Elliot gets a high chair and tries chocolate for the first time, Coranavirus continues to spread and disrupt our lives, the perfect cup of frothy coffee, lunch with Julio, computer crash, International Women's day and other stories.

Sunday, 8th March, 2020

Lunch with my best friend Julio was the highlight of the week

Good morning all, welcome back and thanks for following my blog. It is Sunday 8th March and women's day so happy women's day to you all. I'm not sure we women have much to celebrate and what with the fear of catching coronavirus, I am surprised that in Madrid, at least, the huge demonstration is taking place today. I am not one for joining marches and demonstrations but even if I was, I would not take the risk of going today. 

We are now into March and this week has had its ups and downs both weather and news wise. Life at home was quiet with the girls and Elliot keeping up our spirits at least at the beginning of the week.  I worked it out that when they are here the average age of our household goes down from 73 to 51 hahahahhaa. Of course it is mostly my father's age (100) that makes the number so high. Soon he will be 101 and is still going strong. Good for him. He also enjoyed having the girls and his beloved great grandson here.

Last Sunday was wet, cold and windy owing to Storm Jorge. It hindered our walk and we had to turn back because of the rain as we weren't well equipped. In the morning we had the unexpected visit of Oli and her little family. They were here to pick up Miguel's car. He had to leave urgently for Valencia as one of his best friends, Fran, was terminally ill in hospital and his family feared for his life. Oh how sad. He was diagnosed with melanoma last June but seemed to recover well until just a week or so ago when they found more and more tumours in his his body. The melanoma had come back with a vengeance and he has little time left to live. My own brother, George, died of melanoma aged just 46. Even then it was one of the most vicious types of cancer and today, although there have been advances in its cure, it is still so. Miguel left with tears in his eyes and brought back memories of the final days of my dear friend Fátima who also succumbed to cancer recently. I felt sorry for him and of course Fran's partner and family as I knew exactly what they would be going through. 

Oli and Elliot later left to go out to lunch and it was just "us" at the table on Sunday. But they was back in the afternoon and I spent quality time with my grandson. We had a game of peakaboo with my scarf, the rainbow one I had bought at the market in Villablino. Elliot loved the game and so did I. Here he is smiling away with the scarf around him like a little Taliban (but a nice one hahahaha).

Little Elliot delighted in my rainbow scarf

Suzy was back not long afterwards and we all had dinner together which had me frying eggs and also making the more healthy option of the scrambled type. The girls spent the night. All was quiet with no guests until the next day.

I woke up to another wet day. There had obviously been a lot of wind during the night as I spied a large stand up type lamp on the pool terrace which had crashed and fallen on the table and all the big bulbs were smashed. It was not a nice sight but of course it could have been worse with trees falling on the house. Thankfully they didn't. During the night, the girls were woken up by the noise of glass breaking and they woke up Eladio, petrified someone had got into the house. I slept through it all, thankfully, and they later told me they were scared stiff. Poor girls.

I wrote in my last blog how Elliot is being weaned onto food, so that day Oli and I decided to go and get him a high chair. He needed one and it would also mean he can sit up next to us at meal times. The three of us went to El Corte Inglés where we invested in the best one on the market, the  "Tripp Trapp" by the Norwegian brand Stokke. It's a wonderful wooden chair that grows with the baby and eventually turns into a normal chair. It comes in bits and pieces and you get to choose which accessories to get for the baby. We loved it and no doubt Elliot would too. The shop delivered it the next day.

The Stokke Tripp Trapp high chair we got for Elliot

At the same department I got a new rattle for Elliot as he had lost his favourite giraffe one I got him for Christmas. I couldn't find the same one but came across a blue elephant rattle which hopefully would serve the same purpose. He loved it as soon as I put it in his little hands. Everything for babies these days is so much better than what was available when I was a new mother.

Elliot enjoying his new rattle toy

Elliot went out twice that day as in the afternoon Oli and her baby joined me when I went to meet up with Fátima junior. We walked the 25 minutes or so to our local commercial centre. Fátima daughter, like Fátima mother, hahahaha, was, of course late. It didn't matter as we were delighted to see her. We spoke a lot about her mother which I hoped didn't upset her but she was happy to do so and so were we. We got kicked out of the bar at 7 pm which was closing - a bit unheard of in Spain. Thus we parted our ways after a rather short coffee and tea together, promising to see each other again soon. I think she is a very brave young woman.

We came home to find Lucy had made us a tortilla for dinner. Miguel had sent a parcel of more baby stuff including some baby feeders. Oli put a piece of avocado in one of them which the baby loved. I made him vegetable pure, his first time ever, out of carrots, potatoes and courgettes. I tried it and it tasted very bland as it had no salt in it. Oli fed her baby from a new suction bowl and small plastic spoon and the little tot who was trying it for the first time, finished it off in a jiffy. He loved it. We were amazed. Here is a video of him eating properly for the first time, bless him.

I sent the video to his father who didn't see it for a while as he was with his dear friend Fran who is dying, so sadly of melanoma. That morning, Fran and his partner, of years, got married in the saddest ceremony I have ever seen. They had to get married so that his partner would be entitled to a widow's pension. They had planned to get married anyway but because of his illness they had put it off. She had left her native Asturias and her job and home there to live with him in Valencia and marrying her was his way of leaving her protected and covered. But what a sad, sad wedding. The marriage, of course, took place in his hospital bedroom where his only word was "sí" (yes). He couldn't manage another one, poor man.

We were cheered up later when I helped Oli bathe little Elliot. Whenever I am sad, all I have to do is look at Elliot and all my woes go away.

The day finished with Eladio and I watching a film about the Spanish civil war - one of our favourite genres. Called "The Endless Trench" (La Trinchera infinita) and based on a real story, it tells the tale of how one man on the wrong side of the war, hid in his house for 30 years until Franco called an Amnesty in 1969.

Our choice of film on Monday night

Countless people did the same and became known, once they were out in the open, as "moles " (topos). I think there was a similar case in Japan, of a man emerging from hiding decades after the end of WW2. What frightening times. If you can find it on Netflix, it's well worth watching.

Tuesday came and we spent most of the day with Elliot. First though we had to take my Mini for servicing. We had understood it would need it after 3 years but found out at the BMW garage that it should have been 2 years. It didn't really matter in the end as the car, which I only use occasionally, had only clocked up 30.000 kilometres. From the garage we went to the post office and then the bank for some errands before heading home to babysit for Elliot while Oli went swimming - to strengthen her back she says as he is now so heavy (hahahaha). We put him in his recliner but he soon got bored and I resorted to using his baby feeders with fruit in to calm him down. Oh how he loves that.

Elliot in his recliner munching fruit from a baby feeder with Elsa at his side.

He got pieces of orange, pear and apple and loved every piece. Eladio was able to put him to sleep which took 20 minutes and then he only slept for 20 minutes. Thankfully his mother was soon home and he could have some of her milk.

After lunch his new chair arrived and, Ikea style, needed assembling. Thankfully we had our own in-house carpenter, in Eladio who soon had the Norwegian high chair ready for use. Elliot loves it and so do we. It means he can now sit at our level rather than lie at our dogs' level (haha). Here he is in the new chair enjoying some more fruit from one of the dummy feeders. He is very well equipped for proper food now. In his absence, Miguel had ordered more dummy feeders, plastic bibs, suction bowls and little spoons which all arrived that day. Online shopping is very often  the best way to shop.

Elliot all equipped now for proper eating with his new chair, plastic bib and baby feeder

Suzy had to go off to give a lesson to Olga, her deaf pupil who works as a tourist guide and is the only deaf tourist guide in the city. Suzy says she is such a fighter - good for her. We went for a walk in the afternoon braving the wind. Thankfully Elliot slept most of the way. We came back to feed him again - he could eat all day - and says no to nothing. That day saw him eat some cardboard without our noticing it (hahahaha). Oli gave him some more vegetable puré, double the quantity of the day before, and he enjoyed every spoonful.

Suzy spent the night at her friend Elenita's so it was just the four of us for dinner, with Elliot sitting with us at our level for the first time. Eladio had the grand idea of giving him some sugar free chocolate to try and my goodness did he love it and what a mess he made. It's probably not a good idea to try a baby on chocolate but this baby seems to be able to tolerate everything. Just look at him with his chocolate face enjoying the moment. Oh, how we laughed.

Elliot's first chocolate moment

Afterwards there was no choice but to bathe him. That day saw us getting rid of his baby bath which he had outgrown and bathing him in the tub sitting in a little safe bath chair. Oh, how he loves his bath, except for when by mistake I showered his face with water. Later he was clean and calm and came to us in our bedroom while his mother got ready herself for bed. Here he is with Eladio looking on adoringly at him.

Elliot in our bed

Tuesday was all about Elliot and we didn't have much time to watch the news. We just caught the end and were thus updated on the development of coronavirus which continues to dominate the headlines and so it should as the numbers increase. If just two weeks ago there were about 2 or 3 cases in Spain, that day there were over 150 and over 200 in France and the numbers would escalate all week.  Today the numbers have grown alarmingly. In France there are over 700 cases and in Spain the figure is around 500. Life in general has been disrupted by the virus and even my little Airbnb business has been affected. People are just not travelling and for the first time in my 3 years of hosting I have no guests this weekend. It's going to be tough financially if the trend continues. The next day we saw Spain's first death from the virus, again from an elderly person; the elderly being the most vulnerable. By last night it had jumped to 8. Thankfully for Elliot, children and babies seem pretty immune. As the number of cases increased so did measures to contain it and that day the Spanish government ordered football matches with teams from focus areas such as Italy to be played without any public.

Our entertainment that night was a new series which is not really from a genre we usually watch. Called "Toy Boys" it is set in Marbella and is about a male stripper wrongly accused of murder.  We watched two episodes and switched off the light late.

Wednesday came and again I made Elliot's breakfast, porridge with stewed apple this time. He loved every spoonful. That morning was the dreaded task of doing the weekly shopping. We usually go to Carrefour Market for the more gourmet stuff and to Mercadona for the basics. We had heard that in some of their shops supplies were running out due to the panic buying from the general fear of Coranavirus. That day there were hardly any raspberries or billberries, no blackberries, parsley or brussel sprouts (my father's favourite vegetable together with cauliflower). I sort of doubted people had been stockpiling this sort of produce. Our local Mercadona always has problems with supplies so that day I took to twitter to complain. I got a polite reply but I wonder if things will change. Then when I went on Friday to see if they had the fruit and veg I needed, the store manager came up to me. She had been contacted by the Mercadona customer service people because of my tweet which had reached the right "ears". Cayetana apologised and actually admitted that on Wednesday there were stocks in the warehouse and so apologised for my unlucky shopping experience. She asked me to complain to her next time rather than on twitter. Well, she would wouldn't she? Social media is the way to go these days for customer complaints. 

We came home with the car stuffed mostly with fruit and vegetables which hopefully would last the week apart from the raspberries, etc.  With some of the veg I made a chicken and vegetable puree for little Elliot's dinner and some to freeze. It would be the first time he was to try meat. I had no doubt that he would love and eat it as he seems to love everything we give him. If he doesn't complain about swallowing cardboard, anything else must taste delicious hahahahaha.

It was my mid morning coffee time when we got back. A few days earlier I had read something in The Guardian about making the perfect frothy coffee at home and for readers to send in their photos and how they make it. Well, I thought, I make the perfect frothy coffee - no need to call it capuccino because that's what it is - so I was determined to send in my suggestion. The coffee is made with a full strength Nespresso pod in an Emma Bridgewater cup. To make the milk, I use a manual jug by a brand called Judge which works like a coffee plunger, but with better results.  I bought mine on Amazon. You can either heat the milk in the microwave (quicker) or directly in the milk frother jug. I prefer a manual frother as it is much easier to clean and frankly because the milk comes out a lot stiffer which is how I like it. Once the milk is warm all you have to do is to press down the plunger quite a few times and out comes the best frothy milk possible. This is the photo I sent to The Guardian. I have yet to hear from them and probably won't but at least I have now told you, my readers, how to make the perfect frothy coffee.

The perfect cup of frothy coffee

That day I was not in charge of lunch. That day I had a lunch appointment with my dear friend Julio from our Nokia days and it was the highlight of the week. I had to drive my old Nokia Volvo manual car which is now Eladio's as my Mini which is an automatic was still at the garage being serviced. I swear I hadn't driven a manual car for more than two years and Eladio had to remind me which pedal was the clutch! After a few kilometres I was used to changing gear but kept my eyes on the road and my brain alert so as not to stall the car which could have easily happened. It didn't thank goodness and I arrived at the Gaztelubide restaurant in the very swanky La Florida neighbourhood where Julio was waiting for me. When we worked at Nokia which was nearby we often had business lunches there, so much so that the maitre rememberd me and came up to greet me. Julio treated me to a glorious lunch and he also brought me a present for my birthday last month: Viktor and Rolf perfume. We both missed our "third musketeer", our friend and ex colleague, Fátima. The three of us had a tradition of celebrating our birthdays every year and this year was the first without her. She is sorely missed. It was good to catch up on Julio's life. He is now a University professor and I am very proud of him. When we parted we agreed to try and coincide in April in Santa Pola - he has an apartment in nearby Campello. I look forward to that.

I came home to a quiet house. The girls and Elliot had gone but would be back for dinner. Eladio and I had a short siesta after which we went on our walk which was very windy. We came home to prepare dinner and as the girls were late, we watched the news. Again the main news was the development and spread of the coronavirus. I read in the British press that day that Boris Johnson had said the following on the BBC: "the crucial thing we can all do to help the NHS, to stop the spread of the disease is wash your hands twice, two verses of "Happy Birthday", hot water and soap". Is the guy mad? Why "Happy Birthday". It doesn't seem at all relevant. I hope this doesn't mean he isn't taking the issue seriously. The Times commented "unlike so much of what has gone before for this PM, this is not a crisis that can be ignored, deflected or denied. He can't wash his hands of this one". Well said I thought. New drastic measures were taken in Italy for example where from Wednesday all schools and Universities in the whole of the country were closed for the next 10 days. If Boris Johnson's warning was underwhelming, the measures in Italy and other countries were maybe over the top. I'm not sure. This morning I read of even more draconian measures. In the UK the government is preparing for the worst: 100.000 dead, half the number of deaths caused by "Spanish flu" at the beginning of the last century. In Italy, with the death toll passing 230 and number of cases rising to 5.900 yesterday, the government effectively closed off the area of Lombary which means 16 million people will be in lock-down. Weddings and funerals have to be postponed. In the UK there is talk of delaying "O" and "A" levels and all around the world gyms, schools, museum, etc are being closed. Yesterday was my mother in law's 98th birthday and we heard that her care centre had banned visits, except for one person per resident in the afternoons. Of course, the elderly are the most vulnerable .

The rest of the day continued as many of our days, with a long walk followed by dinner, again with the company of the girls.

Thursday came and it was not a good day although it started out fine. That morning I started the first of ten daily sessions of physiotheraphy for my back probem. My appointments were at the same time every day, at 08.30. That of course meant getting up early which, in my case, is not too much of a problem. So off I went missing Oli and Elliot's departure to Valencia. They went to join Miguel who decided to stay there for his friend Fran who is fighting for his life in hospital with terminal melanoma. They even cancelled their trip to Stockholm (sniff) tomorrow but I completely understand as Fran is his best friend.

The physiotherapy was quite enjoyable. First I had a 20 minute session of electrotherapy,  then 20 minutes of monitored exercises supervised by a young French physiotherapist called Quentin (love that name) followed by 20 minutes of heat on my back. Not too bad I thought although I would have loved a massage.

I rushed home as I had to be at another appointment at 12 midday to see the eye specialist for an annual check up after my operation 2 years ago. I had a bit of time at home to catch up on some work when suddenly my computer crashed. This was the ghastly message I was able to capture with my camera  before it shut down and refused to start up again. I am talking about my new HP Windows 10 lovely red PC which since I bought it last September had worked a treat, until this week.

A message on my PC just before it crashed

I immediately rang the support service I pay for and was soon on the phone to an agent who took me through all the steps possible to get the PC up and working again. All failed and the agent told me there was no option but to restore it to factory settings, i.e. reset it. I knew that meant I would lose all my files. What had happened you may ask? Well something so simple as a badly installed Microsoft update or one that went wrong was probably the cause. Thats not good coming from such a reputable company. So I pressed on the button to reset it with a heavy heart and off I went to my eye specialist appointment.

While waiting at the surgery, I mused on what had just happened and was cross with myself for taking the support agent's advice before seeking a possible solution. I then started thinking of all the stuff I had lost and again was cross with myself for not having backed it up. I have a lot of stuff on external disks but not all and certainly not the last 5 months of work.  I do have some stuff "in the cloud" on google docs and Microsoft's equivalent but storage doesn't come cheap and I had skimped on it. In the end I waited a whole 2.5h at the surgery before the busy and important consultant could see me. By then my phone battery had run out and my day seemed to be getting bleaker and bleaker. I was with the consultant for 5 minutes. He looked at my eyes, said all was well but asked for more tests which means I now have another appointment at the end of March. I hope that doesn't mean waiting all that time again. In case it does, I shall take a flask of coffee, something to eat and maybe my restored PC so as not to waste my time at the Hospital. Maybe I should have been more worried about catching the dreaded virus in the busy waiting room. Hospitals are the places to avoid these days. 

I came home feeling cross with the world but trying not to be as, as I posted on Facebook, "shit happens" and life does bring along little obstacles. In the grand scheme of things a computer crash and loss of files is not the end of the world. The end of the world would be suffering terminal melanoma in a hospital like Fran or my brother George who died of the same desease aged only 46.

After a quick lunch and an equally quick nap, I went downstairs to set up my PC. It took a while to reinstall Microsoft Office and the Mcafee anti virus. I then opened the external disk where I thought I had a copy of all the files from my old PC, only to find that only about half of them were not there. External disks are not trustworthy devices. So I opened my old PC to check which were missing and there I came to a halt as I couldn't remember my password. I tried all the possibilities with no luck. In the end I gave up. In any case we had to leave the house to go and get my Mini which we had taken to be serviced.  That was a rush. We left the house at 6 pm (no walk that day:-() but encountered traffic on our way. The BMW garage closes at 6.30 and we nearly didn't make it but then did by the skin of our teeth. My nerves were in such a state by then that I had forgotten to take along the receipt, couldn't remember or rather had the wrong registration plate number in my phone. To top it all I couldn't remember my visa pin number. Thankfully I remembered a pin number from another card and with my passport was able to retrieve the vehicle. I was a bag of nerves that day. 

I came home, happy to be driving my automatic Mini rather than Eladio's manual Volvo. There was just time to copy more files onto my PC - some from my dear friend Andy and all necessary for my mother's book (OMG!), before putting an end to the day and relaxing over dinner with my dear husband. I commented over our meal, just how different my world is today now that I no longer work for a big corporate company when all my IT needs were taken care of as was the maintenance of a luxury company car.  I still miss all the amazing company perks that were innumerable. Just some of them were: a new smart phone once a year, free petrol, motorway toll pass, free parking, life insuarance policy, luncheon vouchers, paid for telephone and internet at home, an amazing fully serviced car of course and even free private health insurance for me and all my family. When my car needed servicing, someone took it to the garage and I was given a replacement car. As to computers we got a new one every two years and of course 24/7 technical support. I could have done with these last two this week I can tell you. That world with all its perks is no longer my world but was good while it lasted. 

As we went to bed that night, I thought, similarly to Scarlett O'Hara, in Gone With the Wind, "tomorrow will be another day" and indeed it was.

Friday started with my second session of physiotherapy. I took my two computers with me to find a repair centre to crack the password on the old PC and to hopefully restore some files on the new one. I found a shop near where we used to live and trustingly left them both of my computers. By the end of the day and for just 60 euros, the password was cracked. I wonder how they do it. I have yet to find out about the files from the hard disk of my new PC. Cross your fingers they find them and cross your fingers that the bill isn't too hefty.

Not much else of interest happened on Friday. That night we did not go out to dinner. That was my decision as I am supposed to be on a diet. I make huge sacrifices during the week and then come Friday "stuff myself" and the result is no loss gain at the end of the week. So, no more dinners out for a while now was the decision I took after getting on the scales that morning. I made a very healthy dinner of fish and vegetables which Eladio said was delicious. The day ended as always, watching the news in our room and then with some video streaming entertainment - in this case more episodes of Toy Boy.

Saturday came and was very quiet indeed. I spent much of the morning cooking and reading. We all missed the girls of course but especially little Elliot - Suzy had gone off to spend a few days at Oli's empty flat seeking her independence - We love taking Elliot on our walks but that day it was just us. The sun was shining although there was rather a nip in the air. Over dinner we watched the news as we always do on my iPad. Coronavirus dominated the headlines but the refugee issue on the border of Turkey and Greece was equally dramatic. Erdogan, Turkey's Premiere, sick of taking in millions of refugees, nearly all of them Syrian, suddenly opened the border to Greece. Migrants hopeful of reaching the land of bounty, i.e. the EU, rushed to cross it on land and on sea and risked their lives. The Greek government made it impossible for them and now we have scenes of thousands of migrants stranded at the border. How sorry I feel for them.

The highlight for us at least yesterday was watching the semi final of "Prodigios" (children prodigy), that lovely children's talent show of budding singers, instrument players and ballet dancers. The Spanish soprano, Ainhoa Arteta, is on the jury and I have come to love her. What a wonderful woman, what a voice.

Today, as I said at the beginning, is international women's day. I won't be out marching but I am of course sympathetic to the cause. Women will never be equal, women suffer as second class citizens in many parts of the world, especially in the Middle East and I don't see that changing soon. I wonder how Afghan women will be celebrating as they have nothing at all to celebrate. As a woman now in my 60's I've seen my fair share of inequality and have been abused both physically and psychologically. It has to be said too that in the corporate world, my word was never as valid as a man's and I was never treated equally. I can only hope it's a bit better for my daughters and any offspring they may have. It's still a man's world out there my friends so I have a lot of respect for those marching today. Good luck. I hope you achieve something.

On that note, my friends, it is time to wrap up. Hoping you have enjoyed this week's post, I wish you all the best until next Sunday.

Cheers till then,
Masha

c