Madrid, Sunday 12th April, 2026
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| Sunday roast outdoors for Easter lunch |
It is now day 43 or 44 of the war against Iran and though I never thought it would happen, this week a 2 week ceasefire was announced. It came after the madman Trump threatened that a whole civilization would die, on his own social media site. This is his crazy post which will no doubt go down in history for many reasons; one of them being his insanity as a President of the USA.
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| Donald Trump's threat to Iran this week |
Trump thinks he has won the war - the Iranians do too - yet thanks to the attack on 28th February, the Iranians found their greatest weapon, the closing of this strait which was open before.So, I ask myself, what on earth has Trump achieved with his war on Iran? Mostly the wrath of the Ayotollahs, no regime change and the closing of the strait and of course destruction and death at a very high cost. Today as I write, trilateral talks are being held in Pakistan, of all places, with Iran and the USA to try to come to some sort of peace agreement. Meanwhile, the ceasefire has proved very fragile. The Israelis have completely ignored it and continue to bomb the Lebanon. I feel for the people of Lebanon. If peace is reached, I just wonder at the end of the day what the USA will have got out of this useless war. Trump himself will not come out of it unscathed. Once again he is being referred to as TACO (Trump always chickens out). Back home his popularity rate is down to 33%. So even the MAGA (Make America great again) movement is beginning to fall out of love with him. He has to go and may that be soon. Let's hope that this time next week I will be able to record a proper peace agreement. If it's anything like the one with Gaza then it will be another loss for Trump.
It was that afternoon that Claudia and her daughter Grecia arrived. From Mexico they have stayed a whole week and left this morning. Grecia was here to do a week's course at the University nearby and her mother had come along to join her. They are now off to Lisbon and hopefully will be back in July. We had lots of fun conversations and I love to spot the differences in Castillian and Mexican Spanish. They kept using the word "mande" instead of "perdón". They asked for an "abanico" instead of a "ventilador" in their "recámara" rather than in their "habitación". They call cars "carros" instead of "coches" and the fridge a "refri" instead of "nevera". When things are good they exclaim it is "padre" (father) rather than "guay". Lindo, not used much in Spain can mean cute, pretty, sweet or anything positive. An Argentinian guest who came yesterday, Victoria, will use different vocab too and I have noticed her always saying "de diez" instead of excellent. Diez being 10 means ten out of ten I suppose. A good one. I often learn new things from my guests.
It came just a day after an email from the company to tell me I was Superhost, once again. To think I began this journey just over 8 years ago and have now been a Super host for the same amount of time; in their words in "35 straight quarters".
At home this week we lived in peace and harmony and Easter day this year was a happy celebration. It was last Sunday and Suzy was home so it would be the three of us for lunch. Oli and family were still in Montrondo and came back the next day. It was a beautiful day and before starting on lunch we went for our walk. We needed it for all the food we were to eat. I made a delicious roast lamb with all the trimmings and this meal on Easter Day was the highlight of our week. We had it outside as you can appreciate from this week's feature photo of Eladio and Suzy on the patio outside our kitchen. Here is a close up of the meal which included roast lamb, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, green beans and peas, home made gravy and mint sauce. Wow what a scrumptious meal it was.
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| Roast Lamb and Yorkshire pudding (and all the trimmings) for our lunch on Easter Day last Sunday |
We had no room left but I still got out the 2 Easter eggs I had bought at the British supermarket, Quicksave in Gran Alacant. One was by Bounty and the other, my favourite, Aero mint chocolate. These were them.
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| Our Easter eggs on Sunday |
Monday was another beautiful day, here, not in Iran. The highlight of the day was my weekly FaceTime call with Amanda with whom I will soon be reunited in Seville.
The highlight for NASA was the Lunar Flyby that day to its far side by the Artemis II mission which left the Kennedy Space Centre on 1st April. It is an historic flight as it marks the first time astronauts have left the Earth's orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972. I honestly wonder why we have had to wait more than 50 years for that to happen. The crew of 4 apparently flew further into space than any other astronaut before them. They did not land on the moon in 2026 yet they did in 1969. I am no space expert so don't feel the excitement as much as I did at the time. Apparently this is a test mission for future lunar landings or bases there and according to Trump maybe one day to Mars. That I think will take another century. Photos were published of the moon from about 4000 km away and honestly I didn't find them fascinating. I just see a grey surface with craters. I'm sure there is more to it than that. One photo though did make an impact and it was of a jar of Nutella flying around with the lack of gravity. Did you see that one?
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| Nutella's moment of fame during the Artemis II mission to the moon this week. |
I later read it was probably sponsored by Nutella but Nasa said it wasn't What great advertising for them. They took immediate advantage and I did like their social media response: "Honoured to have travelled further than any spread in history. Taking spreading smiles to new heights".
The astronauts returned to earth on Friday in a thankfully successful "splash down" somewhere near San Diego. I bet the crew of 4 have a tale or two to tell. It must have been very exciting for them.
Tuesday came and out we went to get petrol at a 10% discount further away than usual and thanks to my Carrefour loyalty card. These days petrol costs the earth so we have to watch the pennies, don't we? We also went to get more flowers for the garden and came home to have lunch with Suzy.
I had a bit of a scare from Airbnb after lunch. There have been so many new regulations to comply with after recent and stringent renting laws on online platforms in Spain that it has been a nightmare. Many people who didn't comply or didn't know how to comply are being kicked off the platform and that is what I feared that day. Thankfully, it was quite the opposite. A lady called Estafania rang from Airbnb just to confirm that all my listings were in complete compliance. I nearly fell off my seat in surprise as it is not often anyone rings to say you are doing something good. Just in case, I asked her send me the confirmation in writing and she did. I am recording it here as it the result of a lot of painstaking bureaucratic work on my part which I understand some people would just not be able to do.
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| Positive confirmation from Airbnb |
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| Superhost for 35 quarters = 8.75 years |
During that journey I have had some wonderful guests (and not so wonderful guests). This week my top guest was Marco Antonio, also from Mexico. He is a digital nomad and swam in our pool even though the water was freezing. He also used our bike for getting around. And this was his review. Maybe I should have replied "está padre"!
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| Marco Antonio's review |
Reviews like this make it all worthwhile.
On Wednesday the world woke up to a ceasefire with Iran rather than the apocalypse that Trump had threatened and the world heaved a sigh of relief. Oil prices went down but as the ceasefire was broken over and over again and the Hormuz strait still closed, the oil prices went up again.
We did the food shopping that day which I secretly enjoy for want of any trips from home. We have been grounded since my birthday in February and I am itching to travel again. My time will come, no doubt. I managed to sleep during my siesta and had a nightmare. A famous corrupt Spanish politician, José Luis Abalos, who was in the dock this week, was in our bed in my nightmare. I wondered why he was next to me and not Eladio. We were both awake and he told me he also needed sleeping tablets, like me. My dream morphed to the appearance of my parents, aged 102 and 104. I touched them and it seemed so real. I woke up feeling a little upset as you can imagine. Some of my dreams are very vivid.
Thursday came and after our walk I did some cooking. I made a chicken based dish I got from Instagram and we all loved it. I also made coleslaw and apple and amaretto cherry crumble which was divine. We only finished it yesterday. We had pleasant grandparent duties in the afternoon when we went to pick up Elliot and Juliet from school and take our grandson to his athletics class. Normally we would have taken Juliet to the park but I had to go to the health centre.Thankfully, she fell asleep and only woke up when we got home. Soon we were joined by Oli and Elliot and had a wonderful family dinner together. It was good to see my grandchildren again. They cheered me up.
It was on Thursday that, out of the blue, that DJ Trump's wife, the Slovenian Melania Trump made a surprise announcement. It was to tell the world she was not introduced to her husband by the late Jeffrey Epstein. Why on earth did she do that? To quell rumours? She has now put her husband back in the Epstein picture. One day I hope he gets his comeuppance for that.
Friday came and I spent quality time with Suzy when we went to have a coffee at Alverán, our happy place. Eladio had gone to see an eye specialist about his macular degeneration which he came back to tell us was at the halfway stage. Not good but could be worse. Suzy and I then walked to our local nail bar for her to make an appointment. She also went to the hairdressers this week. It's good to see her doing these lovely feminine things and taking care of herself as best she can. In the afternoon she spent time with Oli and Juliet and the three of them came home and surprised me with their visit. Juliet was asleep (again) so I had quality time with both my daughters. I wish I had taken a picture. Friday was a good day, a day I could breathe and feel fleetingly happy. Thus I had a better night's sleep.
Yesterday was Saturday and a quiet day. Suzy went back to work which she was longing to do. Eladio and I went for our walk and I came home to make our lunch. The three of us enjoyed lots of leftovers.
Today is Sunday and promises to be another quiet day. We have no plans so will follow what must seem to you our very boring routine.
And that's it from me for this week. Cheers to you all,
Masha.
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