Saturday 27th December 2014
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| The four of us on Christmas Day |
Hi everyone,
Here I am
writing this week’s post on Saturday instead of Sunday. That’s because tomorrow is Suzy’s last day
with us and I don’t want to miss a minute of it. Both girls will be out for lunch today with
the “manada” with whom they will be spending the day. Thus now is the perfect
time to write.
I left off
last Sunday. The sports news that day
was that Real Madrid was the club world champion for those of you interested in
football. The girls had a long lunch
with the manada and the kitchen was invaded from about midday to midnight. Here is a photo of the whole group of them
around our dining room table.
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| The "manada" at our house last Sunday |
Sunday of
course was the start of the winter and it was the longest night of the year,
the winter solstice. Thankfully now the
days will start to get longer. In any
case we have been blessed with sunshine since Suzy came and I’m sure she
appreciates it, as she surely has enjoyed the extra two hours of sun each
evening. Dusk in London is just before 4
in the afternoon whereas the sun sets here at about 6pm.
On Monday I
fasted and went for my two walks as usual.
Suzy has been joining me on many of them. I was also busy with the issue of a joint
press release with Ericsson to announce our renewed contract for managed
services of our network. I spent some of
my time making food for Christmas Eve and would continue doing so the next day
too. Oli was ill with a nasty cold which
she still has. However she was well
enough to give me a helping hand with the croquettes and perushki (little
Russian meat pies).
Monday 22nd
December is a very important date in Spain. It’s when the Christmas lottery “el gordo” is drawn. It is the biggest
lottery in the world and it is typical to buy tickets for your friends and
family. Unlike other lotteries there is
not just one jack pot but several prizes and the winnings are distributed
amongst thousands of people. A “décimo”
(a tenth of a ticket) which is what most people buy costs 20 euros and if your
number coincides with the first prize you win 400.000 euros. For the first time
ever I know someone who won this year.
Well done Javi, I’m very pleased for you. Eladio won a modest 180 euros
which he immediately went to spend on the next biggest lottery in Spain, “El
niño” (the child) which is drawn on 5th January. Many people in all parts of Spain were
celebrating winning El Gordo on Monday.
We have never won a significant amount but as I heard one winner say on
the television; “if you don’t buy a ticket you don’t win”. So we shall try our luck again next year as
we do every year.
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| People queuing up to buy a lottery ticket for El Gordo |
In Scotland on
Monday no one was celebrating; instead they were mourning their dead after a
dustbin lorry lost control and crashed into pedestrians in George Square
killing 6 people. 3 of them came from
the same family. From what I have read
it seems the lorry driver had a heart attack.
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| The Glasgow bin lorry crash |
On Tuesday I
spent some quality time with Suzy. We
went to do the Christmas food shopping and Tuesday was the first time the five
of us had lunch alone together for a very long time. It was lovely to see all of my immediate
family around the table.
Wednesday was
Christmas Eve which in Spain is as important as Christmas day or more. Their main Christmas meal is on the evening
of the 24th. In our house we
respect both the Spanish and English traditions. Olivia was back to work that day, although
she was still suffering from a bad cold.
She was doing a report on the use of credit cards at a shopping centre
not far from where we live, Gran Plaza 2 in Las Rozas. We decided to go and see her there which we
did only to find out that she wanted to use all three of us for her
report. We were not to be interviewed by her as her family but as "spontaneous shoppers". In a way we would be helping her
as it is always difficult to persuade passersby to volunteer and talk to a TV
camera. I was very eager to be
interviewed by my daughter and was the perfect candidate as my purse is bursting
to the seams with credit cards and shop receipts. Suzy and Eladio were more reluctant but enjoyed
the experience in the end. In these three photos you can see Olivia
interviewing us. The report came out
yesterday and you can see it on this link at the beginning if you go to where
it says 19.33h on the screen.
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| Olivia interviewing Suzy |
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| Olivia interviewing her father |
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| Olivia interviewing me |
On the topic
of interviews, there is a huge issue in the news around a film made by Sony
Pictures called “The Interview” which is a parody of the North Korean leader
Kim Jong-Un. About 10 days ago Sony’s
computers were hacked which led to the Hollywood studio cancelling the release
of the film. The US blamed North Korea
for the cyberattack. Then the latter suffered
an internet outage (although that wouldn’t have affected much of the population
as internet is the privilege of very few in that cruel country) for which North
Korea blamed the US. Perhaps the
original cyberattack was not a good idea as it gave the film much more
publicity than it would ever have and now the whole world can see it for free
as Sony has decided to release it on internet in a stand to defend freedom of
speech. I am certainly going to watch it
to see what all the fuss is about. You
can too if you go to this link.
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| The film by Sony which was cyberattacked |
I spent most
of the afternoon finishing preparations for our Christmas Eve meal which was to
consist of what we call in our family “a bits and bobs meal”: potato salad,
lobster salad, bacon rolls, “perushki” (little Russian meat pies), croquettes
and foie. There was to be no proper dessert
as we would be eating “turrón” (Spanish nougat eaten only at Christmas) and
chocolates. Suzy made her own vegan
variety of food and this is what the table looked like.
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| Our table on Christmas Eve |
The best
moment was the cracker moment and here is a fun selfie we took of the five of
us. It was difficult to take it as we
were laughing so much and had glasses of champagne in our hands, including
Olivia’s who was the photographer of the moment.
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| The cracker moment selfie |
We all read
out the jokes which were better than the presents inside the crackers. Here is Grandpa reading out his with his
magnifying glass which we thought was hilarious.
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| My 95 year old Father reading his cracker joke with a magnifying glass on Christmas Eve |
One of the
best was: “why did the doughnut worker leave his job? Because he was fed up with the “hole”
business.
Later we
played trivial, the girls against the parents.
When Miguel joined us they were leading but it was late so we decided to
go to bed. The next item on the Christmas
agenda was to fill the girls’ stockings and put them outside their bedrooms.
This has been a tradition for me since I was a child and I always threaten to
put an end to it but the girls always insist.
So once again there were stockings for the girls.
On Christmas
day I was woken up by Olivia at 7 in the morning. She had gone into Suzy’s room to open the
presents in the stockings and I joined them.
I think it is the first time I have ever seen them opening them. I was not allowed to take a photo though as
the girls were in their pyjamas.
Next came
breakfast which I prepared with loving care in the dining room with our best
china. I had bought some croissants the
day before and this is what the table looked like.
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| Breakfast on Christmas morning |
After
breakfast it was time to open our presents. There seemed to be so many this
year and it is always the moment we all look forward to most at Christmas. As Miguel was with us I asked him to take the
traditional photo of Eladio and I just before starting. This is the result:
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| Eladio and I on Christmas Day just before opening the presents |
Later he took
one of me with my girls to remember the occasion. I love it.
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| With my girls on Christmas Day whilst opening our presents |
I think we
were all very pleased with our presents.
Amongst many other things I got a lovely white handbag by Michael Kors. One of my presents to Eladio was a
traditional duffel coat which looks great on him.
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| My lovely new handbag from my Father and Eladio |
Both Suzy and
I coincided by giving selfie sticks which we had both bought on Amazon. It turned out mine worked better on our
phones and I felt sorry for Suzy. I
think the selfie stick has probably been one of the most popular Christmas
gifts this year. However I am not very
impressed with mine. It’s a bit heavy so the phone moves and you end up with
slightly blurred photos.
I spent the
rest of the morning making the Christmas lunch which would be a traditional
English Christmas day meal, except that I substitute turkey for a special
chicken which I think is called “pullet” in English. The trimmings were: cranberry sauce, sage and
onion stuffing, sprouts, peas and carrots, roast potatoes and gravy. The girls’
friend Juli joined us as he does most years and the photo illustrating this
week’s blog is of the four of us around the table at lunch on Christmas Day.
Of course we
went for a walk in the afternoon to work off some of the excess. Later we watched a film with the girls in the
lounge with the fire on. Unfortunately
the film was not very good but it was nice to be together.
And yesterday
was Boxing Day which is not celebrated here. However Olivia had the day off for
once. We decided to go to the shops to
return or exchange some of the gifts the girls got and were joined by
Miguel. It was a lovely morning
together. Once again in the evening
Eladio and I enjoyed the fire in the lounge together with the dogs and watched
a film, another disappointing one.
For the
records yesterday was also the 10th anniversary of the 2004 Tsunami
which hit 13 countries and killed 280.000 people. Who does not remember seeing the news on
Boxing Day in 2004 of this terrible natural disaster?
And today is
Saturday, Suzy’s last day with us. As I
said the girls have gone off to have lunch with the “manada”. The news of the day though is that Gael was
born early this morning. Gale is the
first son of Juan, Eladio’s godson and son of José Antonio and Dolores. His
wife Cristina gave birth to their first grandchild early this morning after
being admitted to hospital yesterday. So
we have a new Christmas baby in the family.
If Cristina is recovered by tomorrow we plan to go and see the new baby
on our way to taking Suzy to the airport.
I do hope Suzy gets to see her cousin’s baby before she returns to
London. Welcome Gael to the Freijo
family and to the world. No pictures I’m afraid as I have seen one but wouldn’t
dare to publish it here without permission.
It has been a
lovely family Christmas which is not over yet of course. There is still New
Year’s Eve to come. We shall be going to
Montrondo on Monday to join José Antonio and, hopefully Dolores too. Eladio is keen to see the progress on the new
house. On Wednesday we shall travel by
car to León to have dinner with the family at Amancio a restaurant in the city
which is where we usually celebrate the New Year. But of course I shall be telling you all
about that next week.
Meanwhile my
friends I hope you are all enjoying the holiday season and I wish you all a
great new year.
Cheers till
next week
Masha
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