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| Olivia skiing this week at La Bola del Mundo near Madrid |
Hi again,
Believe it or
not I am writing this week’s post from the Montepríncipe Hospital in
Pozuelo. I will get to the reason why
later, but first let me tell you about the week in chronological order as
usual.
Last Sunday I
should have included some good news. The
Spanish journalist, Marc Marginedas, from El Periódico de Cataluña, was freed
after having been kidnapped for six months by a fraction group of Al Qaeda in
Syria. He was absurdly accused of spying
for the west. His release gives us hope that his fellow Spanish journalists Javier
Espinosa and Ricardo Garcia Vilanova from El Mundo will be freed soon
too. I certainly hope so.
Sunday night
of course was the Oscars night, but I only got the news on Monday morning. I was quite pleased that 12 Years a Slave,
the film we saw recently, got best picture.
It got 3 awards and Gravity got 7.
I don’t think I will be seeing Gravity.
But the main news that came out of the Oscars was about a selfie (that
word again) photo. The presenter, Ellen
DeGeneres, took a Samsung sponsored selfie with other famous stars and it has turned
out to be the most tweeted photo ever with over 2.5m retweets! Interestingly
enough the presenter tweeted other photos but from her iPhone – I’m sure
Samsung weren’t happy about that. One of
the photos was blurry and Nokia took advantage by retweeting it because of its
blurriness. It’s funny how much
protagonism the mobile phone manufacturers got from the Oscars. It’s also funny
to think that the word “selfie” didn’t even exist at last year’s edition.
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| The now famous Oscar Selfie |
Monday was
quiet, my fasting day of course. I had
breakfast with Oli as I did most days of the week. I also got in two walks that day as I did
every day of this week. The walks on Monday and Tuesday were extremely windy I
must say. My fitbit is giving me great
statistics from 2 hours of walking every day.
On Tuesday
morning I decided to go to the local doctor as I have been having coughing fits
at night for two weeks now which give me terrible nights. Basically I needed him to prescribe the only
medicine which keeps the cough away for a few hours and allows you some sleep –
it’s called Codeisán in Spanish. I
suppose it’s pure codeine and quite strong but it is effective. I was happy to hear from my South American
doctor that the cold had not reached my lungs.
Tuesday was
Shrove Tuesday, “Mardi Gras”, “Martes de Carnaval” in Spanish. In English it is
paganly known as “Pancake day” too. I
toyed with the idea of making pancakes that night, the English custom, but
decided not to in the end because they are so filling and fattening. In the end I made a delicious healthy salad
for our dinner. Fátima was very
impressed and asked me to take a picture.
Here is my salad made of tuna fish, onion, tomatoes, asparagus and
boiled eggs:
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| The salad I made instead of pancakes |
On Tuesday I
had a good long talk on the phone with Suzy who is very happy with her
job. Now she just needs to find some
decent accommodation. I wish her luck in
this respect. I can’t wait to see her
again and hope she will be able to come for her 30th birthday at the
end of April.
On Wednesday
this week’s glorious pre spring weather began.
It has made our walks much more pleasant. The dogs enjoy it too and rather than being
cooped up in the kitchen they have been looking for the sunny spots
outside. I caught them both sleeping in
these photos below.
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| The dogs enjoying this week's sunshine |
That afternoon
I had a meeting in Madrid with a telecommunications association with my
counterparts from the other Spanish operators.
We are forming some sort of work group to respond to the press on topics
we all agree on; mostly regulatory issues.
I arrived a little early and went to sit in a park nearby and suddenly
realized I was sitting in the park we used to take the girls to when they were
tiny and we lived in the middle of Madrid.
I don’t know its name only that it’s on Maldonado Street and off
Principe de Vergara. We spent many
afternoons with the girls there when they were babies and toddlers so as I sat
there on Wednesday afternoon, it brought back many happy memories. It was actually quite a dusty and dirty little park but the only one near where we lived.
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| The dusty and dirty little park we used to take the girls to when they were little. |
I was keen to
get home before dark so as to go on my second walk. These days in Madrid it gets dark at about
8pm, so I managed it thank goodness.
Thursday was
another beautiful day. I recorded 20c on
my iPhone as I went on one of my walks that day
But 50km from
Madrid in the Guadarrama mountain range there was still snow. Miguel had come to stay with Olivia this week
and she took two days off to be with him and on Thursday they went skiing. They had a great time. It seems funny that I was on my walk with
short sleeves whilst they were just a short distance away skiing; what a
contrast.
That morning I
had an appointment with the chiropodist and also had to go to the office for a
couple of errands. But I needed (notice
the word needed) to go to Zara, in between, as I had to return a dress which
didn’t suit me and time was running out to do so – nearly a month was up since I
had bought it. Of course once there I
took a look around and spied a wonderful deep blue dress to go with the shoes I
had bought from Clarks. Then I spied a
matching bag and voilà I had acquired a superb matching outfit. These are the three items which I entitled
Spring Blue:
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| My "Spring Blue" outfit from Clarks and Zara. |
Friday was
another beautiful warm day. It was also
Eladio’s Mother’s birthday. Ernestina
was 92 and Eladio and José Antonio sent her a bunch of flowers on
Interflora. My sisters-in-law said she
was very touched. Here she is looking a lot less than 92 with the flowers.
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| Eladio's Mother Ernestina was 92 this week and Eladio and José Antonio sent her these flowers |
That night
Eladio and I had dinner at La Vaca Argentina.
Thanks to Oli’s boyfriend Miguel we found out we could enjoy a discount
of 40% booking via The Fork (El Tenedor).
It is one of our favourite restaurants and we wished we had known
before. But now we do and will be using
The Fork to book a table there often in the future. A superb dinner for two came to just 37
euros.
Saturday,
yesterday, was International Women’s Day.
These sort of celebratory days don’t usually interest me much but I can
sympathise with part of yesterday’s celebration as women are still not equal to
men in many ways. But I got on with life
as usual. We washed the dogs, or rather
Eladio did (no problem with equality in our house, hahaha), Eladio sold one of
the girls’ cars as we no longer need 4 cars as Susana is living in England
permanently now. Also yesterday I discovered a great mobile phone photography app,
instant collage, thanks to Suzy who sent us a photo collage of the family. I immediately installed it and created this
photo below of us. Nice eh?
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| Playing with a great photo collage app on my phone. |
And today is
Sunday and time to tell you why I am writing from the hospital. Well at breakfast Eladio suddenly felt faint
and started to sweat. His face went
white and I immediately decided to drive him to the hospital. He felt sick on the way and we had to stop. We came to the Montepríncipe private hospital
in Pozuelo which was very quiet and we didn’t have to wait in A&E. The doctors were very thorough and did all
sorts of tests: electrocardiogram, blood pressure and blood test. They couldn’t find anything and suspect his
problem is gastric but insisted he be admitted under observation. It is strange to be with him here as he
usually so strong and has absolutely no history of illness. In fact it is the first time ever that he has
been admitted to hospital.
So here we are
sitting in a private room which feels like a hotel. He is feeling a lot better now and I am sure
it won’t be anything and we will be out tomorrow. Olivia and Miguel came immediately to see him
and brought a lovely plant and newspapers and magazines. Later I went home to get our pcs and other
necessary stuff and then I had lunch with Oli and Miguel in Majadahonda. Oli very sweetly invited us. Thank you darling.
That my
friends is the end of the tales of this week.
It has not ended as we would have wanted but we are not worried and are
quite enjoying the peace together in this pleasant hospital room.
I will leave
you now as I will leave Eladio too for an hour or so as I go for yet another
walk.
Cheers till next time
Masha
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