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| The Yoigo family at this year's summer party in Ibiza |
Good morning everyone
It’s Sunday
again and the time to write my weekly post.
I wonder how your week has been.
Mine has been a blast, as this week was the annual Yoigo Summer Party
which thankfully is now over after weeks of preparation. So let me tell you all about it.
Last Sunday,
Olivia went off to Córdoba to report on the high profile court case with José
Bretón who is accused of killing his two small children, Ruth aged two and José
aged six, in revenge for his wife filing for divorce. They apparently
disappeared when he was with them in a park but later ashes with bones at his
country house were analyzed and finally found to be of small children. Olivia
would be reporting on this case and others in Andalucia all of last week.
Meanwhile we
had the abuela with us, Eladio’s 92 year old Mother, Ernestina who has spent
most of the week knitting woolen socks in sharp contrast to the highest
temperatures of the year so far. She has
also enjoyed wetting her feet by the pool in the afternoons and here is a great
picture of her with Eladio in the pool which I took last Sunday.
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| Eladio and his Mother enjoying the pool last Sunday |
Later that
night Eladio and I went for our usual walk with the dogs. I checked the temperature and it was 30ºc at
10pm in the evening and still light.
This photo proves both facts.
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| On our walk the Sunday before last - just look at the temperature and the light for that time of night. Oh I love summer. |
It was on
Sunday evening too that Spain played Brazil in the final of the Confederations
Cup and I am sorry to report we were beaten 3-0; a score La Roja (the Spanish
national football team) are not used to and which humbled us all that night.
On Monday we
all sat by the television to watch Olivia report on the court case in Córdoba
which she did twice that morning. You
can watch the second report here if you go to 11.05h.
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| Oli reporting on the José Bretón case in Córdoba last Monday |
It was on
Monday that I was surprised by some corporate news. The Siemens part of Nokia Siemens Networks was to be acquired by Nokia making it an all Finnish network manufacturer once
again. I was pleased for the company
which I had once worked for and pleased for my colleagues who I know will be
much happier to be an all Finnish rather than a German Finnish company. The two
cultures are near in some ways but also very far in corporate style, the former
being very hierarchical and the latter quite the opposite. I enjoyed working for a Finnish company as I
now do working for a partly Swedish owned corporation. Their sense of fair play and no “bullshit”
are what I like best. You can read about some of the reasons behind the
decision here one of them being “"Nokia is trying to get stability in the
networks division so they can repair the handset division," according to
Strategic Analytics. Whatever the
reason, I am pleased with the news.
Monday and
Tuesday for me were the busiest days of the week. I was working on last minute preparations for
the Yoigo annual Summer Party. The
destination had been a whispered secret for a while and if you have read about
my “secret” trips in recent posts, I can now tell you they were to Ibiza. Yes I was organising a two day party there
for 210 people, no mean feat if you think about the hotel and travel logistics
and factor in that people in Spain are not good at confirming or rather forget
to do so and play havoc with your organisation.
It is not easy either to decide which people to put into which hotel and
we had three, or on what flight; the crack of dawn regular flight for 30 odd
people or the mid morning charter flight we had booked for the rest of the
group. Whatever you decide, some people
are going to complain. Add to that
people turning up late for the early flight or missing it and the guaranteed
chaos of the hotel check-ins for so many people and you get a sort of nightmare
that I always want to avoid. Thank
goodness the girls from my events agency, especially Gloria, never lose their
cool and can deal with any situation with a smile. Thanks Gloria, Cristina, Bea, Miguel, Nuria
and Julia, you are great. Thus I decided
to go a day earlier, ahead of the rush as I needed to keep my cool after some
very frustrating days working on the last minute logistics.
But first I
had to go the office on Tuesday morning for an unscheduled management team
meeting. I
got there early so was able to watch Olivia reporting from Jerez on another trial, the killing of a young girl called
Miriam Tamayo. She had to interview the parents which she told me later was
very traumatic.
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| Olivia reporting on the case of the killing of Miriam Tamayo last Tuesday in Jerez. |
I was stuck
for lunch alone as my flight wasn’t leaving until the early afternoon. But that wasn’t for long as some of my “Yoigo
boys”, as I call them, had me join them for lunch that day. So off I went in the warm sunshine with
Javier, Juan and my dearest Dragutín to the nearby Hotel Eurostars for a “menu
of the day” meal. Of course they were
delighted to have lunch with me as they knew they would be able to get all
sorts of information about the arrangements for the summer party from me. However I wasn’t good company as I kept
getting calls about people wanting to change flights and similar problems.
Soon I was at
the airport to catch the 4pm flight to Ibiza.
It arrived punctually and I took a taxi to the hotel where I was
staying, El Corso, right by the yachting port and with great views of the town
of Ibiza.
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| Ibiza town, the view from my room at the Hotel Corso |
I spent most
of the rest of the afternoon working, again on last minute details for the big
event. I had a dinner date with the team
from my events agency QuintaEsencia at 9.30 pm in town and decided to walk
there in the evening sunshine. It took
me 45 minutes and I even had time left over.
So what did I do? Yes you
guessed, I went to Zara as it was the beginning of the summer sale. I had in mind to buy a dress for the
following night’s gala dinner because the one I had brought wasn’t really
suitable for such hot weather. And there and then I spied a beautiful cream
embroidered dress which I had eyed before.
The largest size available was size “M” and I was delighted it fitted
me. This is the beautiful dress.
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| My new dress from Zara |
Dinner at La Brasa was once again a bit of a disaster. We were there to taste the menu for
the lunch on the last day of the summer party. The previous tasting was not
good and we had changed the menu completely as we were to do again that night.
The place itself is lovely, a sort of garden terrace and is very popular in
Ibiza. However, I am not impressed with
the quality of the food or the service.
On the day, the food turned out to be ok but the service was very slow,
just as we had feared.
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| La Brasa restaurant in Ibiza |
I would have
walked back to the hotel after dinner but that night I did not want to miss the
last episode of Master Chef. It was to
be the last one and there were just three finalists left out of the original
15. They were Fabian, Eva and Juan Manuel. Olivia who works for TVE had the heads up on
the outcome and had already told us that Juan Manuel would win and that Eva and
Fabian would come second and third. Even
so I wanted to watch it and I arrived in my room just towards the end. I was pleased for Juan Manuel who was
proclaimed Master Chef Spain 2013 by Spain’s most famous chef, Ferran
Adria. His words to Juan Manuel struck a
chord and I totally agreed when he said: “first look for happiness then look
for success as it is happiness that most often leads to success”. Juan Manuel is a 25 year old out of work
waiter from Almeria who can hardly believe his luck. He is now famous, he will
publish a book with his recipes, has won 100.000 euros and will be enrolled on
the Cordon Bleu course in Madrid to further his learning and love of cooking. I have enjoyed the programme enormously and
look forward to the next edition.
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| Juan Manuel, Spain's first Master Chef |
It was on
Tuesday too that Suzy and her friend Chati had moved into a new flat in
Whitechapel, the area they live in London.
To judge by the photo of their new room, it is bigger and slightly
better than their previous accommodation where they had bunk beds. Suzy would have joined me in Ibiza but that
day she had an interview for another job, this time as an events assistant, so
it wasn’t to be. This year would be the
first year that neither of my daughters would be with me at the Yoigo Summer
Party.
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| Suzy and Chati's new accommodation in London |
And finally on
Wednesday the Yoigo Summer Party for employees and partners began and it was to
go on until Thursday evening. They
weren’t to arrive until mid morning so I was able to watch Olivia from the
comfort of my hotel room live on TVE at around 10 in the morning. Miguel, her boyfriend from Valencia, had
joined her in Córdoba and sent me some photos of her reporting live. I am so happy he could join her as he gives
her so much stability and self confidence.
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| Olivia reporting last Wednesday on the court case in Córdoba |
The first item
on the Summer Party agenda was lunch at the Pura Vida beach club followed by
activities on the Niu Blau beach. I was
there to greet our guests and spend the day with them. For the meals I always tried to join my
colleagues, Belén, Tony, Antonio and Pedro.
I spent the afternoon on the beach with them afterwards too. I think a
great time was had by all as the food was excellent, the beach was more or less
for ourselves and you could do water activities or just relax if you chose
to. Towards the end of the day we
gathered for the great photo of us all together which illustrates this week’s
post.
The next item
on the agenda was the gala dinner at the Destino Pacha hotel where the
employees minus the management team were staying. This is a brand new luxurious
hotel which is totally awesome. The
dinner was awesome too. Afterwards the
“flower party fiesta” began. As we all
walked down to the discotheque our pictures were taken with an original photo
call. This one is of me with my team
from Ketchum, our PR agency, Carlos and Isabel.
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| With Carlos and Isabel at the Yoigo Summer Party last week |
The party
began with the showing of a video starring the employees from the Financial
Department. They had put on a pseudo
Eurovision Song Contest and they bowled us over with their talent. We then had to vote for the best song. Most of us voted for José María and his team
dressed up in flamenco gear and singing Telia Telita Telia (a play words from the
famous song Pena Penita Pena). They all had us in stitches but theirs was just
the best. The party continued but I slipped away at about 2 in the morning,
exhausted from the day’s activities and the stress of worrying about all the
little details. I heard later that some
people partied until breakfast time.
Two ex
colleagues slipped away with me too, Isidro from Nokia who now heads up Sony
Mobile Spain and Oscar from Motorola who now heads up LG Spain. Our conversation in the taxi back to the Hotel
Corso centred on life at Nokia Spain which brings back sweet but also very
bitter memories.
I woke up late
for me, at about 9.30, the next day. I
was too tired to face all our external guests at breakfast so ordered mine in
my room – something I love to do. I was
then able to catch Olivia on the television again. I think she was in Huelva,
this time reporting on the case of the missing baby.
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| Oli reporting on the missing baby case in Huelva last Thursday |
That morning I
was completely free until lunchtime, so I decided to walk to the nearby
Talamanca beach and have a bit of time on my own there. Later I checked out of the hotel and walked
into Ibiza town where I found lots of my colleagues exploring the local
shops. In the street and via my mobile
phone I watched Oli again on the TV, this time reporting on the temperature in
Córdoba – 41ºc, the highest that day in the whole of Spain. You can see it too if you go to 13.12 in this
link.
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| Oli, the weather girl, reporting on the highest temperature in Spain in Córdoba last Thursday |
Just before
lunch I went in search of a cash point. My luck was out that morning as
although the money came out, the machine swallowed my card. Luckily they opened it for me an hour later
and I was thankful to have my card back.
Meanwhile my
colleagues had started the long lunch at La Brasa in Ibiza town. I didn’t miss anything as the service was
very slow. At the end of the meal, a
video summary of this year’s Yoigo summer party was shown and which you can also
see here. We always say in our family “all
good things come to an end” and that was true of this year’s summer party once
we had finished the lunch at La Brasa.
From there we
made our way to the airport, where, as usual, I bought the local delicacy, the
typical “ensaimada” pastry which we would enjoy at breakfast the next day. I was very tired at the airport and slept
most of the way home. It was only when I
was in the taxi going to retrieve my car that I realised I had left my British
passport in the magazine compartment of my seat 7C. We immediately rang the airline, Vueling but
so far I have had no success. Vueling is famous for good customer care but I am
afraid that is not my experience. We were referred to lost property at Madrid
airport but I kept insisting that the passport would not be given in until the
magazine was changed the following month.
I got nowhere with their Twitter or Facebook pages so this morning I resorted
to ringing their press department who now seem to be dealing with the problem
properly. I do hope I get my passport
back soon.
It was lovely
to be home again but oh so warm, much more so than in Ibiza. Thankfully it was
Friday and I was able to wind down a bit. Olivia was on the TV again that
morning, this time reporting on the fate of 120 unpaid Bulgarian strawberry pickers
in Huelva which you can see here if you go to 11.30.
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| Oli reporting on the unpaid Bulgarian strawberry pickers in Huelva last Thursday |
Later she was
sent to Seville where she reported on the extreme heat in the Andalusian
capital. You can see that too here if you go
to 13.10.
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| Olivia (in the middle) reporting on the high temperature in Seville on Friday. On the right her colleague in Valencia and on the left her colleague in Orense, Galicia, where it was even hotter than Seville. |
On Friday we
took the abuela to have lunch at José Antonio and Dolores’ house in Madrid. It was the first time she had left our house,
so I think the outing did her good.
Later when she went to bed she admitted she was exhausted. I can only imagine being 92 and suffering
that heat. I would be exhausted too.
In the
afternoon I went to do the weekly food shopping with Fátima. You may remember Fátima is Oufa’s older
sister and is replacing her as our home help as Oufa is getting married in
August and will be going to live in Paris.
Fátima started last Monday with us.
Her Spanish is very limited but is improving. She is 41 I think and a lovely person but scarred
from being a battered wife. This is her
first job and to judge by this first week, we couldn’t have anyone better. But I know that she needs help in many ways –
to improve her self esteem and to begin to enjoy life. Just being with her makes me realize once
again just how fortunate I am for having been born in the west into a middle class
family. Fátima is one of 10 brothers and
sisters and she now has to bring up her two small children alone, although she
has the help of her sister Ashouak here in Madrid. As we enjoyed an ice cream together during
our shopping outing, she told me about her terrible marriage and I tried to
help her look on the bright side and to forget the past and enjoy the
present. I think she is learning a bit
from me. I asked her whether she wanted
to use our swimming pool and she admitted she had never been in one before. So I promised she would try ours out as soon
as there were no men on the horizon.
That was yesterday. I gave her a
bathing costume and entered the pool with her whilst she trembled, half from
fear and half from pleasure. This
morning she left for her two days off and she was wearing a red top inherited
from me. On her head though she was
wearing a black scarf so I offered her a red one instead, to match the top. She
willingly accepted and asked me to take a picture of her. And here she is laughing and smiling. It is my intention that she laughs and smiles
more as I help her to enjoy life and at the same time modernize this darling
woman who needs love and attention to blossom and enjoy life once again.
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| Fátima, our home help, looking much happier after a week with us |
But back to
Friday. That evening Eladio and I went
out to dinner true to tradition. This
time we went to Sibara where I always order the gazpacho and their style fish
and chips. As it was summer, the tables
were laid in the garden and the place was full.
We enjoyed our time together that evening as we always do on our Friday
night dinners out together.
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| The Sibara restaurant where we had dinner last Friday night |
Saturday was
another hot day. As usual my Father,
Eladio and the abuela had their breakfast outside and read the papers. I took a photo of them for the records. It’s nice isn’t it?
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| Eladio with his Mother and my Father after breakfast on Saturday morning |
We spent most
of the day by the pool. That evening our
friends Mari Carmen and Roberto who are now divorced but still on good terms,
came to dinner. The meal just had to be
a cold one so I made vichysoisse followed by salmon and lobster salad. I’m afraid we spent the whole time chatting
that I completely forgot to take a photograph.
Sunday was the
highlight of the week. In fact I started
writing this post yesterday but had to put off finishing it if I was to spend
any time with Olivia who was returning at 11.30 and later with José Antonio and
Dolores who came for lunch and to spend the afternoon and evening with us. It turned out to be a very lazy family day;
something I was much in need of if I was to recover quickly from last week’s
exertions.
Lunch was a
Moroccan dish prepared by Fátima who by the way is a very good cook. Here is a photo of us sweltering around the
table outside the kitchen.
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| The family lunch on Sunday |
In the
afternoon, whilst Oli was getting a quick rest and packing her case before
leaving for Córdoba again, the men slept a siesta and Dolores and I read our
books, surrounded by our three dogs. I
particularly like this photo of José Antonio asleep with Nuba his delightful
mongrel lying with him on the sun bed.
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| José Antonio and Nuba having a siesta in the shade yesterday |
Earlier that
morning Miguel, Oli’s boyfriend, was taking part in a swimming race from Santa
Pola to the island of Tabarca – some 6km I think. They had stayed in Santa Pola at our flat
that weekend because he was taking part in the swim. Oli very proudly told me he came 15th
out of over a 1000 participants. I asked
him for a photo and this is what I got. He is on the right and certainly the
best looking guy in the photo.
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| Miguel (on the right), Olivia's boyfriend and his companions who raced in the swimming competition from Santa Pola to Tabarca yesterday |
Whilst we were
resting in the garden by the pool on Sunday afternoon, Andrew Murray from
Scotland was playing in the final at Wimbledon against the number one player,
Novak Djokovic. He was fighting to
become the first British player to win Wimbledon in 77 years since Fred
Perry. I was certain he would not win as
were most people. I kept checking my
phone and was happy to see him win the first set. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw
that he had also won the second set.
Then I and all the British fans could begin to believe in fairy
tales. He went on to beat Djokovic in
three straight sets and make British tennis history in doing so. The crowd was ecstatic as were British tennis
fans everywhere in the world, including myself.
There are no words to describe what it means for a British player to win
Wimbledon, England’s prime sporting event and the biggest feat for any tennis
player. So, well done Andy, well done
British tennis. You made us all happy now and even if no British player wins
Wimbledon again for another 77 years we will still remember your victory.
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| Andy Murray who made British tennis history yesterday when he won Wimbledon |
Later we went
for our walk as usual which the dogs enjoyed immensely. I took this photo of my
walking companions to record in this post.
We love José Antonio and Dolores spending their weekends with us and I
look forward to many more.
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| Dolores, José Antonio and Eladio on our walk yesterday evening |
When we came
back Eladio had a swim in the pool as I was preparing our dinner. Meanwhile Olivia
had arrived in Córdoba from where she will be reporting on the outcome of the
José Bretón murder case. It was even
warmer there so she also went for a swim on the rooftop pool of her hotel. This
is the photo she sent me. It was taken
by her producer friend and colleague Bea, who certainly knows how to take good
pictures.
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| Oli diving into her hotel swimming pool last night when she arrived in Córdoba |
And that was
the last story of my very long and activity packed week. A nice one to round off this post I think.
I wish you all
a good week ahead. That’s it for now
folks
Masha
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