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.

Sarkozy’s boots, Afghan women protest, Indian elections, Imagine never having been kissed at 48? Internet and me, my Danish princess and other stories

A star was born in England last week. Susan Boyle the new world media phenomenon.
Hi again

There has been lots of news this week that caught my attention. This was the week Sakorzy, the modern day Napoleon, put his foot in it and was caught off the air criticising both Barack Obama and the Spanish President Zapatero; the latter as weak and the former as dim. The only leader who came away unscathed was Berlusconi! More than his foot, it seems he is getting too big for his boots and it could take some time to live down this faux pas.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France, a bit too big for his boots
This was also the week Afghan women demonstrated for possibly the first time ever. They may not be able to revoke the unacceptable new Shia family law which gives Shia husbands wide-ranging powers over their wives, who are not allowed to leave the house without their husband's permission or to refuse him sex without a medical excuse. But at least they got their voice heard, which is quite a miracle in this country where life for women is worse than in the dark ages.

Afghan Shia women protesting in Kabul, a very unusual scene.
In a country close to my heart, the sub continent of India, elections started this week and nearly 800 million people will be voting. Not surprisingly the whole process will take as long as a month. Will yet another Gandhi family member and descendent of Jawaharlal Nerhu win for the Congress party again? And if Indira Gandhi’s grandson Rahul gets elected, will he also be assassinated like his grand mother Indira and his Father Rajiv or like the Father of the nation itself, Mahatma Gandhi? Is the price of power worth paying for certain death one day at the hands of his own countrymen?

Rahul Gandhi, the Congress Party candidate in the Indian elections.
But above all it was the week a star was born and a dream came true for an unknown frumpy looking and astoundingly charismatic 48 year old Scottish lady called Susan Boyle. She took part in ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent programme last week and literally rocked the audience off its feet despite initial jeering at this plump and unattractive looking middle aged lady who admitted on stage that she was unemployed, unmarried and that no one had ever kissed her. The song she sang, I dreamed a dream from Les Miserables, has now been viewed over 20 million times on You Tube and Susan Boyle has become a world star. I, for one, am truly amazed by this dream come true and hope it all works out for the lovely and very authentic Susan Boyle. Her voice is fantastic, that is true but I wonder whether there would have been so much noise about this participant if she had been young and beautiful. Certainly not. What we all seem to like, to quote one of the judges, is the underdog story she portrays. There is also an element of the Cinderalla fable without the beauty which goes to prove that appearances can be misleading. As my dear Aunty Gloria used to say: never trust a man by his umbrella, it may not be his. Good luck Susan, you more than deserve it.

Another bit of news I have to report this week, is a video news piece that Oli did for RTVE.es with another colleague. It is about young and successful professionals who have to return home because of the credit crunch. I am pleased for her that this turned out to be the most seen video of the week on their website. I am not, however, pleased for those young people. Times are difficult for them.

Talking of websites, that leads me to my next subject which has to be Internet or rather Internet and me. I have to acknowledge I am addicted to quite a degree. It fascinates me and I spend my time on email primarily of course and on news items and the weather for example. My blog is my passion and this week I surpassed 20.000 visitors. That’s a lot of people following someone neither famous nor extraordinary like me. What is news about the visitors is the variety of countries they come from. You just have to click on the cluster map on the right hand side of the blog to see the list. The top 5 countries are Spain, USA, Finland, Mexico and India but boy are there some obscure countries after them.

Of course I am on Facebook and have been for some time and more recently I am on Twitter. I couldn’t believe that I was ranked 458 in the Twitter holic ranking for Madrid – possibly that proves Twitter has not yet taken off in Spain properly. If you don’t know what Twitter is read here. Actually when you update your status in Twitter it updates automatically in Facebook so you don’t waste time.

In Facebook you belong to a circle of friends. In Twitter, however, you can find anyone (unless you block them or they block you) and there are many high profile people out there using it like Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Britney Spears or Demi Moore (she tweeted that Susan Boyle had moved her to tears)to name a few. I was happy to find a whole load of old cronies from my Motorola Cycling Team days such as Lance Armstrong himself, Paul Sherwen, Kevin Levingstone, Graham Watson, Jim Ochowich, Rupert Guinness or Johan Bruyneel. Following their tweets brings me right back to the Tour of the Basque Country drinking pacharán with some of them. It’s great to have found them.

To quote the NYT’s article on Twitter above, it unleashes the diarist in you. I have to admit I have been a diarist on and off since the age of 6 so the diarist in me was already unleashed. More than that, these internet tools have made diary writing a joy and easier to be consistent about.

Finally I have my own channel on You Tube where I have some domestic videos of our trip to India and mainly of Norah, our new Beagle puppy I am besotted with. And this week I joined Digg which seems to be the next best thing after sliced bread in the online news world. Try it, it’s great. By the way you can find my You Tube and Twitter profiles added to my blog now (right hand side and quite low down).

On the offline front, yes I mean, here at home, the week began with Anne leaving after a great Easter weekend. On Monday night we went out with Graciela and Eduardo to a nice little tapas place in Boadilla called Vinoteca. Congratulations go to them as they are expecting a baby boy. I wonder who will get their way: Eduardo with Eduardo or Graciela with Mateo? I expect the latter. The four of us are now all ex Nokians so had a great time gossiping about old times as well as new events. I must say the Nokia slogan “connecting people” and the internal one “reuniting colleagues” are both true. The best thing about my nearly 6 year stint as the PR Manager for Nokia Spain was the people I met.

Anne went back to Finland and as we are quite a globe trotting family, I suppose it is no surprise that Suzy went to Denmark on Thursday. She went with Rocío to visit Estefania who is there on an Erasmus University scholarship and they were joined on Friday by two other school friends, Erika and Carolina. Suzy is having a great time. They are riding bikes to go everywhere and are very pleased with the modern Scandinavian style residence they are staying at. Of course Suzy went with her friends to see the Little Mermaid, a fairy tale character she has always equated with ever since she saw the Disney film as a child. Suzy and Ariel and Ariel and Suzy have a strong relationship.
That unique and lovely statue of the Little Mermaid, inspired by Hans Christian Anderson's tale rests by the sea in Copenhagen.
In Copenhagen there lives a real princess, at least for us. I refer here to Pernille, the lovely golden girl who came to live with us in 1991. She was 19 and as she reminded me last night on the phone, I was just 35. The girls were about 6 and 7 and she was to be their au pair. That was the beginning of a life time relationship and of a person who has a permanent place in our hearts. Pernille married her childhood sweetheart, Thomas and they have two little girls called Julia and Alberte. Suzy met them yesterday for the first time and also saw Pernille and Thomas for the first time since their wedding. We all went to that fairy tale wedding in 2000 as you can see here in the photo. Pernille, we miss you. Please come with your family and see us this Summer as you said you would last night.

The girls at Pernille and Thomas' wedding in Copenhagen in 2000.
Suzy will be back tonight and I’m dying to see photos of that encounter. Meanwhile here are some of her in Copenhagen.

Suzy and the Little Mermaid
Suzy on her bike in Copenhagen.
Next week she will be celebrating her 25th birthday and there will be a big party here on Saturday. Andy and Amanda will be her for that as they are coming to Spain to visit Salamanca to look for accommodation for a course in Spanish they will be doing in August. Also Marta and Paula will be here, passing through, on their way to Liverpool (tourism is big there these days. Who would have believed that a few years ago?). So next week we are going to have a full house. What fun. What Suzy doesn’t know about (and she won’t read this so I’m not worried) are the amount of surprises in store for her that day.

We’re going to have fun.

More, next week. Cheers till then,

Masha

History in the making, the Cow Parade, Mt. Everest, Ruth Lorenzo, a make up session, Valkyrie, snow again and planning new excursions.

One of the shots of Suzy from the make over session. Isn't she beautiful?
Hello again,

Another week has passed and once again I am writing my blog to record what’s happened and how it’s been. I print each month’s posts and now have two full files holding the diary of our lives since I started writing in September 2005. I spent some time this week adding labels to the posts on all the different things I write about. They are on the right but at the very bottom. It’s now an important part of my life and one of my weekly tasks is updating it. I can imagine my grandchildren reading excerpts of it one day in the future and it being, hopefully, an important part of the annals of our family history.

History in the making in this week’s title refers not only to my blog but also to Rafa Nadal’s achievement in winning the Australian tennis championship, a first for Spain. To get to the final, only the 4th time a Spaniard had reached it, he had to play another rival from Spain, Verdasco in the semi-finals. Together they also made history by playing the longest match ever in this tournament.

Today he beat Roger Federer who has been the top seed since Rafa started in the circuit at the age of 17. Federer who had hoped to win his 14th Grand Slam today and equal Pete Sampras, could only cry at the end of the match of emotion, defeat and I suspect exhaustion.

Rafa Nadal has now won 6 Grand Slams (4 French Opens (Roland Garros), Wimbledon and now the Australian Open). The only Grand Slam missing now is Flushing Meadows, the US Open in September. If he wins this championship he will make history again and join the select group of only 6 men in the history of tennis to win all 4.

This week has been full of events. I had lunch with my dear Finnish friend Viivi on Wednesday and we went to the restaurant that is fast becoming one of my favourites, Enriich in La Moraleja.

This week brought with it the birth of a wonderful PR project which was actually killed the next day. I had some doubts but others had more, so I didn’t go ahead with it. I think the whole thing affected me quite a lot and kept me awake for a few nights. I always involve myself heart and soul in my work and this kind of thing still keep me awake.

I was in touch this week with Grainne who lives in Barcelona, well rather Badalona. We went to school together (St. Joseph’s College) and Grainne was the older sister of one of my best friends, Brenda. Grainne has been doing some translating for me and I have to say they are some of the best I have seen in all my time in Spain. Hopefully we will meet up in Barcelona when I go to the Mobile World Congress in a couple of weeks.

Amanda also enters my blog this week. I hadn’t heard from her since Christmas and was a little worried as her husband’s company went into administration very recently. So it was good to hear that, despite this set back, they are faring well and even planning a trip to Prague.

On Thursday I went to the annual Nokia press lunch to welcome the New Year and present the year end results. It was held at Oui, a new events venue which is part of the Madrid sports pavilion in Calle Goya. This was the third one I was going to and I quite looked forward to it, despite some of the bad memories this branch of the company in Spain conjures up for me. But I put on my best smile, put all those thoughts out of my mind and enjoyed greeting journalist friends and acquaintances as well as ex colleagues. I sat next to Solange, my successor who was the perfect hostess.

As I left the Nokia lunch, I made a quick foray into the Corté Inglés (Spanish number one department store) and so saw part of the Cow Parade exhibition that is dotting the Spanish capital this month and next. Seeing the cows reminded me of seeing cows in India, the difference, of course, being like night and day. I had heard about the Cow Parade and so was quite interested in taking a look at these artistic and colourful statues.
One of the cows in the Cow Parade in Madrid
This week I got an email from Mr. Lama, our guide in Nepal. He is actually called Jitendra or Jitu but we always called him Mr. Lama. He wanted to know how we were. I wrote back and thanked him for looking after us so well on our trip to the Kathmandu Valley and told him that we would love to return one day to go trekking. He immediately wrote back and suggested we trek to the Everest Base Camp!!! Actually the idea has stayed with me and I have even been looking for graphic information on Sr. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s ascent in 1953 in You Tube and have listened mesmerised to the former’s description of that historic adventure. So you never know, we may well attempt a trekking holiday there one day.

This week I also heard about a young Spanish girl, Ruth Lorenzo, who seems to be making history for Spain in the UK, except that hardly anyone in Spain has heard of her. Ruth, who has an exceptional voice, has just become a finalist of X Factor and according to the interview I heard, cannot walk 20 yards without being asked for an autograph. She became even more famous when the song she sang, Purple Rain, by Prince, was more popular on You Tube than the original version and Prince made You Tube remove it. The whole of the UK rallied to her side and she even received a letter from Gordon Brown. Funny to think that José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero still doesn’t know who she is. Ruth makes true the biblical reference, a prophet is never a prophet in his own home.
Ruth Lorenzo from Murcia Spain, finalist in X Factor
Suzy had another exam this week, “food engineering” and needed some relaxation afterwards. Copi, her childhood friend and neighbour, needed to do some make over photos for her curriculum and so she came round on Thursday evening and joined us for dinner. After dinner the make over session began. Oli joined it when she returned from RTVE late at night (she works from 15h to 22h from Mondays to Fridays on a regular basis) and Copi did a work of art on both my kids. Unfortunately I only have a photo of Suzy for this post and one of her with Copi but none of Olivia.
Copi and Suzy
On Friday Eladio and I went to see the much acclaimed Valkyrie film with Tom Cruise. I suppose there is no need to explain that it was about the famous attempt to assassinate Hitler by the young Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. There had been 14 previous attempts and this was the last. It was part of a big operation to topple the Reich and actually Valkyrie was the name of the operation designed by the Reich itself in case Hitler died. I saw the 2004 German version this week too and was quite well documented and did not really expect the American version to be much better. Also I just didn’t see Tom Cruise playing the part but I was wrong. It was superb, he was superb and the film was very well made. It’s not up for next week’s Oscars but if it was I’m sure it would garner a statue or so.

After the film we went to La Alpargatería for dinner and Oli joined us. Then, very naughtily, we went to Haagen-Dazs for our dessert.

The weekend has been cold and wet and it even snowed this morning. Thank God it was a Sunday otherwise it would have caused havoc with the traffic tomorrow. Many roads were blocked and villages cut off. It actually only lasted a few hours but was quite beautiful to witness from inside our warm house. We did, however, take our walk just as it was ending and turning into sleet. We always take our walk, come rain or shine. There is no stopping us.
It snowed today
Suzy will be off to London with Gaby not this week but next. Oli, who has very itchy feet, bought tickets to fly to Amsterdam with her friend Miad at the same time. We are also thinking about travelling again. Will it be New York, all 5 of us, will it be Yorkshire in the summer with my Father? Who knows, but meanwhile we have made use of our Parador points and have booked 4 nights at Easter in Cáceres, Guadalupe and Mérida in the Extramadura region. It’s always lovely to have something to look forward to. My Father’s eyes lit up with joy when we told him, as of course, he will be coming with us. He loves to travel with us and to get to know new parts of Spain. He also loves the Paradors and “room service” too!

And that’s about it for this week, except to send birthday greetings to Laura, my niece and Isidro and Yoli’s daughter. She will have been 26 on Thursday. Her sister, Alicia, who is also our god daughter will be 17 tomorrow. Happy birthday to you both girls.

Cheers till next week
Masha

The week I found my cousin in Canada, some long lost friends in the USA, the week that Christmas came and many other things.

Preparations for Christmas were early this year.
Hi again

This week, the week after Aunty Masha’s funeral, has had me thinking more about my family, my Mother’s family and just how few of us are left. Of the 6 brothers and sisters, there were only 4 off springs, possibly because only 4 had children as 2 of the sisters, Olga and Dorothea (Dara) were nuns. These were, Andre, son of Alexander (Sasha), Sophie (Zuka) daughter of Nicolas, Alexander (Sasha), son of Maria (Masha) and George and I, son and daughter of Helene (Lena) – my brother George died in 2001.

I have always been in contact with Sasha who now lives in Spain and also with Zuka who has lived most of her adult life in Yorkshire. However I only ever met Andre once when my Mother and I went to Montreal in 1978 (when I was 21) to meet her brother Alexander (Sasha) for the first time since they parted in Germany in 1945. That was some meeting. When my Uncle Sasha died in 1987, we lost touch with the family. I had googled Andre occasionally but got nowhere until this last week. I wrote and got an immediate reply about which I am very excited. Andre is the only child of the Lieven children to carry on that name. I wonder if he realises that.

This year has been about finding people from my past and so again, thanks to Internet, more concretely LinkedIn, I found Rosa and Angel, our friends from when we first lived in Madrid. Rosa worked with me at Defex, my first place of work and hers too. We were employed as bilingual secretaries and went through a very long process before being taken on. We were going through all the interviews but not once were we told what the company did. When Rosa and I arrived at the offices in the post Madrid business district to sign our contract we wondered what the line of business could be. Rosa wondered whether it was pornography! Amazingly enough it turned out to be the export of weapons, or “defence material” as it was described to us. I will never forget a Señor Ibañez telling us that it was just like selling cars. He asked us whether we had a problem with that. Our morals at the time were less important than finding a full time job, so we just meekly said “no”.

Rosa, of Cuban American origin, and I worked side by side for a few years and were also neighbours. Her husband Angel taught Maths at a Madrid University and got on well with Eladio. But Rosa missed her family in the United States and very soon they decided to return to New York. I only ever saw her once since they left but have never forgotten her. She organised the ceremony of our wedding and was an essential part of my life. We did see Angel again occasionally when he would visit his cousin in Madrid but the last time was over 15 years ago. As with Andre, I wrote to Angel and got an immediate reply with which I am thrilled. It is wonderful to find old friends.

This week has brought bad news again too. On Thursday my niece Marta (on Eladio’s side) rang to say her husband, Fernando, more commonly known as Ministro had lost his Father early that morning. It was not unexpected as that wretched illness cancer had slowly been consuming him for some time. I’m so sorry Minis. I know how you are feeling and my thoughts are with you and your family.

Then the following day, Friday, we got the dreaded phone call we were expecting from José Antonio to announce that Dolores’ Mother, Merche, had passed away that afternoon. She has been suffering for a long time and this was now to be the end of her suffering. However she leaves behind, 4 orphans, Mercedes, Dolores, Esther and Cristina. They already lost their Father some years ago and will be feeling very lost. My heart goes out to them.

The girls have been ill this week with pharyngitis and a nasty cold which actually means they have been a lot at home. Also as this is a bank holiday weekend, for the Spanish Constitution and the Immaculate Conception it has been very much a family weekend.
My ill girlies, Oli and Suzy (in pink)
As we have had a lot of time on our hands this bank holiday weekend, we decided that Christmas should come early this year. Also because Eladio and I will be off to India on Boxing Day, we wanted a bit more time to enjoy the decorations. So up went the tree, last years Ikea lights and lots of mobile musical trees and Father Christmases I couldn’t resist buying at the Christmas market in the Plaza Mayor. Of course, to this we added the lovely decorations we had bought in Stockholm recently.
The Christmas tree.
Talking about India, we are now a little wary or worried about our upcoming trip of a lifetime. So, should we go or shouldn’t we? Well, from a materialistic point of view, maybe we should as we have already forked out quite a bit. On the other hand, there is an awful lot of tension between Pakistan and India, so it’s anyone’s guess. I vote we go, but be cautious right up to the last minute.
I would hate to have to cancel as that would be a bit like the straw that broke the camel’s back in our spate of bad luck. I think we will go in the end but am conscious we are risking it a bit.

Christmas is also creeping up on me at work where I have 3 events left to go out of 4. Last week I organised a press lunch for the key journalists on the occasion of Yoigo’s 2nd anniversary but as it was already December, there was a Christmas touch to the occasion too. We organised a proper “birthday” with gas filled balloons decorating the ceiling and we gave the journalists a bag of sweets as a good bye present. Next week will be the employee’s party and the following week the bloggers and then the children’s party. I also have to do all the gifts and the online Christmas card. So I am very busy on the work front.
The balloons at the company's 2nd birthday
The bag of "birthday" sweeties
Meanwhile I have to do a horrible test at the Montepríncipe Hospital on Tuesday afternoon called a colonoscopy. I won’t go into what it’s about as I’m sure most readers will know what it is. The worst part is the preparations, 3 days of protein only diet and then some awful liquid to be taken.

On the subject of hospitals, Eladio and I went to visit Zena, our Ukranian cleaning lady who has just been operated at the Hospital Clínico San Carlos. She has a tumour in her cheek and will now have to have chemotherapy treatment. That was a depressing thing to do this weekend. We hope she gets better soon.

Finally this has been the week when I have begun to think about writing a book. What book you might say? Well it has to be about my Mother and her family. I have had encouragement from my best friend Amanda who offers to be my editor. Thanks darling. So here you have me thinking the whole time how it should be. It will probably be the story of 4 generations in history, about my maternal Grandmother, my Mother, me and finally my girls, Suzy and Oli. The how and when is now the subject of my thoughts. Suzy made the obvious question by asking me who would buy it. She’s right of course, probably very few people, but then the object is not to write a bestseller, but to record the whole story for my children and for the generations to come.

And on that note of self questioning, I leave these pages again until next week,

Cheers
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

Shopping with Susi, the ex-Motorola gathering and a relaxing weekend.

Hi

Friday I went speed shopping with Susi in Centro Oeste to buy a present for her boyfriend Gaby who is 21 today. The excuse was to buy him a present, but I managed to get in a red jumper from Cortefiel and a white one from Zara. And we also bought ourselves a lovely handbag each from Accesorize. Oli if you are reading this, we will do the same, I promise, when you come back from Falmouth for Christmas.

Meanwhile, 2 ex-colleagues from my Motorola days are organizing what they call the “First Analogue (Etacs) Generation Convention”. About 28 or 30 of the original staff will be meeting on the 16th November for a night out bowling and dining. We have been asked to send old photos for the occasion plus photos of how we look today. I have dug out quite a few out but the one I am most proud of is with Induráin (the five times winner of the Tour of France) where I am giving him a phone (the Flare) made specially for him. He was a guy who never smiled, but there he was smiling beautifully. The photo was taken at least 12 years ago.


This was the recent photo I chose to send in. It was taken in Arzuaga a couple of years ago.
The weekend has been quiet as usual with not much to report. We have been doing the usual, reading the papers, going for our walks and similar stuff I love and which gives me energy for the week coming.
Cheers till next week. M.

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

Cooking with the girls

Hiya again

I thought you might like to see this snapshot of the girls and I cooking in our fabulous new kitchen. We can be often found together making lunch and Eladio took this picture yesterday. We don't look that great, but he captured the atmosphere.

Until next time folks.

All the best/Masha

The girls

So Susi and Laura came back from London today. Alicia, Laura’s younger sister and our God daughter came back with us from Montrondo to welcome them back too. I couldn’t resist taking this picture of the 4 of them looking great in their new London dresses. Also I couldn’t resist adding this picture of darling Oli who looks lovely in the new yellow dress she bought to go to José’s sister’s wedding this weekend while we were in Montrondo.


Cheers/Masha

St. Valentines day is on the 14th Feb isn't it?

Valentines day was different this year. Truth to tell, neither Eladio nor I have ever paid much attention to it but now that the girls are old enough and seem to celebrate it quite a lot I gave it a bit more thought this year. We only ever been out to dinner once and we have never exchanged cards. But this year, what with having more time on my hands, I thought I'd change that.

In order for Eladio to be on the same wave length I told Susana to discreetly let him know that I was preparing somthing big. Apparently that got him worried. My "something big" was just going to be reserving a table somewhere as a surprise, not much more.

Time went by and then on Saturday morning (11th Feb!!!) I went up to our room after breakfast and found an envelope on my pillow. I sort of hoped it would be tickets to some exotic location but no, it was the first St. Valentine's card EVER from Eladio and it was dated 11th Feb. The word to describe my reaction was "flabbergasted". I couldn't quite understand. I didn't know whether to be touched or cross so I ended up laughing. Eladio felt humiliated and asked me not to tell too many people!! So what am I doing? Telling you all of course. It's far too funny to keep to myself. When I told my friend Anne-Marjut, she said "but Masha, everyone knows St.Valentine's is on the 14th February". Well, apparently that is not true.

So the night before came and I realised I hadn't got him a card. What was I to do? So I started being creative and getting out old birthday cards to me from my Father and covering the writing with a picture of me. Olivia told me my efforts were pathetic and very opportunely came out with a lovely flowery every occasion type card she had stored in one of her drawers.

Then the big day came and when I told Eladio I was taking him somewhere as a surprise he either didn't listen or didn't hear me. So it was a real surprise when I told him to start getting dressed to go out at 8.30. But he took it very well. The annoying thing was that he wasn't one bit interested where I was taking him. It's quite pointless being creative or trying to surprise him; you get little reaction. However we really enjoyed the dinner, as you can see from the pictures. Where did we go? To a lovely rice joint called La Albufera and we had something we adore called "arroz abanda" (actually brought more than half of it home in a doggy bag!!).

Susi was the lucky lady in our house last night. Her boyfriend arrived with a huge bunch of red roses. He had also rung me to ask me to prepare here a small overnight bag. So, he had arranged to take her to a plush hotel (which inclued champagne upon arrival) Would you believe it?

Oli was the less lucky one: no card, no flowers, no reserved table. However her boyfriend did send a text message to say he loved her everyday and not just on St. Valentines. They headed out to a favourite restaurant nearby only to find it was full, so they had to find somewhere else which turned out not to be that good. She was the first one home.

I have told Eladio to take note of Susi's boyfriend, Gaby and that I WANT FLOWERS NEXT YEAR!!!.

Hope you all had a good one my dear girlfriends.

Cheers/Masha

Mummy and the girls

This is a photo of the girls and me. Susi on the left of me and Oli (next to the window) on the right of me.
Oli hates this picture but I love it cos I look so young. It was actually taken when we went to Pernille and Thomas' wedding in Copenhagen some 5 years ago.
Published on my blog 13.9.05

My family

I am Mother to Susana (aged 21) and Olivia (aged 20). They are stunning looking girls. Susi is studying Food science (the idea that as she loves food so much she might as well study it) and Oli is doing Media studies - well actually it's a triple degree in media studies, advertising and audiovisual communication.

I have been married to Eladio for over 22 years now. It's quite normal for me but often some of my English girlfriends ask me if we are still together. Well we are and that proves that some marriages can be successful. Eladio has just retired (early retirement) after being a teacher of philosophy and before that a Catholic Priest.


My Father, Charles Courtenay Lloyd, now 86 is going strong. He is shortly coming to live with us - he will be moving out of his house in Bradford (UK) after 40 years. But he's looking forward to being with us all here in Madrid.

Pictures are of Eladio (relaxing in the garden at home), Olivia in the middle (at Amanda's wedding do) and Susi (close up) on the right.

Published 14th September 2005