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| On the early morning walk to Murias and back on Saturday |
Hello again
another Sunday, the last one in June.
Here I am
writing from Montrondo where it’s quite cold so I am inside, in José Antonio
and Dolores’ kitchen.
I left off
last Sunday and just as I had published my post, Suzy sent me a photo of her
with some of her team at Oxo 2 where she is the catering manager. She will be leaving soon and hopefully by
July or August will have a job as a dietitian with the NHS. Her team has told her they don’t want to lose
her and that their jobs will just not be the same without her. I’m sure she
makes a loveable boss.
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| Suzy and her team at Oxo 2 in London |
Monday was my
fasting day which I always find easy to do after an excess of food at the
weekend. That afternoon we were
delighted to watch Olivia on television reporting on the new Queen of Spain,
Doña Letizia’s first solo engagement. She was to be opening an important El
Greco inspired exhibition at the Prado museum.
So Olivia continued in her role as royal correspondent which had started
when she reported on the ex-King’s abdication the day her new programme, Aquí en Madrid, started at the beginning of June.
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| Olivia, the royal correspondent, reporting on the new Queen of Spain's first solo engagement |
On Tuesday I
had another silly fall which only served to make me realize just what a clumsy
sort of person I am. It happened when
Eladio and I were returning from our walk coming down the street towards the
turnoff to our house. I always walk
behind Eladio with Elsa pulling at her leash behind him and Norah. We go at such a pace I cannot see the ground
so didn’t see the stone on the pavement when I tumbled over it. I landed on both my knees with an awful bump
and ended up lying on the pavement not sure I could get up again. Fortunately I had only scraped my left knee
and bumped the right knee, the one I had already bruised when I fell in Toledo. Once again my wonderful husband came to my
rescue. I was very cross to see that I
had torn my favourite M+S jeans at the knee.
I know torn jeans are in fashion but perhaps not for someone of my age! Thankfully I hadn’t done much harm and was
able to go on my second walk later that evening.
Again that
evening we watched Olivia on the television.
This time she was reporting on a suspicious envelope containing a
dangerous looking white substance which had been sent to the Madrid Standard
and Poor’s office. Her mission was to
explain how the specialist bomb disposal police and firemen put into motion the
process of investigating the contents which can be highly dangerous.
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| Olivia reporting on Tuesday on the chemical alert |
On the work
front that day and every day of this week I have been busy with final
preparations of the Yoigo summer party which takes place next week. I have a budget for 225 people but it looks
like the event is so popular the turnout could be anything from 260 to
290!
Wednesday was
not a good day. We were worried about my
Father who had had traces of blood in his urine for quite a while now and which
didn’t seem to be disappearing despite the bout of antibiotics his GP had
prescribed. He was nearly finishing the
dose so we rang Dra. Martín who recommended he go the hospital to A&E and
she ordered an ambulance for him. I hate
his routine to be interrupted and I know he hates hospitals, probably more than
I do, so this was going to be a huge upheaval in his life. I went in the ambulance with him and Eladio
followed behind in the car. We were
taken to the brand new King Juan Carlos hospital in Móstoles, the biggest
suburb in Madrid, where we ended up spending the whole day. He was well attended to but the process was
very slow; a whole day just to do a blood and urine test. At 4.30 pm we were told he would be discharged
but then the ambulance didn’t come until 7pm.
Meanwhile because of a typical misunderstanding between Eladio and
myself, he and my Father left me behind at the hospital whilst they went home
in the ambulance. You can’t imagine how cross
I was. You probably want to know what
the diagnosis was and here we don’t really know as the tests didn’t reveal much
and as there are no other symptoms, we were told that more specialist blood
tests would have to be done after which my Father will have to see a urologist. I found that rather frustrating. I mean, why couldn’t an urologist have seen
him at the A&E ward? On the bright
side it meant my Father wouldn’t be admitted to hospital which would have been
awful for him and for us. So we were
all happy to be home again.
I came home
just on time to watch Olivia continuing in her role as “royal correspondent”. If on Monday she had reported on the new
Queen of Spain’s first solo appointment, on Wednesday evening she was at the
Royal Palace to report on the first salute from the new King to the Armed
Forces of which he is now head.
Thursday was a
busy day, more frantic preparations of the big summer party coming up. Even so there was time for two walks and even
the weekly shopping. I only managed to
watch the end of Olivia’s report that day on the Spanish national ham cutting
competition!
She also did a
report that day that I didn’t see on some unlawful housing case in Aldea del
Fresno, a small town on the outskirts of Madrid. Something funny happened when she was
there. Three little girls approached her
and recognized her, telling her they watched her every day on television and
asked her for an autograph. This is the
first sign of her being recognized in the street! They were so pleased to meet her they did some
lovely drawings for her too. This is a
photo of them with Olivia and the drawings. Olivia, who loves children, was
tickled pink. I was too.
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| Olivia with her little fans and the drawings they did for her |
The highlight
of the week was a reunion dinner that night with many of my ex Motorola colleagues
at the Clérico restaurant in Las Rozas.
I went with my great friend Fátima.
We had a wonderful time, as we always do at the ex-Motorola events. I started working for the American telecoms
company in 1990 and was the fourth employee to join. We were such a close team and have some great
memories, many of which we spoke about at length that night over a great
dinner. I couldn’t believe it was 12.30
and we were still chatting and catching up on our lives, when, a bit like
Cinderella, Fátima and I left the party, but not before taking a group
photo.
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| The group photo of the ex-Motorola reunion dinner |
My thanks go
to Vicente for organizing the dinner. It
was great to see Pepe, José María, Alex, Nuria, Inés (the only surviving
Motorola employee), Alberto, Fernando, Ignacio, Carlos, Ruben, Chisco, Gonzalo,
Juan Luis and all the others. Today
nearly all of still work in the sector and are representatives of both the big
operators and manufacturers. We are all
competitors or customers of one another, but there is a strong bond that
remains and when the going gets tough we know we can rely on each other for
help of any kind.
Friday was a
rush. I had to get my work up to scratch
before leaving for Montrondo in the afternoon with Eladio, José Antonio and
Dolores. I was up early as usual despite
having slept only five and a half hours.
I wanted to get a walk in before leaving but that just wasn’t
possible. By lunch everything was done
including packing our suitcases and the food to be taken – there is no shop in
Montrondo or the surroundings so you have to take everything. José Antonio, Dolores and their mongrel dog
Nuba arrived to join us for lunch; a wonderful home-made pizza made by
Fátima. We left at 4.30 and were in
Montrondo a bit later than we had hoped for because of a flock of sheep that
held us up on the way in Canales near La Magdalena. As we were arriving, our house builders,
Benito and Recaredo (what a name!), passed us in the car and then rang to say
they would turn round and return to Montrondo to show us how the building was
progressing otherwise we wouldn’t see them during our stay. The reason for going to Montrondo of course
was to see how the building was going but also to pick up my mother-in-law,
Ernestina, who will be staying with us for the first fortnight of July.
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| Building progressing on our house in Montrondo as seen this weekend. |
Benito and
Recaredo had started on our house on 20th May and in just one month
and one week have made a lot of progress.
Right now they have started building the extra floor which you can see
in the photo above. However, it will
take many months for the house to be finished.
Right now it still looks like a shell as they have taken down all the
inside walls and will be removing the floors which means they will have to
build everything inside to make the four bedrooms, four bathrooms, lounge and
kitchen. Eladio is quite excited with
the progress but to me the house still looks like a ruin. Not until the walls
and floor and built will I begin to imagine how it will look when it is
finished.
I made dinner
for everyone that night, after which Dolores and I went on walk at dusk to
Murias and back on the old road. It was
past 10 in the evening but there was still some light.
On Saturday
morning we were up early and Dolores and I walked again to Murias and back
before breakfast as I would too this morning.
Everything was green and lush and the only noise came from the birds
singing. I asked Dolores to take a photo
of me for this week’s blog and it is the photo I have chosen to illustrate this
post.
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| Montrondo, so green at this time of year |
Soon other
members of the family came from León to join us: Pili and Andrés and their
dalmation, Trébol, my mother-in-law, Isidro and Yoli and finally Alejandro and
his Paraguayan wife Carolina, who having just past her test drove for the first
time to Montrondo. Their arrival was
accompanied by a downpour and we thought the day had been ruined but luckily
the sun came out in the afternoon although it was always in between clouds and
the air was chilly.
We were eleven
around the table for lunch. All of
appetites seem to increase when we have meals together in Montrondo. It must be because of the country air and
mountains. So we polished off my chicken
curry, Pili’s beef stew and pineapple dessert as well as Yoli’s superb
apfelstrudel.
Our only topic
of conversation seemed to be about building our houses; i.e. Pili and Andrés’
and ours, theirs being far more advanced than ours as they started their
building in the autumn. I got a bit
tired of talk about building so went off for a second walk to Murias and back
to work up an appetite again for dinner.
Pili and Andrés stayed the night whilst the others returned to
León. So for dinner last night we were
just 7.
And today is
Sunday, our last day here. Thankfully
the sun is shining. The morning has been spent quite lazily and the only work
was done by Eladio and José Antonio who cut the grass on the path to the house
with the very old scythes their Father used to use. We shall be staying for
lunch and at about 4 o’clock we will hit the road, once again, back home to
Madrid. The car will be full as we shall
be five plus all our suitcases.
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| José Antonio and Eladio cutting the grass with scythes this morning. |
Next week
promises to be even busier than last week. I have meetings at the office and of
course my big day will be Thursday, the day of the Yoigo summer party but more
about that next week when, finally, it will all be over.
That’s all
from me this week. Cheers till next
time,
All the best
Masha
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