Sunday 30th September, 2018
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| Lunch with Julio and Fátima, my best friends, the highlight of the week |
How has your week been? Let me tell you about mine or should I say ours as Eladio says this blog is not mine but "ours".
The week started with a bang. Last Sunday was my dear husband's birthday. He turned 74 but as I said last week, no one would believe it, including me. I was up, as usual, before everyone - at 5.50! -so had time to lay the dining room table for the birthday breakfast which is when we give the presents and the all important card. Both of us went out to buy churros and porras, a thicker and longer version of churros as well as a litre of thick chocolate to dunk them in.
Soon we were all in the dining room ready to start the day's celebrations. Here are Eladio, Oli and my Father. Oh, how he loves birthdays. So do we.
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| The birthday breakfast |
For his presents Eladio got perfume from Olivia and a new Kindle and case from me and my Father. It was to replace the one that mysteriously disappeared.
Later after a quick video call with Suzy, we went for a walk to work off the churros hahah. It was another hot day, reaching 34ºc again. Oli and I swam when we came back to cool off. Pierre, my French dentistry student was sitting by the pool too waiting for his new room. Giovanni, my Italian student had left earlier and Pierre was to occupy his room. Pierre is a lovely boy, tall and red haired and will be staying on for another 2 weeks until he gets his accommodation. While we showered and got ready to go out, he changed and went off on his bike in the sun, a bike he keeps in what I call his "tank" which is actually a "Defender" Land Rover. I really don't know how he could bear the heat while cycling up the hill from our house.
I was let off that morning as far as lunch was concerned as Zena was making it. She prepared a favourite Russian dish of ours, "gloupsy" (stuffed cabbage). Thus Oli and I went out to get Eladio's cake which I had pre-ordered at Alverán, a local bakery. We also went to the "Chinese shop" to get some birthday candles, the sort that are like fireworks. Chinese shops in Spain are all over the place and sell all sorts of cheap stuff. Here I found some silly glasses and a sash with the words "feliz cumpleaños" (happy birthday in Spanish).
Once home and with an hour until lunch, Oli and I sat under the trees in the shade reading and talking. That day I was coming to the end of the Frederick Forsyth book, The Odessa File. I realised I hadn't read it ever but had seen the film. It's good.
Lunch was ready at 2 o'clock. Eladio was surprised and I hope pleased with the birthday outfit which we made him put on. It certainly made my Father chuckle haha. I told him he had to wear it for the rest of the day including the siesta but of course that was just a joke. Here he is in his birthday regalia looking the perfect "birthday boy".
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| The birthday boy in his outfit. |
The photo is funny but even funnier if you try to spot the different faces in it. Suzy spotted Zena in the background which made me laugh too.
Then the cake moment came. On purpose we rearranged the numbers so it looked like he was celebrating his 47th and not his 74th birthday hahaha. The cake itself is our favourite. Made of sponge, thick cream and fruit and covered in white chocolate, it's one we buy for all our birthdays. It's divine. And here is Eladio sitting down just as the firework candles were lit.
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| The birthday cake moment |
Oli took a video which you can see here.
Later both men took a siesta but I joined Oli by the pool under the trees. Soon afterwards her friends Elena or Elenita as the girls call her, came to visit and then Juli too. I continued with my book and finished it and then feeling very drowsy lay down on one of the hard sunbeds and slept for at least an hour. After all I had got up at 5.50 that day!
It was a quiet afternoon with no sign of any guests. We were waiting for Andrew and his wife Ana, a Scottish Spanish couple who live in Antibes in France, to arrive but they didn't come until late that night. They had driven from Antibes which according to Google Maps is 1.270 km from here. Lots of my French guests drive from France to get here, it must be a very French thing.
Talking of guests, while I was by the pool that afternoon, the son of my recent Russian guests from Lithuania got in touch to book our place for them again. They will be coming in the middle of October. They weren't the best guests but were nice people. October is slowly filling up and that's good as the quiet months of November, December, January and February will bring fewer guests as it's the low season.
To finish the special day with a flourish, Oli and I made a special dinner for Eladio; well for us too hahaha. We prepared a salad, foie with fresh figs, a plate of "lomo" as well as carrot sticks with humus. It was scrumptious.
At around 9.30 our guests from Antibes arrived. They are a lovely couple. They were here to look for 6 month accommodation for Andrew who will be on an assignment with the Banco Santander. The bank's worldwide HQ is in Boadilla. We settled them in and then they went out to dinner and we only saw them the next day.
We went to bed straight after they went out and that night watched the film The Butler which I had seen before but Eladio hadn't.
Monday came and after tossing and turning much of the night and waking up many times, I finally got up that morning at 6.20. I later realised I had probably slept badly as I had forgotten to take my sleeping tablets.
Monday would prove not to be the best day of the week. Continuing with my French expressions of the day, I duly looked it up on The Local France. Unfortunately the Local made it difficult for me to find it as it is searching for paying subscribers and it looks like unless I pay, I shall no longer be able to see its content. C'est domage I though. In any case the expression of the day was: "C'est la galère". Of course that means literally, it's a galley (on a ship) and is a a sort of filler word used all the time by the French. As apparently it was torturous to work on a galley, the word has become to mean a struggle, a nightmare, or having a hard time doing something. For example you could use it to say: "c'est la galère sur les route du Voule d'Oise; i.e. it's hellish, a pain or difficult too. You can also say "quelle galère" meaning what a nightmare. When I told Oli, she said she still preferred "avoir la patate" which I do too.
The day started off with me having a lot of "patate" but later in the day I would feel like saying "quelle gallère" after an embarrassing complaint from some; how ironic. Read on.
Our walk that morning was lovely, very sunny but with a cool breeze. The day afterwards would be nearly cold at that time in the morning. I came back to find my new guest Andrew drinking a cup of tea by the pool and I joined him. We soon discovered we had both worked at Motorola. Thus we are what the company considers "Motorolans". He had worked with the American telecoms giant from 1989 for 11 years, starting in the UK in Basingstoke which I remember very well and me from 1990 to 1999 in Madrid. Gosh, what a coincidence! We didn't know each other at the time because he worked for the Radio division and I for the cellular division but had quite a few colleagues in common.
Being Monday morning, Eladio and I wanted to go to the Monday fruit and vegetable market in Villaviciosa de Odón to stock up on good produce for the week. Oli came with us. We spent quite a fortune between us and I only hoped it would last till the following Monday. It doesn't usually. From there we went to Carrefour Market to get fresh fish for lunch, "merluza" which translates to "hake", although I have never eaten hake in the UK and didn't know of its existence when I lived there. On the way to Carrefour, I got a sudden Airbnb reservation for that very day, to occupy Suzy's room, the only one empty this week. It was from a "chap" called Zaid from Sweden coming to start his first year at the University. He was another dental student. He would be coming later that evening and we would be full house again.
As we came in with our huge loads of fruit wondering where to put it all as we have to share our main fridge with guests, one of them took me aside to complain in a nice way that their bathroom was "filthy". OMG, panic stations. I was stunned and embarrassed, left everything and ran to the room, cleaning equipment in hand, to do the job myself. Oli helped me as did Eladio. It's true the bathroom was a little dirty; things like the soap tray but it wasn't filthy. However, we gave it a deep clean and from now on shall be on the alert to make sure all the guests' bathrooms are impeccable. I was mortified. Later though I felt a bit better when I got a glowing review from Giovanni. I do hope his bathroom in the green room was clean when he arrived. From now on, I shall make sure they are all spick and span. I can't trust our cleaning ladies, Lucy and Zena to do the job properly. However that's understandable as this house is sprawling and enormous with 650m2 and it's nearly impossible to keep it "impeccable" which is how our guest said she liked things, all the time. We would need a full time staff like at Downton Abbey for that to happen, something which is not going to happen.
I thus rushed to make lunch feeling stressed. It was then that I could have used the new French expression, "quelle galère" if you see what I mean.
Luckily I was able to de-stress after lunch and sat for a while under the trees with Oli in the shade before going upstairs for a well needed siesta. She would leave a little later as the next day my youngest daughter was starting work after a long summer break. I wondered what her next destination would be.
I missed the news on TV while with her. Of course though I had read the headlines in the morning. One piece of news that piqued my interest was about the German Minister of Education, Annette Schavan, resigning over PhD plagiarism. So it's not just in Spain where politicians have been caught out copying.
In the afternoon, funnily enough, I started reading a book called "Educated". I wonder if Ms. Schavan will be reading it too now that she has lots of free time on her hands. Written by Tara Westover, it describes her youth in a very restrictive Mormon family where she was not allowed to go to school. Incredibly, somehow, she managed to educate herself and went to Cambridge University. Sadly, she is now estranged from her Mormon family. There has been a lot about this new book in the news. It makes for tough reading I can tell you but is fascinating.
Zaid arrived just before our dinner. He came in a thick track suit. While it had been 10ºc in Stockholm that morning, he was arriving to nearly 30ºc. It must have been a shock for his system. We duly greeted him, showed him his room and welcomed him. He was born in Sweden but is not of Swedish origin. His Mother is Moroccan and his Father from Iraq. He has come to the right house; the United Nations of guests hahaha. He had brought with him boxes and boxes of what the Swedes call "snus" for Swedish friends here. This is like English snuff or a variant of it and is actually moist powder tobacco. You put it under your upper lip for extended periods and it is supposed to give you a high. I tried it once from a Swedish colleague and found it vile.
Dinner was simple and healthy, just as lunch had been. You see I am trying to eat as healthily as possible now that autumn has come, to shed any excess weight put on in the summer. Thus we had salad, ham and fruit.
As we were finishing our guests came into the kitchen to make their dinner. Soon Zaid joined us and the banter was lovely. It usually is and we later remarked that nearly everyone loves our house for its atmosphere. It's true and then we said that those who don't can lump it haha.
The day ended finishing watching The Eagle about the peace process with Egypt and Israel. It's well worth watching.
Tuesday's sports news was about Luca Modric, the 33 year old Real Madrid midfielder from Croatia winning the Fifa best player award in London. It's a goal for his native country and a first.
To think he grew up as the son of a goat herder, being a child shepherd and later a war refugee, his career is pretty marvelous. I, for one, was happy to see an end to the duopoly of Messi and Ronaldo who have dominated the awards for 10 years. It was pretty bad behaviour on their part for not attending the awards. That was the least they could have done.
It was cooler on Tuesday, just 16ºc in the morning when I sat outside with my cup of coffee. I even wore a cardigan on our walk but took it off half way when the sun became stronger. The highest temperature that day was 28ºc I think which for us is not that warm. However, for Zaid, my Arab Swedish dental student, it was relatively boiling. He told me that when Sweden had a heatwave this summer, the country ran out of fans hahaha.
Finally on Tuesday I went to the hairdresser; I hadn't been for about a month and a half and my hair was a mess and in much need of "doing my roots". Thankfully, an hour or so later, after Sandra's good work, I came out looking my usual self, with my midway length bob and blonde hair with all sign of grey or white roots gone. I don't like going to the hairdresser but I do like my hair looking good.
I came home with time on my hands as lunch would be leftovers of Zena's "gloupsy". It was time to do my French homework but I got interrupted by Zaid and then by Pierre, our other dental student who is from Pau in France, the one with the "tank". It was then that I got a message from Rania to say she and her husband Pierre and their little boy Raphael would be coming in October and do I have a room spare. If you follow my blog you will remember Rania was my recent Airbnb guest who lives in Brussels but is originally from Lebanon and that we had become fast friends. Their visit would coincide with my repeat Russian Airbnb guests from Lithuania. Juggling around with the reservations I told her I would be able to put her in the triple room which is actually Suzy's old room. Recently Airbnb arranged for professional photography for me after having being a "super host" for more than a year. I do think that since they have been posted my bookings have gone up. The nice thing is that people come back. This is one of the photos of Suzy's room:
I can't wait to see her again and to meet her husband and son.
After lunch and a short siesta, I sat down to finish my French homework, mostly about the conditional present hahaha, when I was interrupted by Zaid again who was calling a taxi. We were joined by Eladio and were soon talking about religion. He told us he was a Shia Muslim with a direct blood link to Mohammed the Prophet! We asked him about the difference between Shia and Sunni muslims and we got some very interesting answers. I have to say the conversation with him was very enriching. He is only 20 but knowledgeable on many subjects. He told us he had faith but was not a very practicing Muslim. For instance he cheats during Ramadan. I laughed happily at that. When I asked him which branch of Muslim was more radical, he told me that the Shias say it's the Sunnis and the Sunnis say it's the Shias. He also told us the Sunnis generally hate the Shias and that they were persecuted by the Sunnis; i.e. Isis. How frightening. His Father has one wife only, thank goodness, but his Father's father had 4 and nearly 40 offspring. That means his Father has nearly 40 brothers and sisters, 19 sisters and 17 brothers! He reckoned he, Zaid, had more than 600 cousins! The answer to the difference in the two branches is pretty simple and Eladio, my philosopher husband and ex Catholic priest, of course knew it. Let me quote it to you from the internet in inverted commas. No plagiarism here hahaha.
The Sunni majority got their way, as Abu Bakr became the first Muslim caliph and successor of the prophet. ... One of the most crucial differences between Shia and Sunni Muslims is the importance that the Shiites give to Ali, whom the Sunni do not recognize as being the prophet's rightful successor.
According to Eladio, Abu Bakr was the direct descendant of the prophet whereas Ali was his cousin. And forever after there has been discord, just as there has been discord between the Catholics and the Protestants and other religions against Judaism. To quote my husband yesterday, most of the world's woes have been because of religion, the biggest cause of war in all history. On a final note the Shias are a minority group of Muslims, representing just 15%.
Searching for a photo to illustrate this little story, I came across various maps where the the two different branches of Islam can be found. I hope this one is correct.
When Zain left, I continued my homework only to be interrupted by the arrival of Pierre. With Pierre we talked about his choice of subject, dentistry. He told me that many students only get to see a mouthful of teeth in their 4th year and that some are so shocked they forego their studies hahha. Pierre, being a clever young chap, had made friends with one of his lecturers and attended surgery and was not put off. He will make a marvelous dentist. He is very good looking, so no doubt all his young female patients will fall in love with him. I later told Zaid that and he said that now first year students will be able to practice on dead bodies. Well that is just gross. It's funny we've had so many dental students to stay.
I finally finished my homework (je finis mes devoirs) and by then it was time for dinner. We had a very healthy meal, an omelet with fresh runner beans bought at the local market. Just before we finished, our Scottish Spanish couple who live in Antibes, arrived home after a long day in Madrid. At one stage all 4 of our guests were in the kitchen and there was a babble of French, Spanish and English. What a lovely babble it was. But we bade them all "bon nuit" and went up to bed after 9pm.
We missed part of the news, but not all. What captured my attention was the story of the former French PM, Catalan born Manuel Valls. He was born in Barcelona to a Spanish father and Swiss Mother or was it the other way round. He left to live in France when he was 20. Well, the news about him is that he announced he is running for the post of Mayor of Barcelona. The good news, for me, at least, is that he is against independence. He has the backing of the anti independence party, "Ciudadanos" but is unlikely to win. But who knows? I mean if Paris can have a Spanish born Mayoress, why can't Barcelona have Manuel Valls for Mayor. Let's see how it goes.
There was another piece of news that day which was rather emotional for me. You see, on Tuesday, Motorola turned 90. Wow 90. I worked for the company as you read earlier from 1990 to 1999. All nines. This is their quick history corporate wise: "The Motorola
corporation turns 90 years old today and it is celebrating its legacy from the
the time Paul and Joseph Galvin founded the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation to
the first Motorola car radio to providing communications to missions to Mount
Everest and the Moon to the DynaTAC, the StarTAC, through Google
and now to Lenovo ownership".
But for me, it was my first telco company and the first multinational I worked for and wow those years were amazing when mobile telephony took off. I have many memories of my years with Motorola but one sticks out more than the rest. I was at a worldwide marketing conference in Chicago and one evening at a dinner, the founder's son, Joseph Galvin or "Bob" Galvin, would be presiding the dinner. I was astounded when I was chosen to sit on his table as a representative of Europe. There was a member on his table from each continent and one of the girls was from China. She sat next to me and told me it was her first time outside China and that she didn't know how to use a knife and fork. That would prove a challenge as we were served "turf and surf" (steak and salmon). I told her to imitate me and she did and she was fine. As to Bob Galvin, well, he was a real gentleman and made us feel welcome. It was his son Chris Galvin who was more inspiring though and awfully good looking with too.
So when I read about Motorola's 90th anniversary on Tuesday I thought about all the good times I had spent with the company. Here in Spain, there were a few articles and one from Zona Movilidad mentioned me, little me, as one of the founding members who had made their mark on the sector. That was nice.
Later we continued watching a film called The Banker of the Resistance until we fell asleep. It is an interesting story but the script is not good.
Wednesday dawned and over my cup of coffee I looked up The Local's expression of the day. It was a slangy one "Truc de ouf". Funnily enough it was to be a new expression too for my French born cousin Zuka who lives in France. I hope that doesn't mean it's uncommon.
It has nothing to do with eggs. In fact "ouf" is "fou" the other way round, fou meaning crazy. But in this expression un truc means "thing" like in "thingymajig". For example, ·C'est ou le truc? This means where's the thing gone? It also means something positive: "c'était un truc de ouf" translates as, it was so good. So there's your expression of the day in French. Each morning the first thing I do is consult The Local to get the latest one. In a way that is a little crazy (fou) too hahaha.
Our walk was late that day and it was cooler. Rain threatened but it didn't come.
The morning went past in a jiffy and soon it was lunch and then the news and our siesta. The news I found the most interesting on Wednesday was not on the TV but on internet. It referred to the countries in Europe with the highest living expectancy, or rather the cities in Europe. You can read the article here. Amazing that Madrid comes top for both men and women. So I am living in the right city aren't I?
It was in the early afternoon I got some very good professional news. A project I had submitted a PR plan for has been accepted and more importantly the budget too. The real work will take off quite soon as the launch time will be around February. That made me so pleased, Eladio too.
Oli's news that day was her next destination with her programme, "Madrileños por el mundo". She will be off to New Mexico in the US next week. Lucky girl, what a plush and fantastic job she has. She said, "not bad, but the US is not my favourite destination". It's not mine either but there's always something to learn from going somewhere new. So it's places like Santa Fe and Alburqueque she will be visiting, somewhere in the south of the US on the border of Mexico and near Arizona and Texas. Don't take me literally as my geography of the US is appalling.
The rest of the day was quiet. I had to go out to my GP to get my 2 monthly prescription of sleeping pills and then it was home to make dinner which, despite the threatened rain, we had outside. The rest of the evening, you can guess so I shan't repeat it here.
Thursday came and the temperature rose to 30ºc. Ana, one of my Airbnb guests, bathed in the pool that day. We went on our walk and wore jumpers which we would later shed as the sun shone brighter.
The highlight of Thursday was lunch out with my best friends Julio and Fátima. As many of you know the three of us worked together at Nokia for many years. However, Fátima and I go back a lot longer as we first met at Motorola in about 1991. We had an early lunch at a quasi Italian place; "La Tagliatella" in Pozuelo. We had lots to catch up on with Julio who we hadn't seen since before the summer. He was recently given the post of lecturer with the UNED University, a job which is just up his street but oh so different from working for a telco multinational. In fact, the 3 of us commented just how much our lives had changed work wise but for the better. As lunch with my friends was the highlight of the week, it is the photo of the three of us on Thursday that I have chosen to illustrate this week's blog post. I do so love my friends.
I came home to take a short siesta and then Eladio and I retired to our favourite spot by the pool, a little corner under the trees where we sit on wooden benches and read often in the summer. Here is Eladio reading that day. with his new Kindle. I call it our "reading corner".
We had a dinner date that night at Oli's house and I was to take the food as she was a bit stressed from work, yes stressed after 3 days back at work hahaha. Thus at about 7ish, I set about making two small Spanish potato and onion omelets. Dear Eladio helped me with the skivvy work. I've perfected the art of making the perfect tortilla, the way we like it that is. It has to be very moist inside, not runny but nearly and have plenty of onions. And voilà, here they are. I made them in less than half an hour!
Had I been writing this in French, I could have used the expression of the day I learned that day from The Local France. It is "Dis donc" meaning a lot of things actually, one of them being, "by the way "or even "you don't say" It's used a lot apparently and can also mean "hey" or "well I never". When Oli and I had our weekly French lesson on Saturday and I mentioned all these new expressions I am learning to Helene, our teacher or should I say "ma prof", apparently the cool way to say "my teacher" rather than "mon professuer".
We were on time at Oli's place and to please her we took Pips along, aka Pippa. Pippa wanted dinner too so we had to keep feeding her carrot sticks we had cut to have with Ol's homemade humus. It was funny to be at her flat without her boyfriend Miguel. The lucky chap was sailing in Croatia this week. He is indeed lucky with his job as he works about 20 weeks out of 52 in the whole year as technician and cameraman for TVE in Valencia.
The dinner was delicious but the nicest thing was being together. Suzy was missing though. We do miss her. But I have to make do with her coming just for Christmas which at the moment seems so far away. On the bright side, we shall be going out to see her, hopefully, in March.
We left relatively early at about 10.30 and were in bed by 11.20. We watched a bit of "telly" until we both fell asleep.
Friday dawned and it was another glorious day. September has been great weather wise. That morning, before setting off on our walk, we had a chat with Andrew, our Scottish guest. He and his wife had come to look for accommodation for him for his 6 month assignment as a coach with the Banco Santander. However, very shortly after being here and after seeing lots of places, they both expressed an interest in him staying with us for the period. He loves our house. I must say he's a very nice person. So, on Friday, we came to an agreement for him to stay. Thus I had to change my main Airbnb listing to remove his room from it for the next 6 months. We agreed to him staying from now to March as from November to March it is the low season and his added income should make up for lesser Airbnb earnings. It's the first time we've had a proper "lodger" a bit like my parents used to have.
After our walk, I had a quiet morning. I was happy to receive 2 new Airbnb reservations. That now means that October is fully booked. Let's see how November pans out.
Lunch was a healthy meal of vegetable soup, fish and runner beans. I made a light meal on purpose as we had dinner out that night.
In the afternoon, we spent quiet time in our reading corner in the garden by the pool. Meanwhile, many thousands of miles away, in Indonesia there was a 7.5 earthquake, thankfully 1.800 km from where Suzy lives in Bali but the news did scare us for a moment. I haven't heard much from her this week but have seen photos, like this one of her on a beach drinking some concoction from a coconut and sitting next to her Indonesian boyfriend Dous. He has an enormous amount of hair which makes him look a bit scary, at least for me, but here he is wearing it tied back thank goodness hahaha. There you have my hippy older daughter living the simple life in Bali and integrating completely with the locals. She even sings in Indonesian with the band she sings in and in which he plays the guitar or the drums.
Who had a bad moment on Friday afternoon was the social media giant Facebook. More than 50 million of its accounts had been hacked, including, I suppose, mine as they had logged me out and I had to log back in again. Oh how vulnerable we are on internet.
We spent the time reading. I finished "Educated" and recommend it to you all. It's a great biography of a very strange life; from strict Mormon to Cambridge University. I then started on another book by Frederick Forsyth, The Fish of God about Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
Eladio was reading his book too but in between time consulting the news. This week has been very controversial for Spain's new socialist government. Just a few months ago, its leader, Pedro Sánchez formed a brand new government with a majority of women. Since then, for various scandal reasons, 2 of the ministers have had to resign and now another 2 are embroiled in new scandals, including the Science Minister and ex astronaut, Pedro Duque. Sánchez himself has his very own scandal too with accusations of plagiarism of his thesis. The new government says it is the victim of a witch hunt and it may well be so but that doesn't take away the reality of the scandals. Probably, much sooner than he wants, he will have to call elections as no way can he continue to govern under this huge black cloud and with just 84 seats in parliament.
We had a dinner date that night with our friends Irene and her husband Tomas. Irene was one of the 4 children in the family I lived with when I had my year in Spain during my degree in Hispanic Studies many moons ago. I was 21 at the time and Irene about 12 so there's not that much difference in age between us now. I love her, her siblings and her family and I consider them my Spanish family. The dinner table was booked for 9.45, incredibly late for us but they couldn't make it before as they had to take one of their children to golf lessons or pick them up. Thus we only sat down to dinner at 10 which when is the time we would have usually finished haha. For the occasion we chose Filandón, a big favourite and near where they live which is also where Oli lives in Mirasierra. I love the place for its decor, atmosphere and amazing food. Everything they serve is delicious, like the hamburger I had that night.
It's no ordinary hamburger I can tell you. According to Tomas, Filandón employs a staff of 100 people and is the restaurant that has the biggest sales of all restaurants in Spain. It is hugely popular.
Over dinner we caught up on each other's lives as it had been a while since we last met. We also had to have a photo taken of the occasion and of course had to resort to asking one of the waiters. Waiters, notoriously, take bad photos but it's what I've got to remember that night.
If you are wondering why Irene and I are wearing shawls, they are actually blankets provided by the owners to wear on the terrace. It wasn't cold that night, about 24ºc but they came in handy. We finished our meal really late, at past midnight and as we had a long drive home; 30 minutes, by then it was time to leave. Hopefully we shall meet again soon and this time with Irene's dear brother Gerardo and his wife Vicky.
We were home by 1 in the morning. Oli was there too. When Miguel is away and she is working, she often comes home for the weekends. I joined her in her room where she was with Pippa, the joy of both our lives. After a quick chat and a kiss, I went to bed.
Saturday came. Ana was leaving that morning which meant Andrew would be alone after that. But he has company in us and of course his work. Eladio and I did the food shopping - what a bore - and soon after we came back it was time for our French lesson.
Helene was on time and by 12.30 we were sitting in our dining room. She corrected our homework and we did new exercises. She also set us homework for our next lesson together. Oli will be away next Saturday in the US, so my lesson with "ma prof" will be a conversation one.
When she left, it was lunch time. I had made "fabada", an Asturian bean stew, a favourite with my husband. Oli went out to lunch with her friends but was back home even before I had finished my siesta.
Soon we were all by the pool. Andrew swam. For me it wasn't warm enough - just 30ºc. During the afternoon I had another chat with Zaid, this time about Iraq and Saddam Hussein! I was interested especially because of the book I was reading by F. Forsyth concerning the invasion of Kuwait. Zaid told me practically all his family left after Hussein came into power. Some of them have now gone back. He told me his grandfather, the one with 4 wives, was a general in the army but being against Hussein, he joined the Kurds in their fight. He escaped to Turkey but was arrested and tortured and soon after returning home, died of internal bleeding, aged just 61! What a story.
I told Eladio and Oli about it over dinner. We had a lovely meal with which I had a glass of Muga wine which later I would regret as it gave me a headache and sent me straight to sleep. I was so drowsy I couldn't focus on the TV so there was no Netflix or Amazon Prime last night.
And today is Sunday, the last day of this blog post. I'm not sure how Sunday will pan out but no doubt you will hear all about it in next week's tales.
So, my friends, I shall leave you here, to publish this, print a copy for my Father and get on with the day which promises to be another warm one.
All the best until next Sunday,
Cheers for now
Masha.
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| Monday's French expression of the day: meaning a nightmare, difficulty or similar. |
Our walk that morning was lovely, very sunny but with a cool breeze. The day afterwards would be nearly cold at that time in the morning. I came back to find my new guest Andrew drinking a cup of tea by the pool and I joined him. We soon discovered we had both worked at Motorola. Thus we are what the company considers "Motorolans". He had worked with the American telecoms giant from 1989 for 11 years, starting in the UK in Basingstoke which I remember very well and me from 1990 to 1999 in Madrid. Gosh, what a coincidence! We didn't know each other at the time because he worked for the Radio division and I for the cellular division but had quite a few colleagues in common.
Being Monday morning, Eladio and I wanted to go to the Monday fruit and vegetable market in Villaviciosa de Odón to stock up on good produce for the week. Oli came with us. We spent quite a fortune between us and I only hoped it would last till the following Monday. It doesn't usually. From there we went to Carrefour Market to get fresh fish for lunch, "merluza" which translates to "hake", although I have never eaten hake in the UK and didn't know of its existence when I lived there. On the way to Carrefour, I got a sudden Airbnb reservation for that very day, to occupy Suzy's room, the only one empty this week. It was from a "chap" called Zaid from Sweden coming to start his first year at the University. He was another dental student. He would be coming later that evening and we would be full house again.
As we came in with our huge loads of fruit wondering where to put it all as we have to share our main fridge with guests, one of them took me aside to complain in a nice way that their bathroom was "filthy". OMG, panic stations. I was stunned and embarrassed, left everything and ran to the room, cleaning equipment in hand, to do the job myself. Oli helped me as did Eladio. It's true the bathroom was a little dirty; things like the soap tray but it wasn't filthy. However, we gave it a deep clean and from now on shall be on the alert to make sure all the guests' bathrooms are impeccable. I was mortified. Later though I felt a bit better when I got a glowing review from Giovanni. I do hope his bathroom in the green room was clean when he arrived. From now on, I shall make sure they are all spick and span. I can't trust our cleaning ladies, Lucy and Zena to do the job properly. However that's understandable as this house is sprawling and enormous with 650m2 and it's nearly impossible to keep it "impeccable" which is how our guest said she liked things, all the time. We would need a full time staff like at Downton Abbey for that to happen, something which is not going to happen.
I thus rushed to make lunch feeling stressed. It was then that I could have used the new French expression, "quelle galère" if you see what I mean.
Luckily I was able to de-stress after lunch and sat for a while under the trees with Oli in the shade before going upstairs for a well needed siesta. She would leave a little later as the next day my youngest daughter was starting work after a long summer break. I wondered what her next destination would be.
I missed the news on TV while with her. Of course though I had read the headlines in the morning. One piece of news that piqued my interest was about the German Minister of Education, Annette Schavan, resigning over PhD plagiarism. So it's not just in Spain where politicians have been caught out copying.
In the afternoon, funnily enough, I started reading a book called "Educated". I wonder if Ms. Schavan will be reading it too now that she has lots of free time on her hands. Written by Tara Westover, it describes her youth in a very restrictive Mormon family where she was not allowed to go to school. Incredibly, somehow, she managed to educate herself and went to Cambridge University. Sadly, she is now estranged from her Mormon family. There has been a lot about this new book in the news. It makes for tough reading I can tell you but is fascinating.
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| My choice of book this week |
Dinner was simple and healthy, just as lunch had been. You see I am trying to eat as healthily as possible now that autumn has come, to shed any excess weight put on in the summer. Thus we had salad, ham and fruit.
As we were finishing our guests came into the kitchen to make their dinner. Soon Zaid joined us and the banter was lovely. It usually is and we later remarked that nearly everyone loves our house for its atmosphere. It's true and then we said that those who don't can lump it haha.
The day ended finishing watching The Eagle about the peace process with Egypt and Israel. It's well worth watching.
Tuesday's sports news was about Luca Modric, the 33 year old Real Madrid midfielder from Croatia winning the Fifa best player award in London. It's a goal for his native country and a first.
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| Luca Modric at the awards for Best Player of the year in London this week. |
It was cooler on Tuesday, just 16ºc in the morning when I sat outside with my cup of coffee. I even wore a cardigan on our walk but took it off half way when the sun became stronger. The highest temperature that day was 28ºc I think which for us is not that warm. However, for Zaid, my Arab Swedish dental student, it was relatively boiling. He told me that when Sweden had a heatwave this summer, the country ran out of fans hahaha.
Finally on Tuesday I went to the hairdresser; I hadn't been for about a month and a half and my hair was a mess and in much need of "doing my roots". Thankfully, an hour or so later, after Sandra's good work, I came out looking my usual self, with my midway length bob and blonde hair with all sign of grey or white roots gone. I don't like going to the hairdresser but I do like my hair looking good.
I came home with time on my hands as lunch would be leftovers of Zena's "gloupsy". It was time to do my French homework but I got interrupted by Zaid and then by Pierre, our other dental student who is from Pau in France, the one with the "tank". It was then that I got a message from Rania to say she and her husband Pierre and their little boy Raphael would be coming in October and do I have a room spare. If you follow my blog you will remember Rania was my recent Airbnb guest who lives in Brussels but is originally from Lebanon and that we had become fast friends. Their visit would coincide with my repeat Russian Airbnb guests from Lithuania. Juggling around with the reservations I told her I would be able to put her in the triple room which is actually Suzy's old room. Recently Airbnb arranged for professional photography for me after having being a "super host" for more than a year. I do think that since they have been posted my bookings have gone up. The nice thing is that people come back. This is one of the photos of Suzy's room:
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| One of the professional photos of Suzy's room, the one where Rania will be staying |
After lunch and a short siesta, I sat down to finish my French homework, mostly about the conditional present hahaha, when I was interrupted by Zaid again who was calling a taxi. We were joined by Eladio and were soon talking about religion. He told us he was a Shia Muslim with a direct blood link to Mohammed the Prophet! We asked him about the difference between Shia and Sunni muslims and we got some very interesting answers. I have to say the conversation with him was very enriching. He is only 20 but knowledgeable on many subjects. He told us he had faith but was not a very practicing Muslim. For instance he cheats during Ramadan. I laughed happily at that. When I asked him which branch of Muslim was more radical, he told me that the Shias say it's the Sunnis and the Sunnis say it's the Shias. He also told us the Sunnis generally hate the Shias and that they were persecuted by the Sunnis; i.e. Isis. How frightening. His Father has one wife only, thank goodness, but his Father's father had 4 and nearly 40 offspring. That means his Father has nearly 40 brothers and sisters, 19 sisters and 17 brothers! He reckoned he, Zaid, had more than 600 cousins! The answer to the difference in the two branches is pretty simple and Eladio, my philosopher husband and ex Catholic priest, of course knew it. Let me quote it to you from the internet in inverted commas. No plagiarism here hahaha.
The Sunni majority got their way, as Abu Bakr became the first Muslim caliph and successor of the prophet. ... One of the most crucial differences between Shia and Sunni Muslims is the importance that the Shiites give to Ali, whom the Sunni do not recognize as being the prophet's rightful successor.
According to Eladio, Abu Bakr was the direct descendant of the prophet whereas Ali was his cousin. And forever after there has been discord, just as there has been discord between the Catholics and the Protestants and other religions against Judaism. To quote my husband yesterday, most of the world's woes have been because of religion, the biggest cause of war in all history. On a final note the Shias are a minority group of Muslims, representing just 15%.
Searching for a photo to illustrate this little story, I came across various maps where the the two different branches of Islam can be found. I hope this one is correct.
We later remarked how enriching it was for us to meet so many different people representing conflicts in the world and to hear their opinion. Quite recently we had the opportunity to meet and talk to a Jewish judge, a family from Saudi Arabia, a Christian from Lebanon and now a Shia muslim. That is the greatest advantage of being an Airbnb host. We love it.
I also asked Zaid how integrated immigrant Muslims are in Sweden. He told me, sadly, they weren't really. For example all his friends are of immigrant origin. You would have thought that with Sweden being a pillar of example for equal rights and democracy there would be integration. When I said that to him, he answered that the Swedes were "nice" people but two faced. On the other hand, as a boy of Muslim origin, he has been brought up in a democratic society and a lot of it has rubbed off on him.
I also asked Zaid how integrated immigrant Muslims are in Sweden. He told me, sadly, they weren't really. For example all his friends are of immigrant origin. You would have thought that with Sweden being a pillar of example for equal rights and democracy there would be integration. When I said that to him, he answered that the Swedes were "nice" people but two faced. On the other hand, as a boy of Muslim origin, he has been brought up in a democratic society and a lot of it has rubbed off on him.
I finally finished my homework (je finis mes devoirs) and by then it was time for dinner. We had a very healthy meal, an omelet with fresh runner beans bought at the local market. Just before we finished, our Scottish Spanish couple who live in Antibes, arrived home after a long day in Madrid. At one stage all 4 of our guests were in the kitchen and there was a babble of French, Spanish and English. What a lovely babble it was. But we bade them all "bon nuit" and went up to bed after 9pm.
We missed part of the news, but not all. What captured my attention was the story of the former French PM, Catalan born Manuel Valls. He was born in Barcelona to a Spanish father and Swiss Mother or was it the other way round. He left to live in France when he was 20. Well, the news about him is that he announced he is running for the post of Mayor of Barcelona. The good news, for me, at least, is that he is against independence. He has the backing of the anti independence party, "Ciudadanos" but is unlikely to win. But who knows? I mean if Paris can have a Spanish born Mayoress, why can't Barcelona have Manuel Valls for Mayor. Let's see how it goes.
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| Manul Valls, former PM of France, running for Mayor of Barcelona |
But for me, it was my first telco company and the first multinational I worked for and wow those years were amazing when mobile telephony took off. I have many memories of my years with Motorola but one sticks out more than the rest. I was at a worldwide marketing conference in Chicago and one evening at a dinner, the founder's son, Joseph Galvin or "Bob" Galvin, would be presiding the dinner. I was astounded when I was chosen to sit on his table as a representative of Europe. There was a member on his table from each continent and one of the girls was from China. She sat next to me and told me it was her first time outside China and that she didn't know how to use a knife and fork. That would prove a challenge as we were served "turf and surf" (steak and salmon). I told her to imitate me and she did and she was fine. As to Bob Galvin, well, he was a real gentleman and made us feel welcome. It was his son Chris Galvin who was more inspiring though and awfully good looking with too.
So when I read about Motorola's 90th anniversary on Tuesday I thought about all the good times I had spent with the company. Here in Spain, there were a few articles and one from Zona Movilidad mentioned me, little me, as one of the founding members who had made their mark on the sector. That was nice.
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| My first telco company, Motorola, turned 90 this week. I spent 9 years with them. |
Wednesday dawned and over my cup of coffee I looked up The Local's expression of the day. It was a slangy one "Truc de ouf". Funnily enough it was to be a new expression too for my French born cousin Zuka who lives in France. I hope that doesn't mean it's uncommon.
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| Wednesday's French expression of the day |
Our walk was late that day and it was cooler. Rain threatened but it didn't come.
The morning went past in a jiffy and soon it was lunch and then the news and our siesta. The news I found the most interesting on Wednesday was not on the TV but on internet. It referred to the countries in Europe with the highest living expectancy, or rather the cities in Europe. You can read the article here. Amazing that Madrid comes top for both men and women. So I am living in the right city aren't I?
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| Madrid tops the chart for highest living expectancy in Europe for both men and women |
Oli's news that day was her next destination with her programme, "Madrileños por el mundo". She will be off to New Mexico in the US next week. Lucky girl, what a plush and fantastic job she has. She said, "not bad, but the US is not my favourite destination". It's not mine either but there's always something to learn from going somewhere new. So it's places like Santa Fe and Alburqueque she will be visiting, somewhere in the south of the US on the border of Mexico and near Arizona and Texas. Don't take me literally as my geography of the US is appalling.
The rest of the day was quiet. I had to go out to my GP to get my 2 monthly prescription of sleeping pills and then it was home to make dinner which, despite the threatened rain, we had outside. The rest of the evening, you can guess so I shan't repeat it here.
Thursday came and the temperature rose to 30ºc. Ana, one of my Airbnb guests, bathed in the pool that day. We went on our walk and wore jumpers which we would later shed as the sun shone brighter.
The highlight of Thursday was lunch out with my best friends Julio and Fátima. As many of you know the three of us worked together at Nokia for many years. However, Fátima and I go back a lot longer as we first met at Motorola in about 1991. We had an early lunch at a quasi Italian place; "La Tagliatella" in Pozuelo. We had lots to catch up on with Julio who we hadn't seen since before the summer. He was recently given the post of lecturer with the UNED University, a job which is just up his street but oh so different from working for a telco multinational. In fact, the 3 of us commented just how much our lives had changed work wise but for the better. As lunch with my friends was the highlight of the week, it is the photo of the three of us on Thursday that I have chosen to illustrate this week's blog post. I do so love my friends.
I came home to take a short siesta and then Eladio and I retired to our favourite spot by the pool, a little corner under the trees where we sit on wooden benches and read often in the summer. Here is Eladio reading that day. with his new Kindle. I call it our "reading corner".
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| Eladio reading in the garden on Thursday |
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| The 2 tortillas I made to take to Oli's place on Thursday |
We were on time at Oli's place and to please her we took Pips along, aka Pippa. Pippa wanted dinner too so we had to keep feeding her carrot sticks we had cut to have with Ol's homemade humus. It was funny to be at her flat without her boyfriend Miguel. The lucky chap was sailing in Croatia this week. He is indeed lucky with his job as he works about 20 weeks out of 52 in the whole year as technician and cameraman for TVE in Valencia.
The dinner was delicious but the nicest thing was being together. Suzy was missing though. We do miss her. But I have to make do with her coming just for Christmas which at the moment seems so far away. On the bright side, we shall be going out to see her, hopefully, in March.
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| Dinner at Oli's on Thursday evening, another highlight of the week |
Friday dawned and it was another glorious day. September has been great weather wise. That morning, before setting off on our walk, we had a chat with Andrew, our Scottish guest. He and his wife had come to look for accommodation for him for his 6 month assignment as a coach with the Banco Santander. However, very shortly after being here and after seeing lots of places, they both expressed an interest in him staying with us for the period. He loves our house. I must say he's a very nice person. So, on Friday, we came to an agreement for him to stay. Thus I had to change my main Airbnb listing to remove his room from it for the next 6 months. We agreed to him staying from now to March as from November to March it is the low season and his added income should make up for lesser Airbnb earnings. It's the first time we've had a proper "lodger" a bit like my parents used to have.
After our walk, I had a quiet morning. I was happy to receive 2 new Airbnb reservations. That now means that October is fully booked. Let's see how November pans out.
Lunch was a healthy meal of vegetable soup, fish and runner beans. I made a light meal on purpose as we had dinner out that night.
In the afternoon, we spent quiet time in our reading corner in the garden by the pool. Meanwhile, many thousands of miles away, in Indonesia there was a 7.5 earthquake, thankfully 1.800 km from where Suzy lives in Bali but the news did scare us for a moment. I haven't heard much from her this week but have seen photos, like this one of her on a beach drinking some concoction from a coconut and sitting next to her Indonesian boyfriend Dous. He has an enormous amount of hair which makes him look a bit scary, at least for me, but here he is wearing it tied back thank goodness hahaha. There you have my hippy older daughter living the simple life in Bali and integrating completely with the locals. She even sings in Indonesian with the band she sings in and in which he plays the guitar or the drums.
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| Suzy and Dous in Bali this week |
We spent the time reading. I finished "Educated" and recommend it to you all. It's a great biography of a very strange life; from strict Mormon to Cambridge University. I then started on another book by Frederick Forsyth, The Fish of God about Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
Eladio was reading his book too but in between time consulting the news. This week has been very controversial for Spain's new socialist government. Just a few months ago, its leader, Pedro Sánchez formed a brand new government with a majority of women. Since then, for various scandal reasons, 2 of the ministers have had to resign and now another 2 are embroiled in new scandals, including the Science Minister and ex astronaut, Pedro Duque. Sánchez himself has his very own scandal too with accusations of plagiarism of his thesis. The new government says it is the victim of a witch hunt and it may well be so but that doesn't take away the reality of the scandals. Probably, much sooner than he wants, he will have to call elections as no way can he continue to govern under this huge black cloud and with just 84 seats in parliament.
We had a dinner date that night with our friends Irene and her husband Tomas. Irene was one of the 4 children in the family I lived with when I had my year in Spain during my degree in Hispanic Studies many moons ago. I was 21 at the time and Irene about 12 so there's not that much difference in age between us now. I love her, her siblings and her family and I consider them my Spanish family. The dinner table was booked for 9.45, incredibly late for us but they couldn't make it before as they had to take one of their children to golf lessons or pick them up. Thus we only sat down to dinner at 10 which when is the time we would have usually finished haha. For the occasion we chose Filandón, a big favourite and near where they live which is also where Oli lives in Mirasierra. I love the place for its decor, atmosphere and amazing food. Everything they serve is delicious, like the hamburger I had that night.
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| Friday's dinner |
Over dinner we caught up on each other's lives as it had been a while since we last met. We also had to have a photo taken of the occasion and of course had to resort to asking one of the waiters. Waiters, notoriously, take bad photos but it's what I've got to remember that night.
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| Dinner on Friday night with Irene and Tomas |
We were home by 1 in the morning. Oli was there too. When Miguel is away and she is working, she often comes home for the weekends. I joined her in her room where she was with Pippa, the joy of both our lives. After a quick chat and a kiss, I went to bed.
Saturday came. Ana was leaving that morning which meant Andrew would be alone after that. But he has company in us and of course his work. Eladio and I did the food shopping - what a bore - and soon after we came back it was time for our French lesson.
Helene was on time and by 12.30 we were sitting in our dining room. She corrected our homework and we did new exercises. She also set us homework for our next lesson together. Oli will be away next Saturday in the US, so my lesson with "ma prof" will be a conversation one.
When she left, it was lunch time. I had made "fabada", an Asturian bean stew, a favourite with my husband. Oli went out to lunch with her friends but was back home even before I had finished my siesta.
Soon we were all by the pool. Andrew swam. For me it wasn't warm enough - just 30ºc. During the afternoon I had another chat with Zaid, this time about Iraq and Saddam Hussein! I was interested especially because of the book I was reading by F. Forsyth concerning the invasion of Kuwait. Zaid told me practically all his family left after Hussein came into power. Some of them have now gone back. He told me his grandfather, the one with 4 wives, was a general in the army but being against Hussein, he joined the Kurds in their fight. He escaped to Turkey but was arrested and tortured and soon after returning home, died of internal bleeding, aged just 61! What a story.
I told Eladio and Oli about it over dinner. We had a lovely meal with which I had a glass of Muga wine which later I would regret as it gave me a headache and sent me straight to sleep. I was so drowsy I couldn't focus on the TV so there was no Netflix or Amazon Prime last night.
And today is Sunday, the last day of this blog post. I'm not sure how Sunday will pan out but no doubt you will hear all about it in next week's tales.
So, my friends, I shall leave you here, to publish this, print a copy for my Father and get on with the day which promises to be another warm one.
All the best until next Sunday,
Cheers for now
Masha.
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