Sunday 12th
July 2015
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| With Gloria. She turned 40 this week and is as lovely as ever. |
Good morning
everyone. It’s another Sunday and “blog
day” to quote my Father and my friend Jackie.
It’s incredibly hot as it has been for weeks now and it is quite
suffocating. But more about that
later. Let me start where I left off
which was on Wednesday 8th July.
That day Suzy
continued to have pains in her stomach, more precisely in the pelvic
region. She had been suffering from the
pain off and on when I was with her but it got worse when I left. I persuaded
her to go an A&E at a hospital so off she went to Guys who then sent her to
St. Thomas’. Funnily enough my Mother’s
sister, Dara, was a nurse there before the war but I have never been
there. They found that her blood
pressure was very low, gave her pain killers and then referred her to her
GP. He took more tests and thought it
may well be appendicitis. Thankfully the
pains seem to have receded for the moment so hopefully it was just a storm in a
teacup and nothing serious.
On Wednesday I
worked from home quietly. I was very
busy though as I had to call all the main journalists and read out a statement about
our quitting negotiations with Orange for their network assets after they had
bought Jazztel, a fixed line operator.
We had showed a lot of interest in the assets but they turned out to be mainly
adsl with only 5% fiber which in the long run would not allow us to make
competitive convergent offers as sooner or later adsl will be an obsolete
technology.
I had time
that day of course for my early morning walk and for once during the week I did
the cooking. I showed Salud, our
home-help, how to make meat loaf, one of my specialities. Just as we came home from the walk my Father
had fallen in the bathroom as he tried to get into his wheelchair. Salud was a marvel, lifting him up from the
floor all by herself and thank God he wasn’t hurt in any way. No damage done. I always fear a fall and worry he may break
his other hip. We shall have to help him
more in the bathroom from now on. He
took it very lightly, laughing and praising Salud for her efforts. I’m not sure I could have lifted him up from
the floor by myself.
It was that
day that I wore the little flowery dress I had bought at Pull and Bear in
Oxford Street with Suzy. It’s sort of
funny to buy clothes from a Spanish shop abroad (Pull and Bear belongs to Zara)
but when I saw it I knew it was for me.
It was on sale too and only cost 7.99 pounds!
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| The flowery Pull and Bear dress |
One of the
reasons for wearing it is that it is cool and perfect for a hot day. As I said
at the beginning of this post the heatwave continues and there have been record
temperatures for so long now I can’t remember when it started. Most of the country is on alert for wild
fires of which there have been many.
Just look at the map and you will be amazed at the heat. Some parts of Spain reached 45ºc, such as
Zaragoza. Here in Madrid it has been
between 39 and 42ºc which at times is unbearable.
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| The heatwave in Spain |
Meanwhile
Miguel and Oli continued their holiday in Almeria. We spoke once this week and Olivia told me it
was unbearably hot there too.
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| Oli relaxing on holiday in Almeria this week |
Almeria is perhaps the hottest province in Spain.
I remember going on holiday there with the girls when they were toddlers and my
parents and I swore I would never return in the summer. Thankfully they are right by the beach and
spend a lot of time in the water. Here they are kissing whilst snorkeling.
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| Oli and Miguel kissing under the water in Almeria |
I got another
photo from them later where they are cooling off with two delicious mojitos in
Cabo de Gata. Olivia will be returning
tonight. Sadly I won’t see her until
next week as I am off on my travels too later today.
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| Oli and Miguel drinking mojitos in Cabo de Gata |
I was pleased
to hear they were having a good time, relaxing and feeling very happy. On the topic of happiness, it was this week
that I read the results of a survey taken in Spain. It revealed that Spaniards are a happy nation
despite the crisis and that 8 out of 10 said they are really happy. I am not officially Spanish of course but I
can tell you that I too am happy living in sunny Spain; a great nation to build
a home.
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| 8 out of 10 Spaniards say they are really happy - despite the crisis. |
Whilst the
Spaniards are happy, I can only imagine the Finns on Wednesday were very
unhappy with the news that Microsoft published that day. The American software
giant had bought the Finnish mobile phone division where I used to work. It seems, according to the announcement from
the company’s chief executive that the deal is to be a sort of write off –
unimaginable – and that 7.800 jobs from the phone business are to be axed and
many of them in Finland. My heart goes out
to the people who will lose their jobs and to Finland which has lost part of
the jewels in its crown. Thankfully
the company Nokia continues to exist, the part that makes and sells network
infrastructure. However Nokia will never
be the same again. Commenting on the subject, my dear Finnish friend Anne who lives in Salo where the company has been most hit, posted a photo of her collection of Nokia Mobile Phones. I remember launching many of them; some of them together with my dear friend Anne. Those were the days. It is sad that they are over.
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| Anne's collection of old Nokia phones. I wish I had kept mine. |
Thursday was a
hard day for me. Fasting in the heat
never helps of course. I had to work on
the press coverage of the previous day’s PR activities and send out a report to
Stockholm. That took up most of the
morning.
Suzy had another
red letter day that morning when she received the final confirmation of her
registry with the HCPC. I’m so happy for
her. Well done darling. You are now an official UK dietitian. It took a year of paperwork but it was worth
the effort.
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| Suzy's letter of final confirmation |
Most of
England this week will have been watching Wimbledon. If you live in England life revolves around
top lawn tennis for two weeks of the year. After that the English don’t watch
much tennis. With Nadal out in the early
stages Spaniards had lost interest in the championship. We all knew that Murray, Djokovic or Federer
would get through to the men’s final.
Now we know it will be Djokovic and Federer playing this afternoon. My
hopes are for Roger Federer. As to the
women’s tennis well Spain didn’t have a good woman player did it, not since
Aranxa Sánchez Vicario who reached the final or Conchita Martínez who won the
tournament in 1994. So there was a big
surprise when we heard that a tall 21 year old girl with a funny name, “Garbiñe”and surname “Muguruza” who is really Venezuelan but has a Spanish father and
Spanish nationality, had got through to the final. I mean she was number 20 in the world. True she had beaten Serena Williams in last
year’s French Open but one could hardly hope she would even get through to the
quarter finals on a surface which is not hers, grass. Even Garbi, as she calls herself, couldn’t
believe getting through to the semi-finals and beating Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland. This is the photo she posted on her Twitter after
the match when she knew she had reached the finals of Wimbledon, the greatest
tennis championship in the world. How
could that be?
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| Garbiñe Muguruza ecstatic at getting through to the finals at Wimbledon |
She played Serena Williams yesterday
in the final. My heart and most of the
spectators wanted the valiant newcomer to win but it was not to be; even though
she put up an extraordinary fight. The
outcome was 6-4 6-4. Garbi is young and
Serena is in her middle 30’s. Maybe one day, Garbiñe Muguruza will take her
place and will become a household name too.
I, for one, hope so.
Friday was a long day. These days I tend to wake up at 6 in the
morning and that is what happened on Friday.
If I get up early I can pack an awful lot into a day and that’s just
what I did that day. I had meetings all
day in the office as well as in town in the afternoon. One of the meetings was
with my events agency QuintaEsencia which is headed up by 3 sisters, Cristina,
Bea and Gloria. They came along with
Yoigo, Gloria’s dog, our company mascot and boyfriend to be of Pippa as they
are identical in breed and colour. It
was Gloria’s 40th birthday that day and from these pages I want to
say happy birthday again and to thank her not only for how well she works but
for her friendship. She is a lovely
outgoing and beautiful person, both inside and out. This week’s front page photo is of Gloria and
I together at the Yoigo summer party recently.
She’s lovely isn’t she?
It was on
Friday afternoon that the world heard the famous Egyptian actor, Omar Sharif,
had died of a heart attack aged 83. I
was shocked. For me he was Doctor
Zhivago, perhaps my favourite film of all times, one I have seen countless times
and never tire of. I read later that he himself
didn’t like his acting in it because of his big watery eyes. Well I, like many other women around the
world, do not agree. He was drop dead gorgeous to quote Lady Diana. It seems he is equally famous for his role in
Lawrence of Arabia which I actually haven’t seen. I shall have to remedy that
soon. It was sad to think that he has
died. Goodbye Dr. Zhivago, goodbye Omar
Sharif.
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| Omar Sharif in Dr Zhivago |
In the early
evening I had friends for tea. My dear
Nokia girlfriends, Juana, Marta and Fátima came to have tea with me. I think it was the only personal engagement
of the week. Thanks girls for coming. One of our topics was of course the Microsoft announcement but we also had a great time gossiping about other things. Hope you
liked the British tea and Betty’s biscuits.
Saturday was
just as hot as Friday, Thursday and Wednesday. Whilst poor Garbiñe Muguruza was
fighting Serena Williams on Wimbledon’s centre court, we spent the afternoon by
the pool and in the water. At times
little Pippa joined me. She doesn’t want
to swim but is happy if I hold her and sit on the steps so long as her head is
not in the water. Here is a photo of the
two of us yesterday.
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| With Pippa in the pool yesterday. She will only go in if I hold her and sit with her head above the water! |
Eladio’s
mother is still with us. I suspect she
would love to go into the pool too but as she hasn’t been in a swimming pool
for years, if she ever has been in one, she contents herself by sitting by it
with her feet in the water. Here she is
enjoying the moment.
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| Eladio's mother with her feet in the water this week |
And today is
Sunday. After lunch with Eladio, my
Father and my mother-in-law I will be off on my travels and won’t be back until
Tuesday.
Wishing you
all a great week, cheers till next time
Masha
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