Monday 31st March 2014
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| Eladio and I with the Tambarón mountain peak behind us on our walk up into the mountains near Montrondo on Sunday morning. |
Hello again my friends
I am writing
from Montrondo just before we leave, as Eladio is sleeping a siesta and José
Antonio and Dolores are tidying up the house.
But I will get to our stay in Montrondo later.
At about this
time last week, Eladio and I were watching the news after lunch which was
interrupted when the whole of Spain heard that at 15.03 on Sunday 23rd
March 2014 Adolfo Suárez, Spain’s first democratic Prime Minister after Franco,
had just died. His figure in Spain has
grown enormously since his illness and death and he is in a way, Spain’s John
Fitzgerald Kennedy, someone charismatic in a similar way and who will go down
in history as one of Spain’s best Prime Minister’s ever.
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| Adolfo Suárez |
You will
remember when I wrote last week that Spain’s “Father of Democracy” was at
death’s door due to respiratory complications from the Alzheimer he had been
suffering from for some 10 years. He died far too early, aged 81, and didn’t
even remember his political feat of taking Spain from a dictatorship to a
democracy with no blood shed nor that he had ever been Spain’s premiere. He united the so-called two Spains in eternal
conflict, from the Spanish Civil War and still today to some extent. If you follow Spanish politics you will know
that whilst trying to bring democracy to the country in the period in history
called “the transition” he faced much opposition and in fighting from his own
political party, UCD, fierce criticism from the Socialists and terrorist
problems on all fronts. He had to resign
and his popularity decreased. Only as
the years have gone by has he been revered and after his death, he once again
united the two Spains (left and right wing) with leaders from his times who
once made his life impossible coming forward ironically to praise him after his
death. He probably turned in his grave
to see his arch enemies all competing in their efforts to say what a wonderful
prime minister and politician he had been.
However the population at large came out in their thousands and up to
30.000 queued up to pay their respects in Parliament where he his coffin was
laid before being taken to the Cathedral in Avila to be buried alongside his
lifetime partner and love of his life, Amparo Iliana.
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| Adolfo Suárez and Amparo Illana's joint grave in the Cathedral of Avila. |
I always
admired this charismatic, cinema star looking politician and remember his rise
and fall to power as it coincided with when I first came to live in Spain. He had it all and lost it all on both the
political front and within his loving family.
He was appointed Prime Minister by the young King Juan Carlos who became
thick friends. However upon Adolfo
Suárez’ political decline, he no longer had the support of the King, something
which was very much hush hush this week as the Monarch dried his tears at the
foot of his coffin. For me they were “crocodile tears”.
The story of
his family is tragic. A wonderful
example of the closest type of exemplary family, they were struck with cancer.
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| Adolfo Suárez with his wife and family when he was Prime Minister of Spain |
He had five
children, Marian, Sonsoles, Laura, Adolfo (the family spokesperson) and Javier.
First his oldest daughter Marian got breast cancer, then his wife. When he left politics it was to dedicate all
of his time to them. His beloved wife
Ampara Illana died in 2001 and he was devastated. His other daughters also got cancer but
survived, however Marian did not and died in 2004. By then Adolfo Suárez had Alzheimer and was
not aware of her death. Tragic story
isn’t it?
Three days of
national mourning were declared and Adolfo Suárez finally got recognition for
his heroic efforts and was given probably the biggest state funeral in modern
times. In those three days the Father of Democracy, united the country once
again. There will never be a Prime
Minister like him again. I voted for him
and gave him all my support. All I can say now is RIP and now finally you have
the recognition you always deserved. How
ironic!
On Monday as
always I fasted. Monday was the day the
Prime Minister of Malaysia announced that the missing plane, the now famous
flight MH370, had crashed into the Indian Ocean and that there had been no
survivors. However, there is still no
evidence that the debris sighted comes from the plane, so for the moment there
can be no closure for the families.
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| Where flight MH370 probably crashed |
On Tuesday, on
the first walk of the day, we were amazed to see a whole flock of sheep on our
walk. Remember last week we had seen the
“lost sheep”. Of course the flock was
its brethren. I hope it was united with
the flock. We had to keep Elsa and Norah
on their leads as they got very excited at the event.
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| Elado and our dogs and the flock of sheep we encountered on our walk last week. |
It was on
Tuesday that the bad weather started in the north of Spain this week. Snow and gale winds were forecast just after
spring had started officially. Olivia
was to be her programme’s “weather girl” that week and would be sent off to
cover the extreme conditions for TVE.
León, the province in north-west Spain where Eladio hails from and where
most of his family lives, was to be the hardest hit. Thus Olivia was sent to the capital of the
province. Of course she chose to stay
with them instead of at a hotel. A
chauffer driven car came to pick her up in the afternoon and take her to León to
stay at Pili’s house. Pili is Eladio’s
youngest sister and she and her husband Andrés were delighted to host our
daughter.
She met up
with various members of the family. The
“abuela” (grandmother), my mother-in-law, Ernestina, was especially pleased to
see her. I asked Pili to send me photos
and she sent me plenty. Here is a lovely
one of Olivia with Pili, her sister Adela and the “abuela”.
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| Oli in León last Tuesday with Pili (left), the "abuela" (middle) and Adela (right) |
It snowed that
night and Olivia had plenty of places to choose from to do her broadcasting on
Wednesday morning. She was on TV four
times that morning, twice from a village called Villamanín and twice from a
village called Rodiezmo. You can see her
on this link if you fast forward to 10.20 and on this link if you go to 11.29,
12.27 and 13.15.
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| Oli reporting on the snow in Leon from Villamanín on Wednesday |
I had to watch
her later on internet via video streaming as I was busy at the office that
morning. I had a meeting with my PR
agency and members of the customer care and product management
departments. It was a great meeting as
my colleagues from these departments are a delight to work with. We were meeting about dealing with customer
problems and product information on the Yoigo social media sites. I commented afterwards to Isabel and Carlos
from my PR agency, what a pleasure it is to work with these colleagues. It was very productive and now we have set up
monthly editorial meetings to agree on content to post month by month. The first one will be next week. I came home
feeling very motivated. Thanks Juan, Jesús, Tony, Miguel Angel, Pepe and Pedro.
Olivia was to
stay another night in León at Pili and Andrés house. I would have loved to be with them that
afternoon when Pili and Olivia went clothes shopping but I had to content
myself with news from them on whatsapp.
I had seen that morning thanks to a photo posted by Manolita in
Montrondo that it had also snowed heavily in “our village”. So I suggested to Olivia that on Thursday
morning she should go with the TV crew to to report on the snow there. She thought it was a great idea and got the
thumbs up from her programme. We all got
very excited that Montrondo would be on TV and Olivia reporting there but were
worried the snow might have gone by the morning because of the rain. But the snow was still there. Primo, Adela’s husband, who knows more about
the village than anyone would be going to as would Pili, who took a day off
work specially, and Andrés. But disaster struck and we heard from Eladio who
was in contact with Olivia that when she arrived in Montrondo early in the
morning there was no coverage to transmit the news, possibly because of the
snow. So she had to rush off to another
village, nearby Cabrillanes. We were all
very upset that Montrondo was not to be on TV. Of course because of the delay
she missed the first connections and was not able to report live until
13.20. You can see that clip here.
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| Olivia reporting on the snow from Cabrillanes on Thursday when it could have been Montrondo |
Later that day
Olivia was sent from León to Gijón (beautiful coastal town in Asturias near
Oviedo). I was not to see her again until Sunday.
On Friday
morning we left with José Antonio and Dolores and their mongrel Nuba to spend
the weekend in Montrondo. I, especially,
was looking forward to the snow there as I haven’t seen heavy snow in our
village since the girls were small. On
route, as always, we stopped at the famous white wine village, Rueda, for a
little something. A little something
there is always a plate of ham and a glass of delicious wine. Here is a photo of the four of us at that
very moment.
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| In Rueda on Friday on our way to Montrondo |
At about 2 we
arrived in Senra, a village some 4km from Montrondo which has the only bar and
restaurant in the area which offers food: Cumbres de Omaña and where we had
lunch that day.
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| Me happy to see snow when we arrived in Senra (4km from Montrondo) |
That was when
I realized there was no mobile coverage, just as Olivia had experienced. We were to be bereft of mobile coverage all
weekend which for me, at least was a challenge.
I needed internet though to work as I had to send an email to all the
staff and do other important stuff.
Luckily I was able to poach a neigbour’s wifi connection and thankfully
didn’t have to go further afield to do my work.
Montrondo with
the snow was like a picture postcard as you can see here.
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| Snow in Montrondo - a photo I took when we arrived on Friday. |
As soon as we
had settled in and the central heating was working, I went off to take pictures
of the snow in the village, accompanied by Nuba. It was so beautiful. I had come prepared with all my snow outfits
but in actual fact it wasn’t so cold. I
wore my pre ski boots I had bought at Navacerrada with Phil and Kathy and they
stood me in good stead throughout the weekend.
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| The path to the church with Nuba on Friday afternoon |
Whilst the men
preferred to stay at home, Dolores, Nuba and I set off for the first walk of
the weekend. We went on the road to
Murias and back (3.2km approx.).
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| Dolores my sister-in-law on the walk to Murias on Friday afternoon |
I made a
delicious chicken waldorf salad for dinner on Friday night and Dolores made a
cream of vegetable soup.
As the house
was still very cold we all took hot water bottles to bed. One of José Antonio and Dolores’ bottles
burst and you just imagine the consequences and of course they had to change
beds and slept in their daughter Sara's room.
We were up
early the next morning and to my delight it was snowing. It would snow all morning after which the
rain set in. So I persuaded Eladio to
join me on an ambitious walk through the snow via the “Bao” path to Murias and
then on the road to Senra and back – some 8km.
It turned out to be our walk of the year. Trudging through virgin snow through the
fields was pure joy for someone like me who loves snow and doesn’t often see
it. This weekend I certainly got my
fill.
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| Eladio on "our walk of the year" on Saturday morning on the "Bao" |
In Senra we
tied Nuba to a chair with Eladio’s belt and went inside Cumbres de Omaña where
we would later have lunch with all the family, to have a coffee and warm up by
the lovely open fire.
On the walk
back I did what is called “el santo” (the saint) in Montrondo. I let myself fall on my back into the soft
snow so as to get up again and see the imprint I had made. However Nuba destroyed the imprint
hahaha. I tried to get Eladio to do the
saint too as he must have done a thousand times as a child, but he refused.
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| Me clownng in the snow on our walk on Saturday morning |
When we got
back all of Eladio’s brothers, sisters and spouses and his Mother had
arrived. We all gathered in the kitchen
by the warmth of the open range until it was time to return to Senra (by car
this time) for lunch.
We were 13
around the table in the pleasant dining room.
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| Lunch in Senra with the family on Saturday |
Lunch was
delicious. There was lots to choose from
and the establishment brings you whole plates and pots of food to serve
yourselves. Most of us chose the oxtail
stew for our second course served with crisp chips made from local
potatoes.
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| Oxtail stew, chips and meat balls at Senra - delicious |
The afternoon
was spoiled a bit by the rain and we were a bit cooped up. The highlights of the afternoon together were
visiting Adela’s new house which is practically finished and visiting Pili and
Andrés’ which is about half way done.
Pili’s house is right next to ours which we will soon be starting
on. As you can imagine talk most of the
weekend was about building our houses; so exciting. We hope to start sometime in the spring but
who knows when it will be finished.
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| Pili's house being built (left) and ours to be reformed on the right |
All of the
family left late in the afternoon except for Pili and Andrés who stayed for
dinner. Meanwhile Dolores and I (and
Nuba of course) went on another walk to Murias and back. Without that second walk I don’t think I
could have faced dinner. I was very
pleased with myself that day as I saw my fitbit recorded I had walked (it
counts all the steps I do all day long) over 16km. Translated into calories it meant I had burnt
2.473, my record I think. Thus I didn’t
feel guilty as I ate some chocolate after dinner hahaha.
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| My fitbit record statistics on Saturday |
When we woke
up on Sunday morning we had forgotten the clocks had changed. At breakfast we thought they had gone back an
hour so we changed our watches, etc only to realize a few minutes later that
the clocks had actually gone forward an hour.
Thus in a very short space of time we lost 2 hours! That of course was because when you are in
Montrondo you have little notion of the time.
The sun was
shining so we decided on a walk up into the mountains to enjoy even more
snow. Before leaving I made our lunch
(chicken Korma) as I knew I would be too tired to make it upon our return.
This is what
Eladio, José Antonio and Dolores looked like just as we set off – in El Campo (the
village green).
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| José Antonio, Dolores and Eladio in "el campo" before we set off up the mountains on Sunday morning |
We wanted to
walk up quite far but the trek up in thick virgin snow was not easy at
all. We got as far as El Abedular and
stopped to take some gorgeous photos by the highest peak in the area; El
Tambarón (2.102m). Montrondo itself is already over 1000 m high. The photo illustrating this week’s blog is of
Eladio and I at that point in our walk. It was to be another wonderful walk but
very tiring because it is nearly all uphill and we had to make the path in the
snow as we walked.
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| A lovely sunny walk in the mountains on Sunday |
When we got to
El Zaramal it was impossible to continue as the snow was too thick so we turned
back and walked down to the village again, all in all about 2 hours in the snow
and sun with the most beautiful views possible.
Of course we
devoured the curry when we got home. Dessert was a great chocolate cake I had
bought at Aldi!
Soon it was
time to go home so after a short siesta (Eladio and Toño) and lots of tidying
up, we packed and got into the car at about 17h, happy and satisfied with a
great weekend in snowy Montrondo.
Mobile
coverage returned slowly as we drove towards León and it was then I found out
what was for me the main news we had missed that weekend. The journalist and photographer from El
Mundo, Javier Espinosa (left) and Ricardo García Vilanova (right) who had been
kidnapped in Syria six months ago had been released by the radical Islamic
rebels who had captured them.
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| The journalist Javier Espinosa and photographer Ricardo García Vilanova from El Mundo were released from kidnap this weekend. |
I especially
love this photo of Javier Espinosa coming down the steps of the airplane in Madrid
to be greeted by his small son.
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| Father and son reunited (Javier Espinosa) after 6 months in captivity |
In the car
driving home (Eladio was driving) I was able to catch up with the girls’ news
too. Olivia had had a quiet weekend with
her friends after coming back from Gijón on Friday evening. I love this photo of her she posted on
Facebook after the girls’ great friend Copi had plaited her hair and done her
make up. Wow she looks like a model. Don’t
you agree?
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| Olivia after Copi's make over this weekend. She looks stunning. |
Suzy meanwhile
was hosting a barbecue in the garden of her new house for her flat mates from
Whitechapel. It seems there is good
weather in London. In fact I read on The
Telegraph yesterday that this week would be warmer than Spain.
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| Suzy in red hosting a bbq for her flat mates from Whitechapel at her new house |
Yesterday,
Sunday, was Mothering Sunday in England, something I never celebrate. But I was very touched to receive a very
emotional audio message from Susana to tell me how much she loves me. Thank you darling.
We were home
at around 8.30 pm and of course it was lighter than usual thanks to the clocks
having gone forward. It was great to see
my Father and the dogs and Fátima too.
We had left them in her good hands. Today is her last day at home before
she takes a well-deserved two week holiday from tomorrow. She has been working here non-stop since last
July and looks to me extremely tired.
Well that is probably also caused by her anemia. Meanwhile our external cleaner Zena who is
from the Ukraine will be coming to clean our house in her absence. That makes me very happy as there is no one I
have ever known who cleans as well as dear Zena.
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| Fátima, our home help with the dogs in the kitchen |
And today is
Monday (I wrote a lot of this yesterday in Montrondo before leaving). It was great to have breakfast with Olivia
this morning but it will be the only day this week. Tomorrow I will be leaving the house at about
7 am to be in the office for an important visitor and on Wednesday I will be
leaving for Stockholm and won’t be back until Friday. Yes, this week will be
busy but that’s how I like it.
So I will
leave you here to get on with Monday and you will hear all about my trip to
Stockholm next Sunday.
Cheers till
then
Masha
PS You can see the full set of photos of our weekend in Montrondo here.
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