International Women’s Day, an unexpected feline visitor, Suzy’s last day at Planet Organic, anniversary of the Madrid train bombings, the girls in Lanzarote and other stories.

Sunday 13^th March 2016

The two sisters, Olivia and Susana reunited this weekend in Lanzarote Canary Islands

Hi everyone,

I hope your week has been good.  Mine has been very quiet; no trips and not much to tell.  The trips are coming though: off to London next week and then for Easter to Montrondo. 

I left off last Sunday. It was Mother’s Day in the England which I only knew about when my dear daughter Suzy who lives in London sent me a beautiful message.  I’m not sure when it is in Spain either and it’s all the fault of my Russian born Mother who never brought me up to celebrate it hahaha. 

While our new weekend carer, Zena (from the Ukraine), was here to start her new job looking after my Father (and cleaning, cooking, etc. which, btw, she is brilliant at), Eladio and I went out for lunch.  We had been invited by our old friends Benito and Loli who we first met when we “lived in sin” in the early 80’s in the humble neighbourhood of Saconia. We have a lot in common.  Benito was a priest when he first met Loli and he was a teacher of philosophy, just like my husband.  Loli was a teacher too.  She served a splendid meal of grilled prawns followed by lamb chops and fruit salad.  As always when we meet we speak about how we first met; when the four of us were starting or about to start on our professional and married lives. 

At Benito and Loli's last Sunday
In the picture Eladio showing Benito conferences by the British ethologist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins on You Tube.  Eladio is fascinated by Richard Dawkins.

Monday was a quiet day, my fasting day and it rained, all of which reminded me of The Carpenters’ song “rainy days and Mondays always get me down”.  It was my Mother-in-law Ernestina’s 94^th birthday and she had celebrated with all the family in León on the Sunday in a restaurant; as there are so many of them.  Many happy returns Ernestina!

Of note on Monday I sat down to watch the 2004 BBC 4 episode adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel North and South.  I was riveted from the beginning; the story of a genteel young lady (Miss Hale played by Daniela Denby-Ashe) who is the daughter of a non-comformist clergyman from Hampshire who leaves the church as he is in disagreement with the Book of Common Prayer and moves his family to the North to Milton (Manchester).  The setting is the Industrial revolution and the cotton mills of Lancashire with all the dirt and poverty it brought with it and how someone like Miss Hale who comes from the South of England sees the North with its employment and social issues. She soon meets Mr. Thornton (played by the extremely dishy Richard Armitage) a self-made local man and the owner of Marlborough Mills and they get off to a bad start when she sees him treating a worker roughly.  Their romance seems impossible but here Elizabeth Gaskell or possibly the script writers of the series have us on the edge of our seats until the final scene, simply known as “The Kiss” on the BBC as its website was besieged by viewers, like me, so impressed with the series and wanting more. 

Adored the BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's social novel North and South

When I finished watching it, I felt like an orphan, desperate to know what happened after the reconciliation.  So I downloaded the original book and read the last 2 chapters and boy was the language hard to read. After all it was written in the middle of the 19^th century.  Unfortunately the ending was very abrupt; even more so than the series.  When North South was published it was known as a “social novel” focusing on the problems the Industrial Revolution brought with it; poverty, child labour, bad health and working conditions.  This may have been the author’s main focus together with the most alluring love story; but I was also interested in her portrait of how society lived in those times; especially the problems of decorum in women.  Anyway, if you like period drama at its best and a romantic story, this is the series for you. 

Tuesday was International Women’s Day.  However the day started, as always, with breakfast.  Each one of us has our breakfast at different times and eats something different.  Eladio is usually last and always has Weetabix, since his first visit to the UK in 1981.  The dogs know his routine and always stand by waiting for a few meagre crumbs of the cereal.  I caught the 4 of them in the act on Tuesday morning as you can see in the photo below.

The dogs hoping for some crumbs from Eladio's breakfast hahaha

I began receiving messages of happy women’s day from friends around the world and of course Facebook was full of it. 

I don’t really consider myself a feminist and had the lurking thought most of the day that if there is women’s day why is there not men’s day as some of them dared to say.  As a woman in Spain in a man’s world, telecommunications, I suppose I have not suffered too much although of course there are far fewer women in top jobs in my sector; I am one of the privileged few and the journey, I can tell you, has not been easy.

This paints an ugly picture of women in technology jobs

My thoughts changed through the day to realise finally that yes International Women’s Day is necessary because women are still not equal to men. They earn less to start off with, generally have worse jobs and of course have the huge problem of the work life balance because still today women bear the brunt of bringing up children and running the house.  I have been very lucky in that aspect too as my wonderful Spanish husband and I have always shared the job.  In fact I used to say when the girls were small that he was more like the Mother and I was like the Father, because I was always travelling and even when I wasn’t, he was the one to get up at night and possibly changed more nappies than I did.  But my case is one in a million, so yes International Women’s Day is necessary.  If only it would help abused, deprived women; especially those from countries where they are considered second class citizens.  I am lucky to have been born in the west and from liberal minded parents. Whenever I read stories about women in Saudi Arabia or similar countries I cringe inside and count my blessings.  I would like to think that one day all women in the world will be equal to men but I don’t that is ever going to happen (sigh).

Eladio and I share the job of running the house.  He probably does more things than I do but I am the chief cook; when I am free to make the lunch as otherwise, I am again blessed in that our home help Salud makes our meals most days.  But on Tuesday I had a little time on my hands and decided to make Boeuf Stroganoff, that most delicious of Russian dishes.  I am unsure of its origin in the history of Russian cuisine; although the story goes it was served first by the family of Count Stroganoff.  I make it the way my Mother used to which was on very few occasions as it is made with the best fillet steak which was rather expensive when I was a child being brought up in Bradford. 

I cover stripped slices of fillet steak with flour and fry it with onions, mushrooms and garlic in butter to which I add a dash of white wine. I then add Greek Yoghourt.  It should be Smetana (sour cream) but I can’t get that here unless I make a special trip to one of the two or three Ukranian shops in Madrid.  I served it on Tuesday with long grained rice and fresh garden peas.

My boeuf stroganoff

All week it has been sunny but cold.  However thanks to the sunshine, the temperatures have been agreeable in the afternoons and on Tuesday afternoon I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Pippa lying literally on top of Elsa in the sunshine.  I just have to share this remarkable picture with you.  Someone said maybe we should put a saddle on poor Elsa, our adorable and long suffering golden Labrador who is as good as gold.

Pippa lying on top of placid Elsa

Wednesday was the quietest day of the week.  I spent most of it working at my desk and of course going on my two walks of the day. I do try to do two every day, one early in the morning and the other just before lunch with Eladio and the dogs.

I haven’t seen much of Olivia this week but we had the pleasure of her company for dinner that night.  I decided to make something healthy and this was the result; a tuna fish salad with asparagus, tomatoes, boiled eggs, peppers and lettuce.  Looks nice right?  We polished it off whilst watching the evening news on my iPad plus in the kitchen where the main news as always is about negotiations between the various parties to try and form a government; mission impossible for the moment.

My colourful and tasty tuna fish salad

On Thursday I woke up to a surprise.  I am always up before anyone else in the house and the first thing I do is feed the dogs; no easy task. Pippa and Elsa eat in the kitchen as they do not attack each other’s food bowls and Norah eats outside (she attacks any food in sight hahaha). Phoebe, our cat who has to be separated from the dogs, comes into the lounge from the swimming pool terrace after a night out on the tiles. I usher her into the library and TV room and she eats and spends the morning there with the door shut to keep the dogs out.  The surprise was when Phoebe appeared with another cat, a Tom cat.  Being an animal lover I thought well if Phoebe has brought a friend, a feline visitor, he’s welcome to join her in the TV room. 

The not so friendly feline visitor  - Phoebe is the smaller cat.

Everything was fine until Eladio went to see the cats who were sitting on the sofa. He stroked the visitor who purred.  Then he stroked Phoebe.  When he did that, the Tom cat began to attack poor Phoebe who began to hiss with distress. Eladio immediately sent the visitor packing who hasn’t come back since and will not be welcome again.  Later in the week, we had our revenge, when returning from our walk, the Tom cat was prowling outside our house.  The dogs started to chase him and he had to jump up a tree out of their way.  We haven’t seen him since hahaha.

I spent the morning in the office which was actually really nice.  I hadn’t been for a while and it’s always lovely to see colleagues and catch up on some of the gossip, not that there was much.  Once again our company is in the news because of rumours of a possible sale but no one knows what the outcome will be.  I had a productive meeting with my PR agency to go over our social media plan for this year.  It actually needs quite a bit of fine tuning.  Hopefully we shall be putting some engaging and fun activities into place shortly.

Meanwhile in London it was Suzy’s last day at Planet Organic where she has worked for a year or more as a nutritionist.  She will be starting as the sales representative for Bare Biology on 21^st of this month (just after my visitJ) an up and coming company which specializes in Omega 3 fish oil that is sourced from Norway.  Currently you can buy it at places like Liberty!  Suzy’s work friends gave her a lovely send off and bought her the gifts and flowers you can see in the photo below. 

The flowers, card and presents from Suzy's colleagues at Planet Organic on her last day there.

When I was last in London to see Suzy, I visited her workplace and was impressed with the range of products sold by Planet Organic but above all I liked the atmosphere.  Suzy has been very happy there and respected too; but knowing her, she will keep in contact. 

Friday was 11^th march, a date ingrained in most people living in Spain as the anniversary of the Madrid train bombs 12 years ago, the worst ever terrorist attack in Europe when 190 people died.  We all know exactly what we were doing when they happened.  In my case I was working for Nokia as their Communications Director and had gone on an overnight trip to Segovia with my colleagues from the marketing department where we were to hold a goodbye dinner for the head of marketing, my great Finnish friend, Anne N.  We were up late after partying and Anne and I found about the bombs because her Mother rang her from Finland to find out if she was ok. We immediately joined all the customers in the bar of our hotel to watch the aftermath live and there and then rang our loved ones to make sure they were ok.  When we got back to the office none of us was able to work.  I remember just going home and joining the girls watching the continued TV coverage.  It was some days after we realized the perpetrators were from a group called Al Qaeda, a name we were not familiar with then but that didn’t last long.   

A scene from the 2004 Madrid train bombings

On Friday morning, Olivia’s programme would be doing a special report on the anniversary and she had to interview a survivor.  The survivor was a woman who, like her now, was 30 at the time, lived with her parents and went to work by train.  She was lucky to survive but thanks to her injuries – reduced mobility - cannot work and worst of all has a perpetual buzz in her ears.  She told Olivia that she no longer knows what silence is. Terrible!

There were many events to mark the day attended by survivors and victims’ families as well as anti-terrorist associations and politicians. For once the Spanish politicians were united in their stance against terrorism.

Spanish politicians united against terrorism on the anniversary of the Madrid train bombings this week

Life goes on of course and on Friday morning, just before lunch, Eladio and I did the weekly shopping. Suzy meanwhile was travelling to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands from London where she would be meeting up with 7 members of the girls’ “manada” (herd) group of friends including Olivia who would be travelling late that night.  Poor Suzy had left her Spanish (Yoigo) sim card in London but worse still had lost her credit card and only had 15 euros on her.  She cancelled it but wouldn’t get another one until her return.  Thankfully she had some food on her; just fruit and nuts (she’s vegan!) which would have to serve her the whole day.

I took Oli, the two sisters Chati (nurse in London, went out to live there with Suzy) and Elena and Rochi (Rocío) the trip organizer to the airport where they would meet up with their fellow travelers, Anita (now lives with Suzy in London), Juli (the only boy) and Carolina.   It was thanks to Rocío I knew when the girls were going and where. They would be staying in the small village of Famara in the north east of the island at a private house called El Pescador two minutes from the beach.  Oli was dying to see Suzy and vice versa and both girls really needed a break.  I felt a bit orphaned when I dropped them off at the airport and knew the weekend would be very quiet without Olivia.  The photo illustrating this week’s post is of Suzy and Oli on Saturday afternoon in Lanzarote somewhere having a great time with their friends.  

Being Friday night, Eladio and I went out to dinner. Our restaurant choice this week was one of our regulars, La Txitxarrería.  Here I dug into this delicious piece of steak. I have to admit Eladio helped me with some of it, and the chips too in case you are wondering hahaha.

Tucking into dinner at La Txitxarrería on Friday night

Yesterday was Saturday and there’s not much to tell. It was a quiet day, I went on my 2 walks and most importantly Eladio bathed Norah and Elsa which I had to badger him to do.  The highlight was talking to the girls. They had settled into their house happily and appeared to like it a lot. They all went out to have breakfast and probably went food shopping afterwards. Some of them I think went surfing but not Suzy and Oli.  They had hired two little Fiat cars and explored the island yesterday afternoon. I asked for photos and got the one illustrating this post, but also the one below of the whole group.

The girls in Lanzarote (El Golfo) yesterday with their friends from "la manada" (the herd)
From left to right Juli (only boy), Rocío, Chati, Anita, Elena, Olivia, Carolina and far right Suzy.

They will be back on Tuesday and I will see Olivia that night.  Suzy will be staying one more day and returning to London on Wednesday morning.  Excitingly I will be travelling out that day to stay with her until Monday when she starts her new job.  I much look forward to quality Mother and daughter time as well as staying at her new house in Camden which sounds much more promising than any of her previous accommodation.  One place I never stayed were her first lodgings with Chati at an awful crowded flat in Whitechapel which she shared with 12 Spaniards. Of course you will be hearing all about my time there with her in next week’s post.

I will leave you now to get on with Sunday.  As Zena is here I have bought the ingredients to make borsch (Russian and Ukranian stew dish made with  beetroot, cabbage and meat ) which I know my Father and I will love.  It will bring back memories of when my Mother used to make it and hopefully I will learn how to make it.

Cheers then till next week.

All the best till then, Masha

Last days in the snow in Montrondo, “we must stop Trump”, my Father reflects on the tragedies in his life, Leap day, this year’s Oscars go to …, Peter Rabbit gets his own 50p coin (and “he didn’t have to steal it”), Suzy in Primrose Hill, a speeding fine, a political kiss during Spain’s fraught parliament investiture, another old pupil from Bradford Grammar School reaches out to my Father, “The Secret Classrooms”, my thoughts on the BBC War and Peace series and other stories

Sunday 6^th March 2016

Me in the snow last Saturday in Montrondo

Hi everyone, I hope you’ve all had a great week.

I left off last Saturday morning in Montrondo where, to my delight, it continued to snow. The village looked beautiful as you can see in the photo below

A wintery view of our village - Montrondo (in the snow last Saturday)

It snowed all morning and was windy, so we stayed inside feeling warm and cozy with our efficient central heating, thick walls and Eladio’s fire on.  I made fish and chips for lunch; so British!

Home made fish and chips for lunch in Montrondo last Saturday

We dared out in the early evening when the snow seemed to have stopped and even the sun was attempting to come out of the thick clouds.  The photo illustrating this week’s post is of me feeling exhilarated on that particular walk to Murias and back. We went on the old path with thick virgin snow.  It was of course difficult for Pippa, our miniature dachshund, to walk in the snow because of her short legs. The answer was for us to walk ahead and for her to follow in our footsteps once we had trodden in the deep snow.  Here is Eladio walking with little Pippa valiantly following behind.

The old path to Murias on Saturday, Pippa following in Eladio's footsteps as the snow was too deep for her

After the walk I started on the latest book of Jeffrey Archer’s Clifton Chronicles, Cometh the Hour which is actually the 5^th book.  There will only be one more.  It was lovely to read in front of the fire with Pippa, duly washed and dried after the snowy walk, sitting beside me on her blanket.

This week's book which I read in Montrondo

After dinner we continued watching the Danish series  The Killing on Netflix.  It’s great to have all the modern comforts in our newly restored house in Montrondo.  It really is a home away from home.

The series we are watching on Netflix at the moment

Sunday was our last day in Montrondo.  I woke up to even more snow and immediately took photos to post on Facebook.  The words from the famous Christmas carol Good King Wenceslas “deep and crisp and even” came to mind when I posted them and here they are.

The snow was "crisp and deep and even" on Sunday morning in Montrondo

That morning whilst reading the news I was struck by an article written by Danielle Allen, a political theorist at Harvard, for The Washington Post. It was entitled “The Moment of Truth, we must stop Trump”.  Donald Trump, the joke candidate for the Republican Party in the upcoming US elections, is no joke as popularity for him increases.  Most of the world is looking on quite stunned, including some of his republican colleagues.  This is what Danielle Allen wrote and I really could not agree more. “Like any number of us raised in the late 20th century, I have spent my life perplexed about exactly how Hitler could have come to power in Germany. Watching Donald Trump’s rise, I now understand. Leave aside whether a direct comparison of Trump to Hitler is accurate. That is not my point. My point rather is about how a demagogic opportunist can exploit a divided country”.  If he becomes the next President of the USA which I sincerely hope he doesn’t, only time will tell whether this political theorist at Harvard University is right or not. What I cannot understand is how he has got so far; it does not seem possible and yet it is.  I only wish he was a joke like the one in the photo below.

Did you ever wonder what happened to
Dennis the Menace when he got older?

We went on our last walk in the snow, this time all the way to Senra and back, nearly 8km.  This time the snow was too deep for us to venture on the old path, so we walked along the road which had been cleared earlier by a snow plough. Here I am with little Pippa who I am sure was happier to walk on the road.

On the walk to Senra with Pippa last Sunday morning

It snowed all the way but thankfully was not too windy.  It was bitterly cold though, as you can judge from the photo I took of Eladio who is all wrapped up by the Montrondo signpost on our way back.

Eladio all wrapped up and posing by the Montrondo sign on our way back from Senra last Sunday

Meanwhile in Madrid Oli who was back from Paris was talking to my Father.  He had a cold and what with the awful fall, I think he was feeling a little down. She spoke to him to perk him up but the subject of their conversation was very sad.  He told her the story of the death of his dear brother Raymond who died of polio aged only 16.  My Father was 5 years older than him and this must have been in 1940.  It was a huge tragedy for the family, including my Father.  Uncle Raymond, as he was known to me, was always remembered as a vivacious boy who loved mechanical things and apparently once took his father’s car apart and then put it all back together again and I would have loved to have known him. He died in Western Super Mare, away from the family so as not to pass on the deadly illness to his sister Gloria or my Father.  Polio was a killer in those days until thankfully a vaccination was found. Oli told me about the conversation and that she had cried as she thought my Father had too.

Pictures of my Father's beloved brother Raymond who died tragically of polio aged just 16

In order to comfort my Father Olivia said that he’d had a wonderful life.  Usually my Father is very optimistic, something he passed on to me but last Sunday he replied yes, but that he had a lot of tragedies.  He must have been feeling quite down that day and I am glad he had his granddaughter to pour out his heart to. I can tell you he has had more than his fair share of tragedies.  It started with his brother Raymond.  He went on to lose his Father (Canon John Lloyd) before he was 70 and his Mother (nee Dorothy Gertrude Scull, an accomplished pianist) in her early 70s.  But a bigger blow was to come when he lost his sister, my Aunty Gloria, and all her family (husband Derek and children Jacqueline aged 12, Michael aged 9 and little Anthony aged 7) in an air crash in Yugoslavia in 1971.  Then my Mother died, leaving him a widow, in 1999 and cruelly just 2 years later we lost George, his son and my brother, in his 40’s who died of melanoma cancer in London.  My troubled brother George was the real family tragedy. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his early 20's. There was an after blow a few years later when George’s sweet and disturbed Serbian wife was found dead in her flat in London after a bought of pneumonia. When the police rang me, they told me they thought she had just let herself die.  So you see my dear wonderful Father has had more than his fair share of tragedies.  Thankfully he has me; we are all that is left of the family but then of course he is part of the family Eladio and I have formed together and despite his age, nearly 97, I hope he feels happy and well cared for here with us in Spain and continues to enjoy the small pleasures life brings; another mantra I have learned from him.

We left Montrondo after lunch and were home at just after 8.  It was lovely to see Oli and Grandpa again.  Dinner was nice too as we were joined by Copi, the girls’ oldest friend from their school, St. Michael’s.

On Monday it was back to fasting and two walks a day.  It was 29^th February and Leap Day.  It was Julius Caesar who introduced the first leap year over 2000 years ago. His  Julian calendar had the rule that any year evenly divisible by four would be a leap year. As time passed Leap day brought with it superstitions and also traditions.  I didn’t know for example that it is customary for women to propose to men on that day.  I always feel sorry for those born on 29^th February and wonder what day they celebrate their birthday (the 28^th Feb or 1^st March) when it is not a Leap year and whether they have a full blast when it is hahahahaha.

Leap Year and its origin

On Monday morning we woke up to the news of this year’s Academy Awards, aka The Oscars.  Best picture went to Spotlight, the film about a group of journalists from The Boston Globe who investigate allegations against the priest John Geoghan accused of abusing young boys; an unfortunate and repetitive theme in the Catholic Church.  I wanted to see it but Eladio wasn’t keen.  He thinks the subject is old hat but I don’t; I think it’s despicable and probably still goes on.  I have often asked him if when he was a young boy at the Catholic Seminary if he or his fellow pupils had ever heard of experienced abuse.  Thankfully it was unheard of at his Seminary.  I’m glad to hear that.

Spotlight this year's best picture at the Oscars

The real spotlight though went to Leonardo DiCaprio as best actor in The Revenant. It was his first Oscar after 6 attempts. But the biggest story coming out of the Oscars this year was his reuniting with Kate Winslet on stage.  The audience and the internet went mad. I loved some of the British headlines telling the story, such as “Jack and Rose might not have had the happy ending they deserved in “Titanic” but they sure did at the Oscars last night” or even better, this one from The BBC: “The Titanic may have sunk but not their affection”.  As I totally loved them and the film, I was delighted too to see them reunited at Hollywood’s most glamourous event.

Lovely to see "Jack" and "Rose" reunited at this year's Oscars

There was a small piece of news on Monday that caught my attention too and I knew when I read it I had to include it here this week.  You probably know by now that I love bits of news like this. The Royal Mint has produced a 50 pence coin (in colour!) with Peter Rabbit to mark the 150^th anniversary of the birth of Beatrice Potter his creator.  I’m sure you’re wondering why that interested me.  Well I remember reading Beatrice Potter books as a child and I in turn read them to my daughters.  Olivia still has The Tales of Peter Rabbit which Amanda, my friend, gave to her when she was little. I think both Oli and Suzy will never forget that Peter Rabbit, together with his friends Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail, robbed vegetables from Mr. McGregor’s garden!  I loved how The Guardian aptly used that fact in a headline, only the British press can produce, “Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit gets his own 50p coin and he didn’t have to steal it”.  I shall be on the watch for when they go on sale and must get one of the new coins. 

What a lovely idea to put Peter Rabbit on a 50p piece.

Funnily enough that day, Suzy, my eldest daughter who lives in London and has now moved to Camden, sent me a photo from Primrose Hill.

Suzy on Primrose Hill

She couldn’t have known that I have been there. Well of course I have because it is where my dear friend Amanda used to live.  It was where she lived in London when she first got married and I stayed with her there on many an occasion.  It was a beautiful area. Suzy says she wants to take me there when I go to London this month.  I would very much want Amanda to join us but unfortunately she can’t. 

Tuesday came and it was 1^st March.  Hurray spring is on its way.  It was a sunny day and we took my Father to the hospital to have his dressing changed. Thankfully from then on the district nurse would be coming home to do that. Once they had changed his bandage – by the way his wound is healing nicely – we treated him to coffee and churros at the hospital cafeteria and they weren’t that bad. I think it was a bit of an outing for him.

We had bad luck on the way back.  Eladio was caught speeding coming off the M40.  The limit was 80kmh and the “guardia civil” who stopped us said he was driving at 113kmh.  There and then he got a fine of 150 euros but worse were the two points he lost from his driving licence.  I took a discreet photo of the moment and thankfully I wasn’t caught by the policeman, otherwise I would have had a fine too hahaha.  It came as a bit of a shock actually but I think it was a very good lesson for the future for my husband who relies too much on his anti-radar device which did not detect this particular radar; a physical one.

Getting the speeding fine was a bit of a blow

Thankfully I had a bit of good news later to counteract the bad news of the speeding fine.  My Finnish friend Anne Marjut wrote to ask if she could visit us in June.  The dates are perfect and we much look forward to seeing her again.  My Father remembers her well and looks forward to seeing her too.

On Wednesday Oli was ill with an infection and I accompanied her to the local health centre.  Again it was a lovely sunny day.  It was a big day in Spanish politics.  After the hung parliament from the December elections, the Spanish parliamentary investiture debates began. 

The Spanish election results in December have resulted in a hung parliament

The socialist leader Pedro Sánchez was proposing a coalition with the new right wing party, Ciudadanos.  But it was a political kiss that stole the show. In the middle of the fraught coalition talks Pablo Iglesias, the pony tailed leader of the extreme left-wing movement Podemos, congratulated a fellow member of parliament, Xavier Domenech, with a kiss on the lips. Subsequently "Pablo Iglesias" and several related phrases and hashtags hit Twitter's worldwide trending charts and the “beso” was likened to the one on the Berlin Wall with Brezhnev and Honecker.  I still don’t understand why they kissed on the lips as it’s so un-Spanish.

The "political" kiss in parliament this week

Despite the kiss, that day Pedro Sanchez’s proposal was voted against as it would be too on Friday.  Most people’s bet is that there will be an election again in June.  I can’t see any other way out although I wonder what will happen if the people vote the same again as they did in December and we get another hung parliament.

It was on Thursday this week that yet another old pupil of my Father’s from Bradford Grammar School reached out to him via my blog. 

Bradford Grammar School where my Father taught for many years is still one of the best schools in the country

My Father taught Russian, German and French there for many years.  I always knew he was a good teacher, judging by his results and the number of boys he taught Russian to who later went on to study the language at Oxford, but that he had made such an impression on them for them, not only to remember him, but to reach out to him after some 40 years really shows he must have been a remarkable teacher.  Put yourself in their shoes. Is there a teacher you would like to get in touch with after 40 years?  Probably not.   There was only one from my school, St. Joseph’s College, Miss Fair and even I didn’t try to find her; although I did meet her at the Centenary celebrations when unfortunately she had the beginnings of Alzheimer. My Father on the contrary has a remarkable memory and certainly remembered this boy, who of course is now a man.  Let me reproduce the message he posted on my blog on Thursday.  His name is David Whitlam and this is what he wrote:

"Masha, I got your blog from Michael Forte, a recently reacquired BGS friend. Your dad taught me Russian in 1976-78 and he sent me to Tony Stokes at Univ Oxford. I subsequently lived in St Petersburg. Your dad was the greatest influence on my entire academic life and I'd be grateful if you could tell him a huge привет from Whitlam, whom he referred to as 'the phenomenon', which resulted in much teasing, I can tell you!! I hope he's feeling better after his fall. Saludos from SW4, Clapham Common ! "

I know that David’s message perked my Father up enormously that day and it made me very proud of him. I in turn posted it on facebook and another ex- pupil, Johnathan Edward Starkey wrote this:

David excelled at everything at BGS as far as I remember - cross country running, modern languages, and head of school too. It is not a surprise to me, as you know, that many old boys reach out and are absolutely sincere when they say "Your dad was the greatest influence on my entire academic life ".

And yet another ex-pupil of his, Simon Hewitt, an art critic who lives in Geneva wrote to me this week asking if my Father had read the book called “The Secret Classrooms,an untold story of the Cold War” by Harold Shuckman and Geoffrey Elliott, both “kursanti” (ex-pupils) of these secret classes. 

My parents were teachers in these secret Russian courses at Cambridge in the 50's

Well of course we had and both my parents are mentioned in the book.  My Father even went to the event at The Tate Gallery in London in 2002 when the book was presented.

My Father (son of an English clergyman born in Tamworth on 1st May 1919) and Russian Mother (née Princess Elena Von Lieven born in the Russian Embassy in Rome on June 7th 1920) met and taught at the Joint Services School for Linguists (JSSL) in Cambridge dubbed the spy classes by the Russians and of course they were  for spies.  They started in 1952 and lasted until 1959 when we left Cambridge where I was born, to go and live in Lincolnshire where my Father became a teacher of Russian at the prestigious RAF academy at Cranwell.  The classes were secret and a major cold war initiative.  These were perhaps the happiest years of teaching for my Father and many a tale was told at tea at  home about the eccentric teachers and clever pupils.  One of the teachers was Anthony Burse, Churchill’s interpreter when he met Stalin! The Tony Stokes David Whitlam refers to was a pupil of Professor Dame Elizabeth Hill and was also an instructor on the courses. Latterly he married Marina and I remember her as Marina Stokes a course instructor on the Norwich Russian courses in the 70's when I would babysit for her daughter.

I am happy to reproduce the page about my parents in this book here:

The extract from the Book The Secret Classrooms about my parents on the JSSL course in Cambridge in the 50's

The Cambridge classrooms were organized by Dame Elizabeth Hill, Professor of Russian at the University and a very colourful person.  My Father was her right hand man. She was my brother’s god mother and I suspect very instrumental in the marriage of my parents.  My parents kept in touch over the years and they went to her 90^th birthday party in Cambridge, my Father duly sitting at her right in the photo of so many of her ex pupils. She was so eccentric she decided to get married at the age of 84 even though we all thought she was the eternal spinster. Amazingly, my Father met her by accident on her honeymoon in Spain.  He had gone to the train station in Madrid to buy bus tickets to Alicante and there she was bussing it around Spain at 84 on her honeymoon.  You might be interested to know that not long afterwards she divorced him!

My parents in 1955 in Cambridge with Liza Hill.  I think the man on her left was the man she later married
I have to admit I have been mulling over these stories in most of my walks this week when I have so much time to reflect and have spent time talking to my Father about his pupils and of course the Russian courses at Cambridge at lunchtime too.  I also learned finally how he learned Russian and how my Mother came to join the courses at Cambridge but that I am afraid will have to wait for another time, or the book I am planning to write, as I am winding on.

I thought about all this too when I went to the hairdresser in the evening. Unfortunately my usual hairdresser Merche wasn’t there but a new girl, Elena, did a pretty good job.  Eladio later remarked my hairstyle was similar to Esperanza Aguirre’s (a Spanish high profile woman right wing politician who speaks her mind) which made me laugh.

I went to the hairdresser on Thursday evening

On Friday spring was really in the air.  It was not only sunny but the blossom was coming out on our miniature plum trees which always makes me happy.

Blossom in our garden this week - a true sign  spring is coming

It was on Friday afternoon that I finished binge watching the new BBC series of War and Peace. 

Pierre, Natasha and Andrei in the BBC series War and Peace which I binge watched this week

So what did I think of it? Well many things and overall I loved it.  I once tried to read it many years ago and couldn’t get through the battle pages I’m ashamed to admit.  As I watched I kept wondering what my Russian born Mother would have thought.  I remember how much she criticized Dr. Zhivago. And all the time I was remembering her telling me the story of her Mother, my babushka (grandmother) Sophie (Sonya) Stachovich, a Princess in her own right, having played tennis with Leo Tolstoy when she was a teenager. Imagine possibly the greatest Russian author was a friend of my Mother’s family and played tennis with my Grandmother?  My Mother’s family were also very close to the Yusupov family (the son Felix killed Rasputin) so I watched very closely at the scenes filmed at the Yusupov palace. I was also mesmerised by the Tzar’s ball at the Catherine Palace I have visited in St. Petersburg. It took me a while to get accustomed to all the characters – there are so many of them.  The main ones of course are Count Pyotr (Pierre) Bezukhov, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and the beautiful Countess Natalia (Natasha) Rostov.  Yes I loved it but was dumbfounded to read the critics afterwards where I learned that The BBC had completely changed the ending.  The BBC version has a wonderful happy ending, not so the real ending.  How could that be?  Just to please the audience?  I also wonder what the Russians think of the BBC version of this masterpiece. I mean it’s a bit like Russian TV doing a series of one of Jane Austen’s books. Some of the series seemed just a little English to me but then of course the actors were English, except for Pierre. He by the way was fantastic. What I really loved too were the music, the costumes and the scenery, especially St. Petersburg in the snow and everyone skating on the river Niva; even wheel chairs with skates. 

St Catherine's Palace in St. Petersburg, perhaps the most glittering location in the series

I told Eladio all about it when we went out to dinner on Friday night to La Vaca Argentina.  I think he would enjoy it too.  Unlike me, he read all of it as a teenager and when I told him the bit about the battle of Borodino and how the Russians refused to fight over Moscow using their scorched earth policy to drive Napoleon away, unable to get provisions, Eladio knew the Russian General in command was none other than the astute Kutuzov.  I do have a clever husband don’t I?

Yesterday was Saturday. Olivia had gone off to Valencia for the weekend and the house seemed very quiet.  This Saturday Zena, our ex Ukranian home help, was starting work with us at the weekends, to look after my Father whilst Salud has her time off.  After his fall we want him to be looked after properly and around the clock. She arrived at 3 pm and set to work immediately.  I think they will get on and I know I can rely on Zena who I like and trust.  As I mentioned to my Father she can cook good Russian fare too and I look forward to her making us some borsch or pelmeni.

And today is Sunday.  It is cold and sunny again.  We will be going to have lunch with our friends Benito and Loli today but of course I will be telling you all about that in next week’s post.  Meanwhile my friends, I shall leave you to get on with my Sunday.

All the best until next week

Masha