Dinner at Bice

Hiya again

Last night we went out for a family dinner to Bice in Madrid (as commented in my post about the snow). Lovely dinner and nice to do something different on a Sunday. The building is beautiful and the restaurant surrounds a lovely old fashioned Spanish patio. Funniest part of the night was finding the right entrance to the car park after dinner. It was 0ºC, but thanks to the lovely Rueda white wine we hardly felt the cold. When we finally found the car park it took some time to find the car and the girls and I practiced our silly walks, including the Basil walk from Fawlty Towers and our laughs were echoed all around the car park. All in all a fun evening.

Above are some pics of the night for the record.

Cheers/Masha

http://www.elmundo.es/metropoli/restaurantes/fichas/bd/1469_ficha.html
www.clubvips.com
Calle Génova, 19. Madrid.
Teléfono 91 319 40 29/ 10 78

Snow on a Sunday in Madrid

Hello again

There has been snow all over Spain, quite bad weather and many new warnings of snow, even here in Madrid. However, snow is so unusual here and it hardly every settles, that I didn't take much notice of the weather forecasts. Eladio with his sixth sense for weather in general (he comes from a northern mountainous region in Spain) said last night, just as we were getting into bed: "there's going to be a heavy snowfall tonight".

And, lo and behold, this morning at about 5 a.m, when we were worrying that Susana still wasn't home, he looked outside and announced to me that there was a heavy snowfall. Poor Susi finally arrived home a bit later. She had no chains in the car and had driven home in 2nd gear.

When we finally got up this morning, the snow was still there, so Eladio went outside with his boots and took these photos.

Luckily today is Sunday so there will be no chaos on the road for people going to work or school.

I must admit it looks beautiful, specially with the contrast of the sun. It will melt pretty soon though, but while it lasts it's lovely and reminds us all of our childhoods. In this house, however, only the cat Henry has been out playing in the snow and that's a sight in itself to see.

Today will be a nice quiet day at home with the newspapers and my wonderful book Memoirs of a Geisha. The day however, beholds something nice to look forward to. We are all going out to dinner tonight, yes the 5 of us. The reason? Nothing special, just to enjoy life and do things together. My father is tickled pink about it, so good for him. We are going to Bice a lovely Italian joint operated under the Vips Group. The trick? I have an invitation because I am a platinum member which is a perk from my PR profession.

Cheers/Masha

What's up this week?

After my birthday celebrations and St. Valentine's day, life has been quite quiet. My 3 projects are ticking along but not one is yet completely fulfilled; so, they keep me occupied.

Went to the cinema on Saturday with Eladio and Oli to see Memoirs of a Geisha which I absolutely adored and would thoroughly recommend. Eladio hated it but then I think it's more a woman's film. I want to buy the book now.

This week will be quiet. Wednesday I have an interview (first round), Thursday I will be seeing Mamen and Friday I will be going to the doctors (just routine ladies' stuff). In between time I will be cooking, washing, ironing, reading the newspapers with the men in my house and going for our brisk walk every afternoon.

Hope yours is more fun.

Cheers/Masha

St. Valentines day is on the 14th Feb isn't it?

Valentines day was different this year. Truth to tell, neither Eladio nor I have ever paid much attention to it but now that the girls are old enough and seem to celebrate it quite a lot I gave it a bit more thought this year. We only ever been out to dinner once and we have never exchanged cards. But this year, what with having more time on my hands, I thought I'd change that.

In order for Eladio to be on the same wave length I told Susana to discreetly let him know that I was preparing somthing big. Apparently that got him worried. My "something big" was just going to be reserving a table somewhere as a surprise, not much more.

Time went by and then on Saturday morning (11th Feb!!!) I went up to our room after breakfast and found an envelope on my pillow. I sort of hoped it would be tickets to some exotic location but no, it was the first St. Valentine's card EVER from Eladio and it was dated 11th Feb. The word to describe my reaction was "flabbergasted". I couldn't quite understand. I didn't know whether to be touched or cross so I ended up laughing. Eladio felt humiliated and asked me not to tell too many people!! So what am I doing? Telling you all of course. It's far too funny to keep to myself. When I told my friend Anne-Marjut, she said "but Masha, everyone knows St.Valentine's is on the 14th February". Well, apparently that is not true.

So the night before came and I realised I hadn't got him a card. What was I to do? So I started being creative and getting out old birthday cards to me from my Father and covering the writing with a picture of me. Olivia told me my efforts were pathetic and very opportunely came out with a lovely flowery every occasion type card she had stored in one of her drawers.

Then the big day came and when I told Eladio I was taking him somewhere as a surprise he either didn't listen or didn't hear me. So it was a real surprise when I told him to start getting dressed to go out at 8.30. But he took it very well. The annoying thing was that he wasn't one bit interested where I was taking him. It's quite pointless being creative or trying to surprise him; you get little reaction. However we really enjoyed the dinner, as you can see from the pictures. Where did we go? To a lovely rice joint called La Albufera and we had something we adore called "arroz abanda" (actually brought more than half of it home in a doggy bag!!).

Susi was the lucky lady in our house last night. Her boyfriend arrived with a huge bunch of red roses. He had also rung me to ask me to prepare here a small overnight bag. So, he had arranged to take her to a plush hotel (which inclued champagne upon arrival) Would you believe it?

Oli was the less lucky one: no card, no flowers, no reserved table. However her boyfriend did send a text message to say he loved her everyday and not just on St. Valentines. They headed out to a favourite restaurant nearby only to find it was full, so they had to find somewhere else which turned out not to be that good. She was the first one home.

I have told Eladio to take note of Susi's boyfriend, Gaby and that I WANT FLOWERS NEXT YEAR!!!.

Hope you all had a good one my dear girlfriends.

Cheers/Masha