Fathers' Day Bank Holiday

Hello again

I had just started work again and one week later it was Bank Holiday. So I am writing from home in my pyjamas at nearly midday (but you are not getting that photo!). Well, we’ve had a very busy weekend with lots of socializing.

Susi went off to Benidorm with Carolina to see her best (childhood) friend Copito who has recently gone to live there. Actually 40% of Madrid’s population left the city for the bank holiday and most of them probably went to the coast. But they all went to bad weather as we have had rain ALL weekend. But that’s very much needed as Spain is in the throes of a very threatening drought.

Oli stayed behind to finish off a work project filming Madrid’s road works. We’ve hardly seen her all weekend.

My bank holiday started on Friday night with dinner with Marta (a very good friend - link to her blog is on mine) at the Vaca Argentina. As you may have guessed by now, it is one of my favourite restaurants. Marta and I met at Nokia and drank many morning coffees together there, so we had lots to talk about and catch up on. She gave me a beautiful ring she had made. Thanks darling. We must do this again.

On Saturday we had people for dinner: Eladio’s colleagues from his time in Local Education. We were 9 for dinner, Víctor and Mariluz, Juanjo and Justi, Roberto and Maricarmen, my Father and ourselves. As for all our dinner parties, I went all out in the preparations and spent from about 2.30 to 9 cooking and preparing. So what did I make: Cream of lobster soup (real ingredients and no cheating), a Tex-Mex second course consisting of fajitas with chili con carne, guacamole, nachos and sour cream. The desert was "la pièce de la resistance", English sherry trifle and here I did cheat with nearly everything but I don’t think anyone noticed except Eladio but I told him to keep quiet (I actually used stronger words but they wouldn’t go down well here on my blog would they?). They stayed till after 2 in the morning so the next day I was pretty much exhausted with a bit of a hangover as I had drunk too much wine as usual!! A big thank you here to my Father who did nearly all the washing up!!

Yesterday, San José, was Eladio’s beloved brother, José Antonio’s birthday and we were invited to their house for lunch. It’s always funny going to their house in Calle Francisco Silvela because we used to live there too and it’s like going down memory lane. But we really did go down memory lane yesterday as we went for a walk in the Retiro park first. The Retiro Park is Madrid’s Hyde Park or Central Park and is always full of people from everywhere, lots of side shows and is often called the Lung of Madrid. It was real memory lane because when we lived in Francisco Silvela (18 years ago!!!) we used to go every Sunday morning with the girls and so yesterday we had many memories to relive. We went purposely on the very same route, parking where we always used to park, past the kiosk where we used to buy them sweets, past the ducks we used to throw bread to, past the puppet theatre and then on to the same cafeteria we always used to have a coffee at. Lovely!

Today we are just relaxing with the newspapers. There will be no cooking, thank God but probably some ironing to catch up on (loads actually). A nice quiet day at home with the family.

And tomorrow, back to my exciting new project ……………

Cheers/Masha
PS the picture is of Eladio, myself and my Father at the Retiro.