Welcome Lidia, back to Dukan, Phoebe returns to our lives, Lance Armstrong confesses, trouble in Mali and Algeria, my readers on the world map, the perfect storm and other things.

 Sunday 20th January 2013

Roberto, our nephew with Lidia just a few moments after she was born

Hi everyone,

The week has been packed with news both on the home front and around me.  So, yes my readers, there is much more to tell you than last week.  

On Monday I had lunch with my colleague Juan and we enjoyed what later turned out to be my last “normal” meal for a while. We chose Illunbe, just a stroll from Yoigo and spent our time catching up and exchanging stories of how we had spent Christmas.  Lucky Juan went to London.  Of course we talked shop too but as we both remarked things are very quiet at the moment.  Yeah Monday was quiet, but Tuesday turned out to be a remarkable day.

It was remarkable for many things.  There was a very unusual story from Sweden of all countries.  A cleaning lady for the national train company, in her early 20s, took the keys and actually drove a train from the dock outside Stockholm.  I don’t know how she managed to do either or why apart from the lark of it.  What wasn’t funny is that she drove it into a block of housing, causing lots of damage but luckily no one was hurt.  I later read that actually it’s not that difficult to drive a train without any training, but I would certainly not like to try.

Extraordinary news from Sweden about a train escapade

Tuesday was remarkable too because we learned that Lance Armstrong was to confess to doping in a taped interview with the most famous interviewer in the world, Oprah Winfrey.  However we weren’t to learn the full extent until the two part interview was to be broadcast later in the week on Thursday and Friday.  But just this news caused an avalanche of speculation of what he might or might not say.  I was happy to think that he would be remorseful but, knowing him, had my doubts.

Lance Armstrong's interview with Oprah Winfrey was huge news this week

Unaware of any of this, at 13.40 on Tuesday Lidia chose to be born.  Lidia is the second daughter of Ana and Roberto; the latter being our oldest nephew and son to Adela, Eladio’s sister.  This was a big event, a new member of the family and Freijo clan.  Thanks to Marta, Roberto’s sister, I had minute by minute live news and the first photos came just a few minutes after Lidia arrived in this world.  As I write I can feel the emotion.  A beautiful baby was born, a baby that will be loved and cherished and will grow happily into our family.  Welcome Lidia and congratulations Ana and Roberto.

Marta’s real time and minute by minute information told me that the birth had been easy with hardly any pain.  But unfortunately, strong and resolute Ana had problems with the afterbirth and had to be operated on, which slightly tinged the good news.  However everything went ok and Ana is now recovering and Mother and baby are now doing well.  They are now one happy family of four with two daughters like us.

The happy family, now a unit of four after Lidia's birth on tuesday

This photo of the four of them reminded me of the day Olivia was born on 22^nd May 1985 in the San Francisco Clinic in Madrid, so I looked for the photo I knew there was of the four of us on that day in our old albums and here it is.  That was one happy moment I shall cherish forever as I imagine Roberto and Ana will cherish theirs.  I wish them at least as much happiness as we have had.

Their family photo reminded me of ours when Olivia was born on 22nd May 1985

And it was on Tuesday that I took an important decision and it was thanks to my daughter Olivia. She remarked to me that she thought I had put on weight, something I had suspected but didn’t want to hear, something I had been thinking about all Christmas.  I hadn’t weighed myself since September and had eaten far more than I should.  The only Dukan rules I stuck to were having oat bran for breakfast, doing the PP (pure protein) diet on Thursdays and going on our daily walk.  I only wore loose woolen dresses, worried I might not get into my trousers.  However I didn’t think I looked fat so carried on eating normally or rather more than I should.  For the records I did the diet over two years ago and was very successful.  I was also the VID (very important Dukan) of the week and you can read about it here. 

My before and after Dukan photo of 2 years ago.  2 years later I am still slim and intend to stay so

Amazingly two years later I am still going strong, apart from this latest lapsus.  So on Tuesday, spurred on by Olivia, I decided to do two days of attack (PP) and then go on to “cruise” (alternating Pure Protein with Protein and Vegetables (PV).  Being afraid of the scales, I decided to weigh myself after the two days rather than before.  So wow was I pleased to see that in fact I was only 1.6k above my supposedly perfect weight (64.2).  Then after two days after “cruising” I am now only 0.7kg away from my target.  I shall continue and actually hope to reach a kilo or so below so as to have some margin.  For any doubters out there, Dukan works and is not dangerous if you do it properly.  For me now it is a way of life and I am not going back to the fat Masha.  Thanks Oli for spurring me on.

On Wednesday, feeling already lighter and happy, I treated myself to a new red coat (size 42, yes that’s my size) which I bought at a little boutique near one of our super markets. 

It was over a coffee after buying the coat that I read about the helicopter crash in the centre of London, due to fog apparently.  It had crashed into a crane on top of London’s tallest building at about 08h that morning,  The Tower on One St. George’s Warf, and fallen into Wandsworth Road in South Lambert.  The pilot died as did a passerby from Reading.  The chaos that ensued was big, with 80 firefighters tackling the blaze, people being hit by the debris.  The photos conjure up a very Dantesque scene which miraculously didn’t cause more damage as it happened when people were going to work.

The helicopter crash that caused havoc in London this week

On Wednesday morning too I read an interview with Spain’s premiere, Mariano Rajoy in the Financial Times. Used to reading about Spain’s woes magnified in the international press, this was actually quite balanced and even positive and I think it reflects what we are all seeing now, that Spain is on the road to recovery, albeit at the beginning of the road.

Mariano Rajoy was interviewed by The Financial Times this week

 I’m not sure many people were very interested in the interview; the big news coming out of Spain that day being about football, something the world is much more passionate about.  I mean Mariano Rajoy is a pretty grey prime minister and not well known outside Spain, but the person who is object of the football news, who is also Spanish, is famous in all the corners of the world.  I am talking about Pep Guardiola (see, you know who he is right?),  apparently the most coveted coach in the world.  The ex Barça player and coach who is on sabbatical, learning English in New York is now learning German and if you have read the news you will know why. He shunned Chelsea and Manchester United and has signed with Bayern Munich and will be their coach.  The next piece of news is that Raúl (does the ex Real Madrid striker need any introductions?) currently playing for Schalke, will be his second in command.  They both played together in the Spanish national team and will no doubt make a formidable team and the Bundesliga is delighted.  Meanwhile, the world’s second most coveted coach, Real Madrid’s José Mourinho, is in trouble because the team is so far behind Barcelona in the Liga and seems to be on bad terms with many members of the team.  The latest news tells of a nearly hands on fight with Cristiano Ronaldo in the dressing room last week.  I am a fan of Mourinho for many of his facets but think he lacks the ingredient that sets Pep Guardiola above them all: emotional intelligence. 

Nice to know that it is a Spaniard, Pep Guardiola, who is the most coveted football coach in the world

Tennis fans on Wednesday will have been pleased to hear the other big sports news that day: Rafa Nadal is to return to tennis, clear of the injury which has grounded him since the summer.  I love tennis and follow it quite a lot, but when my Father asked how the Australian Open was going, I didn’t know.  That, is because Nadal isn’t playing.  Hopefully he will soon be on form and when my Father asks me for news of the US or French Open I can answer that Nadal is winning.  Yes, I am a Nadal fan, another sportsman with emotional intelligence.

I worked quite a lot this week, going into the office on Monday and Tuesday and this week finally finished my PR plan for 2013, something that I had hanging over me all Christmas.  Actually when I got down to it, it only took a couple of hours. I can be such a procrastinator, a trait I hate in myself. I think I sent it off on Thursday, a day that felt so good, the day I got on the scales and which had me so relieved.  It was on Thursday too that Eladio decided to try out the Sony wireless speaker system I got for Christmas from Sony Mobile Spain as did all the other employees at Yoigo (thanks Dani).  I had hardly looked at it but when Eladio had it up and working – via Bluetooth, I suddenly took interest and connected this SRS-BTM8 model both to my iPhone and to my PC.  I then turned on Spotify and carried on working with my classical collection in the background.  Oh it was such bliss and the sound is heavenly.  How I love technology like this. No doubt we shall be using it too when we have guests for dinner as it is a neat little device you can carry around and connect to nearly anything that has Bluetooth.

Bliss and heaven come out of this neat little device, a Sony wireless speaker system

 Whilst we were working and enjoying the music in the background, our female cat, Phoebe, was sleeping on the best sofa upstairs.  Phoebe and Joe have been somewhat ousted from our lives due to the presence of the dogs, but Phoebe in this last week has returned to our lives.  She comes in with Eladio when he goes to get the papers from the post box and whilst the dogs are safely out of the way in the kitchen.  She then spends her day in between eating from her bowl in the TV room and sleeping on the best sofa in the lounge. She even lets us cuddle her which is rare as she is a very shy animal.  I caught her on camera and edited the picture below where her colours match the beautiful pink and beige mohair blanket we bought in Ezcaray.  I love it so much it is now my screen saver.

Phoebe our cat who has returned to stay blending in with the mohair blanket on the best sofa

That evening and it being my first PV day, I made a delicious Dukan approved salad which I posted on the Facebook Dukan pages and on Instagram and got some flattering comments.  Nice eh?

A nicely edited photo of the 100% Dukan salad I made for one of my "PV" days this week

That night I would have wanted to watch the first part of the Lance Armstrong interview but it would have been at 3 in the morning, so I skipped on that and instead read the transcript of the interview on the BBC website the next day.  And boy did he confess, he admitted in yes / no answers to having doped through all the Tours of France he won.  If you didn’t see the interview, you can read the transcription here.  He also admitted to being a bully, something I already knew, and thankfully he admitted to bullying his soigneur Emma O’Reilly.  I had hoped for more names to come out of people involved in his doping but that is something he avoided.  I was disappointed too that he did not admit that Frankie Andreu’s wife, Betsy’s story was true of how he told doctors when he was hospitalized for cancer, all the forbidden drugs he had taken.  I had to wait until yesterday morning, Saturday, to get the transcript of the second part of the interview which was aired again at 3am our time.  You can read that here too.  Was he remorseful?  Well, for Lance I think he was.  He nearly cried whilst talking about his son Lucas who tried to defend his Father by telling his fellow pupils that he was innocent.  That, apparently, was when Lance decided to stop living the lie and told his son the truth and then the world.  I think he can only feel better now that he is no longer living a lie.

Lance getting emotional in the second part of the interview with Oprah Winfrey

Lance was the big news of the week, but really more important is and was what has been happening in Mali and Algeria; both ex French colonies.  The Al Qaeda terrorist group is causing trouble again and threatening interests in Europe.  On Friday 11^th January militant Islamists invaded the north of Mali.  French troops have gone into fight them, together with troops from other African nations to prevent the country from becoming a terrorist state.  And this week, the same terrorist group, in reaction to the French intervention, stormed a gas plant in Algeria and kidnapped tens of hostages working there who were from many different countries.  Nearly 40 have been killed, first by the terrorists during the siege and then in the ensuing storming by Algerian troops.  At least the European Union is totally united in this crisis which I hope ends soon.

This brings me onto the next topic in this week’s blog.  It always amazes me to see, not only how many readers I have, but all the different places they come from.  You are probably wondering how I know.  It’s thanks to Cluster Maps which monitors the countries you all come from.  Of course the map doesn’t tell me who you are but it does tell me where you are from. The map looked like this last week.

It always amazes me to see how many countries in the world the readers of this blog are from

The top ten countries in descending order are: US, Spain, UK, India, Belgium, Germany, Canada, France, Netherlands and Italy.  The list goes on and includes all sorts of remote countries but I just took a look and there are no readers from Mali or Algeria.  It’s also interesting to see which are the most read posts and very recently one I wrote in October, entitled “My novel of the week, Jimmy the creep, a courageous girl, Oli reporting on the Red Cross day, a Chinese writer, the truth about Lance Armstrong, a funny peace prize, a national holiday and family lunches and the film about the Spanish family that survived the Tsunami.” is now the fifth most read entry and I seriously wonder why. But only you can tell me.

And this week I learned a new meteorological term in Spanish and it was: “ciclogénesis explosiva”.  There was a lot on the news about the weather, snow and wind and flooding, especially in Galicia in the north of Spain, and this new term came up in all the descriptions.  Not knowing what it meant, I Googled the term to see what it was called in English and was amazed to see that the translation is “perfect storm”.  This is a term in English I have heard of before, mostly in relation to Hurricane Sandie but I didn’t really understand it.  I looked up the definition and here it is: “a particularly violent storm arising from a rare combination of adverse meteorological factors”.  More interestingly, it seems to be a sort of buzz word or over used term to describe other situations, not only about the weather and this is the non meteorological definition: “an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically”. I read that it was used a lot to describe the financial crisis when it started in the US. So this week when the financial scandal emerged to do with the ex treasurer of the ruling party in Spain, the Partido Popular, Luis Bárcenas, and the story of his pocketing money and giving payouts to fellow party members, I thought that the term was particularly apt for the situation Mariano Rajoy must be finding himself in.  Just as he is restoring Spain’s image abroad and dealing slowly with the financial problems, he has been hit with this.  Financial scandals in Spain are big and nasty, just as sex scandals are in the UK and US.  So let’s see how Rajoy fights his particular “perfect storm”.  

Whilst the wind was blowing in Galicia where coincidentally Mariano Rajoy is from, the weather was quite benign in Madrid this weekend.  Yesterday Saturday, with the excuse of having to go and get a goodbye card for Bea and Johan’s farewell party that evening, I drove to Plaza Norte 2 to see what the sales had to offer.  Of course I was motivated by the good news the scales brought me and was delighted to buy a size M black down coat from Zara, a red lace dress, pair of turquoise jeans and a white jumper from H+M, both my favourite shops.  Do I need more clothes? Of course not, but since I lost weight two years ago, shopping for clothes is one of my favourite past times.

I was sort of shopping for a new dress to wear to Johan and Bea’s farewell party last night at La Lumbre de Cacique, but in the end chose a dress that would go well with my new red coat.  Johan was my charismatic Swedish boss who left Yoigo this last September and I still miss him.  It was nice to hear from him last night that he misses me too.  There were over 100 friends and ex colleagues of theirs present, many of them Swedes who of course stick out amongst the smaller and darker Spaniards.  I look forward to photos of the event which I hope Bea will post on Facebook soon, as I had such a good time, I forgot to take photos.

Suzy went off this weekend to stay with friends in Lozoya del Valle, a village in the mountains of Madrid and was worried there would be snow.  As I haven’t heard from her since I will have to wait to know if there was when she comes for lunch today.  Meanwhile Oli has been here with her lovely boyfriend Miguel and they will be happily leaving for Valencia after lunch today and will be working again together all of next week.  I look forward to seeing her on television; something that always gives me a kick.  Lucky Oli and Miguel will be taking the following week off and going skiing to Baquiera Beret, Spain’s most fashionable skiing resort.  I offered her what I thought was my lovely skiing outfit bought a few years ago when I organized staff event in Baqueira for Nokia.  The equipment which I acquired through the famous Spanish skiing family, Fernández Ochoa, was rejected by her as “out of date”.  It was, of course, a great excuse for her to do some skiing clothes shopping with Miguel at Decathlon and as I viewed her bright turquoise down jacket I sort of agreed my kit was out of date, although a lot warmer. 

I will also be going away next week.  I am looking forward to a sight inspection trip to Barcelona on Wednesday to look for suitable venues for Yoigo’s activities at the up and coming Mobile World Congress.  What I most look forward to though, is dinner with Grainne at her home in Badalona on Wednesday night, which you will hear about in next week’s post.  

Meanwhile, I wish you all a great week.   

Cheers everyone,

My novel of the week, Jimmy the creep, a courageous girl, Oli reporting on the Red Cross day, a Chinese writer, the truth about Lance Armstrong, a funny peace prize, a national holiday and family lunches and the film about the Spanish family that survived the Tsunami.

Sunday 14th October 2012

 

Cooking for a family lunch on Saturday

Hi again everyone,

I hope your week has been good.  Mine has been fine and quite uneventful but there has been lots of news that meant a lot to me and I will comment on in this week’s post. 

On Monday my latest book arrived from Amazon, my novel of the week, “The Casual Vacancy”, JK Rowling’s first novel for adults after the Harry Potter saga.  I was interested to know what it was all about, having read that this so called “big novel about a small town” was set in the fictional town of “Pugford” on the border of Wales but is actually inspired by her own home town, Tutshill which she is supposed to despise and includes her experiences at the local comprehensive, a nightmare of a place.

JK Rowling's new book, The Casual Vacancy, my novel of the week

The central plot is a battle for the vacancy left on the parish council following a councillor’s death. Here everyone is at war in a small town way over local politics.  In a way it is a criticism of prejudices and hang-ups as well as the terrible snobbery of the middle class. It sounds boring and has been criticized as such by some media but I suspect they haven’t read the book till the end.  Some of it is uphill, but as you get to the end you are riveted by the doings and dealings of her characters, nearly all of whom she most obviously hates.  No wonder the people of Tutshill have protested.  One villager is quoted as saying: ‘I suppose she’s got a bit of a chip on her shoulder. This has always been a happy area.’

Tutshill where J.K. Rowling is from and the town that inspired her new book

Without giving the story away, I must say she has some great lines which have you in stitches, some very explicit sex descriptions and an awful lot of bad language.  I haven’t counted but I think the four letter word beginning with “f” must be the most repeated word in the book.  However the novel, a sort of tragic comedy, with a lot of realism is actually damned good.  I finished it yesterday afternoon and have found myself thinking about it ever since and am sort of missing the nasty or unfortunate characters and hoping that there will be a sequel.  This is not Harry Potter but it’s good stuff and a great read.

This week much of the UK news was peppered with stories about Jimmy Saville, an icon of British TV who first became famous in the 70’s with the TV ads to get people to wear seatbelts.  I always remember his famous phrase “clunk click every trip” but today that is tinged with disgust.  I always thought this man was a bit of a creep.  I mean you just have to look at some of his photos, like the one below, to realize he was not exactly “normal”.  

Jimmy Saville, the creep for me

He went on to present his own charity show called “Jim ‘ll fix it”, supposedly bringing ill and underprivileged children’s dreams come true.  He died last year in his 80’s and now one year after his death, people have come forward claiming he sexually abused them when they were children and used the programme to do so.  These people were often underage boys and girls, some as young as 10.  They have done so after a documentary about the paedophile side of this ghastly man by the ITV. The BBC apparently knew, or it was common knowledge that his predatory behavior went on but they turned a blind eye. The BBC has a lot to answer for in this case, perhaps more so than Jimmy the creep for whom, unfortunately, it comes too late.  

Straight after the news of this awful man, comes the news on Tuesday of a very courageous young girl, Malala, aged 14, from the Swat valley, once called the Switzerland of Pakistan.  She stood up to the Taliban subjugation of women where she lived and had become well known for promoting the education of girls and denouncing the atrocities of who can only be known as thugs..  For this she nearly died on Tuesday when angry Taliban men boarded her crowded school bus and shot her with a near fatal bullet close to her brain.  But Malala has not died and is out of danger for the moment, although the Taliban have sworn they will try to kill her again. Meanwhile she has become an icon in Pakistan where people are outraged and are protesting, something the authorities and people have never really dared to do for fear of the revenge of these thugs.  Malala’s was one of the few voices to take them on, perhaps now there will be more.  I hope so.

Malala the courageous Pakistani girl

Wednesday was Red Cross day, at least in Spain and is known as the Red Flag day.  Oli was to be reporting on the members of the Spanish Royal family’s participation as patrons of this wonderful organization.  She and her TV team were present where the Princess Letizia was presiding over one of the tables where people queued up to donate in exchange for the famous Red Cross flag sticker, in the centre of Madrid.  In other places nearby the Queen and her daughter were also presiding over Red Cross tables but of course it is Letizia who is more newsworthy. 

Oli reporting on the Red Cross flag day

Here you can watch Oli’ s reports if you fast forward to 12.07 and 12.46.  She was unlucky to just miss the arrival of the Crown Prince who made an appearance at all three tables a few minutes after her live reporting.  It was the second time Olivia was to report on the Royal Family and I was proud to watch her do so.

On Thursday we had the pleasure of the company of Susana for lunch, upon her return first from Santa Pola and then from Barcelona where she had given a training course to new colleagues from her company Aramark.  It was the first family lunch for a long time and it was good to get Suzy’s news.

On Thursday too most of the world heard of a Chinese author, Mo Yan, for the first time ever as he was given this year’s Nobel Literature prize.  It was also the first time, I think, that a Nobel prize has been awarded to a writer embraced by a communist regime.  The Chinese government is delighted, just as it was reviled by the award of the 2010 peace prize to dissident Liu Xiaobo. I wonder if this is politics to appease the Chinese.

Mo Yan the Chinese writer and this year's Nobel Literature Laureate

I know nothing more about Mo Yan but have read he is the Chinese equivalent of Franz Kafka, so I will probably not be reading his books, preferring the likes of JK Rowling or Ken Follett and other less high brow writers.

On the same day the literature laureate was announced, a bomb shell exploded in the sports world. Finally the truth came out about the lies and doping of Lance Armstrong who I now know for sure cheated his way through 7 Tours of France.  For on Thursday the USADA published a 1000 page report and denounced what they called "the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen".  You can read the full report here.  I waded through some of it yesterday and read many of his team mates testimonies, some of whom I knew such as George Hincapie, Kevin Livingstone and Frankie Andreu when they rode for Motorola. At that time I don’t think they did take drugs.  I read later that it all started at the Milan San Remo in 1995 (I was there at the time) and that Lance was furious they had done so badly so commented to one of his team mates it was time to start on EPO.  How sad.

Me with Johnny Weltz and Frankie Andreu, Lance's best friend at the Tour of Spain in 1996

I never saw anything, but of ourse it would have been  hidden from me. This was cloak and dagger stuff. The report makes amazing reading and presents overwhelming evidence against the famous Texan who since its publication has remained practically silent on his usually very active Twitter account.  Up till now it seems he did everything he could from bullying to threatening to lawsuits to silence those few who tried to tell the truth, but he cannot stop them all, including Tyler Hamilton.  The latter, a former team mate, has just published a book called “The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping,Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs”.  I ordered it this morning on Amazon.es and look forward to reading it this week.  I always remember seeing Lance at the Tour of Spain when he had just recovered from cancer.  Knowing his aggressive character I had heard that the illness had changed him for the better.  So I asked Frankie Andreu if this was true.  He answered me: “oh no, he’s still the same old son of a bitch”.  And he was because he bullied his team mates and made them drug their bodies too whether they wanted to or not. It is common knowledge, despite the code of silence in the cycling world that is now gradually being broken, that his generation of cyclists doped to perform to an extraordinary extent but he was the greatest of them all and has now sullied that sport for ever.   I wonder how long it will take until he is stripped of his 7 Tours of France.  If that hasn’t happened yet, it is partly due to the cycling ruling body, the UCI, who do not come out well in the USADA report either and look like they also have a role in covering up Lance’s story, in the same way as his and his team’s doping doctors, such as Pedro Celaya (I remember him as the Motorola team doctor; he spoke with a fast Basque accent I could hardly understand) or masseurs such as Freddy Viaene (the nice friendly Belgian soigneur who used to make bacon sandwiches with mustard which I hated for me at some of the races) or team coach where the spotlight is also on Johan Bruyneel, a very shady character in the cycling world who I remember once shouting at me when he rode for the ONCE team asking where the phone I had promised him was.  Since the report has been published he has been fired as coach of his current team but even covers that up too by saying on his Twitter that he has resigned.  For me these people are just as much to blame as Lance.  However it isn’t just Lance and his team mates who have taken dope.  This is a practice that has gone on always and probably explains the code of silence from many top and ex cyclists today.  How can they condone Lance Armstrong when they themselves are not free of guilt? And if his titles are to be stripped, maybe theirs will too.  And where would the investigation start, with Eddie Merck or Tom Simpson who died in the Tour of France on Mt. Ventoux because of doping in 1959?  The only hope here is that the Armstrong doping issue will clean up the sport forever.

Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel both equally guilty of doping in cycling.

Friday was a national holiday and brought with it a three day weekend.  It was the day of celebrations for Hispanic nations and also the day of the Spanish saint, Pilar.  It was also the day the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded.  I was astonished to see that this year’s prize went to the European Union, far too big an entity I thought and just as ridiculous as the prize to Barack Obama.  It sort of under minded the importance.  I understand that the European Union was awarded the prize for its role in uniting the continent over the last six decades but it comes at a time when the Union is at its weakest, embroiled in the Euro crisis and found it surprising that it came from a nation, Norway, which has always refused to join.  It came also during the week the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, visited Greece where she was greeted by protesters with Nazi salutes, not exactly a peaceful event!  Maybe though it will serve to strengthen the Union, but I for one could have thought of more deserved peace prize winners, such as Vicente Ferrer for his outstanding service to the poor people of India. 

That night we discussed the peace prize and the euro crisis and unemployment in Spain with our friends Roberto and Mari Carmen over dinner.  We went to Síbara which serves great fish and chips and came up to speed on the lives of our friends whom I hadn’t seen for a long time. As we left the restaurant, Eladio and I commented on just how civilized their relationship is given that they are now divorced.

On Saturday we had another family lunch and Juli came too.  The photo illustrating this week’s post is of me cooking in the kitchen. Notice the pc with FB on the screen, the maps on the wall which are an inspiration for travelling, as well as Elsa at the door wanting to come in for the umpteenth time.  For the record I made Russian pelmeni with sour cream sauce (Smetana), roast chicken with vegetables cooked in honey and mushroom risotto.  After lunch it was sunny and Suzy was going to sunbathe but Eladio had decided that yesterday was the day to cover the swimming pool.  So we made a joint effort of putting on the cover and were all a little sad to see this as a symbol of the end to summer.

That night the girls were to celebrate Anita’s birthday as they had done Dave’s the night before.  They call their group of friends, “la manada” or the herd and here you have a photo of them on Friday night with part of the “manada.

The girls (in stripes Suzy left and Oli right) with part of the "manada" celebrating Dave's birthday

Whilst they were preparing for the birthday do, Eladio and I had a date at the cinema.  I had bought tickets to see the new film, The Impossible.  It is a Spanish made film but shot in English and stars Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor and is about the 2004 Tsunami in South East Asia.  The story is based on the experiences of a Spanish family, Maria Belón and Enrique Alvarez and their three young boys who amazingly survived the tragedy.

Members of the Spanish family with the cast who starred in the film The Impossible  based on the family's tale of survival of the 2004 tsunami in South East Asia.

 

 Eladio called the film the wave, and in a way he’s right because the replica on screen of the “wave” or tsunami was the most important moment of the film.  I think they used 12 million litres of water at the film studios in Alicante to make it.  The film was beautifully made and had me crying at all the right points and also left me wanting to know more about how this, up till now anonymous Spanish family, coped with returning to normal life after their awful and incredible experience.  It also made me understand what it must have been like to live through the Tsunami and just how terrifying and devastating it was.  Well done Juan Antonio Bayona for making this great film.

The Impossible a great film

Afterwards we went to Ginos for dinner and an ice cream at Hagan Dazs for “pudding” which had me feeling guilty.  Luckily I slept well afterwards.  

Today Sunday is a cool Autumn day with rain threatening any time.  Olivia will be leaving very soon for Galicia from where she will be reporting this week.  After publishing this week’s entry, we shall probably read a bit in the lounge – how different from reading outside in the sun – and then go for our daily walk.  You know us, creatures of habit, usually. 

And the week ahead will be busy and I hope a good one.  

Meanwhile I wish you all the best and sorry for too much international news and not much about home, but as you see it’s been very quiet here and there is not much to tell. 

Cheers for now

Masha

Home and off again, a fall, reading and languages, Winston Churchill, a farewell dinner, strawberries without cream, Tour de France and other things

Winston Churchill, England's most famous Prime Minister, puffing a cigar on his Chartwell estate some time in the 40's. Apart from a brillian politician, soldier, writer and journalist he was also an amazing character.
Hi again

I’ve been a bit lazy with my blog recently. I like to think it’s because I have been very busy for the last week or so. That is so, but also keeping up a blog weekly is actually quite a task. You can’t just sit down and begin to write. You have to write the list of things to mention, get the photos together and of course find the links. Then you have to feel in the mood or be inspired which is perhaps the most difficult part.

I don’t know if I’m inspired right now but I do have the perfect conditions to write a new entry. I am sitting in the quadrangle in Montrondo on an old wooden chair with my pc. The sun is shining on the other side and I can hear Eladio and his Mother discussing how to put up the Ikea curtains we brought for our room on yet another trip here to improve our living conditions. We are alone, just the three of us and have Montrondo all to ourselves which is perhaps how I like it best.

So where shall I start? The title says “home and off again” and actually refers to Olivia’s return from Guatemala and her moving into the new flat. Oli returned last Sunday after her two week adventure in Latin America where she went to work with an NGO that helps underprivileged children. She had a grand time and the experience must have been very enriching.
Oli with Laura her friend outside Lucrecia's house where they stayed in Antigua in Guatemala.
No sooner had she arrived we went to visit her new flat which she actually moved into on Tuesday. It’s a little place in the centre of Madrid near Atocha which she will be sharing with her colleague Miriam whom we have yet to meet. It’s small but in a perfect condition. I hope she will be happy there. Luckily, as she’s not moving far, we will not miss her too much as I know she will be visiting and staying with us often. For her first night she was accompanied by Suzy who I know will miss her dearly. They might fight like cat and dog, but they are very close.

“Home and off again” also refers to Suzy coming back from her week’s holiday in Santa Pola with her friend Juli and cousins Laura and Alicia. They returned on Saturday brown and relaxed but we didn’t see much of them as they went off almost immediately to a barbecue at Copi’s place in Bonanza. Laura and Alicia went “off again” too on Sunday, back to their native León just before Olivia arrived.
Alicia on the left and Laura on the right of the photo on Sunday just before they left.
Whilst they were all away, Eladio’s mother, Ernestina, came to stay and for a few days it was just the “oldies” at home and it felt a bit like a senior citizens’ residence!

Ernestina is not self sufficient like my Father and unlike him doesn’t know how to fill her days and seems to live from meal to meal. She is in good health but doesn’t read or walk. She doesn’t like to help in the kitchen either. She is not much interested in the television and is very hard of hearing. She is very skilled, however, at sewing and knitting so we gave her the task of making woollen socks to keep her occupied and she happily knitted wool in the unbearable heat of July.
Ernestina sewing and Eladio keeping her company with his book.
Ernestina is at her happiest in Montrondo which is where she was born and brought up her own family. So when we told her we were coming here for a few days, her eyes lit up and she came to life immediately. And here she is, with us now, pottering around, helping Eladio with the curtains, watering the plants and feeling thoroughly at home.
Eladio's Mother here in Montrondo today where she is at her happiest. She is wearing the classic blue dressing gown which is how I'm sure I'll remember her always.
My father stayed behind this time, perhaps because he prefers his peace in a place he is familiar with and where he doesn’t have to depend on anyone. He gave us a fright not so long ago when he tripped over Norah or a cap Norah was playing with in the kitchen. He fell flat on his face and my heart sunk as we helped him up. My father for someone aged 90 is in very good health and my only fear for him is a fall. His own Father fell in his early 70’s which caused a massive stroke. He died within the week. That same fear for my Father has always been with me. Miraculously though he came away nearly completely unscathed apart from a superficial bruise on his head. I always thought he was more fragile but his bones must be made of rock to have resisted a fall like that.

My Father is a great reader. Eladio’s mother always marvels at him reading the paper, doing the Daily Telegraph crossword or reading a book in German, Russian or whatever language takes his fancy. I am a bit of a reader too when I have the time and recently Eladio seems to be joining me. I have just read Clara’s War, the miraculous story of a Jewish girl in Nazi occupied Poland. It is, of course, my favourite genre. I also love biographies so this book was doubly interesting. Eladio is reading it too now in English, is fascinated by the story but also pleased that he is able to understand the English. It is the first book he has ever read in English and I imagine it will not be the last. In order to learn a language, it is fundamental that you read too in that language. It was my Mother’s trick and she knew 6 languages!

Right now I am finishing the biography of Phyllis Moir who was one of Winston Churchill’s personal secretaries but in America. I have also read the one by Elizabeth Nell who was his secretary in war time London. Both are a fascinating read. Churchill is an amazing character as we all know but in these books comes to life. I am more interested in him as a person than as a prime minister or war strategist. He must have had one of the most brilliant minds of his times. I learned that he was three things in life, a soldier, a journalist and a politician and that he never stopped being all three. He was also a great writer which is where he made his money. He might have been an aristocrat but the family was relatively poor. He wrote his own father’s biography and asked his son, Randolph, to write his but once he was dead. Randolph did begin to write it but unfortunately died early and never finished it. Phyllis Moir wrote her book in 1941 so in it she refers to Churchill in the present which is quite funny to read. Fascinating man, fascinating times.

You may be interested to know that this book which I got via www.amazon.co.uk, was actually out of print but was sent to me via Kessinger Publishing’s Rare prints who reprint anything for anybody, even a single copy. Churchill would have been impressed I’m sure.

Meanwhile it was Independence Day on 4th July in America. I didn’t get to go, of course, but did get my taste of America this week, in that I acquired my 3rd pair of white leather sneaker Keds which you can only buy in the States. I am a “sucker” for this footwear and have worn all my Keds to the ground, especially in the Summer. I bought my first pair in Phoenix, Arizona, on a press trip with Motorola. The second pair came from Macy’s in Los Angeles on another press trip this time with Nokia. These, however, come from New York, from Broadway to judge by the packaging and I got them thanks to my friend Javier and his wife Ana who are living there now. I actually went to pick them up at their house in Las Rozas and got to meet their 4 nearly grown up kids. We will be seeing more of this family in August. Thanks guys. As I write, I am wearing them too and they feel comfy on my feet.
My keds, as worn today whilst writing this post in Montrondo.
I didn’t wear them, though on Tuesday when I went to the Spanish Senate, or Upper House, for the annual report from the Government on the state of the telecommunications market in Spain. Fortunately the news for Yoigo was good, but then we knew it would be. Here the crème de la crème of the sector meets every year and it is a grand occasion for networking. The press are there too and I was privileged enough to be invited to the press conference afterwards.
The Spanish Senate, a beautiful building.
On Tuesday though, one journalist was missing, Antonio P who was unfortunate enough to be included in the black list of the ABC newspaper recent layoffs. I have known Antonio for many years. He was even instrumental in my joining Yoigo so when I heard he was leaving, I quickly took part in the organisation of his farewell party. It took place on Wednesday at Naia, a restaurant owned by Pedro, a colleague, from work, which is in the heart of old Madrid in Plaza de la Paja, number 3 if you are tempted to go and taste their amazing food which we all enjoyed on Wednesday. Their foie and croquettes are superb as is the brownie dessert as well as many other delicacies on their very reasonably priced menu. There were 29 of us there on Wednesday to bid Antonio farewell, but not goodbye. We were a crowd made up of the communications managers from all the operators as well as the journalists from Spain’s main media who write about the operators. But that night, as I said in my improvised speech when we gave Antonio a lovely Cross pen and Moleskine pad that later everyone wrote on (good thinking Ana!), we were only competing for Antonio’s heart. He will have a place in mine always. Good luck Antonio and don’t disappear.

I cannot finnish this entry without mentioning two sports close to my heart and that are part of our lives in June and July always, tennis and Wimbledon and cycling and the Tour de France.

The Women’s final was no surprise and was played by the William’s sisters who have dominated women’s tennis for quite some time now. Serena, the younger of the two, beat Venus 7-6, 6-2, and garnered her 3rd Wimbledon whilst Venus has won 5. That sounds fair to me. Wimbledon is all about fair play but it also about strawberries and cream, of course.
Serena Williams won this year's Wimbledon, her 3rd, as ever against her own sister, Venus who has already garnered 5. I wouldn't like to be their parents watching them.
I read this year that Wimbledon without Nadal, the world’s number one until this week, and winner of last year’s edition, is like strawberries without cream. The cream, I’m afraid, went to Federer. Federer became tennis's greatest men's champion, watched by a legion of champions, as he beat Andy Roddick 5-7 7-6 (8-6) 7-6 (7-5) 3-6 16-14 in four hours and 16 minutes to claim his sixth Wimbledon crown. It was also a record 15th Grand Slam title for the Swiss master, overhauling the total of Pete Sampras who was in the Royal Box along with fellow legends Bjorn Borg and Rod Laver, as reported by the official website.
Federer winning Wimbledon. He is dubbed as the history man of tennis. I bet he was glad Nadal wasn't there this year.
Very soon afterwards, the start of the Tour de France last weekend in Monaco, saw the comeback of Lance Armstrong, who has returned to the sport 3 years after resigning as the one and only 7 times champion of this legendary competition. He is now 37 and there are mixed opinions as to whether he will win it or not. So far, he is second in the general classification, thanks to his superb performance in the prologue and team time trial which his team, Astana won. It is in these stages that seconds are fought for but it is in the mountains where they fight for minutes. Today, in the French and Spanish Pyrenees, the first mountain stage takes place. We will know just how fit and able Armstrong is today as he competes against the Spanish winners of the last three editions, Pereiro, Contador and Sastre. Lance’s comeback and this competition certainly make for a promising Tour de France this year. I for one will be following it avidly.
The Austrian rider, Cancellara, who won the prologue, pipping Armstong to the post on the first day. His won was no surprise as he is, after all the olympic time trial champion. He won't win the Tour de France, though, that's for sure.
And that, folks,is it for this week, or last 10 days.

Cheers from Montrondo.

Masha