Green eyes rarest in the world, more revelations from my mother's past, RIP Kobe Bryant, 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, lunch with 3 sisters, EU bids Britain goodbye, Coronavirus declared international emergency, Brexit happened, off to Santa Pola and other stories.

Sunday 2nd February, 2020

Lunch with the three sisters. From left to right: Gloria, Cris, me and Bea

Good morning all.

How has your week been? It's February finally now and I hope that means the end of my January blues. I remarked to Eladio on last Sunday's walk in the sunshine just how important sunny weather is to my well being and I suppose to many other people's. That is why, we decided on the spur of the moment, on Friday, to come and spend a few days here at our apartment by the beach as the weather forecast was splendid. I'm glad we came as it is a lot warmer here. 

Sunday was a quiet day until the afternoon when the girls arrived with Miguel and little Elliot. They had been to lunch to our newly discovered Moroccan restaurant, El Tuareg and Suzy loved it. They came back to retrieve Miguel's car as he was leaving for Valencia to work the next day. Thus we had a couple of hours in Elliot's company which we love. Here he is with Pippa who is very good with him although she keeps insisting on licking his fingers and we keep having to clean them hahaha.

Pippa and Elliot get on fine

I love seeing both girls, mother and Aunt, together with my grandson and captured this precious moment on camera.

The girls with Elliot

They all left at around 7, the girls and Elliot included who would be spending the night at Oli's flat. Thus we remained alone. I spent the time continuing my research together with Andy on my mother's family.

I had always known that a distant relative on her mother's side, Mikhail Stakhovich had been Governor of Finland before the Tsar was forced to abdicate. Quite an honour I always thought, not that I liked Finland being a Grand Duchy of Russia. But I never knew exactly who he was. Some time ago I had found his name on Wikipedia (see link above) but it was on Sunday I found out how we are related. It turns out he was one of my great grandfather, Alexander A. Stakhovich's (1858-1915 - father of my maternal grandmother Sophie Lieven née Ribeaupierre) siblings. We also found out he was a great friend of Tolstoy's with whom my grandmother used to play tennis and that the great Russian author had even written a play dedicated to him; Hour of Darkness. I can conclude that the last but one Governor of Finland was the uncle of my maternal grandmother, my mother's uncle and thus my great uncle. What an honour.  My mother had also recalled in her tapes, something I confirmed in my research, that he resigned from his post in Helsinki and had been appointed Ambassador to Spain but never took up the post because of the revolution.

He died in France so I have to conclude he never went back to Russia. This by the way is him,  a very imposing man with a long beard. Usually it is Russian priests who don long beards so I have no idea why he had one. Andy commented it could have been thanks to Tolstoy's influence. I am no fan of beards by the way hahahaha.

My maternal grandmother's uncle, the last but one Governor of Finland in 1917

My head was swimming with names and connections of relatives I tried to work out and it's not easy. As I keep saying this is worse than remembering the characters in War and Peace, Don Quixote or 100 years of Solitude. Thus a good family tree is vital for my mother's book. What a responsibility I have and what a huge task I have undertaken. I should say we as Andy is by my side continually. 

Meals are great interruptions to my work and on Sunday Eladio and I had a quiet dinner together. Later, as always, we watched the news. The developments of the coronavirus story coming out of China were very alarming. Let's see how things go. I feel for those people in lock down in their homes in China and can only pray that we don't see a world wide deathly epidemic. The last one was of course what was dubbed The Spanish flu where an estimated 50 million people died, the same number of people in lock down. In the research on my mother's family, we have one victim. It was my mother's paternal grandmother, Alexandra Petrovna Vasilchikova who died in Paris on 2nd February 1929. I sincerely hope the coronavirus will not reach the same proportions.

It was that evening I read an article that somehow popped up on my facebook feed that peaked my interest. It was about the rarity of green eyes which are the colour of my eyes, inherited from my mother. My brother's were blue inherited from my father and I suppose typically English. I was very surprised to read that only 2% of the population have them. That is incredibly rare. The commonest colour is brown.

Only 2% of the worldwide population has green eyes and I am one of them

I skimmed through the article, reading that Iceland was the country where there were most people with green eyes and also read that once, as they were so rare, they were often associated with witches; i.e. women with green eyes were thought to be witches!  On the plus side they are apparently the most admired colour of eyes. One thing I know too is that my dear husband was first attracted to me because of my eyes. Today, aged nearly 63, my eyelids are drooping and my eyes are not so nice to look at now as they were. They were perhaps the thing I liked most about myself when I was young.  Someone questioned the assertion so I fact checked. Was I really one of only 2% of the world to have green eyes? I actually doubted it but later found it was true. This is one article that proves it,  coming from a medical site, Healthline. I found the same facts in many other sites so I have to conclude it is true. Oli has green eyes and Suzy's change from brown to green and back again. So I wonder what colour eyes little Elliot will have.?

That night, as usual we watched the news. The world was gutted to hear that the US basketball legend, Kobe Bryant aged only 41 had died in a helicopter accident along with his second oldest daughter, Gianna aged 13.

Kobe Bryant with his daughter Gianna. They both perished in the crash of his helicopter just outside LA last Sunday. 

It was his helicopter and they were on the way to a basket ball tournament. The cause was bad weather and everyone on board died. Just how terrible is that? He is one of  sports most famous players ever and his sudden death caused shock the world over. I am no great basket ball fan but even I knew who he was. My heart goes out to his wife who has now lost both her husband and daughter. That is a mother's worst dream. There was another family on board who lost their life too. That of course brought back the terrible memory of the death of my father's sister Gloria, her husband Derek and their children, Jacqueline, Michael and Antony, in 1971 in an air crash on their way to Rijeka from Gatwick. A whole family suddenly wiped out and our family. They live on in my heart and the memory still today often brings me to tears. So I sympathise with Koby Bryant's family and with the sports world. RIP Koby, you will never be forgotten.

That night we watched Almodovar's latest film, Pain and Glory, or tried to re watch it and didn't finish it. We didn't like it the first time we saw it but but wanted to see it again after it had received so many accolades and had won 7 Goyas, as well as being up for the Oscars. I love Antonio Banderas who plays Almodovar's alter ego but I'm afraid to say I don't like seeing him with a beard (there you go, I hate them), taking heroin constantly and kissing a man  when I find him so attractive as a woman. If he is playing Almodovar's life, then I am really sorry for the Spanish director who is portrayed as someone suffering dreadful pain and a drug addict. I hope that part is not true. On the other hand I loved the roles of Penelope Cruz as Almodovar's young mother and of him as a child. 

The poster picture of Almodovar's latest film everyone is talking about, Pain and Glory

Again I found it difficult to sleep with so many of the characters from my mother's past in my head - it is such a puzzle. But finally I must have dozed off and woke up on Monday morning at 6 am.

Monday came and brought more dark skies and drizzle although thankfully it brightened up in the afternoon. I had the biggest scare of my life that morning. The girls were sleeping at Oli's with Elliot and I got a call from Miguel from Valencia. He was worried as at about 9.40 they were not answering their phones. He was surprised as Oli had a yoga appointment at 10 am so they should have been awake. He also told me they had had problems with the gas the night before. With these three factors, I suddenly imagined the three of them gassed in the apartment and went into panic mode. At the time I had just come out of the shower and was only wearing a towel. Both Eladio and I tried ringing Oli and Suzy insistently and no answer. We were worried sick. I told Miguel to ring the porter and get back to me. Then at about 10.20 or so we got a routine message from Oli in the whatsapp family group. That was confirmation my worst dreams were not happening. My girls and Elliot were alive. I broke down crying in relief and in happiness. But what a shock. It was not a good start to the day but the rest was fine.

That morning saw Eladio and I out and on errands. He had dressed so well I had to have a photo of my good looking, colour coordinated and dapper husband, who although aged 75, looks years younger. I'm sure you agree.

Eladio well dressed and colour coordinated ready to go out on Monday morning. 

We headed first to Villaviciosa to the town hall to get a document certifying I was on the census - this I need for my Spanish nationality paperwork. I also had to confirm that as an EU citizen (still by a few days), I was residing in my usual home address. It is apparently a new law. In any case, despite the surly public servant issuing the documents, etc, we were out quite soon as the queue was not too long.  Later I learned from my lawyer I would need to get another one nearer the time to applying for nationality as it would have expired by then. Damn it! That means I have to go back for another one. It was time for a coffee before we continued our errands, this time at El Corte Inglés, Spain's main department store. We went for more paperwork - invoices I needed for my freelance status but also to get my birthday present. Eladio bought me, in my presence hahahaha - a simple pair of gold plated stud earrings as I had lost one of the pair I had.

We were home on time for lunch. During our drive, my dear assistant and friend, Andy, had been doing more research on my mother's family and came up trumps, at least for me, when he found the Russian Wikipedia site for the Lieven family.  Luckily I could read it in English. It has much more information than the English version but not that much. I had hoped I would find the direct link from one of our most illustrious ancestors, Dorothea von Lieven (1785-1857 - wow she died 100 years to the year of my birth) to my grandfather, but that was not clear. I wonder if we ever will find that.

Just one of many paintings of Dorothea von Lieven, this one by Sir Thomas Lawrence hangs in The Tate Gallery in London. Painted in 1820. 

I have been familiar with this painting ever since I can remember. My mother had a copy framed and it graced every one of our homes. Today it graces our dining room. I had heard about Dorothea von Lieven all my life.  There are lots of her including one by Gainsborough but it is the Lawrence one which seems more famous and the one I know. I think my mother was most proud to be an ancestor, not just because of the lady's position but because of her political influence. Born Dorothea von Benckendorff, daughter of a Baltic general of noble origin, she  was the wife of the Russian Ambassador in London, Count Christoph Lieven, somewhat older than her.  She had such considerable social and diplomatic skills she was at ease with the Royals of both her own country and many others in Europe. The late Tsar Nicholas II called her a diplomat in skirts. Dorothea  was perhaps the most influential woman of her time and it is rumoured she had an affair with Metternich, but more about her in my mother's book when I have found out more myself.

I'm not so sure my mother would have approved of the film Pain and Glory. It would not have been her thing. That afternoon Eladio and I watched it till the end and both concluded the second part was better than the first. We later went on our much needed walk and were home at about 7 pm when it was only just getting dark.

The girls and Elliot joined us for dinner - it was so good to see them after the morning's shock. Later I helped Oli bathe her not so little baby.

Monday of course was the official 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz where a memorial took place that day. I wish I could have been there. My father watched the ceremony on the BBC and I later and saw snippets of it on the TV and my phone. Most poignant for me are the living testimonies of those still alive to tell the story. Those who can tell their story were very young when it happened and are today in their 90's. So few of them are left. We should never forget. Here is just one story. Listen to it. This man Arek Hersh, a Pole, is one of them. Aged 91 he lives in Leeds, Yorskhire. He was ten or eleven when his family was rounded up. When he arrived at Auschwitz later, aged 14 with 183 other Jews, the queue was sorted into those who lived and those who died. He said he was 17 and was sent to the queue of 3 people only who were to work. The rest were sent to the gas chambers. Here he is on video for the BBC. As many of the survivors did, he wrote a book many years later which I read a couple of years ago. It is well worth the read.

Arek Hersh's book 

 I Picked him because he came from Leeds. When I lived in Yorkshire as a child and teenager there was a large population of Poles and Ukrainians and my parents knew quite a few of them. One owned a Polish cash and carry where they bought lots of Russian food. I used to love the halva they bought. The owner, whose name I can't recall, was a gentleman and a very kind man. When he greeted us he used to kiss my hand and my mother's. I found that strange but my mother told me it was a very Polish thing. I remember my parents telling me he had lost all his family in the Holocaust and that made a huge impression on me. He would have been a comtemporary of Arek Hersh. That's why I chose him.

Eladio and I watched a documentary on the subject after which one came up on penguins in the Antarctic. It was rather a relief after the terrible stories of the Holocaust.  We both love animals and animal documentaries and this was splendid.  We later learned that to make one hour of film on the penguins' behaviour it took 2 whole months for a specialised team to film, living alone in the furthest part of the world where temperatures go to 60ºc below zero and where they had to wear 5 layers of special clothing to venture out. They and I wonder how the poor birds can survive. I later looked up the documentary to find it was episode two of the BBC's Dynasty series presented by the one and only David Attenborough and about the Emperor Penguin, the largest of the species in the world.  Wow what a great documentary. I especially loved the part where the BBC crew break the rule of leaving animals alone to save a colony trapped in a ravine.

Emperor penguins and their chicks from the BBC documentary Dynasties

As I watched I thought just how funny penguins are. Once they were birds but now cannot use their wings to fly and have become almost fish. It is in the water that they are  at their most agile. They also form families, just like humans and as a colony,  similar to a group of people they help each other out. When they walk or shuffle they remind us of humans. Perhaps that is why they are so fascinating.

Tuesday came and the day was brighter. It was lovely to have the girls and Elliot back. It is in the mornings when he is at his chirpiest and sweetest and I love holding him while Oli has breakfast. He later fell asleep allowing his mother some respite.

I took the time to continue the research into my mother's book. I had been putting off one of the most important tasks which I sat down to do on Monday. I have 7  tapes of her talking about her life which were taped in 1993. They were lost and when I got them back they had to be restored. They were then transcribed by a computer programme which wasn't so great. Each tape is about the equivalent of 19 pages, half of which are my mother laughing or offering coffee, etc. The problem with the transcriptions is that many names and places are wrong. My biggest task is to listen to each and every tape and compare it to the transcription and then correct it. Monday saw me reach the end of the second tape. It's so strange to listen to my mother's voice after 20 years - she died on 1st October 1999. Oli came down to see me in my study and found me surrounded by old photos and listening to the tapes. She wanted to listen too as she adored her grandmother. I love the parts in the tapes when my mother, when she can't remember some fact, always turns to my father who was present during the recordings, saying "Courtenay will know" and he did. He always did. I couldn't do more than two documents that morning as it is a very tiring task. In any case I had the perfect excuse to take a break just after 1.30 as I had a lunch appointment at 2.30.

Monday's lunch appointment with the three sisters dear to my heart, Cris, Bea and Gloria, was the highlight of the week. Many of you know who they are, others maybe not. Cris, Bea and Gloria run and own a very successful events agency, Quinta Esencia, which was my agency for 10 years at Yoigo. But I knew them from before, even from my time at Motorola when they worked for another agency, Comunica con A. So we go back a long way. We did hundreds of events together and there was no real client company relationship. They were my team or rather we were a team and also friends. I hadn't been out to a "corporate lunch" for quite a while and it was great to get dressed up to go out and not be in charge of lunch that day. I was happy to see my diet was pulling off as I could fit into some jeans I bought a year ago at M+S. Lunch was at a place called "Copa de balón" in upmarket Aravaca, about a 20 minute drive. It has valet service, so no problems parking my car.  It was lovely to see the "girls" as I call them, the 3 sisters with whom I worked for so many years. They had lots of gossip to tell me from the sector. My news was more on the domestic front hahahaha. The photo taken at lunch that day is the one I have chosen as this week's feature photo.

Chin wagging so much but not eating a lot, our lunch dragged on until 5 pm - some people's tea time in other parts of the world, hahaha. but I was home on time for our walk. The girls had given me a present for Elliot. I couldn't believe it as they had already given him a present when he was born. Oli couldn't believe it either. It was a beautiful little boy's outfit from the firm Neck and Neck. This boy has so many clothes, more than many women, hahahaha. Later we dressed him in the very Spanish type outfit and he looked so cute.

Elliot in his new outfit from the girls from QuintaEsencia. We love it. 

The sun was still out at 6 pm and we enjoyed a rain free walk. Once home it was nearly time for dinner and I was actually starving as I had eaten so little at lunch. We had  a quiet dinner in the dining room with Elliot but not with Suzy who had gone to spend the night at a friend's.

I only watched the news that night - the coronavirus is spreading - but was so tired I fell asleep very early. I was up at 7 am on Wednesday.

Wednesday came and it was time to move on with the process of obtaining Spanish nationality. I had nearly all the English paperwork I needed so it was time to decide on a lawyer. I had received fee estimates from 50 euros up to 3000!! In the end I went for a trusted source, the lawyers who did my friend and ex colleague's nationality, Jill. I spent most of the morning communicating with a lawyer called Azucena. It was Azucena who told me I should have done the tests - an exam on Spanish general knowledge and constitution and a language exam - before obtaining the paperwork from England as, for example, my criminal records certificate would expire in less than 3 months and would no longer be valid when presenting all the papers to the judge! Oh damn I thought. I now have to get a power of attorney through a public notary so that the lawyers can get an extended one from the Spanish Ministry of Justice.   My exams are on 26th March and 17th April. Damn it, damn it. I could have done this back in 2012 more or less automatically for being married to a Spaniard. Now the conditions are rather harsh. In any case I am now progressing with some problems but I am progressing.

Meanwhile the EU parliament backed the terms of Brexit in Brussels in what was a pretty emotional day all round. It made me feel sick to see Nigel Farage waving little British flags and using his last opportunity to rage against the EU. More poignant was to see the MEPs bid Britain goodbye when they all joined hands and sang Auld Lang Syne. The Spanish TV presenters had a hard job of pronouncing that. It was the almost final nail in the Brexit coffin for me; a very sad day.

MEPs join hands to bid farewell to Britain while singing
Auld Lang Syne. 

Suzy was teaching that morning and Oli went to have a coffee with a friend's sister to give her advice on her journalistic career. She took little Elliot with her who behaved perfectly. They were back just before we all sat down to lunch and while waiting he literally sat in his pram playing with his rattles and toys very peacefully. It's so funny to see him nearly sitting up on his own at the tender age of 4 months.

Elliot sitting in his pram

Little Elliot continued to play happily in his pram while we had our lunch. That day we were all together, just how I like it and no doubt my father too.

The news that day was sad - the approval by the EU of the Brexit exit terms but also alarming vs a vs the spreading of the coronavirus. That day BA along with other European airlines and later followed by Iberia suspended flights to and from China. That virtually leaves the huge country isolated which is quite a big thing and will have many repercussions.  Russia closed its borders, most airlines stopped flights to and from China, Starbucks, McDonalds, Ikea and H&M closed their stores and Wuhan, the epic centre of the crisus is like a ghost town. At the time of writing the death toll has reached 294 with over 12000 cases confirmed.  But are we to believe the figures coming out of the country as China is not exactly known for its transparency. Perhaps the epidemic is far worse than we are being told. More alarmingly 76 other cases have been confirmed in 26  other countries. The only good news to come out is that the mortality rate of the illness seems to be similar to that of common flu, about 3%. The race is on too to find a vaccine.

We all had a short siesta, well not Elliot or Oli (hahahah) then the five of us went for a walk before dinner. Dinner was prepared by the girls, mostly crudités with carrot, red pepper and cucumber sticks. That was one healthy meal. I'm now happy to report I can get into 2 pairs of jeans that would not have fit right after Christmas.

Thursday came and I spent the morning on paperwork for obtaining Spanish nationality or rather at a local Notary. I needed a power of attorney for my lawyers to obtain a new criminal record from the UK which would have a validity of 6 months. I have to say the employees at the notary office were very pleasant and although I was there for more than an hour and a half, I left with the papers I needed. I then had to send them ipso facto by courier to my city based lawyer.  I got home to find Eladio, Oli and Elliot had gone to get our grandson's national identity card and Spanish passport. Last week when they went there was a clause missing from one of the documents - oh how I hate red tape. They were back for lunch a bit late but clutching the new documents which, as he is just a baby, are only valid for 2 years.

We were on time for the news; more about the spread of the Coronavirus. It had spread to more than 18 countries and on Thursday had reached every region in China. Very few airlines fly to China now and Russia closed its border.  It's all very scary. There was more about Brexit which is so depressing and then on Spanish politics. There will be elections in Catalonia after the President of the parliament there, Quim Torra, was stripped of his MP status - the story is too long to tell here. That means there will be elections in the region which may affect the stability of the newly formed coalition government which depends on the support of one of the Independence parties, the ERC.

Later in the evening we went for a walk with Elliot but on the road so as not to get the pram wheels dirty. Dinner was a family affair again and we made a meal of what was left from last week's shopping.

Meanwhile that day, Andy, my friend and unofficial researcher for my mother's book came up with more revelations. In my mother's tapes she told how her god father was one Prince Vladimir Volkonsky where his family lived on their estate or rather "palazzo" near Rome. That is where my mother's family fled but stayed at the Yusupov palace or "palazzo". I looked up the Volkonsky palace and was surprised to see that at one stage it became the British Embassy in Italy! It was difficult to find Vladimir himself but Andy came up trumps when he found his father. My mother had said that Vladimir was her grandmother's nephew not specifying which grandmother. We found out it was her paternal grandmother from the Vasilchikov family. Vladimir also is a descendant of the Benckendorff family and distantly related to Dorothea von Lieven née Benckendorff who I wrote about above.

Villa Volkonsky in Rome, the family palazzo of her god father, Prince Vladimir Volkonsky

Digging deeper into the Lieven part of the family, we researched on my mother's aunt and uncle, her father's brother Petr and sister Masha. We knew that Masha had married Julius Conus the famous Russian violinist and composer who was a friend of Rachmaninoff, the composer and pianist who needs no introduction here. Well that day Andy discovered that Julius' son, my great Aunt's step son, married Rachmaninoff's daughter Tatiana.  Music and the arts in general were all important for the Stachoviches and Lievens and both my grandfather played the violin and my grandmother the piano - she at a professional level. We are realising just how much endogamy was part of the way of life of the Russian aristocracy. We see much intermarriage between my family members; in-laws marrying into a family or cousins marrying each other. I suppose they had to marry who was near as there was not so much travelling in those days or rather they preferred to marry one of their own. But it does make building the family tree very very complicated, although at the same time incredibly interesting.

Friday came, 31st January 2019, a date that we shall all remember for being the date the UK officially left the EU. Oh what a sad day. Brexit is now a reality and is finally here.

The UK finally left the EU this week

For me it was a very black day and I had I suppose what my friend Kathy called the Brexit blues. But life continued and that morning saw us doing the weekly shopping. Life continued in the UK too semi normally as although the 31st was the official day of leaving - at 11 pm that night - things won't change really during this transition period of just under a year. The government now has less than a year to come to an agreement with the EU on trade, freedom of movement etc. It's the benefits we have got used to that people will most miss if they are not continued, such as freedom of movement for people in the EU, driving in any EU country, no roaming charges and programmes such as Erasmus. Oli spent her Erasmus year in England. I wondered whether that option would be open to Elliot when the time comes. Oh how bonkers this situation is. My mother would be horrified as England was the country she came to as a refugee after WW2, just as all the Poles and Ukrainians did. They won't be welcome any more and that is one of the worst repercussions of Brexit. Supposedly more crucial is trade so let's see how things go in this transition year.

The highlight of Friday was resuming our Friday night dinners out. I chose a new restaurant called "Mar y Montaña" via The Fork application. It was nothing special and we shan't be going back hahaha. It was during the dinner that Eladio and I decided to come her for a few days. The weather looked so good it was too much of a temptation to resist.

Thus on Saturday morning, we packed our bags and took lots of food and set off with Pippa just after 11 am. It's a wonderful feeling to know we can go anywhere we like whenever we want, barring certain responsibilities. That's basically because we have built a very good, although incredibly expensive, infrastructure at home where my father is taken care of, our Airbnb guests, the dogs and the house in general too.

Oli meanwhile had arrived in Valencia to spend a few days there with her little family. It was 25c on the Malvarrosa beach near the centre yesterday morning. She sent us a photo and I could see Miguel was in short sleeves. How marvelous to get weather like that on 1st February. Hopefully that's the end of my January blues.

Oli, Miguel and Elliot on the beach in Valencia yesterday

Our trip was smooth. We stopped for a very quick lunch at the Parador in Albacete - where else hahahaha? We got here at about 4.30 and saw the temperature was a balmy 24ºc. Wow!

View from our apartment

But before enjoying the sun we had to unpack and get the apartment ready. When we had unpacked, cleaned the terrace which was very dirty after the recent storm Gloria, changed the sheets of our bed, etc, I was raring to go for a walk to the lighthouse. Eladio who was tired from driving stayed at home to take a nap. Pippa and I enjoyed the walk. I had worn a coat but took it off and didn't need it at all. The walk there and back is about 7km and the destination, the lighthouse cliffs is one of my favourite places to be. You can see the island of Tabarca from there and I always have to have a photo.

View of the little island of Tabarca from the lighthouse cliffs

I also wanted a photo of Pippa and I which was a challenge as it had to be a selfie and to take one Pippa had to be in my arms. This is the best I could come up with hahaha.

A selfie of Pippa and I on the lighthouse cliffs yesterday

It was sunset by then and the views were a sight for sore eyes. I just love this spot. We walked back briskly and were home to a very warm apartment as Eladio had put on both stoves. We made a simple dinner and then watched the news followed by a series we are following on Netflix.

We were in bed by midnight and I slept pretty well, not waking up until 7 this morning. Today, no doubt, we shall head to the beach for a walk along the shore with Pippa.

Now it's time to leave you and get on with the day. Wishing you all a great week ahead, cheers until next Sunday,
Masha.