Sunday 13th March 2016
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| 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.
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| 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 94th 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.
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| 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 19th 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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 21st 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.
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| 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 11th 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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