Sunday 6th April 2014
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| Suzy on her new bike yesterday, happy as a sandgirl in London |
Hi again,
Wow it’s
Sunday again and the week has flown past.
It was definitely the busiest week of the year so far and quite action
packed; just how I like it.
Monday, my
fasting day, started off quietly. Eladio
bathed the dogs whilst I worked quietly from my desk on the ground floor. In
the photo below you will observe Norah our beagle worriedly watching my husband
bathe Elsa our Labrador. It’s amazing
how close these two dogs are and how Norah became Elsa’s surrogate mother.
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| Eladio washed the dogs last Monday |
On my morning
walk, once again I came across the flock of sheep which now seems to frequent
the fields we go past. I snapped a shot
of a ram and the shepherd dog came running towards me aggressively which made
me put some speed in my heels and regret the action.
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| The flock of sheep on my walk |
It was during
the walk I got a request to attend an urgent meeting later that afternoon to
prepare the management team presentation for an illustrious visitor. You see the next day was 1st April
and the mark of the beginning of the organization change in our mother
company. On that very day the new boss
of the Europe region, my boss’ new boss was coming to visit Yoigo. So off I went to join the meeting which would
last till quite late in the evening. As
I drove home in deep traffic I realized just how lucky I am to be able to work
from home and not face the traffic daily commuters have to on a daily
basis. Spaniards may start work later
than their European counterparts but they sure do work much later hours, many
of them not getting home till past 9pm.
That night
Barcelona was playing Spain’s top of the “Liga” team, Atlético de Madrid, at
the Nou Camp in the first leg of the Champions League quarter final. The result was a 1-1 draw which seems to be
the norm recently when these two teams meet.
However it was a good result for the Madrid team as the aggregate will
put them in a good position when they meet again next week.
Tuesday was 1st
April and of course April Fools’ Day which I sort of missed out on this
year. I was up at 5.45 to be in the
office by 8.30 when our meetings were to start.
As the traffic can be so bad I left the house early, only to arrive at
Yoigo at 07.30. It was still dark and
the lovely colour changing neon light of the Yoigo logo was lit up. I caught
the orange one as you can see in the photo below.
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Thus I caught
up with my emails quietly from the cafeteria before it even opened only to be
the first in the queue for coffee when it did. My main focus of work that day
was the issue of a press release to announce that Yoigo now has 4G coverage in
all Spanish capital cities (nice eh?) and in 220 towns, most of them with over
70k inhabitants. I’m still gleeful that Telefónica, the biggest operator in
Spain, is roaming on our 4G network when we are the smallest network operator
in the country.
I spent the
whole morning in the office with the management team giving an overview of the
company to the new head of Europe.
Funnily enough he is a Finn and worked for 27 years with Nokia before
joining TeliaSonera. So we had something
in common as I too worked for Nokia as most of you know.
The highlight
of his visit was a staff meeting which are called Yoigo Mornings at the
company. Getting the staff to ask
questions is always a challenge but we managed at least 3 after which there was
“a mingle” with food and drinks as befitted the occasion.
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| A moment during the Yoigo Morning on Tuesday |
We had lunch
out and took our visitor to El Filandón, a lovely place near the office. I
really must take Eladio there one day.
It was no joke
that night when Real Madrid beat Borussia Dortmund 3-0 at the Bernabeu in their
fixture of the first leg of the Champions League quarter final but we couldn’t
watch it on TV as the match was only available on pay per viewL. I well remember being at the Champions League
matches when I worked for Motorola and we sponsored the Champions League. Those were such fun days!
On Wednesday I
was up early again although not as early as on Tuesday. I was off to Stockholm from the newly
baptized “Madrid “Adolfo Suárez” Barajas Airport” and had been lucky to get a
seat on the only direct flight there run by Iberia. I only realized when I was on board that I
was on the inaugural flight. We were
offered chocolates and champagne for the occasion! I was excited to learn that finally there was
a direct available flight from Madrid to Stockholm but disappointed to hear
that it only runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
The direct flight takes only 3.15h whereas when you have to fly through
another airport it takes about 7 hours and is a very long haul. When I arrived at Arlanda airport, the flight
leaving for Madrid, the flight we had come on, was festive too with lots of red
balloons and I was happy to see a familiar face, my ex colleague Claes, who was
taking that very flight. We hugged and
laughed at the coincidence. Nice to see
you Claes, bet you got champagne and chocolates too!
I was happy to
see sunshine in Stockholm. In fact the
sun shone throughout my visit making the Scandinavian capital more attractive
than ever. It was quite chilly though
for me and I regretted not having brought my gloves. The Swedes behaved as if it was midsummer,
some of them not even bothering with a coat! I took a taxi to my destination,
the delightful little island of Skeppsholmen (“skepps” is shipbuilding I think
and “holmen” means islet or little island).
I have worked for a Swedish company for nearly 8 years but have never
bothered to learn the language, something I think I should have done when I
joined Yoigo. Maybe I will, you never
know, it could be one of my biggest new objectives. I kept looking at words
whilst I was there this week and realized I recognized many of them or could at
least guess what they meant.
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| Skeppsholmen Island - to the right and smaller is Kastellholmen and in front is Djurgarden |
Skeppsholmen
is a small island just off the town centre and easily reached by crossing a
wooden bridge with golden royal crowns and is about a 10 minute walk from the
Grand Hotel. I checked into my home away
from home in Stockholm at the Hotel of the same name as the Island where I
always try to stay. I love staying there
because of the location which permits me to go on long walks to the city and
back but also because the hotel which I think was an old prison or army
barracks is a wonderful place to be.
It’s very Scandinavian with wooden floors and simple decoration but very
homely too.
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| Skeppsholmen Hotel |
As soon as I
had checked in, unpacked and connected to internet (like breathing for me,
hahaha), I set off on the wonderful walk along the Baltic Sea with views of
Gamla Stan (the heart of the old town), past the Grand Hotel and through a
beautiful park on my way to the shops. There
were many signs of spring but also flowers everywhere and I kept stopping to
take pictures. I particularly love the flower arrangement outside the hotel.
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| Flowers outside my hotel |
I was heading
to Galerian (shopping centre) to see my favourite shops Lindex, Vero Moda and
Kappahl. These are brands you don’t see in Spain, they are quite low cost and
the style is very Scandinavian (lots of cotton, blue, white and striped
garments). Here I had a field day. Once
back at the hotel I spread my purchases out on the bed and took a photo. You will notice I am mad about stripes!!
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| The clothes I bought in Stockholm at Lindex and Kappahl |
The clothes
are both for me and Olivia as we seem to have a similar taste. They are not for
Suzy though who prefers a different style.
I promised her I would buy her some new clothes when she comes for her
30th birthday at the end of this month. Can’t wait darling!
Dinner was
alone at the hotel dining room, but not completely alone as I whatsapped with
Suzy, my eldest daughter who lives in London, throughout my dinner. This was the dining room, not a good picture,
but you get the feel right?
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| The dining room at the hotel |
As usual I had
my favourite dish there and in Sweden, the shrimps on toast which is called “skagen”. Dessert turned out to be the “pièce de résistance”:
toffee tart with raspberry sorbet.
Wonderful eh?
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| My delicious dessert at the hotel on Wednesday night. |
I went to bed
early, eager to watch series 2 of Mr. Selfridge I had ordered from Amazon.co.uk. I was loving every minute of it but when I
put disk two in to my pc, it was faulty so I had to make do with the BBC World
News. I was a bit cross with Amazon and
still have to contact them to get a replacement. I had hoped to sleep well that night but that
wasn’t to be, don’t ask me why, except that I can tell you I am a very light
sleeper waking up many times during the night.
I was up early
the next day at around 7 and as my meeting wasn’t starting until 12, I decided
that I would take the boat to the island across the way, Djurgarden (literally
“animal garden” but really the “royal game park” - everything is “royal” in
Sweden). Djurgaden is home to the famous
Vasa museum, the boat that sunk and is perhaps Stockholm’s top attraction. I have seen it once and wasn’t planning to go
again, preferring a walk around Skansen the open air museum of the history of
Sweden. I adored the little boat ride,
catching the boat at the little jetty a few minutes’ walk from my hotel.
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| My boat arriving at Djurgaarden |
Once on
Djurgarden Island I made my way to Skansen only to find it didn’t open until
10. It was sunny again but freezing and
my fingers froze as I took the time to check in using my mobile on my Air
France flights back to Madrid via Paris on Friday. I didn’t have much time to
walk around Skansen so chose to visit the old high street, the centre of the
park and the Scandinavian animals. On my
way past the children’s zoo I was delighted to see this peacock opening its
wings to court a “peafowl”. I had to look up the word for female peacock which
is apparently a typical question on crosswords!.
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| The peacock courting the peafowl at Skansen on Thursday morning |
Usually when
you try to catch a peacock with its feathers open it closes them but not this
time as it was the mating season.
It was the
Scandinavian animals I most wanted to see and I was in luck as the brown bears
had just come out of hibernation.
According to the signs they were still a bit sleepy but they seemed
quite playful to me.
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| Brown bears at Skansen |
I suppose the
most Scandinavian of animals is the elk or moose (in American) and I was
rewarded with this close up of a magnificent example. It had no antlers yet which I thought must be
a much less cumbersome situation for these huge mammals.
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| One of the elks at Skansen |
I had to
curtail my visit as I had a sudden PR issue to deal with; nothing alarming,
just a press release by a partner who nearly sent it out without our go ahead.
Thank God for mobile phones as I was able to deal with the issue in the middle
of a park in Stockholm. Once that was sorted it was time to catch the boat back
to my hotel, put some make up on, don high heeled shoes and take a taxi the
head office.
I was at
TeliaSonera well on time. It was a big
day for communications people in the office, or at least for the European team
of which I am a part. We were to have a rounding off meeting with the old team
and then a get together with the new team after which all the Communications
staff in the building would join us for a mingling session (that very corporate
word again) or party. We met on my
favourite floor, the 7th floor which is the top floor of the
building and has some great views of the Stureplan square below.
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| Stureplan as seen from the 7th floor at TeliaSonera |
Here my
colleague from Denmark, Mette, who will be with me in the new team, took a
selfie of us both. Someone later posted
on her FB: “two powerful women”. I’m not
sure we are but we are close colleagues.
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| A selfie with Mette my colleague from Denmark on the 7th floor of TeliaSonera |
Timo, my
dearest colleague from Finland who will no longer be in my team, took this
selfie of us both for old times’ sake. I
will miss you Timo, thanks for the photo and thanks for all the good times.
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| A selfie with Timo my colleague from Finland |
Whilst we were
having our meetings a much more important meeting was going on in The Vatican.
The Queen of England and consort Prince Philip, were meeting the new Pope. It was to be a private visit, unlike the
visit of Barack Obama last week, so we never got to hear what they spoke
about. I was amazed to hear the Queen
was about 15 minutes late for the half
hour meeting; something pretty unheard of for her. Later I read that instead of 30 minutes, due
to her lack of punctuality, the Pope cut short the meeting after just 17
minutes. Tit for tat I call that. We may not know what they talked about but we
did hear about the gifts they exchanged.
The Queen gave the Argentinian Pontiff a hamper of produce from
Buckingham Palace including honey, whisky and chutney. I rather doubt this Latin modern Pope will
know what chutney is. If you don’t it’s
a delicious sweet sauce of Indian origin that became popular with the British
during the Raj (British rule in India).
I particularly love mango chutney. We had it today for lunch with
chicken and rice.
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| The Queen and Prince Philip with the Pope exchanging gifts. |
But back to
Stockholm. Towards the end of the “mingle”
at the office, I decided to leave early in order to get my full daily
exercise. Generally I try to get in two
walks a day and do about 12 to 14km a day, all recorded and registered by my
wonderful little wearable device, my “fitbit”.
So off I went – you may remember I had donned high heeled shoes, but I
had a pair of trainers with me to change into.
I walked from Stureplan towards the Grand Hotel and from there I decided
to add extra mileage by walking all around beautiful Gamla Stan. I stopped at Stortorget (big square in
Swedish) to take a selfie against the beautiful houses in this oldest square in
Stockholm.
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| A selfie at Stortorget (big square), Stockholm's oldest square |
From there I made
my way past the Royal Palace back to the Grand Hotel from where I walked across
the bridge and to Skeppsholmen. When I
reached the hotel I checked my fitbit to see how many kilometres I had done so
far that day (my fitbit records every step I take during the day) and it was
about 12k. It was 8pm and I decided to
do two or three more kilometres. My feet
took me across another bridge to the even smaller island of Kastellholmen (bet
you guessed what that means didn’t you?
Yep, small castle island). I
walked all the way around it as far as I could and then on the only road inside
the island which takes you to the beautiful red castle from which the island
gets its name. Below is a picture of the
island and castle I took that morning on the boat coming back from Djurgarden
to Skeppsholmen. Pretty isn’t it.
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| The red castle on Kastellholmen as seen from the boat in the morning |
Satisfied I
had walked enough that day, I entered the hotel at about 8.30 when my fitbit
registered over 14km, my record of the week.
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| I was pleased with the results on my fitbit on Thursday |
Thus I had a
small but well deserved dinner again in the elegant dining room of the hotel,
my last night in Stockholm. Later that night I had to deal with requests from Spanish press on our position on an issue from the European Parliament who have proposed an end to roaming costs for customers travelling in Europe. That was not easy to deal with but managed to get the correct statement from our head office.
On Friday I
was up at 7, enjoyed a cup of coffee in my room before packing and getting
ready to check out and leave. I had a
9.30 meeting at the head office with my new Finnish indirect boss. In multinationals you always have a direct
boss (important, the one who decides your salary raise, hahaha) and an indirect
boss who is usually the head of the department you belong to in but at head
office. We had a good chat, quite frank
and relaxed really. I think the new team
will work fine and I look forward to our next face to face meeting, far more
than conference calls which actually, if you know me, will understand I am not
fond of!
We finished at
10.15 and as my plane wasn’t leaving until 13.15, I decided to leave my
suitcase and pc at the office and go for my day’s walk as there would not be
another chance that day. So off I went
again, walking in the sunshine on the same route as nearly every day, towards
Gamla Stan, past the Royal Palace, to Skeppsholmen and back to Stureplan. Again
it was a beautiful sunny day and the city looked its very best, as you can see
in this photo below.
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| The bay of Stockholm in the sun on Friday |
I was happy to
see I did 8k when I finished. The rest
of the day was spent at airports, Stockholm and Charles de Gaulle Paris and on
two very congested flights. We were late
leaving both cities and of course I was late home, arriving at Madrid Adolfo
Suárez Barajas at 8pm. Then I had to pick
my car up from the office and drive home.
There was an accident on the M40 ring road so I wasn’t home till nearly
10pm. Friday was a very long day.
It was lovely
to be home, see Eladio, my Father, Olivia, for just a few moments as she was
leaving to go out to dinner with her boyfriend Miguel, and of course the dogs.
As I was
waiting to get off the plane earlier I caught up with the day’s news on my
mobile and was astonished to read about a very high profile hit and run episode
in Madrid that afternoon. A famous right wing Spanish woman politician who used
to govern Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, referred to very fittingly by the Spanish
version of “The Local” as Spain’s “iron lady”, had parked in a bus lane in the
centre of Madrid to get money out of a cash machine. The local police saw her and tried to fine
her. The determined lady decided to ignore them and drove off and as she did so
she knocked one of the policeman’s motorbikes over. The story has become huge
news and has led to many jokes online.
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| There have been endless jokes about Esperanza Aguirre's hit and run incident on Friday afternoon |
The politician
later said she had driven off to avoid photos being taken with the police. That’s rather a lame excuse. Criticism has been enormous. A colleague of mine likened the incident to a
quote from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, a quote I love and have known by heart
ever since I read the book as a teenager: “all animals are equal but some animals
are more equal than others”; meaning that Esperanza Aguirre is more privileged
than the public at large although she shouldn’t be. I hope he is wrong and she gets due justice
for the scandalous hit and run episode last Friday.
It was on
Friday night that Suzy would be seeing her best friend Elena in London. Elena and her parents were going to visit
Elena’s sister, Chati, the girl who went to live in London with Suzy last May
and who now works there as a nurse. Suzy was delighted to see Elena again and
posted this lovely photo of the two of them.
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| Elena (long hair) and Suzy my eldest daughter reunited in London on Friday evening. |
As I had been
away most of last week, on Saturday it was time to turn my attention to running
the house. Fátima, our living in home
help, has been on holiday but was coming in on Saturday morning to help my 94,
soon to be 95, year old Father with his shower.
Meanwhile Zena, our ex Ukranian cleaner, was coming in that morning to
clean the house. I was looking forward to the latter as Zena is the best
cleaner in the world and I knew that by the afternoon our home would be spick
and span. Meanwhile I left to do the
weekly food shopping. I bumped into
Fátima at the bus stop and she helped me with the shopping.
There was time
also in the morning for a voice chat with Suzy.
She told me she planned to visit the Science Museum and or the Natural
History Museum that day with Chati, Elena and their parents. So I was happy to see photos of that visit
this morning when Suzy posted photos of their time together on Facebook. I particularly like this one of Suzy with
Elena. I pointed out to Olivia that I thought Suzy resembled my Mother a bit
but of course I was referring to my Mother when she was young (the same high
cheeks) so maybe Olivia didn’t see the resemblance.
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| Elena and Suzy (right shorter hair) at the Natural History Museum yesterday |
Lunch
yesterday was the best; real Yorkshire fish and chips and mushy peas all made
by yours truly. It was a joy to have
lunch with the family and have the pleasure of the company of Olivia and Miguel
after so much time apart.
After a well-deserved
siesta Eladio and I took the dogs for a walk and we couldn’t believe just how
warm it was. The weather is becoming
warmer and warmer here and next week we can expect temperatures in the late
20s. Even so, Spaniards will still be
wearing coats, unlike the Swedes!
Whilst we were
on our walk, Suzy sent us a video of her on her new bike. She has been thinking about buying one so as
to cycle to work and back every day and she must have bought it just after our
chat that morning. A single journey
takes about 30 minutes and is conducted mostly on bike lanes, thank
goodness. I think it is a great
idea. Later I got a great photo of her
on her new bike and wearing a helmet; the one illustrating this week’s post. A helmet is not obligatory but is good for
safety. She then of course bought a
padlock and a basket for carrying things.
My Mother who used to ride a bike when were young would have been very
proud of her granddaughter.
Later we went
out to dinner, i.e. Eladio and I. We
chose La Escondida, our latest favourite.
We couldn’t understand why there were only 2 tables occupied, ourselves
and just one other couple. And then we
cottoned on. The answer was
football. The three “Liga” leaders,
Atlético, Barcelona and Real Madrid, were all playing important matches last
night, so I suppose few people would be going out for dinner like us. Maybe they all have pay-per-view? In any case I heard later that all three had
won their matches and are still in the same positions. It will be interesting to see who finally
wins this 9 month competition.
And today is
Sunday and I have nearly got to the end of my tale. So far it has been like
most Sundays. We went for our morning
walk and then had lunch, except that I nearly burnt the chicken as I left it in
the oven whilst we were on our walk.
Olivia has gone with Miguel to his parents’ house where they will be
celebrating his birthday one day in advance as he will be leaving for Valencia
this evening. Happy birthday dear
Miguel. I shall be going for another walk later today and expect it to be even
warmer than this morning.
Tomorrow will
be another day. I have to go into the office to welcome a Swede from Riga which
I will tell you about next week.
Meanwhile I
wish you all the best, till next time,
Masha
PS You can see the rest of the photos of my trip to Stockholm here
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