that with the press and will continue to do so as the story will not go away which is certainly not my favourite sort of PR. That one sentence felt like a jug of cold water over my work of the past 2 years.

But Tuesday was not all black as that day I spoke and heard the voice of one of my favourite colleagues of all times, Joao MD. Joao was the country manager in Portugal at Motorola and we worked very closely together in the mid 90’s. He later left to work for the American owned operator, Telecel which later became Vodafone. We kept in touch for a while but the years went by and I stopped going to Lisbon with my new jobs and so “lost” Joao. I tried to find him on Facebook and LinkedIn but, surprisingly, he wasn’t there. I found him through Fátima on Tuesday who was at the Penha Longa Hotel for some company gathering and Joao was there. It was from there that they rang me and I heard Joao’s voice. It was quite emotional to hear him and also to think he was calling from the very place where we had launched the StarTac some years ago together. I will never forget bringing a puma (real live animal) from Spain in a van for that event and what an adventure that was in itself. Remember Joao??? (I'm editing this this Monday morning as I remembered later that Joao had actually left Motorola when that event took place but he came as our star guest so he will remember everything, including the puma!

Other things that happened this week, was lunch with Santi at La Albufera and lunch with Juan and Susana at Aspen. Santi was fine, happy to have to have moved into his new flat and working on Christmas stuff for me which looks very promising. Juan and Susana were looking good. They worked on my account at the previous PR agency and are two of the best account executives I have ever come across. I still miss them which is why we make the effort to meet regularly.

Wednesday was a special day as it was Marguerite’s 100th birthday. Marguerite was our neighbour in England, at 5 Heaton Grove. When my parents moved to 6 Heaton Grove in the mid 60’s, the Wrights had been there already for many years. Mr. Wright died when I was quite young, during the miners’ strike in the 70’s and after that Susan, the daughter, and Marguerite carried on living there and still do today. They were very good neighbours, specially when my Father became a widower. Daddy and I sent Marguerite some flowers and we rang her on Wednesday. It seemed she had a big family party going and sounded very happy. I asked her what it felt like to be 100 and she said “just the same my dear”.
Mrs. Wright as she was in May when I went to see her during the St. Joseph's College reunion.
Wednesday was also my sister-in-law, Yoli’s birthday. We were able to celebrate it all together this Saturday in Montrondo when the family gathered together for All Saints’ day in the family village. Yoli, by the way, is Isidro’s wife, Isidro being Eladio’s youngest brother.

Friday was Halloween. The girls plan their Halloween celebration with great care and detail and I am sure you will agree when you see how they looked this year.

We did not celebrate Halloween as such, but did celebrate All Saints’ day and All Souls’ day by going to Montrondo to be with the family and take flowers to the “abuelo’s” grave. We were not able to take my Father as he is still recovering from the operation from his foot. Fortunately as I write upon our return today on Sunday he seems to have taken a turn for the better.

The trip to Montrondo for me was a tonic to get over the recent bad news and it certainly did me some good. Eladio and I drove out on Friday to join José Antonio, his beloved brother, and Miguel, my beloved nephew, at their new house next to the main family house. It rained all the way and the journey was broken with a stop for lunch at the Parador in Tordesillas.

We arrived in Montrondo late on Friday afternoon to a temperature of 0ºC. That did not stop us venturing out and walking to Murias and back in the cold and dark. We needed to work up an appetite for dinner and move our legs after the car trip. I enjoyed cooking for those 3 lovely men and we had a great meal of tortilla, jamón and salad washed down by one of the bottles of wine from my new collection.

The next morning we woke up to snow. The village was covered in white and I sincerely hoped we would be snow bound and imagined being rescued by a helicopter and coming out on the news. But that was not to be as the snow soon melted. The rest of the family were coming for lunch so there was just time to cook lentils on the Aga and go for a 2 hour walk up the mountains to the “Abedular” plain and back before the family arrived.

Waking up to snow in Montrondo on Saturday was pure joy!
Miguel, Eladio and José Antonio having breakfast on Saturday morning.

It was during lunch that the good news of the week was announced. It was unexpected too. There we were, Eladio and his 2 sisters and 3 brothers, their partners, his Mother and a sprinkling of the older generation of nieces and nephews (Roberto, Ana, Marta, Fernando and Miguel) when suddenly we heard that Ana was pregnant (Ana is the wife of Roberto who is the son of Adela who is the sister of Eladio). Adela was sitting in front of me and saying “this is first time I am hearing this” which I found quite amazing. Suddenly she was going to be a Grand Mother!!! The whole moment was quite emotional and extremely happy too. Congratulations Roberto and Ana and Adela and Primo, long live the Freijo family.
The happy couple, Roberto and Ana
So from thinking about a future member of the family, we went on to thinking about a past one, of Antonio, Eladio’s Father who died in 2005. It is Antonio who always reunites us and reunite us he did once again on Saturday as we all walked together after lunch to the cemetery in Montrondo to place 6 red roses, one from each son and daughter, on his grave.
Some of the family on our way to the cemetery on Saturday
We found other people tending graves there as we knew to be happening all over graves in Spain that day. If you have seen that marvellous film, Volver, by Almodóvar, you will know what I mean.
The cemetery on Saturday in Montrondo.
Antonio's grave with the 6 red roses
Soon the family left as it was dark and beginning to snow. Despite the weather, once again, the 3 men and I ventured out and walked to Murias and back to stretch our legs and work up an appetite for a cosy dinner round the table in Toño’s kitchen.

You can see the full collection of the photos of our trip this weekend to Montrondo here on Facebook.

And all too soon the weekend was over and we were packing and leaving for Madrid again. The tonic worked its trick and we have come back in a more refreshed state of mind.

This week will be tough because of the funeral but now, perhaps, I am more ready to cope with it. I will be staying with Sarita (guapa), my niece and Miguel’s sister, at her place in Marble Arch. I look forward to time with her and of course, time at Marks and Spencers. But that story will have to wait till next week as it hasn’t been written yet.

Cheers
Masha

An emotional trip, England again, St, Joseph’s College reunion, my childhood revisited.

Hello again

I am writing from my desk at home in Madrid now that it is all over. It has been an intensely emotional trip and as we did so many things and saw so many people, this post is going to be quite extensive.

Amanda picked me up and I was delighted to encounter excellent weather in England with temperatures in their mid 20’s. Ironically it was raining in Spain and did so all through my stay in England. Who said, the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain?

We drove to their lovely English style country house in Surrey and immediately got out our laptops. I did have work to do but must admit I am a bit of an addict and cannot stand to have one e-mail unread!

Amanda's house
Soon we had to go and fetch Jake. Jake is Amanda’s youngest son and the only “child” living at home now. Cordelia, his older sister, is studying music in London and Andy’s kids are also away; Jonathan in his final year at University and Jane at boarding school. So the house was a bit empty. Jake is wonderful; funny, sweet, loving and probably charismatic. Right now he is a proper teenager as you can see from the picture he allowed me to take outside his prestigious school. Love you Jake.

After a long day on the plane and waiting around, a walk was in order and Amanda took me on a lovely one. The English countryside was looking its best with flowers in bloom, everything green and the sun shining. There was quite a lot of fauna around too which had me snapping my camera away at horses and rabbits all along the route.

Amanda on the walk
Andy was back after a very long day and very cheekily for us, he made dinner; well grilled the great M+S steaks on the barbecue. What a great dinner, all washed down by a bit too much wine I’m afraid and which I was to pay for badly the next day.

Andy
Yes the next day, the day of our journey to the North for our school reunion, I woke up with a headache which got worse as the day went on and which at one stage I thought might mean cancelling the Centenary dinner; but it didn’t. We arrived in Haworth, that picturesque dark Yorkshire village of the Brontë sister fame and made our way to the Weaver's Restaurant where we had a lunch reservation. My headache was so bad I thought I couldn’t eat but funnily enough a bit of food actually helped.

We then checked into Ashmount House which really impressed us. This had been the village doctors’ house before and the names of the rooms were called by the previous inhabitants. The house, a 5 star guest house, met up to our expectations. It was so Brontë period and very well kept as you can see from the pictures. All bedrooms had four poster beds, the house was spotless with superb furniture and the garden which was very well kept was full of spring flowers and even had hens whose eggs were served at breakfast!! Breakfast of course, was top class, as were the dining rooms.

Ashmount Guest House

My four poster bed which I had to enjoy alone

The dining room at Ashmount House
We had a couple of hours to spare so decided to have a quick look around the village and take a long walk to further clear my headache.

Haworth has not changed at all and never has in all the time I have known it. It seems to have stopped in time since the Brontë sisters died. It has many many tourists visiting; many from Japan and the USA but remains unspoilt. One thing has changed though and that is obviously the age of mortality. When the Brontë sisters lived there in the early 1800’s the average age of mortality was 29, worse even then the worst London slums at the time!!!

The main street in Haworth
We walked around the steep and narrow cobbled streets but concentrated our visit on the Parish Church where the Brontë sisters’ father was the Parson – funnily enough he outlived all his children and died in his 80’s – and on the streets around the The Bronte Parsonage Museum which was, of course, their home.

The Church

The Brontë Parsonage
We ventured behind the Parsonage and into the countryside outside the village, past sheep riddled fields and through kissing gates and onto the moor, the one we would have liked to think was the one from Wuthering Heights but which actually wasn’t. And in our minds was what it must have been like for Anne, Charlotte and Emily when they lived there.

With our minds relaxed and my headache diminishing we made our way back to our lovely rooms to get ready for our much looked forward to Centenary Grand Dinner for St. Joseph’s College past pupils (girls catholic school in Bradford) taking place at the The Bankfield Hotel in Bingley nearby and starting at the unearthly English time of 7pm!

There we were to meet up with 2 friends from school with whom we were once very close and whom I hadn’t seen for 18 years and whom Amanda hadn’t seen since we left school; Brenda Maher and Ellen Byrn. Brenda and I were very close at school. She was my neighbour who lived in Redburn Drive and we often used to study together at her house –well actually we spent more time having butter fights or playing the Ouija board!!

The dinner was attended by about 140 people including staff from the past too. The oldest past pupil was 90! We sat on tables of our years and ours was 1975 the year we left. On our table were other “girls” from our year: Mary Drake, Geraldine Appleby, Jane McEvoy, Catherine Breen and Beverley Chivers.

Our table, Maureen O'Connell, Mary Drake, Geraldine Appleby, Beverley Chivers, Catherine Breen.

Ellen Byrne, Amanda (Sharon)Leonard, Brenda Maher and Jane McEvoy
The person we most wanted to meet was Miss Fair, our Geography teacher who later went on to become the headmistress. She was a real blue stocking but with a lot of character and quite serious and strict. Today she must be 80. We remember pearls from her when she came back from a field trip to Chile: “It’s rather chilly in here girls” was one which we sniggered at. Another was when the M62 was built and which she described as “a marvellous feat of engineering”. Worse was to poor Ellen Byrn: “Why are you doing A’ Levels? I thought you were more interested in your eye shadow! The latter spurred Ellen on in life as after her children were born she decided to take a degree and take her revenge on Miss Fair. Today she is a successful infant school teacher.

I was devastated that Miss Fair didn’t remember me at first (she did later when I reminded her that my Mother had taught Russian at the school and my Father had been a teacher at BGS); not even for being naughty which I was. In contrast she gushed at Amanda who had been to Oxford. I would like to remember her as a sort of Miss Jean Brodie but I’m afraid she was nothing like that, not particularly friendly either.

Group photo with Miss Fair

Amanda and I, an official photo taken at the dinner
We also met Miss Jackson who had taken us to Paris when we were 14, Father McCarthy, our Chaplain, and the eternal Mrs. Plunkett Jones who is part of the school furniture but very much alive. I remember as a child causing havoc. It had snowed heavily and I spread the rumour that we were having the day off which we weren’t. So the girls started leaving, walking up the steep hill of Cunliffe Road. Mrs. Plunkett Jones desperately called out to them: “Girls come back, girls come back”. But they never did. I wonder if she ever knew it had been me?

The next day we were up early (well I was up at 7 instead of 8 as I hadn’t changed the Spanish time, silly me!!) to enjoy our English breakfast and to visit the Brontë museum before going off to the School Open day for past pupils which was to start at noon.

I must have visited the Brontë parsonage a dozen times in my life but it always impresses me: the Father’s study, the room where the girls wrote, the kitchen where Emily propped up her German verb book whilst kneading bread, the children’s bedrooms and their clothes. I can remember it vividly. It’s a haunting sort of place. We also visited the museum shop and I bought some lovely memorabilia, such as the famous picture painted by their brother Branwell. It will grace my walls at home and I know it won’t look tacky. I also bought a copy of the first book written by Charlotte, The Professor and look forward to reading it after my Father.

The Brontë sisters, the only known painting of them together, Anne, Charlotte and Emily
Soon it was time to set off to Bradford, our childhood home, that very northern, ugly and depressed, industrial city in England which I always hated as a child and never wanted to live in. Bradford has become even more Asian than when I remembered it and even then 1 out of 3 in a population of 300.000 were from Pakistan. Today the ratio must be higher.

Ugly Bradford

Asian Bradford!
I was born in Cambridge and lived in Lincolnshire from parents who were not from Yorkshire either (that’s for another story as you probably know the origins of my Mother, a Russian aristocrat born in Rome but a citizen of the world, and my Father, that very English gentleman born in Tamworth but another citizen of the world). We moved to Bradford when I was 7 because my Father got a job as a teacher of languages (Russian, German and French) at Bradford Grammar School and they bought a marvellous house at 6 Heaton Grove, where many a party was held when I was a teenager as some of my friends from those times will remember.

So I have mixed feelings about Bradford. I always had problems with my weight and I felt I never really fit in. I didn’t have the local accent and I didn’t want it as I felt I was only passing through. I was not a good student. I misbehaved abominably at school and only just got through by the skin of my teeth. I woke up in the 6th form when I suddenly realised I had to pull my finger out as I had to go to University. There was not other option in my life. Of course, there were happy times and some of those were at St. Joseph’s College.

Amanda and I had been back on a short visit in 1999 which helped to jog our memory a bit. Not much had changed from the outside. The whole event was very well organised I must say and had a very happy feeling to it.

Arriving at the school, 33 years later!

Entering - Amanda and I flanked by 2 1st year pupils.
A funny little girl selling prayer books. I didn't buy one!
The place was crawling with middle aged and old women all with huge smiles on their faces. Pupils from the 1st year and the 6th form were on hand to help us around and seeing them reminded us of ourselves at that age.

Registration!

The 3 Kappa girls (Amanda, me, Brenda) in our original 1 Kappa classroom.
There was a programme to follow. However we were forever waylaid talking to people and chancing off to find our 1 kappa form or sneaking into the out of bounds teachers’ common room. We even took photos in the loos where we used to smoke!. We bumped into Sister Moya who must now be in her 70’s. Also as we seemed to take 5 photos on each occasion our programme was slowed down enormously.

With Sister Moya in the 4th form corridor.
One of the most interesting finds on our route was a room with the school photo archives next to the 6th from library. Here we found ourselves in 6th form group photos. I promptly took a picture of one of myself in 1974.

My class in 1974. I suppose you can guess who I am.
And it was in the 6th form library that we actually found some other girls who were in that same group photo, Andrea Longstaff and Anne Marie McDermott. Someone had the great idea of having an official photo taken of the girls from our year present that day and this is the result.

The "girls" from our year (1969-1975) in the official photo.
We also managed to visit the dining room where we had a snack and remembered the awful school dinners including some classics like mashed potatoes or tapioca!. But soon it was time for the memorial mass. When Amanda and I were at school we never went because we weren’t Catholic. We were actually going to skip the memorial mass as we had to rush off but our friends persuaded us to stay and I am very glad we did. It was a great end to the day to be gathered in Our Lady’s Hall where all the big events of our school years took place, to see the choir again (although ours in the famous O’Rourke days was much better) and to hear Father McCarthy’s moving sermon about our teenage years.

Suddenly it was 5 0’clock and time to go. Brenda, Amanda, Ellen and I just had to visit a couple of haunts, including the 6th form common room, before we left and to sit on the bench outside the 4th form corridor just as we used to in the breaks. Wow, that was 33 years ago. And time has indeed passed.

Bradford was not over for me yet. That day we also had to visit our old neighbours and then have dinner at Amanda’s brother and sister-in-law’s house, Simon and Gill who live in Sowerby Bridge.

The next stop was 6 Heaton Grove where I took a quick photo of what had been our home since the mid 60’s until 2004. I knew my Father would love to see it. We parked outside number 6 but walked into number 5 to see the Wrights who have lived there far longer than us. Margaritte, the Mother is 100 this year and Susan her daughter is now 74. But neither of them look their age, more sort of eternal. It was a lovely reunion with just enough time to catch up on the gossip, all mostly related to their Pakistani neighbours and to Mr. Nawaz the man who bought our house and whom Susan “hates” so much!

6 Heaton Grove, my childhood home.

Margaritte and Susan, our lifelong neighbours at Heaton Grove.
From the Writes we made our way to Morrison's to get some wine to take to Simon's. It was here I found my wallet was missing. There were a few minutes of panic until I realised I had left it at Susan’s. So we had to go back of course making us even later. But it was well worth the effort. Simon and Gill’s house is lovely; it’s a very tastefully decorated cottage near Halifax with a huge garden and great view of the Yorkshire countryside. Simon is the perfect cook who made a great dinner including a prawn starter, duck a l’orange and chocolate mousse. I mustn’t forget to add he actually made the delicious bread rolls. I was so impressed that I took a picture of them.

After dinner and before I fell asleep in front of my hosts (terribly sorry Simon and Gill), Becky the oldest daughter who is going to read English at Nottingham University this year – my old University - introduced me to a great poem. We had been talking about films and somehow got on to talking about 4 weddings and a funeral which I haven’t seen and they highly recommend. Apparently in this film a poem by Wystan Hugh Auden called Funeral Blues is referred to and which they love. So Becky read it out and I immediately fell in love with it too. And here it is if you want to read it which I recommend you do: Funeral Blues. I just love how it starts: Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dogs from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum, Bring out the coffin, let them mourners come.
Becky reading the poem.
We had to make a short evening of it as we were both physically and emotionally pretty tired after the day’s events and the evening before so we got an earlier night in at our lovely guest house in Haworth.

Sunday was ours for the taking and after a good breakfast and packing, we were off to Bolton Abbey in glorious May weather. Bolton Abbey was a favourite childhood haunt and is a beautiful Yorkshire spot by the River Wharfe. It is here where the the famous Monk’s stepping stones are in lush green meadows with picture box Friesian cows.


The stepping stones
From here we made our way to the Strid wood that very ominous but beautiful part of the river Wharfe which has claimed so many lives in its underwater caves. Anyone who falls in never gets out and many a silly boy or girl try to jump across it at a narrow point which is very possible to do but extremely dangerous because of the slippery moss covered rocks. My brother jumped across it on various occasions and my Mother was in constant fear of the place for what I understand now to be a very good reason.

The Strid my Mother hated so much. I felt guilty being there.
However the place is one of the most beautiful in the world with heavenly flora to contemplate on the walk including blankets of blue bells at this time of year.

People were bathing and making barbecues but we had a date with one of our favourite places to eat in Yorkshire Betty’s café in Ilkley, one of the lovelier towns in West Yorkshire and very near the Dales.


This is how they serve tea at Betty's
And here I indulged in one of those things I miss most about England, fish and chips. And don’t Betty’s make just the best!

And that was the end of our marvellous trip to Yorkshire, down memory lane and to revisit our childhood and see our school and meet up with old faces. It was time to leave. We left Yorkshire with our hearts very much touched, as they still are as I write.

Home we went to Surrey to briefly see Andy and Jake before going to bed, tired but content.

Monday brought with it a day in London. Oh, for a day in London! What pleasure. We did do some work in the morning. I mean, I did have to sort out my e-mails and make a few calls. But as soon as the decks were clear, Amanda and I were off by train to Waterloo. Here we briefly met up with darling Cordelia who lives nearby. She looked enchanting.

Mother and daughter at Waterloo.
Lunch was at some marvellous place in Kensington High Street. This time we indulged in sea food and white wine; just the thing to put us in to the spirit of shopping in Marks and Spencers. There are many shops in England but it is my favourite. Here I filled my basket with underwear, swimwear, cosmetics and t-shirts for us all. Then a quick visit to Boots, that other great shop I miss so much and finally to Whittards to buy Oli a special mug for her breakfast coffee.

Happy outside M+S in Kensington High Street.
The evening wasn’t planned but it ended up with dinner in Covent Garden with Amanda, Andy and Cord. It was so nice to have dinner with them in London.

And so soon, there I was packing to leave. Packing was a bit of a hitch as with all my purchases including 3 big Yorkshire prints I had bought at Bolton Abbey, there was no way everything was going to fit in my suitcase. So we had to drive to Guilford to buy a cheap hold all. In the end I was carrying 35 kgs and had to pay for 10 kgs excess which Easyjet charge at 6 pounds per kilo!!! Wow did my M+S shopping turn out to be expensive.

Me laughing over my packing; mission impossible!
Travelling back was ok but not as exciting as travelling out. The nicest thing was having Eladio meet me off the plane in Madrid.

Then I was home and opening my huge hold all full of presents for all the family, including an English tweed cap for my Father and 2 copies of the Bradford Telegraph and Argus. It felt like Christmas!

Now it’s all over but it was great. I have already written to the other “girls” and sent them some photos. Some have replied and I think that soon, quite soon, there maybe a girly reunion, maybe in Manchester. Look out for that on this blog.

Cheers till next time
Masha