Sunday, 25th April, 2021
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| Choosing flowers at the garden centre on Wednesday |
Good morning again everyone.
It's Sunday again and blog day. Today I write from home after our return from Montrondo, my husband's birth village.
Covid continues to dominate the news. The global figures this week went up from 141.323.933 cases and 3.024.317 deaths to 147.095.842 and 3.113.551 respectively. In many countries we are beginning to see the effect of vaccines but it's not enough. In Spain we seem to have plateaued (thank goodness). Germany, France, Italy and Turkey though are still reporting troubling numbers. However, it is India we should look to where the pandemic is completely out of control. Out of a population of a staggering 1.4 billion people we are seeing numbers of infected at above 300.000 a day and for sure there are more. As to the deaths, the sight of funeral pyres everywhere is frightening. The worst thing is that hospitals have run out of oxygen and people are dropping like flies. It's a very different thing to fall ill with Covid in Madrid or London than it is in Delhi or Bombay. India is a country close to my heart. We went there only once. It was for our 25th wedding anniversary and it left a big mark on us in many ways. I wonder why the rich countries don't quickly lend a hand. We are all in this together and countries should unite and help each other. The UK is a case in point with its history of links with its former jewel in the crown of the British Empire. I pray that other countries take action to help.
We were still in Montrondo last Sunday and that day saw us out on another walk in the sunshine with blue skies. We were not thinking of Covid then. We were so lucky with the weather during our stay. Once again we took the mountain path walk to Murias, the next village, for our cup of coffee at the El Holandés Errante bar, the only one in the village. We had the path completely to ourselves as we did every day there. The locals prefer to walk on the main road between the two villages. I guess they are looking for social contact. We prefer the hidden pathway because it means Pippa can walk loose and that we don't have to wear our hated masks. Here is snapshot of that walk with Eladio walking ahead and Pippa behind.
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| Eladio and Pippa on our walk on Sunday |
As usual we walked over the stone bridge to enter Murias and on our way to the bar we came across a field of very friendly looking goats.
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| The field of goats in Murias last Sunday |
You probably know of my love of animals - especially four legged ones that are bigger than a rabbit. So, I love goats too and am fascinated by their physique and character. In Spanish there is a saying that if you are like a goat you are basically mad: "estás como una cabra" it goes. The word "cabra" is used in this sense but it is the male version, "cabrón" that is the rude one to use. Anyone who is a "cabrón" (a male goat) is basically a bad person. These goats looked lovely to me, neither bad nor mad hahaha. They were all different colours, looked happy, well looked after and seemed very friendly. They came gently towards me, possibly hoping for some food or even a stroke but I couldn't get near them because of the electrified wire. I wished I could. They even seemed to pose for me as you can see in the photo Eladio took of me with some of them. Am I mad like them? Sometimes I think I am. I am, in my own opinion, high spirited like them, adventurous, curious and possibly different. I also read that they are intelligent, tolerant of interaction and will eat anything edible they can find. They can also be stubborn and misbehaved. All that sounds familiar. I wonder what you think.
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| Me with "my" goats |
The coffee at the bar was a pleasant interlude during our walk and once again we were the only patrons. I wonder how that bar and hostal makes its money. If you are interested in staying there it only costs 55 euros a night for 2 people and includes breakfast. It's a great place to stay if you like remote mountain villages. Here is the website. I am happy to promote El Holandés Errante. I think it needs promoting.
As we walked out I looked closer at some of the landmarks of Murias, a bigger village than Montrondo and there are quite a few worth mentioning, especially the old church. That day I spied a stork at the top just where you expect storks to be, not on pylons as often happens in urban areas. I thought it was a good image to share with you.
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| The church in Murias de Paredes - notice the stork and its nest |
We were home by 1.30 or so and I set about rustling up our lunch from lots of leftovers. Eladio had the cocido and I had the curry. I slept a short siesta and then resumed watching Grey's Anatomy. It's not my favourite hospital series but I'm still hooked.
Apart from our walk we didn't venture out again and apart from the bar owners we didn't see anyone else either. It was so quiet in Montrondo. I hope the place never ever gets full of tourists.
Monday was to be our last day in the village. The house needed a thorough spring clean before we left and we spent most of the morning cleaning. Eladio did all the floors and I did the bathrooms and surfaces; as many as I could reach. We had done a great job and finished at around 12.30. It was late for our walk but also rain threatened and we didn't want the washing on the line to be spoiled. Thus, there was no last walk in Montrondo. Plus I was cooking a bean stew ("fabada") which took 4 hours to cook and needed constant attention. There would be no more cooking that day.
It was while I was cleaning that I received some sad news. Richard D, a former colleague and friend of my mother who was a lecturer in Russian at Leeds University, wrote to say that another former colleague, Valya Konzevich, and friend of my parents had died. She passed away aged 96 on Monday at St. James' hospital in Leeds where she lived. It was on the 10th anniversary of the death of her late husband George. I was sad to hear the news. Valya was a good friend of my parents. My mother met her at Leeds University where they both taught. Mrs. Konzevich as I referred to her as a child was a Russian refugee as was her husband and they both left the USSR after WW2 or so I think because I am not completely sure of their beginnings. I always heard that Valya and a sister or sisters survived the terrible famine of Minsk, now Belarus, and of course the horrors of war. She, like my mother, found her peace and stability in England afterwards. I remember her well from all my visits as a teenager to see my mother at the Russian department at Leeds and how she always greeted me so lovingly. After my mother's death I continued to see her nearly every time I visited Yorkshire. She would put on a wonderful spread of Russian fare, reminding me of my childhood and Russian roots. Richard D. was always there. He was her friend as he was my mother's friend and was the person who made my mother's lifetime ambition to publish her father's poetry come true. I was truly sad to hear that Valya is no longer with us. It's sad to realise too that now that when I go to Yorkshire again she will no longer be with us. Here is a photo from 10 years ago which I think is the last time I saw Valya.
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| With Valya Konzevich and Richard Davis 10 years ago. |
When I told my friend Amanda in our weekly Skype call, she remembered Valya from my mother's funeral. She also remarked on how many people I keep in touch with over the years. Well, Valya, was a friend of my mother's and that's why I kept in touch. But I wish I had kept in touch more now as the last time I saw here was 10 years ago. Thanks to Richard though he always kept me up to date. He was very close to her and no doubt he will be very sad to miss her. I wonder what her funeral will be like as I know she has no family at all in the UK but hope some of her ex Leeds Uni friends are there as well as any other friends she had. RIP Valya. I am so sorry you passed away.
My Skype call with Amanda was as long as usual on Monday; nearly 2 hours. My dear friend was ironing while talking to me. That took me back to the time when I was a child and we were living in Ruskington in Lincolnshire. My mother would iron in the kitchen while telling George and I stories from Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn - she loved Mark Twain. I loved those times with my mother. Amanda and I mused that my mother loved playing the housewife when we were small but later got bored of it. Certainly when she started teaching at Leeds, I never ever saw her iron again. In fact, I don't think anyone ironed at our house in Bradford apart from me on occasion. The ironing board was in my parents' massive bedroom and it was up to me to iron my one St. Joseph's College blouse weekly. That was the 60's and people didn't wash or iron their clothes so often, or at least they didn't in our house hahahaha.
Monday was our last full day in Montrondo, our last full day alone and our last full day of zero responsibility of running our big house in Madrid. I had had a great break. A week was enough though as I was keen to get home to see my father. I don't like leaving him for more than a week. Besides, we had to be back on time to take him to the hospital on Thursday for a check up on his leg.
I went to bed late but tossed and turned for at least an hour. I was awake at 7am and had had only 5 hours sleep. That seems to be the norm for me. It was Tuesday morning and we would be leaving mid morning after all doing all the boring tasks needed to leave the house safe and in good shape for our next visit. I wonder when that will be. We were in our car by 11.30 and had left the house spotless. I just hope the mouse traps work and we don't have any nasty surprises when we next return. We stopped on the way for a coffee at La Magdalena and then again for lunch at a run of the mill roadside cafe.
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| A last photo of Montrondo before leaving on Tuesday |
On the way I learned the outcome of the high profile case of the murder of the African- American young man, George Floyd by a US policeman, Derek Chauvin. You will remember he suffocated him to death while arresting him in Minneapolis last year. That one case of racist and violent behaviour by the police led to the huge movement called "Black lives matter". This is by no means the first case of racism and excess use of force by the police but it could well be the turning point in how the police treat African Americans. Derek Chauvin was found guilty of second and third degree murder as well as manslaughter and faces up to 40 years in prison. He can rot there as far as I'm concerned. I really hope this is a lesson to US police to change their attitude and behaviour. President Joe Biden told the Floyd family that "at least now there is some justice". Later he said on television that "systematic racism is a stain on the whole nation's soul". Well, thankfully, we now have a non racist US President.
That was good news as far as I'm concerned. There was other semi good news when I learned that the US health authorities and the EU health regulator went ahead and re approved the Johnson and Johnson vaccine (the one jab vaccine Janssen). They did so while admitting there were links to blood clots, just as there are with the Anglo Swedish vaccine, AstraZeneca. I'm not sure what to think really. It is true that there are many other causes of blood clots, including the pill, Covid itself or even air travel. But the fact that these vaccines can cause deadly blood clots is serious. For the moment it will go ahead and it remains to be seen what action each individual country takes. There were 180.000 vials ready in Spain so let's see who gets them and let's hope no one gets a blood clot.
We were home by 4.30 or so and I was happy to greet my father as he was happy to see us. I'm sure he had missed us. I told him about the death of Valya who he knew well and he nodded sadly. He told me he had been well taken care of - thank you Lucy. I then printed out my latest blog for him which I knew he was looking forward to.
I had a hundred things to do before dinner and soon we were in our quarters in our huge comfortable bed. I should have been able to sleep well but somehow I tossed and turned again. I was up at about 7.30 and ready to face a new day.
Wednesday was HM The Queen's 95th birthday but there would be no celebrations as she was still in official mourning until Friday.
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| The Queen. Happy birthday and long may she live |
In any case her "official" birthday is celebrated in June for some unknown reason. I hope she had some comfort on her big day from her family. I heard she had been focused on the Duke's upcoming 100th birthday rather than on her 95th but that, sadly, was not to be. She seems such a lonely figure right now. She has lost everyone from her generation and only has her children and grandchildren now. They must be a big comfort of course but it's not the same. Oh how she must be mourning her husband, her "Greek God", Prince Philip. According to the "papers", Her Majesty spent part of the day taking her dogs for a walk in Windsor Park. No doubt her dogs and horses bring her a lot of comfort. Her family does too but so does the public. There was an outpouring of comforting messages after the passing away of her beloved husband. On Wednesday, her birthday, The Queen issued a lovely statement saying they had brought her much comfort. This is it.
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| The Queen's message on her birthday |
Her message also moved me. What a wonderful Queen we have and how sorely will she be missed when her time comes. I simply cannot envisage the world without her as she cannot envisage the world without Prince Philip.
Wednesday was the day after the George Floyd case sentence, the day Biden referred to systematic racism. Well that day, another policeman murdered a black person, a murder that was not necessary. I got the news from Olivia who reported on the case.
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| Olivia reporting on the killing of a black teenage girl by a Columbus police officer |
A police officer shot and killed a 15 year old black teenage girl over an attempted stabbing, although whether she was protecting herself or stabbing someone is not clear. In any case, there was no need to kill her. It's just another case of a murdered black person at the hands of the US police. Black lives matter but obviously not to some people and sadly I think that will never go away.
We cheered ourselves up that morning by going to the nearest garden centre (Verdecora) to stock up on flowers - mostly geraniums - to add colour to our garden, especially around the pool. Storm Filomena had destroyed the ones we bought last year. We shall be opening the pool really early this year, on time for the arrival of a group of Airbnb guests for the May bank holiday, on 30th April. Thus it had to look good. Eladio took a photo of me with all the flowers on our trolleys which he would later plant in the garden. I've chosen it as this week's feature photo as it is a happy photo and we all need some happiness. Eladio worked all afternoon and by the end of the day he had planted most of the flowers. Good for him. He really is a handyman. I don't do gardening but I love to see him doing it.
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| Some of the flowers Eladio planted by the pool on Wednesday |
Once our mission was accomplished we went to have a coffee at Alverán, our favourite cafe. Our Russian born guest Felipe was there and treated us to a coffee and a biscuit. He's such a good guest.
In the afternoon while Eladio was gardening I was on the phone to Kathy and Phil who are camping in Devon with their camper van. It is their first trip away from home in months owing to the pandemic. They were so happy to be away. I also had a video call with Suzy who is still in Costa Rica. I wish I could tell you about the call but I can't. It left me feeling very worried.
When I'm worried I turn to the silly hospital series, Grey's Anatomy to take my mind off things. That night Eladio watched the 2 hour long political debate ahead of the Madrid region elections on 4th May. I am sick of that campaign and I can't vote anyway so again I turned to my series which I watched on my iPad using headphones so as not to interrupt my husband.
Thursday came and I would spend all morning with my father at the Rey Juan Carlos hospital in Móstoles, the spanking new and avant-garde hospital where he was to have a check up on his leg injury that would need a skin graft. It was not a morning to look forward to either for him or for me. It didn't go according to plan either as the ambulance arrived too late despite ringing to confirm it would arrive at 9.50 for my father's 10.50 appointment. At 10.25 we had no option but to bundle my father into Eladio's car and drive him there. I went behind them. We got to the hospital just on time. Eladio got my father out of the car and into his wheel chair and I took him into the lobby and was soon in the Plastic Surgery department. The doctor took a look at his wound and told me there were two options; one to do a skin graft; an invasive operation which would mean going into an operating theatre, giving him an anesthetic and of course removing skin from another part of his leg. The other option was to leave the wound to heal itself by a process called "second intention healing". I wondered how this worked as he has no skin on the wound but the doctor assured me that although the process is very long it would eventually heal. I asked him what he would do if it was his father. He didn't hesitate when he said second intention healing. That means carrying on changing his bandage every 48 hours which is something we are keen to do rather than submit him to an operation at his age - soon to be 102.
Later I had to request an ambulance to take him home. My father was very patient but I hated him being at the hospital. He should be at home and in peace. He is very stoic and never complains.
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| My father at the hospital on Thursday morning |
We had to wait for more than an hour for his ambulance and my heart went out to my father who was nodding off in his wheel chair. It finally came at about 1 pm. I couldn't go with him - not allowed because of Covid - and drove myself home. We had been given an appointment for 3 weeks time but I decided we are not going back. If his wound is to heal by itself with the special bandages, there is no need to take him again. His nurse and doctor from the local health centre will be more than enough to monitor him.
I don't know about my father but I came back exhausted and had a damned headache from all the stress. I still had it the next morning. We had a quick lunch I had prepared early in the morning and the rest of the day was quiet. I was happy to see a photo of Elliot Oli sent to her father that afternoon. We haven't seen him for more than 2 weeks and were missing him. He looks so much bigger in this photo since we last saw him. Bless the little boy. He's so lovely.
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| Elliot playing with his toys on Thursday |
It was quiet until about 6 pm when I got a sudden reservation for 2 people from Germany who booked two rooms at our house for 7 nights. They were arriving that very evening. So then it was all hands to deck to get the rooms ready and spruced. I put the finishing touches with vases of flowers from the garden (my beloved celinda also known as mock orange because of its likeness and fragrance), a bottle of chilled white wine, some almonds and chocolates. The rooms looked lovely and inviting. Our guests did not arrive until 11 pm. They obviously hadn't bothered to read the house manual where it states the latest arrival time is 9 pm. I had expected two girls but got two men; Ivan and "Junior". One is Serbian and the other is Croatian. They have been traveling around Europe in their car and were not at all aware of the Covid restrictions in Spain. That day they had traveled from Barcelona to Madrid which is not allowed. When I told them that they were nonplussed. I gave them the tour of the house and then left them to it. I thought they were two polite young men who would be no trouble but I was wrong. They were up late, left lights on and there were empty beer bottles all around the place, not to mention a pair of their shoes in the middle of the TV lounge. I had to send them a polite message to remove their belongings, etc. We couldn't sleep after that and I was up watching Grey's Anatomy until God know's when.
On Friday I didn't see them. They must have got up late and come home late. Friday, my friends was International Book Day and St. George's Day, something I'm sure you know. It's a big thing in Catalonia where on "San Jordi" (George in Catalán) it is the tradition for women to give a book to a man and a man to give a rose to women. I find that rather sexist. I'm not sure the Catalans were also celebrating that the same day was the Day of the Spanish Language. That I doubt. Google celebrated it though with one of its famous doodles. The interesting thing about the doodle was that it paid homage to the "Ñ" (pronounced enye), the unique letter in the Spanish alphabet.
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| Spanish or Español would not be the same without the "ñ". |
El País calls this letter "the identity of Spanish the world over". That's probably right. It is the 15th letter in the alphabet and is used in more than 15.000 thousand words including the name of the language. So where did it come from I wondered. It was only included in the Royal Spanish Academy in 1803 but dates back to 1176. The sound of the "ñ" (just like the "gn" in French, e.g. Avignon or the "nh" in Portuguese - "Espanha") did not exist in Latin where Spanish comes from. Its origin is far more humble. I read that Spanish scribes in the Middle Ages needed to abbreviate double letters because of a shortage of scrolls. If you have ever learned Spanish as a foreigner you will soon learn there are hardly any double consonants. Thus the double "nn" as in "anno" in Latin, became "año" and the second repeated letter was represented with a little squiggle on the top called a "virgulilla" in Spanish - notice the double consonant here too "ll". That was another separate letter of the alphabet when I learned Spanish and is pronounced as "eye". The other double consonants are "rr" and "cc". I like the explanation above but that doesn't explain to me why the other double consonants didn't get the same treatment. Funny eh? Well there's a bit of trivia for you.; the story of the Spanish letter "ñ".
Friday was our weekly shop; something we now look forward to. It's our outing of the week. The highlight of our shopping outings is having a coffee at a street cafe. That's when we checked our phones for news. That day, there was a lot of news about poisoned pen letters with death threats that included bullets that had been sent to the Minister of the Interior, the Head of the Guardia Civil and to the ex Deputy PM, Pablo Iglesias now running for leadership of the Madrid regional Government. The three of them represent left wing politics with Iglesias more a communist than a socialist. Whether I like him or not which I don't, I sympathised. Well, in a public debate with the other candidates, the far right representative from VOX (equivalent to UKIP) refused to sympathise and invited Iglesias to leave the debate. In a very heated exchange of words, he left followed eventually by the other left wing leaders. All future election debates have now been cancelled as the left wing block refuse to take part if anyone from Vox is involved. This has hugely polarised the upcoming elections on 4th May. Spain's left and right have always been divided; so much so this country had a Civil War. Last Friday felt very reminiscent. I'm sick and tired of political fighting. Instead of fighting, this country should unite on its most important issues; Covid and vaccinations and a recovery of the economy.
Friday was a rainy day and we didn't get our walk because of going out shopping. In the afternoon I had a conference call on Zoom. Embarrassingly, despite unmuting the sound, no one could hear me. Thankfully one of the friendly members put up to date in a subsequent phone call. I did feel a bit of an idiot. Normally I would have checked my PC before the call and I did. However it played up and wanted to install updates, including a zoom update and all this took time; time I didn't have. Technology sometimes plays havoc doesn't it?
I was cheered up by seeing a photo of Oli with little Elliot. It was to announce the news of her pregnancy - she is now at 21 weeks - and the arrival of little Juliet, a sister for Elliot. Oli takes her time to announce the important things in her life, unlike me. I have borrowed her photo from social media to share with you here. It's lovely isn't it? The image of motherhood - the good parts of motherhood I should add, hahaha.
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| OLi announced her new pregnancy this week on social media - the arrival of Juliet |
It was Friday and again we didn't go out to dinner. I miss our Friday dinner outings but we don't dare go inside restaurants for fear of the virus. I hope we will resume this lovely tradition when it is warmer and we can eat outside. So I made a lovely dinner instead. Inspired by something I saw on TV I bought some clams (almejas) that day and decided to make a dish I adore but only ever eat when I am out - clams in seafood sauce ("almejas a la marinera"). I had no idea it was so easy to make. This is what our lovely dinner looked like on Friday.
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| My "almejas a la marinera" - a dish I made for the first time this week |
It now gets dark at 9.30 pm (love that) so after dinner we ventured out to the pool terrace. Eladio was looking at the awful tarpaulin covering it. He was wondering how to get rid of the ugly and green stagnant water that had accumulated. I wasn't worried as it's not my job hahhaha. In any case our swimming pool maintenance man was coming the next day to deal with it and get the pool ready for the summer and our next set of guests. It was then I spotted our cat Phoebe.
Phoebe was a stray we picked up on the street in the summer of 2006, making her quite an old cat. She is part Siamese and has lovely colouring. She hates the dogs and only comes to the house for food and to sit in the "cat lounge", actually our TV lounge. Her real home is the under the roof of the gate to the house. So it was a rare occasion to see her and take a photo. Here she is being stroked by Eladio. She hardly lets anyone touch her so that was rare too. So, yes, you knew we have dogs but I'm sure many of you had no idea we had a cat too; Phoebe.
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| We have a cat too - here is Phoebe, being stroked by Eladio. |
The news was boring that night - all the same stories. Thus we turned to Netflix. I wanted to watch the recently added "Love Story" which made much impression on me when I was a teenager. Eladio told me to leave it for myself for a later date. It's not his thing which I understand. Thus we returned to a series called "The Serpent", a horrible series based on a true story. I had never heard of the murderer and serial killer Charles Sobrahaj who robbed and murdered many young back packers in Asia in the 70's. He was known as The Bikini Killer, the Splitting Killer but also as The Serpent because of his cunning. Nasty horrible man.
I didn't sleep too badly that night. It could have been worse. I was up late actually at after 8 am. It was a quiet morning. The rain stopped and we went on our walk. I was amazed at the abundance of wild flowers everywhere, including the first few poppies and bluebells. This explosion of lush green and flowers will continue until May and then in the summer everything will dry and look like a desert. Even the daisies look beautiful. They are giant ones and I marveled at them. Everything seemed giant that day on our walk.
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| Giant wild daisies on our walk. Love them |
We came home to find that the "swimming pool people" had come to uncover the pool and get it ready for next week's guests. It's early I know but the sooner it is done, the better the house looks. The water was looking green but I was sure they could fix it. They will but found that the engine of the pool filter had broken down. Thus they had to take it to their installations to find a new one. Oh, dear.
We left them to it when we went off to the garden centre again. Even though we had bought a ton of flowers we still had a few empty plant pots. This time we stocked up on hydrangeas and sort of daisies, not sure what they are called. They came in three colours as you can see from the photo below. These flowers can last years.
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| We got more flowers for our garden on Saturday morning |
Today is Sunday, another quiet day in semi lockdown or house arrest as I call it. I look forward to our walk, a good meal for lunch and to lazily watching Grey's Anatomy this afternoon. I should not complain.
I have now come to the end of the stories of this week, this very quiet week, and all that remains is to wish you all the very best until next Sunday.
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