Super moon, Oli’s TV programme on “Mi Cámara y Yo” this week, a girly lunch and a girly dinner, an unasked for day in bed, better again and other stories of my week.

Sunday 20th November 2016

Ex Nokia girl lunch on Monday with Fátima, María Jesús and Juana. 

Hi again

Another week but not very many stories this time as  life has been exceptionally quiet since I last wrote on Sunday.

Sunday was very much a family day. Miguel and Oli came for lunch and I made an effort to cook for them.  While I'm on my diet, the last thing I want to do is cook but I did that day. It was a wonderful sunny day and of course I went for my second walk that afternoon with Eladio and the dogs, as always.  Elsa is shedding her coat for the winter so we took her special comb and my dear husband groomed her as you can see in the photo hahaha.

Eladio grooming Elsa on our sunny walk last Sunday afternoon. 

I came back to my treat of the day, a Pronokal dry and tasteless biscuit with a tiny piece of artificial white chocolate and cup of tea with dried skimmed artificial milk. So when you are having a proper cup of tea and biscuit remember me hahaha.  

The other treat of the day was watching the last episode of the TV series Victoria.  It ends when she gives birth to her first child and left me wanting for much more. I do hope they hurry up and come out with more seasons.  But I did get a bit more as I enjoyed all the extras the DVD included.  I'm missing Victoria already, but especially Lord Melbourne who, I suspect, won't have much of a part in season 2.  But who knows?

That night we watched a horrific documentary by the provocative, controversial and probing journalist who is well known in Spain, Jordi Evole. It was about the coltan war in the wrongfully called "Democratic Republic of Congo" and the devastating results of extreme violence, to women.  I had no idea but Congo is called the "rape capital" of the world.  There is literally no public service or infrastructure such as a judicial system or hospitals and the only help comes from NGOS. Coltan is a mineral used in mobile phones and many electronic devices.  20% of the production comes from this country which could be rich because of the mineral but sadly isn't. 

On Monday I was disappointed with the scales.  I had only gone down 300 grammes in one week despite my heroic efforts.  The Doctor who I saw at midday would tell me that's normal as the nearer I get to my target weight the more difficult it is to lose it, plus of course my age (thanks Doctor!).  But I shall persevere.  He has now put me on phase 4 for a month and joy of joys I can eat fruit again: 3 small portions a day and not with the main meals. I can also eat oats (2 tbsps) for breakfast. Life is looking good.  I am so fed up with the vegetables I don't think I could look another cauliflower in the eye, not to mention lettuce, raddishes and cucumber.  I feel like a rabbit sometimes hahaha. But there you are it works and I can already see the results after losing about 7.5 kilos and feel a whole lot slimmer

I had a lunch appointment that day with my group of what we call "Nokia girls"; some of us left years ago and some of still work for the company.  But before going to the restaurant, La Txitxarrería in Pozuelo, I had to get a present from all of us for Juana whose birthday it was that day. I couldn't choose, so in the end I bought 3 presents, two of which I also got for myself (couldn't help myself hahaha). I chose an ultra light down jacket from Zara, a lovely soft dressing gown from Oysho and a new fragrance from Vitorio & Lucchino. This is the jacket and I am happy to announce the size M from Zara fitted!!!  

The size M Zara ultra light jacket I got for Juana and for me 

There were only 4 of us for the Nokia girl lunch on Monday.  But we had plenty to catch up on and talked until suddenly it was nearly 5pm and I had to go, as did we all. It's Juana who organises these lunches and if it wasn't for her we would not see each other as often. Thanks Juana.  

By the end of my second walk on Monday, it was dark and I had forgotten that the so-called super moon would be making its appearance that evening.  I only remembered quite late at night.  But even so I got a good view of it.  We saw it very clearly in Madrid as the sky was completely cloud free. This is the view of the super moon from my bedroom balcony that night.

The view of the super moon from our balcony on Monday night. 

I later heard on the TV that to get a good picture, or rather a photo which shows just how big the moon is, you have to take it from kilometres' away.  I would think you need a pretty professional camera too and know how to take the picture.  For the records the moon that night was the biggest, closest and brightest of the year.  It was also the closest in 70 years since Jan 26th 1948 and won't come as close to the earth again until November 25th 2034.  Gosh I will be old by then. 

Of more intererest to us that night was watching Oli's report for her TV programme "Mi Cámara y Yo". This week it was about entrepreneurs who have been successful. 

Oli reporting on successful entrepreneurs in this week's programme

To make it even more special, we watched it with her. We loved it although she is very critical of herself.  I wish she wouldn't be.  If you missed it or want to watch it you can see it here online.   Great stuff Oli. The next programme will be about ageing and women.  So watch this space.

On Tuesday morning after a much nicer breakfast thanks to starting Phase 4 of the Pronokal diet, Oli joined me for the walk. She's so busy and since she's left home we don't see much of her and I miss her. So it was super special to be joined on my walk that morning by my youngest daughter.  Later she would be off shooting all sorts of stories for the next programme; lots of them about beauty and enhancing plastic surgery and others I'm sure. 

A pleasure to have Oli join me on my morning walk on Tuesday 

It was on Tuesday that I was asked, out of the blue, from an ex Nokia HR colleague who now works in a different industry, to be a mentor.  Wow I was flattered.  The "mentee" (name for the person who receives the mentoring) is a marketing and communications executive in the medical sector.  I look forward to the sessions.  I think all my life I have been good at helping young colleagues and am a sort of a natural mentor and like to help people, so this may be just up my street. It's only 3 sessions over a 6 month period, so not much of my time will be spent mentoring but I'm sure I shall gain from the experience as much as my mentee.  I'll let you know how it goes. 

Tuesday night was not good. I went to bed with a funny stomach and in the very early morning was sick over and over again, It completely washed me out.  I was not able to eat any breakfast and all my body wanted to do was to go back to bed. Thankfully I had some "primperan" injections which stops the sickness and dear Doctor Eladio provided the service.  Thus I found myself in bed literally all day.  All I did was sleep for an hour, wake up a bit and then sleep another hour. I couldn't work nor read nor watch the TV, nothing as my stomach hurt so much.  Of course I couldn't eat either as my stomach was rejecting food. Thus I got a whole day in bed unasked for and unwanted.  Wednesday is thus blacked out of this month's calendar. What an awful night and day.  

On Thursday morning I woke up at 6.50 feeling slightly better, although very ginger and not hungry and still a slight pain in my stomach.  I have no idea what caused it and thankfully by Friday it was all gone.  The good thing though was that I lost a whole kilo in one day.  I have to wait to see if that is a real or not a real kilo.  I will only know on Monday when I weigh myself again.

Oli was busy shooting on Thursday too. She sent us some hilarious photos of her at a plastic surgery clinic like the one below.  

Oli shooting a plastic surgery operation for her next programme

She sure does get to shoot some different stories.  Oli later told me that this was an operation for a "boob job" for a woman who was only 30 but had had 4 children. I'm surprised she wasn't sick in the middle of shooting it. She also had to stomach filming an botox type face treatment.  When she described it, if I had ever had any thoughts about undergoing any kind of beauty treatment, I decided no way was I going to go through any procedure of that sort ever.  

That night I had a dinner date and was worried I'd miss it because of my stomach.  But I was ok. It was to be a "girly" dinner too but this time with women in communication in the telecoms sector. Ana G hosted a lovely meal for 8 of us in her own house.  Very sweetly she had catered for my dietary needs so I was able to enjoy a meal out for a change. 

The girly telco dinner at Ana's house on Thursday night.

We had a grand time gossiping about the sector and some of our colleagues across the industry.  I was having such a good time that the time passed really fast and suddenly it was 12.30  which is way past my bedtime. So I had to make my excuses and leave as it was quite a long drive home. 

Friday came. I love Fridays by the way, don't you?  I was in for another sunny cold and crisp Autumn day walk both in the morning on my own and with Eladio and the dogs in the afternoon.  

One of the reasons I love Fridays is that is we go out to dinner although there has been no going out to dinner to restaurants since I started my diet.  Our nightly treat is watching series on Netflix and that's what we did on Friday night too. Currently we are watching Peaky Blinders as recommended by my sister-in-law Dolores.

The series we are currently watching on Netflix

It's about a group of gangsters of gypsy origin in Birmingham in the 1920's and is a bit violent. However, the main character, Tommy, has two sides to him, one evil and one good.  He also has mesmerising eyes, although maybe the actor who plays him wears coloured contact lenses. They all do these days I think. 

Saturday would be the last sunny day as rain and cold weather had been forecast for Sunday onwards - hate rain! Oli was with us for breakfast but left just afterwards as the "manada" (the girls' group of friends) had hired a cottage in Zarzalejo near El Escorial for one night. I hope they have a great time, eating, drinking, going for walks, playing games and generally relaxing which is what Oli, at least, needs. 

Saturday witnessed the much awaited for  Liga derby between Real Madrid and Atlético.  I was happy to read later that my team had won.  To the team's fans' delight, the Portuguese striker, Cristiano Ronaldo, scored a hat trick and the final result was 3-0 to Real who had all the difficulty of having to play on their rival team's home ground, El Vicente Calderón.

It was a good night for Cristiano Ronaldo yesterday when he scored a hat trick against city rival El Atlético de Madrid.

This puts Real Madrid well ahead in first position of the Liga table with 30 points.  Trailing behind comes eternal rival Barça wtih 26 and Seville with 24.  Real Madrid haven't won the Liga for quite a while so maybe 2017 will be their year.  I hope so.

Sunday came and brought the rain that was forecast.  As I am writing now it is pouring it down and I am debating whether to brave the weather and go on my first walk now or later. Well let me finish this post and publish it and then we'll see.

Next week promises to be quiet and with the sun gone, my spirits too maybe.  But as usual I shall try to rise to the occasion and be as positive as I can.  I once went on a training course about the benefits of being positive and the lesson has remained.  The more positive you are, the happier person you become.  I shall be passing that on to my new mentee in our first appointment on Wednesday.

So that's it for now. I shall leave you to get on with Sunday and wish you all a great week ahead.

Cheers till next time,

Masha