Busy again, The Hispanic Bank Holiday, San came for lunch and Henry/Courtenay and Mao Tse Tung!

Hello again,

This week was busy work wise which was quite expected. Tuesday was my first public appearance with the press and I must say it was lovely to see the familiar faces of those I consider my “friends” – Ana, the 2 Antonios, Balta, … It was on the occasion of our first public phone call on the Xfera network, quite a milestone on the way to the commercial launch in December.

Luckily we got a break this week as Thursday was a bank holiday. It was the Pilar (Saint – and there are many in Spain thank goodness!) as well as the Hispanic day when the Spaniards celebrate Columbus discovering America (In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue …). Eladio and I went to the cinema with Roberto and Mari Carmen to see the new film about the Borgia family. It was pretty violent with some quite incestuous scenes but on the whole a good historical film. Afterwards we went to the Alpargatería, as usual, for dinner.

And this weekend we had the joy and privilege of meeting San again. San is the adored Chinese (Manchurian to be correct) son of Mar and Mariano, our journalist friends and neighbours. They work for La Vanguardia where Mariano is the chief editor for Madrid. We hadn’t seen San since last Christmas which is when he was adopted. He was 3 and a bit then and didn’t know any Spanish, of course. He has come along so well, gained 10cm at least and speaks Spanish perfectly. In fact his parents are worried about his forgetting Chinese and yesterday he was taken to the Chinese school in Madrid for his first lesson there. It turned out to be a traumatic experience. San wanted to leave as soon as he saw the place and it was so obvious it reminded him of his orphanage days in China. So from now on he will be having private lessons at home.

We enjoyed lunch together (cocido madrileño plus tiramisu) and a great afternoon with San on the swings and best of all on Susi’s boyfriend Gaby’s motorbike. That was San’s maximum pleasure of the day. Just look at that smile!! In the photo on the table he is flanked by his Mother, Mar, on the left and Gaby on the right.

The funniest bit of the day was when Mariano was talking to my Father about Mao Tse Tung and Mariano was calling him Henry (our cat’s name) instead of Courtenay (his real name). I am still laughing at the memory of it. I had to remind Mariano that my Father’s name was Courtenay. What a laugh!

Cheers till next week my friends
Masha

My first week – just like I’d never been away. Plus Pedro, Ludy and Enrique.

Hiya

How would I sum it up? Exhausted but happy. The worst thing is the traffic. If I leave at 07.30 in the morning I get to the office at 09.20, nearly 2 hours! However if I work at home during the rush hour which I did on Friday it takes 30 mins.

On Wednesday I travelled to Stockholm for meetings with the Communications people on Thursday and it felt a bit like “going home” to my Nokia days. I rang Anne from the taxi who was in Salo (Finland) and I came back on Finnair so I felt quite at home. I must say though that the Swedes were very hospitable and much warmer than I had imagined. As one Spanish friend said to me: “ well they are a bit nearer the sun”.

I feel as though I have been operative from day one but then that is the only option. The new company is preparing to launch its services at the beginning of December so the preparations are very intense and I had no time to indulge in long inductions. No, I just had to start work which is just how I like to do things. My announcement went out on Thursday morning and I was quite amazed at the reaction from the press; just so positive and warm. They made me feel so welcome back to the “sector”, like I’d never been away.

The week was long and intense so I have been appreciating this weekend more than usual. Friday I took the family out to dinner to celebrate. We went to our usual restaurant where we always feel so at home – La Alpargatería. Oli was very much missed as was José Luis. However José was on his way at the time to Bristol to visit Oli so we knew she was going to be fine.

Picture taken after dinner - a bit dark I'm afraid.
Last night we went out with our dear friends, Pedro, Ludy and Enrique. Stubborn as usual, I insisted we went to La Vaca Argentina where, it turned out, we were not that well treated. We were 15 minutes late and they had taken the table away which meant they wanted to turn us away as the place was soooo full. We finally got a table but it was the lousiest they had. But, anyway, the food was good and it was great to see each other again. For those friends of mine who are reading this and don’t live in Spain, Pedro is actually Pedro Delgado, a pretty famous guy in Spain. He was a professional cyclist and won the Tour of France, Tour of Spain and many other races too. But apart from his sport’s fame, Pedro is what I think is charismatic. He is so sweet and normal that everyone is attracted to his personality. Ludy, his beautiful wife, comes from the same area as Eladio so they have a lot in common. Ludy is the wonderful Mother of 3 small children, including boy twins. So she has a lot on her hands. Enrique is their friend who is fast becoming ours too. Enrique is in the legal profession and got to know Pedro and Ludy through his love of cycling. But actually his love of cycling has had him housebound since the beginning of August when he fell off his bike and had to have his leg operated on and a plastic bone put in (prosthesis).

Today will be spent with the family resting in readiness for the hectic week coming up. On Tuesday I will make my first public appearance with the media which I’m actually really looking forward to.

Cheers till next week

Masha

The Housewarming party that turned into a celebration dinner.

Hi,

I had had a dinner party planned for Friday night for a few friends who didn’t make it to the first one. When I signed with Xfera I decided to turn the housewarming party into a celebration dinner. So I promptly doubled the numbers by inviting more friends. In the end we were 16 for dinner. It was the 1st indoor dinner we have had at the new house. We put 2 tables together and, of course, had to use 2 dinner services. One of them was my Grandmother’s which, according to my Father, had not been used in 60 years!!!!

The guests:


It was lovely to welcome darling Jill and her husband Paco. Jill is the HR Manager of Nokia Spain (I always introduce her as the friend who dismissed me from my job) and has become a good friend since I left. But she has also been a bit of an HR coach to me this year. So thanks Jill for your great support. It was also nice to welcome Zenaida and her dishy partner Tapani. Z works with Jill and has also been a great support to me this year. She is pregnant and expecting a little girl quite soon. Ana and Tommy also came as they are always included in our social events. Ana who I got to know in Nokia is the Legal Counsel for HP Spain. She and her amazingly good looking husband Tommy got married last year. Then came the permanent fixtures, Fátima and Julio who are my very best friends. Fátima and I go back a long way and became friends when we first worked for Motorola in the early 90’s. And, at long last, we had the pleasure of the company of my dear (photographer) friend Rafa. Rafa and I also go back a long time and met in my cycling days in the early 90’s. Unfortunately you cannot see how good looking he is, as he took the photo. You might remember him from one of my posts – as the spaghetti monster. Rafa, has a great appetite for food! And then came dear Alexander and Diane. Alex is a friend of Amanda and Andy’s. He works for the same company as Andy – Bertelsmann, is German and is based here in Madrid. We met at A + A’s wedding last year and have finally met up here in Spain. Diane is his lovely girlfriend, who, believe it or not is training to become a brain surgeon!!!

Alex and Diane relaxing after dinner
And, of course, we had the young contingent: Susana, my older daughter, her boyfriend Gaby (who doubled as a waiter that night) and Oli’s boyfriend José Luis. He is part of the family and although Oli is away in England, it seemed right to have him with us on Friday night.

I hope everybody ate well. We prepared home made gazpacho, boeuf strogonof and then a choice between trifle and tiramisu. We also drank quite a lot – or at least I did. For the occasion I opened the last magnum bottle of Quercus!!

The party began to break up at about 2 but Fati, Rafa, Alex and Diane stayed on for a while and Eladio and I ended up going to bed after 4 in the morning.

Needless to stay the next day I was in no good physical state to go to Eladio’s cousin, Elena’s 50 years celebration of religious life. But more about that in another post.

All the best/Masha

Storks busy and romance in the air

Hiya all,

This post is dedicated to some of my girlfriends: Anne, Zenaida, Juana, Fernanda and Mónica. Obviously there is some romance in the air and storks have been busy or soon will be.

Anne has found someone special in her life and I am so happy for her. Zenaida is 6 months pregnant and looks radiant. Mónica will be getting married on the 14th October (but very unfairly the wedding will be in Germany in one years time). Juana is pregnant again – if you follow her blog you can see daily how far gone she is and also how old or big Santi is getting - and Fernanda has just given birth to Jerónimo in June in Mexico City. So, as you can see, a lot of good news all around.

Congratulations girls!

The picture is of beautiful Fernanda with her new born baby.

Cheers/Masha

The lazy Summer days are coming to an end.

Hi again

Well, we are now well into September and the lazy Summer days are coming to an end. Soon the girls will be going back to University. Oli will be off to the UK for her Erasmus (exchange) year in Falmouth on the 19th September and Susi has been accepted at the Complutense University here in Madrid to finish her degree in Food Science. Olivia is doing a triple degree in Audiovisual Communication, Media Studies and PR + Advertising but will be concentrating on Film Studies in her year in the UK, lucky her! We are going to miss her so much this year.

September also looks like a very good month for finding a job and right now I have quite a few prospects open but more about that when there is some real news.

Meanwhile the weather has changed a bit and we have had quite a few thunderstorms this week where we all rush out to bring in the garden furniture, run round closing hundreds of windows and generally prepare the house for heavy rain. In his rush down some steps the other day poor Eladio fell and bruised his back quite badly but he refused to go the doctor and as is very typical of him suffered, “like a good beast”, in silence.

Eladio is forever outside in the garden and today he finally put up the swings we had brought from our old house. They were bought when the girls were 3 and 4 but are part of our family heritage so we brought them with us.

And, today, we had some old friends round for lunch, Benito and Loli. They were our neighbours when I first came to live in Spain and Eladio and I lived “in sin”. We have kept up over the years on and off, so it was lovely to welcome them to our new house today. The menu – very typical of me – was a Spanish first course of Gazpacho, a Russian second course of Boeuf Strogonof and a choice between an English or Italian dessert of home made Apple Crumble or Tiramisu made by Susana. Susi discovered how to make Tiramisu this week and has repeated the experience now nearly 5 times!!!


Benito and Loli at lunch today.

And, that, as I usually finish off, is all for the moment folks.

Cheers/Masha