Sunday 13th July 2014
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| At a presentation in Madrid on Wednesday |
Hello again my
friends,
It is Sunday
again. The day started well, quietly
having my breakfast with the dogs and with my iPad in the kitchen. I don’t know about you but my favourite meal
of the day is breakfast.
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| Breakfast whilst reading the papers on my iPad |
This time last
week the Tour de France ended its journey in Yorkshire. As I said to Paul Sherwen, the British TV
commentator, ex cyclist and ex Motorola Cycling Team Comms Manager which is how
I got to know him, I would have killed to be there especially in my beloved
Haworth. The Yorkshire people went all
out to welcome the Tour and the Grand Depart as it was known was a huge
success.
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| Le Grand Départ of the Tour de France in Yorkshire was a huge success |
The Tour de
France race director, Christian Prudhomme, described Yorkshire’s Grand Départ
as the “greatest” in the 111 year history of the race. I am so proud of my fellow Yorkshire men.
Since the Tour left the British Isles I have lost interest which probably won’t
be sparked again until the race reaches the high mountains. With the great British hope Christian Froome
now out as he crashed badly on the day the race incurred into the Paris Roubaix
cobbled stage that leaves more hope for Spain’s Alberto Contador. But we shall
see.
At the same
time as the Tour de France was racing through the wonderful Yorkshire
countryside a different sports battle was also taking place in England.
Wimbledon is the number one British sporting event and last Sunday there was a
classic final, Federer against Djokovic.
The match went to a thrilling 5 sets and the Serb had to give his all to
beat the mighty Swiss. I really wanted
Roger Federer to win but it wasn’t to be so.
Meanwhile
Miguel, Olivia’s boyfriend, was racing that day in an open sea swimming race
between the island of Tabarca and Santa Pola.
The race started at 7 in the morning so as to take advantage of a calm
sea. Oli didn’t post any photos but I
was very proud to hear from Miguel that he came 10th out of over
1000 competitors! Well done Miguel.
Our family was
scattered all over the place that day as Suzy too was away. As I told you last week she had flown to the
island of Tenerife with her boyfriend Gabor who is from there and was to meet
part of his family for the first time.
As I write it is their last day on the island before returning to greyer
London.
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| Suzy and Gabor with his family in Tenerife this week |
They have been
travelling all over the island and yesterday went up to the Teide Mountain, the
highest in Spain. For the record it is 3.718 metres high(12,198 ft). You might be interested to know that the
highest mountain in the Spanish mainland is not much smaller; the Mulhacen in
the Sierra Nevada (near Granada) which measures 3.482m. Mount Teide is also the third highest volcano
in the world.
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| Mount Teide as seen by Suzy yesterday in Tenerife |
It must have
been cold up there as Suzy was wearing a jumper.
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| Suzy near Mount Teide in Tenerife yesterday |
They also had
some quality holiday time on the beaches.
Here is one picture of the two love birds enjoying the beach. Suzy looks lovely.
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| Suzy and Gabor on the beach in Tenerife this week |
Monday was a
very full day. It was also the day the
Argentinian football legend, Alfredo Di Stefano, who made Real Madrid the team
it is today, chose to die aged 88. In
Madrid and everywhere in the football world his death was mourned. At the World Cup the players wore black on their
sleeves in respect. He is supposedly one
of the world’s greatest football players ever; at least judging by the mind
boggling number of articles and obituaries that were written this week. RIP Alfredo Di Stefano, here you were known
as “el maestro”.
For me it was
a fasting day. But it was also the start
of the running of the bulls in Pamplona, known here as “Los San Fermines”. This ghastly annual ritual became famous when
Ernest Hemingway witnessed it and his novel “Fiesta” made it world famous. I hate this “fiesta” and the only thing I
found interesting about it was when I read that Hemingway’s grandson John ran with the bulls for the first time this year. He later commented that his
grandfather never did owing to the shrapnel in his leg from the First World
War.
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| Running with the bulls in Pamplona |
That evening Olivia
was on television as she is every evening during the week. This time she did a report on the new “silent”
carriages on the Spanish Ave’s, the high speed trains which you can see here.
Tuesday was a
quiet day. Thinking of Olivia’s packed
lunches I made tons of ham and spinach croquettes, her favourite food, at least
the ham ones. I made the spinach ones
for Fátima, our Moroccan maid who cannot eat pork.
Tuesday was
also the day Brazil was humiliated by Germany who beat them 7-1 in the
semi-final of the World Cup. Brazil is
known for being the best at football and not much else so when they were
suddenly bad at the only thing they are supposed to do well, it became a national
tragedy, the irony of it being that they were also hosting the event. I can only imagine now they wished they never
had.
On Wednesday I
was up early. I had to be in Madrid by
10 am for a press event, the presentation of the September Santander telecoms
conference, the biggest of its kind in Spain and organized by Ametic. It was held at the Club Financiero in Madrid
near Colon and there was time for coffee before it started. So I wandered out onto the balcony which
commands wonderful views of Madrid from high up. The photo illustrating this week's post is of me on the balcony.
My great
friend Fátima who works for Nokia was there too and later we had a coffee
together and she agreed to come back with me to work from home. We shared my desk and it was like old times;
so easy to work together and great company at the same time.
When we
returned Ernestina, my mother-in-law, had just left with Toño and Miguel
(welcome back from Cuba by the way) to go to Montrondo. It was nice having her but I can only imagine
she was delighted to be going to stay at the village where she was born which
is so much more familiar to her than our house. Whilst she was here she knitted
woolen socks for all of us, her main pastime.
Whilst I was
away, Eladio had devised a way to pick the greengages from the heavy tree of
fruit. We thought they wouldn’t be mature until at least August, but this week
many of them were. I loved Eladio’s invention,
a long stick with a sawn off tin at the end designed to cut off each piece of
fruit individually. We have so many we
have to give them away and Fátima took some with her too. The good thing is
they are not all turning ripe at the same time, so they will not all go to
waste or to the birds. Olivia thought it
was so funny she took a video which explains how his invention works and which
you can see here.
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| Eladio and his invention for picking the greengages |
It was on
Wednesday too that our friends, Sandra, Jeffer and his daughter Isaline and her
friend, arrived from Brussels to stay in our flat in Santa Pola. I was rather worried they wouldn’t find it or
know how things worked but they are bright people and rang that afternoon to
tell me they had settled in fine. That evening they went to Alicante to have
dinner with friends at one of our haunts by the Port, El Porteño which
according to Sandra has now changed names although it still belongs to the same
family.
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| Our friends in Alicante |
Next week I
will start my holidays on Thursday and we will be joining our friends in Santa
Pola for a few days. I can’t wait.
I cooked on
Wednesday again and once more thinking about Olivia’s packed lunches I made a
huge batch of “perushki” (little Russian pies).
Fátima watched me making them and I gave her some to take home, along
with the greengages. She will be coming
again next week to work from home with me and I am sure she will be getting
more of the lovely green fruit.
It was on
Wednesday too that Chris Froome sadly abandoned the Tour of France. In the evening, late, because it was
televised from Brazil, Eladio and I watched the other World Cup semi-final,
Holland against Argentina. The latter
beat the Dutch in a penalty shootout which I didn’t see because I had already
fallen asleep.
Thursday, my
second fasting day of the week, was very quiet.
I worked from home and managed my two walks but felt pretty exhausted
that night thanks to the combination of heat, not eating and exercise. That combination also gave me one of my
headaches.
I love Fridays
as they are the day after fasting and give me three whole days of eating more
or less what I want. After sending in my
weekly bullet points to the company headquarters (that is a tiresome weekly
task which just has to be done), off I went to fetch my mamograph results which
I will have to take to the hospital when I have my annual gynecologist
appointment at the end of August. I was
happy to read I had the all clear and even felt like celebrating. Celebrating was going and buying a new coffee
machine for Santa Pola (the same one Dolores and José Antonio have in
Montrondo) a good and inexpensive machine called Senseo by Philips. My treat would have been some new clothes
from Zara whilst I was at the shopping centre, but funnily enough I was
probably not very inspired as nothing took my fancy.
That afternoon
we missed Olivia again on the television as this week she has failed to tell me
when she is going to be on. However we
later saw her report, via streaming, of her interviewing a Spanish actress who
was being trained how to fence, something she needed for a film she was in.
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| Olivia doing a report on fencing on Friday |
Miguel went along and sent me this photo of Olivia trying out fencing with the trainer too. I think she had a great time.
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| Olivia (in jeans) trying out fencing for the report |
That night
Eladio and I went out to dinner to La Vaca Argentina in Las Rozas, one of our
familiar haunts. I had made the
reservation via The Fork (El Tenedor) which offers 30 or 40% discount. In the end we gleefully left the restaurant
after having had a totally free dinner, owing to the discount plus the 48 euros
in points I had on the restaurant’s loyalty card. I had the feeling the staff weren’t very
pleased, but we were.
Yesterday,
Saturday, was quiet too. It was the only
day of the week we were to have lunch with Olivia and Miguel. I made another of Olivia’s favourite dishes, “salmorejo”
a sort of thick gazpacho from the Córdoba region which is made basically of
tomato, bread, garlic, olive oil, salt and vinegar.
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| I made salmorejo yesterday |
The rest of
the day was taken up by my two walks, a swim in the pool and a lot of reading
too. Yesterday I started on gigantic book called “A suitable boy”, recommended
to me by Dolores. I am bit put off by the
size of it; a paperback with over 1500 pages but I think I shall enjoy this
famous novel by the Indian writer Vikran Seth although the print is rather too
small for my eyesight.
And today is
Sunday, the last day of the week. Again
we shall have lunch with Miguel and Olivia. I have already done my two walks,
one at 9 in the morning on my own and one at 10 with Eladio and the dogs. I prefer to go on my walks early in the
morning as afterwards it is far too warm.
Of course
tonight we shall be watching the World Cup final which thankfully starts just
slightly earlier, at 9pm, so my Father can watch it too. The finalists are Germany and Argentina, in
case you didn’t know. Not being a fan of
German domination, I prefer Messi’s team to win, but I’m afraid the former are
the favourites right now. I just hope it
won’t be another penalty shootout. Who
do you want to win I wonder and why?
This week
coming promises to be good. Tomorrow
Monday I have the good fortune of going to Santander, one of my favourite towns
in Spain. I shall be hunting for a good
location for the Yoigo party in September during the telecoms conference and
shall be accompanied by Cristina and Bea, always a treat. And then on Thursday my holidays begin and
Eladio and I will be off to Santa Pola to join Jeffer, Isaline and Sandra for a
few days. The only obstacle on the
horizon is that on Friday the day after my holidays begin I shall have to be up
early for the Quarter 2 results to be published by Yoigo’s mother company,
TeliaSonera that day. But after that I
shall be feeling quite free to enjoy my time in Santa Pola. And then the following week I shall be off to
London to spend a whole week with my darling daughter Suzy. In fact this summer promises to be very
exciting as far as trips go; first Santander, then Santa Pola, then London,
then Montrondo, then Santander again and finally in September I have a trip to
my beloved Helsinki. But meanwhile I
shall enjoy the present knowing I have lots to look forward to
.
Wishing you
all a great week ahead, cheers till next Sunday,
Masha
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