Sunday 11th November 2012
Looking for a
new home help, Obama did it again, Oli working in Valencia with Miguel, chocolate caramel shortcake, a
family reunion and other things.
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| Olivia working with her boyfriend Miguel this week in Valencia |
Hello again my friends,
It is Sunday
and Remembrance Day and I imagine those of you in England will be wearing your
poppy. No poppies here I’m afraid but
Thursday was a holiday in Madrid to celebrate La Almudena, its patron saint and
many of us have had a long bank holiday weekend which finishes today.
The week has
been very busy, a lot of our time taken up with interviewing candidates to
replace Ivanka our Bulgarian home help and it has rained nearly every day.
Monday felt like the world was preparing for a Noah’s Arc type flood and on
many days of the week it rained so much we couldn’t go for our walk. So I was not surprised to hear that this
morning it was snowing in Montrondo, our beloved family village. Juan, my nephew is there this weekend and
here is a photo he took of the view from his house this morning. Doesn’t it look lovely?
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| It snowed in Montrondo this morning. I would have loved to be there. |
Our search for
a new living in home help has not been easy.
Ivanka finally let us know last Sunday that she wouldn’t be coming
back. We scoured the internet and didn’t
find much, so decided to place an advert.
I immediately started receiving calls from women from countless countries,
mostly South American, also Rumanian, Ukranian and Moroccan. Some Spanish women rang too which is rare but
a sign of the times. My ex daily cleaner
Zena came to clean on Monday and spent 10 hours doing so and confessed the
house was filthy and showed me the evidence: Ivanka had been sweeping the
floors and putting the dust and crumbs under the carpets! Apart from interviewing some of the candidates
from the advert, Zena brought us a friend, Lubya as did Iskrena – Ivanka’s
Bulgarian friend. The problem with these
candidates was that they hardly knew Spanish, although a lot of them could
speak Russian to my Father. In the end
we decided on a delightful Moroccan girl, Bashra. She was going to start yesterday but rang me
on Friday night to say she had thought it over and wasn’t coming in the
end. The reason: the house was just too
big. She’s right it’s 600m2 and a huge
job to keep clean. Maybe that’s why
Ivanka swept the dirt under the carpets.
So I rang our second best candidate, Oufa, another Moroccan girl (aged
30) and she has agreed to start tomorrow.
I hope she doesn’t go back on her word and that she turns out to be the
right choice.
Meanwhile, I
have been doing Ivanka’s job plus my own: washing, ironing, cooking but not
much cleaning, thanks to Zena’s wonderful effort on Monday but also because I
absolutely hate it. Eladio of course
has taken over Ivanka’s part of looking after my Father, taking him up and down
to his room on the wheel chair and today he even cut his hair! I never knew Eladio could be a barber but
then I think he can put his hand to nearly everything! What an amazing husband
I have.
The week has
been dominated by the US presidential elections and it was touch and go until
the last minute. Remember I wrote about
Hurricane Sandy last week and how maybe Obama’s management of that crisis would
earn him more votes. It might well have
or so I thought when I woke up on Wednesday morning to the news that he had
beaten the Mormon Bishop, Mitt Romney by more than 100 seats. So yes he won and he did it again and I am glad. He tweeted “four more years” at 8.16pm
European time on Tuesday 6th November and posted a lovely photo
embracing his wife Michelle. That tweet
has now become the all time number one retweet on Twitter and I was one of the
675.000 people who retweeted it by late Wednesday morning.
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| I was very happy that Obama won. This his tweet, the all time number one retweet on Twitter |
You can see
his victory or acceptance speech here where with great emotion he thanks all
the volunteers for helping him during the campaign. But what I loved most was when he said “I
love you Michelle” and remarked too that he was happy to see that so many
Americans had fallen in love with her, America’s first lady, too. I really think that his emotional
intelligence is one of his biggest assets, as is his family.
I’m sure
Olivia, as a journalist would have loved to report on the US Elections, but she
she was more than happy to be reporting for her TV programme from Valencia this
week because it meant working with her boyfriend, Miguel, who was her own
personal cameraman. It was the first
time they would be working together although they had met at TVE Valencia where
he is stationed. The photo illustrating
this week’s blog post is of the two of them in the TV satellite van which he is
in charge of as part of his job.
Tuesday saw
her reporting live on an up and coming mega party to be hosted in Valencia for
young people. It was news because of the
tragic mega party in Madrid on Halloween when four young girls died. You can see her report here if you go to
11.38h.
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| Oli reporting from Valencia on Tuesday |
Wednesday saw her
reporting on a primary school in an appalling state. You can see that piece here if you go to
12.08h
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| Olivia reporting on Wednesday from Valencia |
On Thursday I
missed her report on a jewelry shop robbery with violence where the owner, a friendly
elderly man called Viçent told the awful story of how his shop was robbed and
how the robbers attacked him whilst doing so.
We had seen the story on the evening news and were appalled by the
violence but happy that he came away nearly unscathed.
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| Olivia on Thursday with Viçent the man whose jewelry shop was robbed |
And on Friday
she reported again on the mega party for 8.000 young people to be held soon in
Valencia. You can’t see the video
because the report was before 11 and the programme only publishes the video
from 11h onwards or a bit later. However I took a photo of her whilst we
watched her live and I think she looks great.
Red suits her as it does me:-)
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| Olivia reporting from Valencia on Friday |
Whilst Olivia
was away, at least we had the wonderful company of Suzy most days for lunch
this week. She always brightens up our
day. On Tuesday I came to her rescue when her car broke down and went to pick her up from the garage in Boadilla just as she arrived with the tow lorry.
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| Suzy's car broke down this week. Thankfully it was nothing serious. |
On the work
front, I was in the office on Tuesday for the management team meeting and it
was on Tuesday when I bumped into César, an ex colleague from my Nokia days who
now heads up the Mobile division of Samsung Spain. As we always do when we meet, we spoke about
other ex Nokia colleagues, all doing well and scattered in different companies
in the sector. I commented that it would
be great to have a reunion Christmas dinner and there and then we set a date,
the 4th December and I agreed to organize it. No sooner said than done, I created the event
on Facebook, inviting old Nokia Mobile Phones colleagues and to do date nearly
40 colleagues have confirmed, including some favourite colleagues from the
Networks Division. I still have to book
a venue and am planning in my head some surprises to jazz up the occasion.
But meanwhile
I have to organize the Yoigo Christmas events.
So, on Wednesday I took my new boss to visit the location I had chosen
for the employee party. Thankfully he
really liked the Mercado Gourmet Isabela and so did Cristina his
assistant. In fact we ended up having an
impromptu lunch there with the team from my events agency QuintaEsencia. It’s a really original place for a party and
I hope the staff will like it as much as I do, not least because the grub is
superb.
Thursday was a
holiday in Madrid and I spent most of it driving to the bus stop at local
shopping centre to pick up all the candidates and ferry them back after their
interviews. It didn’t just rain when I
did so, it poured, as I mentioned above that it did most of the week.
On Friday my
M+S online parcel arrived with more Christmas goodies. That got me thinking how nice it would be to
visit an English food store outside Madrid called The Food Hall. I suggested to Suzy we go in the afternoon
and she jumped at the chance. I had
ordered some things online from The Food Hall which is in far away San
Sebastián de los Reyes tucked away in an industrial estate and had always
thought of visiting it personally. And
that we did on Friday afternoon.
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| The Food Hall, the English shop Suzy and I went to on Friday afternoon |
Here we
stocked up with lots of Christmas produce – mainly the chocolate type but I
also spied packets of meringue nests. I
took the 8 I found on the shelf and the young Bermudan girl who runs the shop
(and their FB page and very well too) commented I had taken her whole order of
meringue nests. They are great for desserts
as you can see here. I asked her if she
had any sugar free jelly and she took me to the jam section. I always forget that people who speak
American English (like in Bermuda) call jam jelly. We laughed at the story. And, no they don’t have sugar free
jelly. But they had lots of other things
included Turkish delight ad walnut whips, my Father’s favourite confectionary.
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| Meringue nest with fruit and ice cream. I bought all the packs The Food Hall had |
On our way
home in the pouring rain, we went to Ikea to buy some Swedish Christmas and non
Christmas produce but it was so crowded, Suzy had to wait outside in the
car. Here I stocked up on smoked salmon,
various jams, frozen cakes, peeled cooked prawns but unfortunately no Daim
chocolate. I was upset to hear they no
longer stock it as it was a great favourite with my Father and Suzy. Later I regretted not buying the typical
gingerbread house which comes in a flat pack, just like their furniture, but I
think we had done enough gourmet shopping for one day.
It was too
dark and wet for a walk when we came home, so inspired by our visit to the
English shop, I decided to make chocolate caramel shortbread to take to the
family dinner on Saturday in Madrid at José Antonio and Dolores’ house. I used this recipe but warn you if you use
it, either to double the shortcake ingredients and use the stated quantities for
the caramel or for a smaller quantity to use the stated quantities for the
shortbread and only half the quantity for the caramel.
And here is a
photo of the finished product which I have to add tasted delicious and was very
popular, not only at the dinner last night but on my FB page too.
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| The wonderful chocolate caramel shortcake I made on Friday afternoon |
On Friday,
true to tradition, Eladio and I went out to dinner. Once again we chose La Vaca
Argentina, in Las Rozas where we always feel welcomed by the staff. When we came home we were delighted to see
that the second part of the film about the life of John Paul II was on the
television. We had seen the first part of
“Karol: a man who became pope” last week and had thought the film ended when
Karol Wojtyla becomes Pope. So we were
in for a happy surprise and watched it fascinated until the end. The second part focuses a lot on his relationship
with Mother Teresa of Calcutta and of course on the attack on his life but also
on his illness, Parkinson’s disease which made this universally loved and charismatic
Polish pope suffer so much until his very last breath. I must say I shed quite
a few tears and the film still haunts me now. And as I write, I have ordered
the DVD on Amazon.es as at both sittings we had missed the first half.
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| We watched part of the second half of this marvelous film on Friday night |
Yesterday,
Saturday was really the highlight of the week, the only down side being having
to cook, clean, wash and iron endlessly.
I can’t wait for Oufa to come tomorrow!
Olivia returned from Valencia and Suzy came for lunch and to spend the
afternoon. My Father remarked at lunch
when we ate some of the chocolate caramel shortcake as well as turrón that it
felt like Christmas. I think he was
right; it certainly was a lovely family lunch.
We were robbed
of our walk in the afternoon because of the rain, so with some time on my hands
and feeling a bit sweaty after hoovering the stairs and floors, I decided it
was the right moment to have a luxurious Jacuzzi in our bathroom. I rarely use
the Jacuzzi but when I do I appreciate it enormously. To add to the atmosphere, I added some M+S
bath scent, played some music from Spotify on my adored Samsung Galaxy S3 and
lit the candles. And this is what my
bath looked like.
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| Preparing for my jacuzzi on Saturday afternoon |
Later I got
ready to go out to dinner with Eladio and the girls to José Antonio and Dolores
house in Madrid where we were to join Pili and Andrés, Isidro and Yoli as well
as my nieces Sara, Alicia, Paula and her boyfriend Pedro for a wonderful family
reunion.
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| The younger generation at the family reunion dinner last night |
I took with me some of the caramel shortcake
which we call “the bomb” in the family, some of my home made croquettes, a
chicken waldorf salad and some great 2004 vintage Rioja wine. Dolores had gone all out and made loads of
food, the best of which was her baked salted cod with red peppers. She gave me some to take home and that is
what we are having for lunch today.
Pili, Andrés,
Yoli and Isidro had come from León on Friday night to help their daughters
Paula and Alicia to move flats in the same building they are living in and
which belongs to my friends Pedro Delgado and his wife Ludi. The dinner was great although we had to
separate the generations as we were 14 for dinner. In the photo below you can see the men, the
three brothers (Eladio, José Antonio and Isidro) and my brother in law Andrés
sitting at the lovingly laid table.
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| The men at the reunion dinner last night |
And today,
Sunday, I look forward as I write to another cozy family lunch with all the
family members present. Hopefully this
afternoon it won’t rain and we will be able to go on our walk. I also look forward to a little retail
therapy with the girls after lunch whilst the men sleep their siesta.
And on that
note, I will leave you until next week.
Cheers till
then my friends
Masha
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