Sunday 22nd March 2015
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| Celebrating Fathers' day with the family |
Hi everyone
this wet and cold Sunday at the end of March.
Spring supposedly started yesterday but we haven’t noticed it here where
we have had a spate of cold, wet and blustery weather in sharp contrast to the
sunny and warm week we had before.
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| Our garden in the wet weather |
Last Sunday
Oli and Miguel left for Cuba where they would be staying in Havana for 3 nights
and Varadero for 4. They would be met in the Cuban capital by Miguel, my nephew
who lives there, and his Cuban girlfriend Claudia. I haven’t seen any pictures of their trip yet
as internet is scarce. But I do know
from Miguel that they visited the old town, spent some time with the family
(Eladio has second cousins living in Cuba) and even went to schools in the
centre to give out gifts they had brought from Spain. Before they left they stocked up on
essentials unavailable in Cuba to give away there, such as toiletries and
stationary.
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| Old Havana as it is today |
It is probably
one of the last chances of visiting communist Cuba as it is today as ties with
the US are thawing and soon these essentials and internet will become more
available. I read this week that there are
now charter flights from the US to Cuba at 800 dollars per trip. I can hardly
imagine any Cubans being able to afford that but certainly US citizens will
flock to the island. From Havana they
went to nearby Varadero, famous for its Caribbean beaches and they stayed at
the Hotel Sol Palmeras which looks fabulous.
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| Hotel Sol Palmeras in Varadero |
Here they will
have relaxed and enjoyed the weather and beaches, something Olivia was in dire
need of as she hasn’t had a proper holiday since 2013. They will be home tomorrow. I have missed Oli’s company; the house feels
empty without her.
Monday was my
first fast day in 2 months since my accident.
It didn’t prove too difficult. It
was also the first time I used my fitbit again.
That is because this week I have resumed my daily walks with Eladio and
the dogs. I am now doing a 40-50 minute
walk once a day; not the 2 hours I used to do before, but at least a start. I use my right hand for the crutch and my left
hand to hold little Pippa’s leash. I
must say she has taken well to the walks and behaves perfectly. She’s such a darling. Here is a photo of Eladio with all three.
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| Eladio with our 3 dogs about to go on one of our walks this week |
On Tuesday I
went to rehabilitation as I did on Monday.
Far more interesting was my schedule in the afternoon when I had an
appointment with 3 students of advertising from the Juan Carlos 1 University in
Madrid. For their Corporate
Communications subject they wanted to interview me for a work project on how a
communications department works in a company.
Karin, Natasha and Alvaro came equipped with a tablet for the questions,
a pc to write down the answers as well as a microphone to record me. I think they learned a lot in the 2.5h
session we had in a cafeteria in Boadilla; a lot meaning how a communications
department is run in real life as opposed to the theory they are taught. I
noticed a lot of surprised looks at some of my comments.
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| With the Spanish students who interviewed me on Tuesday afternoon |
It was on
Tuesday that the world learned that Spain’s most famous writer, Miguel de
Cervantes’ remains were “apparently” (there a lot of ifs here) found in a tomb
at Madrid’s Convent of the “Barefoot Trinitarians” some 400 years after his
death. Cervantes is the author of Don
Quixote which is considered to be the first modern European novel and is
regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written. Funnily enough when he
was alive he was not considered as such. His fame came later. I had to read Don
Quixote at University when I did Hispanic Studies but must admit it was very
difficult to read so I read the English translation, or some of it. I am no literary academic and I’m ashamed to
admit I never really liked what I understood of the story. It just wasn’t my thing.
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| Miguel de Cervantes |
But back to
the subject of his remains. In a story similar to the finding of Richard III’s
remains in England, this has been big news here and there are talks of giving
him a funeral “fit for a king”.
It was well known that he had been buried there together with 17 other
people but I just wonder why it was necessary to unravel all the bones in the
tomb to find out which belonged to him.
Also if there is no ADN to trace I ask myself how do they know which are
his? Possibly one of the main reasons
for looking for his remains has to do with tourism and economics. The otherwise not very well known convent
could well become a lucrative tourist landmark in Madrid from now on.
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| Forensic scientists looking for Cervantes' remains |
That night
Eladio and I watched a Spanish film directed by Benito Zambrano called La Voz Dormida (The sleeping voice) which had won two Goya awards (equivalent to the
British Baftas) last year for best supporting and best new actresses. A story about two sisters from Córdoba caught
up in politics in the post-Civil War Spain, it was right up our street and had
us riveted until the end.
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| Great film La Voz Dormida |
On Wednesday
the day rolled out as usual, breakfast, rehabilitation, working from home, going
for our walk etc. But I must tell you
that our routine is now accompanied by 3 dogs, as you know instead of 2, since
little Pippa joined the family. Elsa has
taken to Pippa quite well but Norah is still stand offish; I guess she is
jealous. In fact Elsa and Pippa seem to
be the best of friends; Elsa even taking a motherly role.
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| Elsa and Pippa are best friends |
Here you can
see the three of them in their beds.
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| The 3 dogs asleep in the kitchen. Pippa prefers to sleep on top of Elsa rather than in her own bed! |
Pippa
practically ignores hers preferring to sleep on top of dear noble and
subservient Elsa. Both would be very
jealous to know that Pippa sleeps with us every night whilst they have to sleep
in a kennel outside.
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| Pippa asleep in our bed |
Having 3 dogs
is hard work but the benefits outweigh all the effort and cleaning. It is a joy to take them on our walks and it
is a pleasure to take Pippa with us everywhere as she fits snuggly into her
little blanket and behaves perfectly in the car. You can’t exactly do that with a lab or
beagle. I can’t wait until our house is
finished in Montrondo to take all three.
They are part of our lives now and I could not imagine life without
them. I have always loved dogs and you
probably know that when I was a child I wasn’t allowed to have one. Well this is my revenge I suppose. Happily Eladio is just as much of a dog lover
as I am. I’m sorry for my blog readers who
are not interested in dogs as my posts are peppered with stories about them. I sometimes think they are our surrogate
grandchildren.
It was about
midday on Wednesday when the news of an ISIS terrorist attack on tourists atthe famous Bardo Museum next to the Parliament in the Tunisian capital unfolded. Isis hit where it must hurt most in Tunisa,
at tourism which was beginning to grow again after the famous Arab Spring revolt
there. The terrorists shot at tourists
and held others hostage for a few hours until armed forces went in. The final toll was 23 dead, 20 of them being
tourists. Meanwhile a Spanish couple, on
honeymoon, Carlos Sánchez and his four months pregnant partner Cristina Rubio hid
in a closet for 24 hours thinking the terrorists were still in the building. What
a ghastly honeymoon! The country went
into shock of course and many other countries, like Spain which makes a lot of its
living from tourism, are of course on the watch out for this vile new form of
terrorism.
Thursday was a
holiday in most parts of Spain. It was
San José (St. Joseph) which is also Fathers’ day here. We were going to go to Santa Pola to our
beach apartment for the long bank holiday but the weather forecast put us
off. Instead we went to celebrate Eladio’s
brother José Antonio’s birthday at their house in Madrid where we also used to
live. We were joined for lunch by José
Antonio and Dolores’ daughter Sara and youngest son Juan and his partner
Cristina who have just had a baby; little Gael.
It was the first time I was to meet the baby. We took little Pippa for the occasion and she
behaved beautifully and got on famously with José Antonio and Dolores’ mongrel
dog Nuba. The photo illustrating this
week’s post is a selfie of all of us together celebrating Fathers’ Day and José
Antonio’s birthday. The one below is of
José Antonio blowing out the candles on the cake we took him. You may notice the candles are a 5 and an 8
when actually they should be a 6 and an 8.
It was my mistake but I’m sure my brother-in-law didn’t mind me making
him 10 years younger for a few minutes!
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| José Antonio blowing out the candles on his cake with Dolores smiling along |
Suddenly realizing
that Easter was only 2 weeks away, I was seduced by a Betty’s advert on
Facebook that afternoon alerting customers that orders made by 19th
March would arrive in time for Easter. So
there and then I made my online order of Easter Eggs. I hope they are as nice as they look.
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| The Bettys Easter Egg hamper I ordered online this week |
That got me
thinking how to acquire hot cross buns on time for Good Friday; never an easy
task in Spain. I then remembered Suzy’s
friends from Madrid, Elena, Antuan, Carolina and Rocío were visiting her and
Elena’s sister in London, Chati and that of course they could bring me some
back. So there and then I asked Suzy via
whatsapp to buy some for them to bring me back.
Talking about
food, I must mention that I have been eating the Finnish bread I brought back
from Helsinki Airport most nights. It is
delicious, made of rye and both savoury and sweet at the same time. I posted the photo below on FB and my Swedish
and Finnish friends told me it is called Malaxlimpa in Swedish and comes from
the Swedish speaking area in western Finland called Ostrobotnia. In Finnish it is called Maalahden Limpu.
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| The sweet and savoury Finnish bread I love so much |
On Friday the
much publicized solar eclipse took place around the world. It was total or
partial depending on where you were in the world. Never being very familiar with the solar
system the only thing I know is that an eclipse happens when the moon covers up
the sun when passing between the sun and the earth. You can see here in this picture where it
could be seen from.
Many people
flocked to the Faroe Islands for the best experience as well as to the
Artic. One Czech man travelled to the
Svalbard Islands in Norway where the eclipse was also going to be total. Whilst there his tent was ripped open by a
polar bear (apparently they outnumber the population on the island) and he was
attacked until a colleague shot it. He
survived the attack and was able to see the eclipse the next day. Our
experience was less traumatic. Eladio and I witnessed the partial eclipse from
our kitchen patio at just past 9 in the morning. It was cloudy so we didn’t expect to see
anything, when suddenly the clouds parted and the eclipse was surrounded by a
halo of blue sky. We felt a bit blinded
after wards.
Meanwhile in
London Suzy was enjoying her visitors from Madrid; her closest friends
really. Most of the photos they have
posted on Facebook have been of the food they have been eating but thankfully
Rocío published a lovely one of them all together on one of the bridges over
the River Thames. Here they are. I can only imagine what a great time they
will be having together. Suzy needed
some fun and relaxation with them after 4 weeks of working hard on the new
paperwork she had to submit to the HCPC to become a registered dietitian in the
UK. I have corrected many of her
documents and have tried to mentor her as best I can. I don’t know what the outcome will be and
whether there will be more paperwork asked for or whether she will have to do
some extra courses. But we shall not give
up. P.S. Thanks Jacky for the help with the translations.
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| Suzy enjoying her visitors in London |
On Friday
evening, after the weekly food shopping Eladio and I went out to dinner. We decided on Gino’s this time where we hadn’t
been since before our accident. Here is
Eladio enjoying his Ossobuco. It was a
good end to the week.
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| Eladio enjoying his meal at Ginos on Friday night |
On Saturday I
worked most of the day on an event going on in Pamplona. Yoigo had brought Neil Harbisson all the way
from New York to a conference organized by an advertising group, El Club de los
Creativos (Creative Club). Neil was born
colour blind, or rather could only see in shades of grey. Born to an Irish Father and Catalán Mother,
Neil is a “cyborg artist best known for
being the first person in the world with an antenna implanted in his skull
which “allows him to perceive visible and invisible colours via sound waves as
well as receive images as
sounds, videos as sounds, music or phone calls directly into his head via
external devices such as mobile phones or satellites” His role for
Yoigo at the conference was to interpret the four colours of Yoigo’s logo. We were in charge of the PR, i.e. the press
coverage. But this was no easy task as
most press may well have been interested in Neil Harbisson but not with his
connection to Yoigo as press always try to steer away from brands.
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| Neil Harbisson representing Yoigo this weekend in Pamplona |
After our walk and dinner last night
we watched a film I had downloaded some time ago. It was Ida the Polish film
about a novice nun in the 60’s who discovers she is Jewish. It is in black and white and had won the best
foreign film award at the Oscars this year.
We found it very slow and not very interesting.
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| The Polish film Ida which won best foreign film award at the Oscars. We found it very slow. |
And today is Sunday, “blog day”
according to my Father. He is not the
only person waiting for this week’s blog. My school friend Maureen is too, I’m
glad to hear. Maureen who was in my
class in the 6th form at St. Joseph’s College is fighting cancer at
the Bradford Royal Infirmary and has been there for 10 weeks with a perforated
bowel. She is very brave. Today we spoke or rather commented on
Facebook and she told me she was being artificially fed although she could eat
food too to which I replied that B.R.I. food was probably not up to much. She has a huge fighting spirit and I felt for
her when she told me her situation was much better than some of the people
around her. Dear Maureen you are an example to me and many other people. I doubt we would be as brave as you in your
situation. I just wish I could be
transported quickly to you at the B.R.I. and we could enjoy a coffee together. Get well soon and when you do we must have
another SJC reunion like the ones we had a few years ago. Now let me look for a photo of us all
together to remind us. Ok?
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| SJC reunion dinner in Addingham July 2011 with Maureen in the front row third from the right wearing a white jacket. |
The only other
items of the day today that are of interest are that Real Madrid will be
playing Barcelona. El Clásico will be
played at the Real Madrid stadium but we shall not be watching it as we do not
have pay TV. The other news is the
municipal elections in Andalusia, the south and possibly poorest area of
Spain. It is said that the outcome today
will probably reflect what happens in the next general elections. I will not be watching 4 hour long programmes
on the possible outcome but prefer, like Eladio, to read about the results in
the morning.
So there you
have it my friends. That was my week. Next week is a bit of a mystery for the
moment. The good thing is Olivia will be
back tomorrow. The rest, well wait and
see until next Sunday.
Cheers till
then
Masha
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