To Valencia with the girls, paella and orange trees, Lobster goes live, Merry Christmas to you all, home again, drones at Gatwick, presentation of Mariano Guindal's memoirs, naughty Norah and other stories.

Sunday 23rd December, 2018

Outside the flood lit cathedral in Valencia last Sunday with my girls

Good morning everyone. It's Sunday and there are only two days to Christmas. Nearly all my preparations are made and as a family the 5 of us are looking forward to this year's festivities together.

This time last week, the girls and I went to Valencia where Olivia's boyfriend lives and works when he is not in Madrid with her. We left early and being just the 3 of us in the car was very special. It's about 3.5 h drive and we were in good spirits. We were to meet Miguel for lunch at a restaurant called "Senia" where we were to eat the most divine paella, a variety called "arroz señoret" which is called so due to all the ingredients being shelled. This was it.

Our "arroz señoret" at the restaurant last Sunday

Paella is considered by most tourists as Spain's flagship dish but I tell you it's not. It's a regional dish. Paella originally comes from the Valencia region, encompassing also Alicante and Castellón and this is the area where they really know how to make it well. It's never a good idea to order a dish of paella outside this region. It will only usually disappoint. Don't fall for tourist trap cheap paella outside this area as it's never good. Our "arroz señoret" was divine, I can tell you.

It was great to be with the girls, "baching it" as I called it, i.e. enjoying a "bachelor's life" together, albeit for a short time. Here are the four of us at lunch that day.

Lunch on Sunday in Valencia

It was much warmer in Valencia than in Madrid. We had left in cold and fog and arrived to 20ºc and sunshine. However, when it gets cooler here it can be quite cold as the city is very humid owing to being by the sea and people don't generally have central heating in their houses. But we were lucky last Sunday as it was warm.

After lunch we drove into the centre of town. I was keen to see the old part which I had never seen before. Of course I have been to Valencia on many occasions but always for work. Well the old town is lovely and there was a great Christmas atmosphere with an outdoor skating rink, an old fashioned round about, called a "carousel" these days, a bit like the one in the first Mary Poppins film, as well as lots of Christmas lights and a beautiful nativity crib. We parked near the old station, called "Estación del Norte". I was bowled over by its beauty. It's a prime example of Valencian Art Nouveau. I especially loved the fruit mosaics on the façade.

Fruit mosaics on the façade of the old station in Valencia

We were lucky to have with Miguel with us, our family photographer, who took some great photos that day. 

Outside the old train station in Valencia with the girls

Valencia, being the capital of what is known as "la huerta de España" (Spain's orchard), all the trees lining the streets of the city are orange trees. No one else took any notice but I still find them so exotic. I remember when we first came to Alicante which is in the same area, in the early 70's, being amazed to see orange and lemon trees. I still find it exotic.

An orange tree in Valencia

It was great to walk off our heavy lunch and we must have walked for at least 4 hours. Miguel was our unofficial private guide, hahaha. We even stopped to go inside the 600 year old building, the seat of the local government, the "Palau de la Generalitat" which is steeped in history. The Cathedral was imposing too.  The photo illustrating this week's blog post is of the girls and I outside it. 

From the old city centre we walked to the shopping streets and I have to say that Valencia is spoiled for choice. It is a city with a population of about 750.000 people and you can tell there is a lot of money here. Many Russians and Chinese seem to have invaded Valencia and there were lots of tourists too. Miguel took us to an old market, "Mercado de Colon" which has been turned into an elegant gastro centre. I loved it, it was so beautiful and  similar in style to the old train station both of which include the most extraordinary fruit mosaics on the façade. I think this symbolises the importance of fruit from the region, mainly oranges.

Fruit mosaics on the building of the old Valencian market "Mercado de Colón"

With is lavish decor and extraordinary design. I read later it is one of the main works of Valencia art nouveau from the beginning of the 20th century. 

The entrance to the "Mercado de Colón" in Valencia

Oli, Miguel and I did some Christmas shopping in some of the very attractive shops after which we put an end to our tour of the city and returned to Miguel's bachelor flat where he lives in an area called Burjasott, about 20km from the centre.

In his very bachelor flat, the 3 of us settled in and then made a makeshift dinner although none of us was really hungry after the paella we had for lunch. We were tired and so it was early to bed for us all. 

Tuesday came and it was ours for the taking. After Miguel left for work, the girls and I had a lovely breakfast together and then went into Valencia again. We spent a lazy morning, a lot of it at a nice cafeteria. Next to the cafeteria was an official lottery administration. I was determined to buy some Christmas lottery called "El Gordo" (the fat one). Perhaps buying El Gordo tickets is the biggest Christmas tradition in Spain. I spent 100 euros on 5 of them but that's nothing compared to what other people spend. Each ticket could give you winnings of 400.000 euros. Wouldn't that be nice?

One of our Christmas lottery tickets. Oli bought this for us in Valencia

We had lunch with Miguel at a modest little bar near his work at RTVE in Paterna as a cameraman. It didn't seem much of a place but it's important to Oli and Miguel as this is where they first met some 6 years ago. She was in Valencia reporting for the La Mañana programme and it was through work that they met. 6 years later I know he is the man of her life and what I call excellent "husband material". If only they would get married but Oli has no intention of doing so, depriving me of a wedding. Oh well. How modern couples are today. 

Suzy had to leave in the afternoon so Oli and I took her to the train station. She had to work the next day so Oli and I were left alone after we saw her off. We did more Christmas shopping after that before returning to Miguel's flat for a quiet dinner and time together.

Tuesday came and this time it was I who had to work. The press release on the commercial launch of Lobster and the unveiling of its tariffs was to go out at 10 am that morning. Lobster, the only all in English mobile operator for English speaking expats in Spain, was going live that morning. If you are interested, this is their website.

Lobsters tariffs

I was busy all morning and couldn't look up from my computer until lunch time. We went to pick up Miguel and had lunch at a non descript little place where I'm sure the paella wasn't good. The worst thing was the service which was so slow.

In the afternoon, Oli and I did the last of our Christmas present shopping. I finished it that day and wrapped everything up on Wednesday when we came home. There will be lots of quantity this year but not much quality I'm afraid.  I think this will be the most frugal Christmas we have ever had, as far as presents go, but who cares as for me the most important thing is having my whole family here. 

Here by the way is this year's family Christmas photo. It's an old photo but I love it because my Father is in it and while the photo was being taken, he was enjoying his glass of wine. Good for him. With this photo I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas, that is all of you who read my blog, those of you know and those of you I don't. It's always wonderful to know I have followers of my modest little family diary which for some reason seems to reach all the corners of this earth. I wish you would all tell me the secret of why I have so many readers.

Merry Christmas to you all from the Freijo Lloyd family

On Wednesday, Oli and I were up early and after seeing Miguel off who leaves for work at 6.45, we both got ready to head back to Madrid.  We were home by about 1.30 and the first "person" to greet me was of course my beloved Pippa. She went beserk with joy and the feeling was mutual. Thankfully her paw had completely recovered and it must have just been a sprain. The best thing about being home was having lunch with the family. There is no place like home and even though we had had a lovely time in Valencia it was great to be home again. 

Suzy wasn't home until the evening. That day she went with Chati to see an ex London friend in  a village in Cáceres. Suzy has only come for two weeks and is determined to see as many of her friends and contacts as possible. Thus her social agenda is completely full. Thankfully we will have her to ourselves on the 24th and 25th December.

Friday came and our long term Scottish lodger, dear Andy, was leaving for France to spend Christmas with his family. He must miss them a lot. We have grown very fond of him and he now feels like part of the family.

He was flying from Madrid where Barajas airport was peaceful although busy. Gatwick, the UK's second largest airport, on the other hand was facing the most terrible disruption to flights due to drones. From Wednesday all flights were cancelled and this would carry on until Friday, ruining many passengers' dreams of being with their families at Christmas. It seems that at least 2 industrial drones were being operated by rogues whose aim was to shut the airport down at such a critical time. Drones are getting more and more popular but regulation is very difficult to enforce. Sometimes technology is ahead of legislation. The same applies to the new electric scooters which have become so popular. Even the Army was called in, possibly to try to shoot the drones down. I hoped they would catch the criminals, because it is a crime to fly drones in the airspace of an airport and they could face up to 5 years in prison. As I am writing a man and a woman are in custody for questioning. Who, I wonder, gets a kick out of causing so much disruption and pain to passengers?   I would not have liked to be a passenger at Gatwick this week.

Gatwick airport closed due to rogue drones this week

My cold is coming to an end but on Thursday both Eladio and Suzy came down with one or at least the start of one. I just hope my Father doesn't catch it. I went out to do the Christmas food shopping, or most of it, to avoid the queues on Christmas Eve while Suzy gave her online English classes to her Chinese pupils, some aged just 4. Apparently the parents join in which must not be easy for her as a teacher. Oli went back to work and we wouldn't see her again until today.

Surprisingly for the last day of Autumn it was quite sunny on Thursday. I went on our walk alone with Pippa while Eladio preferred to stay at home nursing his cold. I really needed the exercise as we hadn't done much walking in Valencia. I came back to sit with Eladio in our cozy and festive lounge where we were soon joined by Suzy but not for long. She was going out again, another appointment in her busy schedule hahahaha. Thus we had a quiet dinner together and alone and went up to bed at 8.30 pm. The main news that night was the meeting of the Spanish President, Pedro Sánchez and the head of the Catalan Government, Quim Torra. At least there is some dialogue now which is a good sign after so much tension but of course Torra will not get what he wants, a referendum for independence, as for that the Spanish Constitution would have to be altered and for it to be altered there would have to a national referendum. The next day, the Spanish Government would hold its cabinet meeting in the Catalan capital, seen by some as a provocation and demonstrations were  held. I hoped there would be no violence but there was.  Both Eladio and I were very tired that night and I think we switched off the TV at about 11 pm. Neither of us slept well that night.

Friday 21st December dawned, the shortest day of the year and the Winter solstice. It was to be an exciting day for me. However, in Catalonia there would be trouble. There were demonstrations in protest of the Spanish Government meeting there and some very violent scenes. It's just dreadful how this whole issue has divided Spain, the Catalans from the rest of the country and between the Catalans themselves. The independence movement has always said their methods would be peaceful but that wasn't so on Friday.

Friday for Suzy and I was quite exciting. We were going to the official presentation of a book - his memoirs - written by our friend, the Spanish financial journalist, Mariano Guindal at the HQ of Repsol in downtown Madrid. It was lovely to have the occasion to get dressed up, put make up on , wear heels and above all, not to be in charge of lunch. Here we are ready to go.

Suzy and I ready to go out on Friday

Oli couldn't come as she was working and Eladio stayed at home to nurse his cold. The presentation started at midday and was anything other than institutional. It was emotional, funny and engaging. Mariano was flanked by a famous Spanish journalist, Victoria Prego, a famous economist, Luis Garicano and the ex Minister of Finance and now VP of the BEC, Luis de Guindos. They all agreed Mariano was the financial journalist with more scoops than any other and through some of  them the instigator of the downfall of certain corrupt and rich business people in this country, the most famous of who was Ruiz Mateos from the Rumasa company.

Mariano on stage during the presentation of his memoirs

The audience was full of his family and friends, many of them quite famous like Joaquín Almunia, Cándido Velázquez or the ex Minister Solchaga. Mariano and his adored wife Mar and their son San are great friends of ours and both Suzy and Oli had been San's tutor for many years. Suzy hadn't seen San for at least 7 years and now he is 16, nearly grown up. Their reunion was beautiful and such a pity Oli couldn't be there. San told Suzy she had been his best English teacher ever:-) Here they are together.

Suzy and San at the book presentation

I have mentioned Mariano's memoirs before, "un hombre con buena suerte" (a man with good luck). Both Eladio and I are now half way through it and loving every bit of it. It's his own personal story of rags to riches, well not quite, but to famous journalist as well as the story of Spain from the post Civil War days, through Franco's regime to the transition to democracy and until our modern days. It's a story of triumph, his own and that of Spain. It reads like a novel and is interwoven with personal experiences and stories of his family, his great passion. I am honoured to be mentioned in the book in the 7 page chapter about the rise of mobile phones. It was thanks to me he finally used one in the late 90's when I took him on a press trip to Scotland to see the Motorola factory.   We are reading the book on our kindles but at the event I bought one, just so that Mariano could sign it. Here he is signing it. The funny thing is that he wanted to dedicate it to us all, including my Father. Fine you might think, well yes, except that he always thought my Father's name was "Henry". He got mixed up once when they came to lunch here. Henry was the name of our cat, not the name of my Father. So, the book we have now is dedicated to our cat hahahaha.

Suzy and I with Mariano Guindal on Friday

There was a cocktail party afterwards but Suzy and I preferred to eat something less fattening. We said our goodbyes and at about 2 pm were outside the huge Repsol "campus". We had lunch in a bar across the road and then drove back home. The traffic was horrendous and it took us 1.5h when it had taken just 25 minutes to get there in the morning. It was the Christmas holiday traffic of course, with so many people leaving work and heading out of Madrid to spend Christmas with their loved ones elsewhere.

Suzy had a routine appointment with the doctor at 4 pm and we got there just on time. There was a bit of waiting and after a stop at the chemist, we were finally home at about 5.30. It was already getting dark - being the shortest day of the year - so there would be no walk again that day. I had some work to do for Lobster before I could wind down and join Eladio (and his cold) in the lounge to chat about the day and read.

Pippa joined us and, inspired by our Christmas decor, I put her seasonal outfit on, one I had bought last year. She looked so cute but froze when I put it on. She's not used to wearing clothes and looked like she was in a straight jacket. Here she is in her outfit.

Pippa doesn't like her Christmas outfit

Suzy would be spending the night at Oli's place and on Saturday morning they were going to a "Casa rural" (holiday cottage) with some of their friends. Thus Eladio and I were alone. There were no guests either for a change. In actual fact it's a relief to have the house to ourselves. We had a modest dinner, omelet and spinach and went up to bed really early at 8.30 pm. That night we watched one and a half of 3 new episodes of the Spanish series "La Verdad" on Prime Video.

Saturday came and I had lots to do. The girls sent us a photo of the two of them just as they were about to leave for a small village called Olmedo de Las Fuentes, about 50km from Madrid for  a short weekend with their group of friends. I love it when they are together.

The girls off on their jolly on Saturday morning.

Even though Eladio had a cold and was feeling under the weather he came with me to do lots of errands. The old Volvo wouldn't start and our morning of errands was nearly aborted until it finally did. We went to the chemist, to Mercadona, to Carrefour Market, to the Alverán pastry shop to order croissants, etc for Christmas morning and we had a coffee there. From Boadilla we drove into the old part of the town to the post office where I queued up to send some  envelopes to France and to England. I was told they wouldn't leave until next Wednesday and would probably take up to 2 weeks. Shame on "Correos", Spain's postal service. It must be one of the worst in the developed world. From Boadilla we drove to Pozuelo for my last errand. I wanted to go to Taste of America, an American food store actually owned by friends, or rather a colleague from Motorola, José M and his American born wife Dana. Eladio parked while I went in and I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw both José and Dana standing outside their shop. They have 5 or 6 of their own and  11 franchise stores. It was lovely to see them and I had to have a photo with José (Pepe). Both of us were founding employees of Motorola Spain when it started selling mobile phones in this country in 1990. That is 28 years ago and I was just 33 and Pepe 32. Wow that's a long time. Here we are together both us of now in our early 60's. It was great to bump into him and his pretty wife. Both Eladio and I well remember their wedding. Today they are proud grandparents of 2 children.

With José M (Pepe) an ex Motorola colleague outside one of his American shops, Taste of American, on Saturday

I went to get cranberry sauce and stuffing for our turkey on Christmas Day and when I went to pay I was told I had a 10% discount after Pepe had instructed the shopkeeper to apply the friends' discount. That was so nice of him.

While we were driving home, I learned that Real Madrid had just won the Fifa Club World Cup in Abu Dhabi. It was to be their 3rd cup in a row in this championship. Real Madrid beat Al Ain of Abu Dhabi 4-1 making them the Champions of the World once more. If only they could do better in La Liga.

We were home on time for a lunch of leftovers; Lucy's vegetable soup and Zena's Russian dish, stuffed red peppers which my Father loves.

Then it was time for the news and a short siesta. It was then that I filled the girls' stockings which they will open on Christmas morning. The stockings get filled with very small and insignificant presents and some joke items. This is a tradition I learned from my Grandmother. When I was young, stockings were just for children. My "children" are now 33 and 34 but still insist I carry on with the tradition. The stockings themselves bring back memories of my Mother as it was she who knitted them for the girls when they were very small. So we have kept them lovingly. Here are the filled stockings which today I can hang outside the girls' bedroom doors days before the event. When they were small I had to hide them until dawn on Christmas morning.

The girls' Christmas stockings, knitted by my Mother many years ago

The news was all about the Christmas lottery (El Gordo) winners. The top prize has been spread throughout the country. It's the same scenes every year, the lucky winners celebrating with champagne, ticket in their hands outside the establishment where they had bought it. I don't know yet if we have won anything but I very much doubt it. We have to check the numbers of our lottery tickets. In any case, I am really pleased for those who have won. One family won 2.8 million lottery after a 75 year old man bought 6 tickets. He kept one for himself and gave the rest to a friend and to his children and family. Each one of them will have won 400.000 euros. It's a lovely story.

Last night was the annual dinner at our house for my great friends, Fátima and Julio. They were coming at 8.30 and I had lots to do to prepare the meal, lay the table as well as light all the candles and various Christmas gadgets we have. Eladio says it takes half an hour to switch everything off, hahah. I, however, love the magic it all brings. The Christmas spirit was in strong evidence when I had finished. Here is Eladio relaxing in the lounge with Pippa while I put the finishing touches to our meal.

Lots of Christmas spirit at our house. 

Dinner would be a buffet and I would prepare, tuna fish spread with salad, prawn cocktail, fresh asparagus, "perushki" (Russian meat pies), a plate of ham and a plate of lomo. For desert, I would make a sort of pavlova with meringue, raspberries, yoghurt instead of cream and mango and raspberry ice cream which had to be soy based for my friend Fátima who is allergic to lactose. Here is the table before I brought the dishes in.

The table on Saturday night

I should have kept the table like that until the last minute. You will read why a bit further down. That night I wore my new Zara gold jacket for the first time. Instead of complimenting me, my husband said I looked like a Circus master and that the only thing missing was a whip!!!!  I think I looked great and I loved the jacket hahaha.

My friends were on time which is a bit of a miracle as Fátima is usually "late for every meal" (The song Maria from The Sound of Music). We had drinks in the lounge and shortly afterwards I went to light the candles on the table which by them was full of all the dishes I had made. I saw a few crumbs which seemed a bit mysterious. It was then that I saw the plates of ham, lomo and perushki were completely empty except for one perozhok (singular o perushki in Russian). Even the tuna spread salad had a big gap in it. I knew immediately who the culprit was. Even though we didn't see her in the act, I knew it had been Norah. One of the chairs must have been sufficiently far enough from the table for her to climb on it and from there to the table. I couldn't believe nearly half of my meal had been eaten by our naughty beagle. It's not the first time this has happened but we never learn our lesson. No doubt she did it when we were greeting our friends. We were furious with her. Thankfully I had some more lomo in the fridge but had to bring out more food to replace what Norah had eaten. You won't be surprised to hear that this morning she didn't want her breakfast.

Eventually we sat down at the table to enjoy our annual Christmas dinner together or the remains of it hahaha.  Yesterday I brought out the crackers, always the highlight of our meal and here are the 3 of us with the cracker Christmas hats on.

With Fátima and Julio last night

We later sat in our Chrismassy lounge and caught up on each other's lives. The next meal will be at Julio's place and we fixed the date for the "Noche de Reyes" (Kings' night) on 5th January. Our friends, being very civilised, left quite early which meant we went to bed at about 11.30. I'm afraid just one glass of wine at dinner gave me a terrible headache. Blast. I never learn either.

And today is Sunday 23rd, just one day before Christmas Eve. I have lots to do, mostly preparing food for dinner tomorrow and I have to do it this morning before the girls come back for lunch - have to prepare that too. So it will be cooking non stop today. In the afternoon I have tickets for the 3 of us to see The Return of Mary Poppins at the Renoir cinemas in Madrid, one of the only ones to offer films in their original language. No way could we see this film in Spanish. Mary Poppins means a lot to me. I shall never forget the premiere when I was a little girl. I passed on my love for the film and for Julie Andrews to my girls. I'll let you know what we thought of it in next week's post.

So my friends, it's time to sign off. This is my last post before Christmas day and once again I wish you all a wonderful, merry and joyful time, hopefully, like me, with your families or at least with  some of your loved ones.

Till next Sunday,
All the best, Masha