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| Mrs. Wright in 2008, already aged 100 I think. |
Hello again,
Another week
has passed. We are well into October and
the good weather continues. I am still wearing summer clothes believe it or
not. I have been shopping with the
girls this week on quite a few occasions (there is nothing like retail therapy
to make you happy) but felt reluctant, with this weather, to buy any winter
clothes which is what the shops stock at this time of year. I did buy some lovely shoes and boots but
will wait for the weather to turn cooler before wearing or buying any real winter
clothes. On Saturday morning Suzy took
me to a little boutique in Majadahonda called Despacio, recommended to her by
Rocío, where I found a treasure of a striped long jumper come dress; something I
think I can wear in all seasons. The
little shop was a true find and we will be going back I am sure.
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| Shopping with Suzy at a boutique called Despacio in Majadahonda on Saturday |
Shopping took
up some of the week, but certainly not all.
I was in and out of the office for various projects I am working on and
also had lunch with the new telecoms journalist for El Mundo, Spain’s main
right wing newspaper, as well as a meeting over coffee with the girls from my
events agency, Quintaesencia, at Zielo.
And on
Wednesday evening I got a phone call, which I knew would bring fatal news. It was from Susan Wright, our neighbour in
Bradford. Susan’s Mother, Marguerite,
Mrs. Wright to me, who would have been 103 in a fortnight’s time, died in her sleep on Monday
night and left Susan, a spinster, with whom she has lived all her life and most of it at 5
Heaton Grove, an orphan, aged nearly 80 herself. As she spoke and half cried to me on the
phone, she pronounced that “Mummy was all my world and I cannot live without
her”. They were my parents’ neighbours
for nearly 50 years as my Father remarked just now whilst I was ordering
flowers for Mrs. Wright’s funeral next Tuesday.
Susan and Marguerite were a slightly eccentric, but loveable genteel
daughter and mother with somewhat fiery characters who lived their lives
surrounded by beautiful antiques in a Victorian house. Today it is an oasis of beauty in a street,
now completely owned by Asian immigrants but which was once described as
millionaires’ row when it was first built by German textile merchants in the
1870 when Bradford was at the heart of the wool industry. I saw Mrs. Wright for the last time in the
summer and as I was saying goodbye, I knew then, that I was saying goodbye
forever. “The Wrights”, as we called
them, were wonderful neighbours of my parents, but especially so when my Mother
died and my Father was left alone in that big house in Heaton Grove. They would share the newspapers everyday and my
Father would be invited each Sunday for afternoon tea and homemade cake and they would do or
finish the Times or Telegraph crosswords together. My heart goes out to Susan now, who will be
left in that great big house surrounded by beauty but absolutely alone. Meanwhile my thoughts are with her Mother too. Although she had a seemingly eternal life, her last two years were cruelly afflicted
with dementia. Now she can finally rest
in peace.
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| The Wrights, our loyal neighbours at Heaton Grove for nearly 50 years. |
The Wrights, I
am sure, would have been fascinated to read in The Times about the marriage of
an eccentric Duchess in Spain this week.
I refer to the Duchess of Alba, the woman with the most titles in the
world; more than Queen Elizabeth herself, who at the age of 85 got married for
the third time this week to a titleless civil servant 24 years her junior. She did so after huge opposition from her
children and the Spanish royal family. Only
after making her future husband who some call a “toy boy”, sign away any rights
to her fortune, could the wedding go ahead.
The Duchess of Alba whose full name is Maria del Rosario Cayetana
Alfonso Victoria Eugenia Francisca Fitz-James Stuart y Silva, was once known
for her looks, but after so much plastic surgery has completely ruined any
remaining beauty and in my eyes looks like a ridiculous scare crow. Her lips are so pouted she can hardly speak
and her hair looks like a kitchen mop.
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| The wedding of the larger than life 85 year old Duchess of Alba was the news of the week in Spain. |
The wedding
was much in the news here and even Olivia found herself reporting on a topic
around it. The day before the wedding
the Duchess’ youngest child and only daughter, Eugenia Martínez de Irujo was
reported to have chicken pox and would not be able to attend the wedding. Most people took this to be an excuse on the
part of her daughter who didn’t want to attend the wedding. As it turned out the story was true and in
fact the Duchess’ youngest child had to be admitted to hospital with
complications. And this is the story
Olivia reported on from the Gregorio Marañón hospital where she was
admitted. You can see the clip here - minute 01.52.42.
This week in
fact, Oli did two live reports, both of which I missed. On Tuesday she was reporting on the story of
a baby who died after a shoot out in a church near Madrid by some mad man. She hardly ever lets us know these days as if
every live reporting were just part of a new routine. To us, it is still a novelty and we are extremely proud of her.
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| It's always news for us when Oli reports live on TVE1 |
Now that
Olivia no longer has a double job, we see a lot more of her, in the afternoons
and evenings of course. She starts work at 7 and finishes at 2 and is home in time for lunch. We try also to have
dinner all together and go for family walks.
It’s what I call quality family time.
Quality family time is also spent in the early evenings by the pool with
Eladio, my Father and the dogs. This is
our quiet reading time. As I told you I
would, I started Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd this week and am riveted by it
and far prefer it to Restless the previous book I read by the same author.
 |
| We spend most afternoons or evenings reading by the pool these days and are always accompanied by the dogs. Here is Eladio with darling Elsa, our labrador puppy, soon to be 5 months old |
If Wednesday
was the Spanish Duchess’ big day, it was also the day that Apple was to
announce what the world thought would be the iPhone 5. Apple, the masters of communication, had the
whole industry waiting and I, for one, was a little disappointed to find out later
that they were only launching the so-called iPhone 4S and that the iPhone 5
(whatever that is, a low tier version of the icon phone?) wouldn’t come until
2012. The supposed big new feature of
the iPhone4S is voice recognition.
Hopefully it is a better or easier to use voice recognition technology
as my experience with it has never been successful and I long gave up on it
ever working properly either in a phone or in my car. My first experience goes
back to the early 90’s whilst setting up the Motorola stand at the Spanish SIMO
exhibition with the help of a young technician, Alex Good. The ****** application never worked; it just kept
saying “voice not recognized” until I could have thrown it off the stand. As it was at least 2 in the morning at the
time, my patience was at its end. Alex’
explanation was that it probably preferred a man’s voice and it did.
Luck would
have it that the very next day, the man at the core of the company, Apple, the
quickly becoming legendary founder, Steve Jobs, passed away. He was only 56 and died of that dreadful disease,
cancer. Steve Jobs needs no introduction
as he was one of the world’s most famous entrepreneurs or business magnates and
heads a league of men of similar stature such as Bill Gates, Mark Zukckerberg
or the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergei Brin, who all built iconic
companies in Silicon Valley.
I have read a lot about him since his death on
Thursday, as people have paid tribute to him on internet and offline all over
the world. He has been compared to
Einstein, to Henry Ford and there have even been jokes about him in heaven
offering to make applications. I agree
he was a visionary, he was probably a great man, but he did not invent the pc,
nor the mobile phone as you might be lead to think. In my mind he reinvented them or led a team
of people to do so and he made very desirable and beautifully finished
products. Above all he was a master in communication,
hardly ever needing to advertise his company’s products. The media were happy to advertise any news
about Apple for free and for that to happen you have to be someone very special
or make very special products. His name
was entwined with the company as part of its brand and you cannot imagine Apple
without Steve Jobs, nor can you think about Steve Jobs without thinking about
the company called Apple.
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| Steve Jobs was entwined with Apple as part of its brand. I wonder how Apple will continue without him. |
For me he was
the Father of the best mobile phone ever.
To understand him better, to understand this very clever, charismatic entrepreneur,
I recommend you watch, if you haven’t already, the Stanford commencement speech
made by him in 2005. I love the bit especially
when he says: “Sometimes
life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that
the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to
find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be
truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do
great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.
Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.
And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years
roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle”.
On Thursday I was hit unexpectedly by a small brick on my head and my whole
world came tumbling down for a day and a night, at least in my mind, and it
made me think over a lot of things. It
also made me appreciate even more everything I have. Then when I read those words by Steve Jobs, I
identified with them one hundred percent and they will keep me going even in
the darkest times. In fact on Friday when it was all over,
Eladio and I went out to dinner to Tony Romas and I wrote in my check-in at
Foursquare, “celebrating life with Eladio”.
In Steve Job’s speech at Stanford, he also said that he had learned to
live every day like it was the last day of his life. I like the idea but won’t be taking it too
far if I want to maintain a bit of equilibrium in my life. In any case, thank you and goodbye Steve
Jobs. The world will never forget you
The day Steve Jobs died, my Father, who has never owned a mobile phone, nor
used an iPhone, received his very first email.
It came from a fellow retired teacher at Bradford Grammar School, Raymond Shaw
Smith. Ray, to my Father, Mr. Shaw Smith
to me at the time, taught Classics and was married to a woman with a Spanish
name, Dolores, who unfortunately died two years ago. They lived on a farm in
West Yorkshire which I remember visiting it as a child with my family. My Father was delighted to get his “first
email” and he dictated a long reply to me to send to Raymond. I did so and
included a photo of the five of us and sincerely hope he received it and writes
back as it cheered my Father up enormously.
We continue to
look after my Father with loving care and I am paying particular attention to
his meals. I have been making food he especially likes to whet his appetite. In
the results of a recent blood test he has lost a lot of iron, so on Saturday I
made one of my specialities, Spanish lentil soup but added spinach for some
extra iron. It was followed by homemade
croquettes, fruit salad and ice cream. This
is what the lentil soup looked like. We had it for
lunch yesterday and again today when the girls’ friends, Juli and Rocío came
for lunch unexpectedly.
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| My homemade lentils |
As I am finishing
my blog, I can hear Suzy, Juli and Rocío emptying the washing up machine in the
kitchen, whilst Olivia has made a disappearing trick as usual. Olivia loves food but is at odds with domesticity. My Father is sitting next to me in his wheel
chair with a cup of tea and biscuits and will soon be reading this entry. As ever, he is my most loyal reader.
I hope you
enjoy this week’s post and I also hope you all have a great week ahead of you.
Mine will be quite exciting as I shall be travelling to Lithuania for a meeting
in Vilnus on Wednesday. There will be news about
that in next week’s blog post.
Meanwhile, all
the best
Masha
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