The Hollywood connection, a very social week, in love with Norah, Primo won a car and a course on DTV for the elderly.

Norah in her bed and surrounded by her toys, all bitten to pieces of course.
Hi again

I left off last Sunday when we were going out to dinner with Roberto and Mari Carmen. Funnily enough we went to a restaurant called “Hollywood” which is where I got the title for this week’s post. The day afterwards they were going on holiday to Turkey with Roberto’s brother and wife. Luckily for them, they were not flying via Amsterdam as this week a Turkish Airlines plane crashed at Schipol airport upon landing and 9 people were killed.
The Turkish Airlines crash
The “Hollywood connection” also refers to this year’s Oscar Academy Awards which took place last Sunday just as we were having dinner with Roberto and Mari Carmen at a restaurant of the same name.

I would have loved to have been in the real Hollywood to see Penelope Cruz take the first ever Oscar for a Spanish actress, albeit the “supporting actress” category and for a film and role I am not enamoured with, Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona.

She was great in her speech when she mentioned her humble origins, the town of Alcobendas, which coincidentally is where the Yoigo offices are. She was also great when she spoke in Spanish and offered to share her Oscar with those who were watching her and felt a part of it. She was quintessentially Latin and emotional and I love her for that.
Penelope and her Oscar for best supporting actress. Well done!
Equally great or emotional, and don't forget she's British, was Kate Winslet who could hardly believe she had won the best actress award for her role in The Reader. I loved her speech about rehearsing in the bathroom from the age of 8 with a bottle of shampoo and when she asked her Father to whistle in the audience so she knew where he was!
Kate Winslet giving her speech after being awarded this year's Oscar for best actress
The biggest winner of the night however was Slumdog Millionaire which got 8 Oscars including best film and best director. Funnily enough I had managed to see it the Friday before and agree it was a great film but am not sure it deserved so many awards.
The cast and crew from Slumdog Millionaire receiving the Oscar for the best motion picture.
And on Monday I returned to Hollywood, not in California I am afraid, but in Majadahonda. It was for a girly lunch with Ana, Jill, Fátima and Zenaida. Some of us were late, Zenaida and Jill because they went to the “wrong Hollywood”. Ana had to leave early and Jill was in a conference call for part of the lunch so all in all it was not really relaxed. It was not relaxed but it was happy as we were partly celebrating Ana’s new pregnancy. She is into her 6th month and is expecting a baby boy who will be called Tomy after his Father. Incidentally it was Tomy’s birthday this week, so double congratulations go to him from these pages.

I was out and about a lot this week and had lunch too with Pieter at the luxurious golf club in La Moraleja and also with three journalist friends, Miguel Angel, Chema and Aitor. I took them to Sua in Madrid which was not as good as last time. I also had coffee with Elena, my friend and ex colleague who is also my neighbour. And on my way to coffee with Elena I bumped into Edu and Graciela and was pleased to hear that they were also expecting. This must be the time of year I thought to my self.

I am not expecting as such but have my own baby and am totally in love. With whom you will ask? Well with Norah our beagle puppy which turned 3 months this week. She has added so much to our lives since she came, not lest having to clear and clean the kitchen every morning, afternoon and night. But she’s worth it.

We took her for her first walk on Monday and she took to it like a dog to a lead, excuse the pun and she loves her “walkies”. We are lucky in that she walks well and doesn’t pull at her lead or get too waylaid smelling nasty looking objects on the way.

What she likes best is to be on a lap or in our arms, as you can see from this typical breakfast scene I snapped when no one was aware this week.
The breakfast scene with Norah on Suzy's lap which is where she likes to be.
This weekend brought with it more film watching and dinners. On Friday Eladio and I went to see the Curious case of Benjamin Button. We were a bit put off by the trailer but the film turned out to be magnificent if a bit long. It’s based on a story by Scott Fitzgerald about a man who is born in his eighties and ages backwards. Brad Pitt does a great performance. The terrible thing is that when he is 80 he meets a girl, Lucy, who is probably 5 or 6. Eventually they fall in love but time is against them. It is she who nurses him to death when she is nearly 80 and he is a baby. I was quite amazed that the American film academy only gave this film minor awards.
A scene from The curious case of Benjamin Button
Afterwards it was so late that we could only go down the escalator from the cinema to our all time restaurant, La Alpargateria who were reserving table number 7 for us even though we were over an hour late.

The rest of the weekend was taken up with walks with Norah, family lunches and dinner at Mood on Saturday night. When we came back from Mood last night there was an email from Adela, Eladio’s oldest sister, to tell us Primo had won a car in a draw with his local paper, El Diario de León. As he says in the article he has been buying the newspaper for the last 20 years, so this is sweet compensation. He was given the car, a Citroën C1, yesterday in León. You can read about that here too. We look forward to celebrating his lucky win when we next go to León.
Primo and the new red Citroën car he won in a newspaper draw.
This weekend I have also been planning a trip to Yorkshire in the summer. We plan, my two men and I, to stay in Haworth, the home of the Brontë sisters and Robin Hood’s bay, that picturesque smugglers’ village, at the end of July. Hopefully we will meet up with Amanda and Andy and Jill and Simon and all walk down memory lane together. After all this is where we all spent our formative years and my Father being the boys’ teacher must have had something to do with their upbringing too.
Robin Hood's Bay, a picturesque fishing village famous for smuggling on the Yorkshire coast.
And that’s it for this week, except for one last thing. I saw this video posted by a friend on Facebook and wanted to share it with you as it’s so funny. It’s supposed to be a guide for elderly people in the United States on how to switch from analogue to DTV. So, as the Americans would say, Enjoy.

Cheers till next week,

Masha

Home again, settling down, back to work, yet part of me still in India.

The girls in their new Indian outfits a bit crumpled after being used as pyjamas!
Hi again,

The last time I wrote was from our hotel room in Delhi on the last day of our trip. We both fell ill and in the end spent practically the whole of our last day in bed. We were still feeling awful when we drove to the airport and the whole trip back was quite a nightmare. Luckily we got a two seat row from the KLM hostess who took pity on us at check in, bless her. Somehow we endured the return journey. We left at nearly 2 in the morning, local time (21.30h Standard European time) and arrived at Amsterdam Schipol airport at about 06 am, just on time to catch the nearly empty 07 am flight to Madrid. We arrived on time in Madrid at 09.30 to be greeted by a below zero temperature and a missing hold all. Unfortunately our main bag of Indian goodies had got lost on the way. It was retrieved later and we received it at home the next day.

Our Indian trip had been amazing but we now really wanted to return home. We were looking forward to seeing “the girls” (as they are often known at home) and my Father and to returning to our home comforts. Going away is great, but returning is even better sometimes. There are no bed, nor pillow better than yours at home. And that is always the case.

We were received with open arms and with much love. What a wonderful family we have. The house was in a good state and I certainly could not notice there had been any parties; although I’m sure there were. Only one washing machine load had been put on in our absence, no ironing took place and the Christmas decorations were still up. Apart from that, everything was ok.

As soon as we arrived we opened our suitcases in the lounge to give out the goodies we had in them, as the others were in the hold all in lost luggage.

It seems our choices were ok as everything was received with good grace and happy smiles. We had brought back Indian costumes, newspapers, incense, bangles, shawls, baggy trousers, calendars, ornaments, all of which have been put to full use.

We also brought back lots of miniature paintings on silk and a set of Hindu God posters to put on the walls of one of the staircases as well Indian and Nepalese music and films; for example the famous trilogy, Fire, Earth and Water by the Indian woman Director, Deepa Mehta. I had seen Water which I adored and now will see the rest of this trilogy which focuses on some taboo and sensitive subjects in Indian society, such as widows in rural India, homosexuality, arranged marriages and the religious problems that brought about the separation of Pakistan from India.
An image from the wonderful film, Water.
It took a while to get adjusted again and I think we are still adjusting. We keep talking about our time in India, much more than when we come back from our other trips. But it was lovely to come back to our home comforts. Olivia asked us what we had missed most. Obviously we had missed our family most as well as the Christmas period the journey cheated us of and most certainly our modus vivendi, one of the main parts being our walks and food. In India we were not able to go for long walks like we do here and we were in dire need of exercise.

We enjoyed the food in India, to a point. I have always been a curry fan but then of course I had only eaten curry outside India. It is stronger there and the meat is less tender and nearly always has bones. I love spicy food but every day for 17 days got a bit much. So it was wonderful to be able to eat pork, beef and fish again, as well as fresh and non spiced vegetables.

Apart from general fatigue and a bad stomach, I also brought back a nasty cold I must have caught from Mr. Lama in Nepal. Thus I needed a bit more time to recover before returning full speed to work. Luckily I had brought back some tiger balm for my niece Marta and had kept one pot for myself. It is a great oriental remedy for pain but also for a stuffy nose. I now wish I had brought back much more. It is a bit like Vips Vapour rub but stronger. Excellent stuff.
Tiger Balm (no tiger in it by the way!
The week went past quickly but was very intense. My return coincided with my company Yoigo hitting 1 million customers. I had arranged the staff celebrations but could not be there and had to content myself with the photographs. A big surprise was prepared the night before when the whole building was papered inside and out with A4 black and white copies with 1 million printed in big letters. The ground floor was filled with air balloons and at each desk station a celebration mug and balloon were placed. Shortly after the staff arrived they went to the cafeteria where they made a toast with Spanish “cava” and were served “chocolate con churros”. Then they all went outside and let the air balloons fly into the sky above the office, making a very pretty and spectacular picture, specially as it was snowing at the same time. It must have been a very magical moment. You can see some of the photos here on Facebook.
Balloons flying in the sky above our office in Alcobendas.
The next day I had lunch with my PR team and we celebrated the successes of 2008 as well as the 1 million customers. Thanks Gustavo, Carlos, Ludy and Blanca!!

Last week there was also time for some shopping in the sales. Ironically I bought myself a new camera which I should have done for the trip to India. I got the Canon Ixus 970 IS which I hope will live up to my expectations. It has 10 megapixels, but more importantly a 5x optical zoon. Soon you will see as I will be posting photos taken with the new camera here on my blog.

Soon it was the weekend and time for preparing family lunches and dong household chores. On Sunday afternoon I got very inspired and spent 3 hours clearing out and tidying my walk in closet. I don’t quite know what I am going to do with the stuff I have removed; either for the poor or when I get younger or slimmer!!

On Saturday night we took “the girls” out for dinner to celebrate our return. I would have “killed” to go to La Alpargatería but not all agreed. We ended up going to Mood in Majadahonda and a good time was had by all.

We also went out yesterday with our dear friends Roberto and Mari Carmen. First we went to the cinema to see the film, “Entre les murs” (The Class) by Laurent Cantet. It got the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and is France’s entry for best foreign film for the Oscars. It is about the difficulties of being a school teacher today in difficult areas and the culture clashes from immigrant pupils. I do not recommend it as it is rather long and repetitive and totally lacks a good plot.
An image from the film, The Class
We went to dinner afterwards to the only place nearby that was open, Hollywood. There was no choice but I must admit that onion rings and a brownie totally satisfied by craving for junk food after 17 days in India.

We have been home nearly a week now and it is a wonderful place to be but part of me is still in India. We keep saying, “this time last week we were …..” and soon it will be longer. I have been following Lou and Paul’s continued travels there and marvel at Lou’s experience with elephants in Chitwan National Park in Nepal where she rode one in the river and lay on its back. Oh to be young again and do something like that!
Lou on the elephant, what an amazing picture.
This week was also my best friend Fátima’s birthday but it was also the week my dearest friend Anne left Nokia after 12 years. She has opted out of the rat race to work as the marketing manager for her home town Salo. Anne I wish you all the luck and happiness in the world in this new stage of your life.

Cheers, Fátima, Anne and all my friends. Till next week,

Masha

Final preparations for India, more Christmas parties and shopping, news from André, Bush in trouble, Russian cuisine and what's cooking next week

The girls with Father Christmas at the employee children's Christmas party
Hi again

This will be one of my last posts before our trip to India next Friday. I can hardly imagine that this time next week we will be somewhere between Delhi and Mandawa in Rajasthan. I have a bit of a cold and was worried it might turn into flu as there is an epidemic on and the last thing I want is to be ill when we embark on our journey.

Nearly everything is ready for the trip. We got our Indian visa on Friday and on Tuesday we shall be going to get the visa for Nepal. We have taken the oral vaccination for typhoid and are working on the first aid kit. I have made a list of everything to take and a lot of thought went into it to make sure we have everything we need for 18 days, including the pc and camera with all their accessories, socks for entering the temples, an overnight bag just in case our luggage gets lost somewhere, a universal plug, my feather pillow (goes with me everywhere) and believe it or not tea. Who would take tea to India? Just me, because it’s decaf and I’m not sure it will be in abundance. Finally I will be checking in on-line and printing our boarding passes 30 hours before "take off".

But before Friday there is Christmas to celebrate. This last week I had my last 2 work parties to get through. One was for Bloggers on Tuesday and the other was for the employees’ children’s on Thursday. A lot of effort went into organising them and I’m rather glad they are behind me now so that I can get on with the family Christmas. They went well and were quite fun to judge by comments and feedback I received as well as smiling faces on the photos. The girls helped me at both events as did Juan my nephew. Juan was in charge of measuring the alcohol intake of the guests for which there was a competition!
The Yoigo Blogger Christmas Party
In between the parties, the girls from my events agency, Quinta Esencia (Cris, Bea, Gloria and Nuria) invited my boss and me for lunch to celebrate Christmas. They took us to Enriich a great little place in La Moraleja. The lunch was good, although a little long and here we exchanged gifts. We bought them all a huge set of their favourite perfumes and we, in turn, got given a Wii by Nintendo. Can you imagine me playing that? The atmosphere or the alcohol or the mix of that and the fact that we are all quite creative, gave birth, somehow, to a great idea for a huge public party to take place in the second week of February. I thought work had finished for this year, but not so, because I already have a project for the early New Year.

The week was also spent doing more Christmas shopping. I went with Oli on Thursday morning to a local shopping centre called Tres Aguas and with my two men (Eladio and my Father) to the proverbial El Corté Inglés on Friday. I’m almost done for this year except for a few small gifts for the stocking. In our house we have all the traditions but how we do the presents comes from my experience as a child at my Grandmother’s house in Ickenham on the outskirts of London.

In the morning my brother George and I would find a stocking next to our bed full of little gifts and sweets. We could hardly sleep with the anticipation. And I have carried on with this tradition with my children too, even now when they are 23 and 24. They wouldn’t hear of my giving it up either. Then after a lovely family breakfast with the best crockery, we would gather round the tree where the main presents were piled. And this too is how we give out our presents at home today. Each one is given out individually and we all wait whilst the recipient opens it and oohs and aahs. Only then do we give out the next present. All this is accompanied by Kings College choir Christmas carols and a box of chocolates. This is the one day of the year when you can eat as many as you want in our house! Oh how we all love Christmas day.

The week brought with it news too, of course, the most eventful being the Iraki journalist who threw a slipper at George Bush during his farewell speech in that country.

The news at home, at least at the beginning of the week, was about the huge snow falls all over Spain. Eladio’s family live in León and that was where the biggest snowfalls were seen. In fact on Monday morning Isidro, Eladio’s youngest brother, and his wife Yoli and daughters Laura and Alicia, were trapped in their home and could not get out as the automatic gate had frozen. Oli was covering the news for www.rtve.es and used the family as witnesses.

Talking about news, Oli, Suzy and my nephew, Miguel, were actually on the “telly” on Monday. They had taken part in street research on text messaging at Christmas and here is the result.

But the biggest piece of news for me came from André my long lost cousin from Canada. You will remember from my last post that I had found him on the internet. Well this last Tuesday I got a long newsy email from him. I now know that he is married, to Debby who is from Florida, that they live in Ottawa, that he is still crazy about Science Fiction and that his Mother, my Aunt Lena, is still alive although she has Alzhiemer’s, that dreaded disease for old people. I was so pleased to receive the email I must have read it at least 3 times. You see, I have so little family left that finding one cousin means so much to me now.
André, my long lost cousin and his wife Debby on their wedding day in 2006
The weekend proved just as busy and full of social events as the week itself. On Friday we went out for dinner with Roberto and Mari Carmen to La Leyenda for our own private Christmas dinner. The place was packed as I’ve never seen it before, full of company dinners. Roberto bought us a superb magnum bottle of Rioja (Cune Reserva) which was much appreciated.

And on Saturday, despite the cold coming on, we went out with José Antonio and Dolores to Al Mounia. The idea was to see each other now as we would not be together for the annual family New Year’s Eve get together in León. In fact we will be in Jodhpur that night! We hardly had a Christmas dinner at Al Mounia, as the restaurant is Moroccan and boasts to be the best one in town. The decoration was certainly excellent as was the food, although we were fed far too much. The price though was over the top and I think both brothers were not too happy with me for that although not a word was said. If you ever go there, the very best dish to ask for is the Farci Pastella, a sort of semi sweet minced meat pie.
Al Mounia restaurant
Farci Pastella
Today, Sunday, is a quiet day before Christmas. I made Russian stuffed cabbage (golubtzi) with Smetana (sour cream) and was very popular with the family. I shall be doing more cooking later and plan to make our famous “perushki”, or Russian little meat pies and freeze them for our Christmas Eve family dinner. Both recipes are my Mother’s.

My Mother was never an ordinary housewife and frankly when I was a kid you never knew where the next meal was coming from. My Father used to make our “tea” (name for the evening meal in England) which was usually burnt sausages with cabbage followed by some awful sweet called “Angel Delight” which came out of a packet and to which you added milk. However when my Mother did cook, she did so superbly. Unfortunately she only ever cooked when she felt like it or when she was preparing for guests.

The things she used to make were: kasha (“buckwheat” in English) which I actually hated but George adored, borsch (beetroot, vegetable and meat soup), pelmeni (sort of ravioli but better), and her own rice recipe (a sort of Chinese fried rice) which Amanda adored and which she often used to make for my friends at the end of my parties. Also in her repertoire was perushki and golubtzi and her Father’s recipe for potato salad which I still make. She also made “blini”, the famous Russian pancakes which were served with fish (often caviar) and the most common Russian Easter dishes such as a heavy fruit filled cheese based sweet called Paskha, coloured (dyed) boiled eggs and Russian Easter bread, called Koolitch which is also sweet.

Well next week food will be a big topic too as it will be Christmas. But Monday brings with it different activities. Tomorrow morning I will be doing the last tests of the series the doctor prescribed and that is a barium meal and a scan of my vital organs. I shall also be picking up the results of the colonoscopy. I’m not looking forward to that. But I am looking forward to lunch tomorrow with an old friend, Cristina, from the agency Moliner with whom I worked when I was at Motorola.

I’m also looking forward to Julio’s annual dinner on Tuesday. The four of us will be there, plus Fátima and Julio. Apart from the dinner, the crackers and the exchanging of gifts, this year we all have to prepare some sort of activity. Eladio is looking for new jokes on the web and I am googling “party games”. No doubt there will be a report on this dinner in my next post.

Cheers till then
Masha

A film, more lunches, preparing Christmas, a surprise party, 45 years since JFK was killed, Spain in the Davis Cup final, off to Stockholm and more.

Balloons for the surprise party for Gaby on Saturday night.
Hi again,

From this week’s headline, you can probably suss out that the week was busy on the work and home front and so it was.

Last Sunday we went to see La Buena Nueva a film set in a village in the north of Spain (Asturias) in 1936 during the Civil War. I don’t think the film will become famous but the storyline was right up our street; war, love and religion being the main ingredients.
On Tuesday I had lunch with María at the Asador Imanol in Diversia. I arrived late which is highly unlike me, but I had to get together a sudden press release when I was in town on an errand. María is a colleague from work and this was our first lunch together. We spent the time talking non stop from beginning to end about work, mutual ex colleagues, current colleagues and a hundred other things that women talk about when they get together! No doubt this lunch will be repeated.

Wednesday was a girly lunch again, this time with my ex Nokia colleagues, Jill and Susana. We went to La Leyenda and thoroughly enjoyed catching up on each other’s news. It was great to hear work gossip too; always highly interesting.

And on Thursday I took my PR agency team to Aspen after a morning working session together to plan for the next few months.

Oli meanwhile, had just started her PhD lectures at the Madrid Complutense University which she will try to juggle with her work at RTVE. She has begun a PhD in Film Studies! They keep changing her timetable and for the past fortnight she has been working on the 17h to midnight shift. This fortnight coming up, starting tonight, she will be working at nights, from midnight to 7 am. I wish her luck as I know it’s going to be tough.

On Friday she had an interesting experience at work as she had to chair the voting table at RTVE for the Trade Union representatives and here you can see her in this video which they published on the RTVE website.

At work I am immersed in plans for Christmas activities; a children’s party at the office premises, the employee annual office blast with partners, as well as all the actual Christmas gifts, on-line cards etc. It’s amazing how Christmas creeps up on you and how it maintains its magic year after year. I like preparing Christmas at work but enjoy the home preparations much more. This year Eladio and I will be going away on Boxing Day, to India, of course and it will be the first time we have ever travelled at Christmas. I did once before I was married and that was to Mexico with my Mother to visit George who was living in Veracruz. But that’s another story.

Suzy sprung a surprise party for Gaby last night, at our house, of course. It was for his birthday which had actually been about a month ago so I imagine he wasn’t expecting anything at all. Each person was supposed to make and bring food but, as we were eating the left overs all together today, it transpired that most of the guests had delegated this task to the Mothers; the Mothers of course who were not invited. I made the potato salad and I wasn’t invited either.

Instead Eladio and I went out to dinner to Mood with our friends Roberto and Mari Carmen. Before that, though I must mention the wonderful siesta and Jacuzzi I had to recover from the week’s hectic activity. We own a lovely Jacuzzi in our bathroom which hardly ever gets used but yesterday was one of those times.

Dinner was great as the food is always original and tasty at Mood. We were all in the talking “mood”, ha, ha, specially Eladio who had us all thinking when he announced that Christianity was only really a continuation of Judaism, from the point of view of sex. And yes, he’s right. Did that get you thinking too?
Eladio and his friend Roberto at Mood on Saturday night
On the news front, this week marks two important dates in history. November 20th was the 33rd anniversary of the death of Francisco Franco Bahamonde, also known as “El Caudillo” and November 21st was the 45th anniversary of the death of the world famous JFK, John Fitzgerald Kennedy who these days seems to be equated with Barack Obama. And certainly there are fears that his life may end in a similar way. I hope not!

On a lighter note, but of great importance in the world of tennis, Spain is playing the final of the Davis Cup against Argentina on their home territory. Unfortunately the super star player, Rafa Nadal, is injured and cannot take part so no one really thinks Spain can win. However, halfway through the championship, Spain is leading 3-2. There are two matches left to play before the winner is decided and here I would like to copy Obama and say: “yes we can!”.

This week coming up we will be going to Stockholm as I will be attending the communications kick off. We have travelled so much this year; it could well be our record. Well, I was always a “travelling girl” and inherited the itch from my Father, who, if we asked, would probably jump at the chance to come too as he is addicted to travelling and also loves Stockholm.

There will be a full report, of course, in next week’s post.

Cheers till then,
Masha

Barcelona and home with a bang

Hiya,

Wow, how I do begin to describe this past week? Well this time last Saturday Eladio and I went to see the film Camino. I think it has gone straight to my top ten of films as it has all the ingredients I like, children, love, religion, hospitals and above all emotion. I highly recommend it. The main character, Nerea Camacho is the loveliest young girl I have ever seen. She is 11 and comes from a town in Almeria. After the film we had dinner with our friends Roberto and MariCarmen at, yes, you guessed right, La Alpargatería.
Nerea Camacho in Camino
On Sunday Eladio and I travelled to Barcelona as I had to do a site inspection for locations for events during the big telecoms congress in February, the GSMA. Time was spent working in my room, site inspecting and all the free time was taken up by being pure tourists. Funnily enough I have only really ever visited Barcelona for work purposes so this was a great occasion to enjoy the city too.

We stayed at a great hotel, the 1898 where we made full use of the spa every day of our stay which is a great way to relax.
Me working in the hotel room
The hotel is right in the middle of La Rambla, Barcelona’s famous walk way. It’s a unique street, full of people from all over the world, kiosks selling everything under the sun, flower stalls, human statues out to make money, live animal stalls, endless tapas’ restaurants, artists offering to draw portraits, people selling loose cans of beer, “ladies” selling their bodies and old age pensioners sitting and watching the world go by.
Me on La Rambla
The weather was amazing for the end of October with temperatures of over 25ºc throughout our stay. We visited the Gothic Cathedral, walked into the famous Boquería fresh food market, made our way to the Gaudi unfinished cathedral, “la Sagrada Familia”, strolled past the Puerta de Angel, the Plaza de Cataluña and up the Paseo de Gracia full of wonderful houses such as Batllo and Casa Mila, otherwise known as La Pedrera.
La Pedrera
We had lunch at La Gavina by the sea in Port Vell (old Port) and dinner at La Venta in Tibidabo, very recommendable places I never fail to visit when I am in Barcelona.

You can see a selection of photos of this trip, here on Facebook.

The day we drove back which was Wednesday, the weather turned for the worse and it was rain all the way back. Just as we had started our journey Olivia rang to say Susana had had an accident with the Volvo on the road from Pozuelo to Boadilla. This was certainly bad news to come home to. Poor Suzy, who came away unscathed, thank God, as did the other passengers, drove round a bend in the rain to find a queue of cars standing still because of what she later learned was a fatal accident. A police car had crashed into a bus and the policeman was killed! Susy was unable to control the car and crashed into 2 other cars. The Volvo, unfortunately, is very badly damaged and it was only insured for third parties!!

To top it all, the next day someone punctured the tyre of the Alfa at the Complutense University. It was around lunch time and she had to wait for ages until the AA (equivalent) arrived. All in all she was waiting around for about 5 hours!!

The week got better, or at least back to normal eventually. On Thursday I went in to the office for 2 meetings. I now work from home nearly most of my time and can’t begin to say just how beneficial it is all round. I’ve got so used to it now I don’t think I’d ever want to go back to a sit in the office job ever again.

Whilst in Barcelona, I finally got the internal motivation necessary to go on a diet. And, yes, I started my diet number 1000 odd on Thursday. Let’s see how it goes …….. Wow that was one important decision to make in my life!!

Oli seems very happy with her new job even if it is quite stressful. It must be worse than a traditional newspaper to work for a website, such as RTVE’s as the deadline is permanent because the news has to be 24/7. This week I’m proud to include her article on the demolishing of the Carabanchel prison, that symbol of Fashist repression under Franco.
The famous Carabanchel Prison
The article was posted on the front page when it was published. Her timetable is all up and down. For instance she is working over this weekend and in the short future will be working at night for 2 weeks, from 12 till 7 am.

To top this week’s bad news, we found out today that our dear Ukranian cleaning lady, Zena, has cheek cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy!! That’s a very sad story.

To cheer ourselves up, and after all today is Saturday, Eladio and I will be going to the cinema tonight to see Nights in Rodanthe which promises to be highly romantic and right up our street. Hopefully we will have dinner with Roberto and Mari Carmen afterwards.

I look forward to a better week next week.

All the best everyone,
Masha