Oli went skiing, sorting out her room, birthdays in February, Suzy at work, intermittent fasting, a political scandal in Spain and other things.

Sunday 3rd February 2013

Suzy at work, isn't she lovely?

Hi everyone,

Here I am again, another Sunday and time to write my blog.  It’s now the beginning of February and for most of the week the sun has been shining.

It’s been a busy week and one with lots of news to tell you.  The week started with a conference call with Sweden, pretty much a repeat of the one the week before to discuss the company activities in the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the end of this month.

Whilst I was talking to Stockholm from the comfort of my desk at home, Olivia was on her way to Baqueira with Miguel and two of his friends.  They drove from Valencia to the Pyrenees, which is just over 500km, quite a way.  Baqueira is Spain’s biggest and most fashionable skiing resort; after all it’s where the King used to ski.  Oli had only skied once in her life some years ago in contrast to her sporty boyfriend who, I’m sure, is a good skier. We were thus surprised to see how well she took to it when she sent us this photo of her experience the next day.

Oli skiing in Baqueira this week

She got better and better during the week and seems to have enjoyed the experience and time off from work.  We look forward to her return tonight.

Olivia and Miguel on their skiing holiday in Baqueira this week

Whilst she was enjoying her skiing holiday, on Tuesday I decided the time had come to sort out and tidy up the huge mess in her spare room that has accumulated over the six years we have been living here.  The job was massive and took me most of the day.  I had to clear her desk and sofa and the floor of mountains of discarded clothing and then I even tackled her wardrobes.  Oli is a hoarder or magpie and never throws anything away.  To make a long story short, here is the photo of what the room looked like before I started and what it looks like now.  I kept intending later to tackle the shelves and the desk drawers but I’m afraid I got rather disheartened and will leave them to another time.

The before and after photo of clearing out and tidying my younger daughter's spare room

Tuesday was our niece Laura’s 30^th birthday, quite a milestone.  In fact it marks the start of quite a few birthdays to come in February.  First there is Laura’s sister (also my god daughter) Alicia’s birthday which was on 2^ndof this month when she became 21. Alicia is the youngest of all our nieces and nephews and it’s amazing how time has passed.  Next week will be another nephew, Juan’s 30^th birthday which is on the same day as mine, 8^th February.  So I have arranged a big family birthday dinner next Friday at Naia, a bistro restaurant owned by a colleague at Yoigo, Pedro.  There will be 11 of us around the table, quite a family gathering.  By the way, I used a great website called Evite to create the event and invitation.  

On Tuesday too Susana joined us for dinner.  The house was pretty empty without the girls, so when she came, as always, she brightened up our lives.

It was great to have Suzy's company this week  - here she is with her Father at dinner on Tuesday

Later we watched the news together on TVE1 and lo and behold, I appeared, albeit very briefly, in a report on the decrease of the high speed train fares.  Remember I was interviewed on the train when I went to Barcelona recently?  Since then many people have commented they saw me on the TV.  

On Wednesday I finally went to see Susana “live at work”, something I had been promising to do for a long time.  Suzy works as a nutritionist for the American multinational Aramark which is a food services supplier to all sorts of institutions and Suzy works in the healthcare area and is responsible for a group of residences. At the same time she is working most days at a private hospital called Nisa in Aravaca outside Madrid where her tasks include the supervision of the whole food supply chain.  I went to have a coffee with her but she was busy and so we only got about 10 minutes together.  I was immensely proud to see her sitting with her pc working and wearing her white Aramark coat.  The impression I got was of how grown up and professional my older daughter is.  She plans to leave Aramark and move to London in May to seek her fortune, hoping to improve her career plans with more experience and better pay and also to find out what living in England is like, the country which she feels is hers because I was born and bred there.  It seems to be the same adventure as mine but in reverse.  I wonder if she will end up living there like I ended up living in Spain.  In any case it will be a wonderful excuse to visit England more often and I wish her lots of luck. The photo illustrating this week’s post is of her at the hospital when I visited.

On Wednesday evening, Eladio and I did something we don’t normally do during the week, we went to the cinema.  We had wanted to see Lincoln, the top candidate for this year’s Oscars, but just hadn’t had the chance.  I was disappointed but wonder too if not being in the mood to go the cinema had anything to do with my negative response.  I found it rather boring, very grey and far too long.  I have to admit that this could also be because I am not familiar with that period of American history. Nor have I ever been particularly interested and thus am not familiar with the intricacies of American politics.  I much prefer the other films up for an Oscar, such as Les Miserables, Argo or Zero Dark Thirty.

Was not impressed with the film about Abraham Lincoln

Thursday was the big day of the week.  I was up really early for a conference call with Sweden about the Q4 and 2012 financial results of the group Yoigo belongs to, the Nordic and Baltic operator, TeliaSonera.  

A big motivator for me that day was what the scales told me at 07am.  I had reached my target weight according to Dukan and had shed the 3 kilos put on between last September and January.  That meant that I could quit the Cruise phase (alternating with pure protein and pure protein + vegetables) and go on to the much more palatable “Consolidation phase”.  For every pound lost you have to do five days of consolidation.  That works out at 31 days of this phase where I can now eat two slices of brown bread, a piece of fruit each day and also eat carbohydrates occasionally and best of all, have one celebration meal a week when you can eat what you want.  But the weight only stays off if you stick to one day a week of pure protein which I usually do on Thursdays. Later in the week I came across an article in The Daily Telegraph about a diet called 5:2.  I googled it and found a website called The Fast Diet.  I then investigated more and watched a video by Michael Mosley where he explains the benefits of what is known as “intermittent fasting”. This was shown on Horizon on the BBC last summer and I have only just heard of it.  You can watch it here.  It got me thinking maybe it was time to change my way of dieting.  I then ordered Michael Mosley’s book The Fast diet, intermittent fasting, via kindle and have begun to read it on my iPad.    I’m not sure yet whether I want to fast two days a week (500 calories on each fasting day – they cannot be consequetive) whilst being able to eat whatever I want on the other days.  Before I started the Dukan diet just under three years ago, I did a similar diet: the Up and Down diet, also called the Alternate Day diet where you fast one day and eat as much as you want the next.  I actually lost 10 kilos but found the “down days” or fasting days very difficult and tended to eat more than I should.  But, there is something about fasting that in the dieting world seems to be gaining advocates and I shall be thinking more about this before abandoning Dukan and taking the plunge.  Whatever I do, I know that I shall have to diet the rest of my life to remain healthy and in shape. 

This seems to be the latest diet in the dieting world and I am interested

But on Wednesday morning after the good news on the scales I had to get down to work immediately.  Results days for me are always stressful.  First there is the conference call with Sweden. Then we have to send out a local press release and of course not forget internal communication.  We have to include the right messages and interpret the figures right and give them in local currency – not in Swedish kroner – and at the right exchange rate.  Then I have to listen in or rather watch the press conference on a webcast from the HQ in Stockholm when the company CEO, Lars Nyberg, takes the stage.  It is then that I have to listen to every word he says and every question, to know what has been said verbally about Yoigo.  By the time I am finished it is nearly midday and I am exhausted from the mental pressure. The good news is that Yoigo’s results for 2012 were spectacular: 3.7m customers and net sales of almost a thousand million eurosJ.  To top that, I was proud to see that within the group Yoigo was the third biggest business, just behind the home market Sweden. 

Whilst I was digesting this news, Eladio was reading the papers and called my attention to the front page of El País, Spain’s left wing but also most prestigious newspaper.  He was to show me what for me is possible evidence of the biggest political scandal in recent times in Spain and I was astounded. El País reproduced documents that showed payments from a number of well-known Spanish business people to the party that were then partly used to pay regular supplements to senior party officials over more than a decade. The most recent payments were in 2009.  The “documents” were apparently a hand written ledger belonging to the previous party treasurer, the now famous Luis Bárcenas.  The payments in envelopes were supposedly handed to top party members including the Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy himself.  The English press referred to these payments as “slush funds” – money that came from anonymous donations to the party, many of them from construction companies, and paid out in what is called “black money” or “dinero b” – money that is not declared.  The Spanish people are fed up with the corruption of its institutions and politics and I think that with this issue, “Bárcena’s secret papers” they have come to their tether.  Just as Spain was beginning to see some recovery in the crisis, this happened and any improvement in the brand image of the country will have gone into reverse. 

The  news about slush funds being paid to top party officials has been a real bombshell

The issue has dominated all the news this week and culminated yesterday with a  disappointing appearance by Spain’s premiere on television, denying ever having received any illicit money.  The press was denied access and no one could ask questions.

Spain's premiere, Mariano Rajoy on TV denying the charges of receiving illicit money from party donations

He talked about being transparent and carrying out an investigation, but there was no transparency in the way he made his statements.  You can see the video here. The scandal will continue and evolve and many people are wondering if he will have to resign.  The next few weeks, will no doubt, bring more clarification and I think the Spanish people deserve to know the truth.  Either El País is lying or the Government is lying.  One day we will know and hopefully that will be a turning point for a less corrupt future.

None of this will have been on Phil and Kathy’s mind, our friends from Keighley in West Yorkshire (UK).  Ironically that day, 31^stJanuary was Phil’s birthday but it was also the day his Father died.  My heart goes out to them as I know what they will be going through, a tough period that I experienced myself when my own Mother died on 1^st October 1999.   

Friday morning was just as stressful as Thursday morning.  I was up early to drive to work for an internal meeting with the staff, what we call Yoigo Mornings.  I organize these events every quarter to explain the financial results.  I have to prepare the presentation of course and as usual, we were making last minute changes up until the last moment.  Most of the stress I felt that morning was from driving to work early with the traffic jam which on Friday was worse than ever because of extreme fog. When one of my colleagues commented to me: “but Masha everything you do always comes out fine”, I was happy to hear that is what she thought but replied that success never comes without some stress and loss of adrenalin. 

On Friday we had our first Yoigo Morning of the year

There was a very tense moment too during the staff meeting, for that was when I heard, via my phone, that the CEO of TeliaSonera had resigned.  The company is embroiled in its own scandal in Sweden with accusations about possible shady conduct in the acquisition of a network license in one of the most corrupt countries in the world, Uzbekistan.  A report from a legal company that week found nothing to support the allegations but when the CEO, Lars Nyberg, a big burly Swede, realised he did not have sufficient support from the Board, he decided to quit after five and a half years as TeliaSonera’s chief executive.  It was my job to send out a release internally explaining what had happened and to monitor the Spanish press to see what repercussions there would be locally.   So these are new times for our Swedish owners.  

The drive home was much easier and it was great to arrive to find the lunch ready and made by Oufa and nice to know that we were to be joined by Susana once again.  I spent the afternoon working with her.  

Being Friday and my first day of “consolidation” I decided there and then that my first so-called “celebration meal” would be that night.  After our walk, Eladio and I went to La Vaca Argentina where I enjoyed things like a simple glass of red wine or a piece of bread that tasted like heaven after three weeks of abstaining.  Not surprisingly I had a bad night because of the heavy stomach and woke up with a headache.  

The weekend has been quiet, our walks, reading, making meals and watching television in bed at night, one of our favourite pastimes if the content is good enough to keep me awake.  Well it was last night as the lovely, if somewhat controversial film called “Camino”, was shown again on TVE.  You can read about the film here and judge for yourselves or even better watch the trailer here. The film is a criticism of the Opus Day Catholic organization and a distortion of the real story of a girl called Alexia who died from spinal cancer aged fourteen and who is currently in the process of canonization.   Whatever anyone may think about the film, one thing no one will doubt about is of the wonderful performance of the actors and the beauty and freshness of Alexia, played by the delightful Nerea Camacho.

We watched this delightful film last night on the TV

Today Sunday is equally quiet, no Suzy for lunch, Oli only coming back late tonight, but of course the best day to write my blog.

Next week will be my birthday.  I will be 56, nearer 60 than 50 but I prefer not to see it that way.  I feel young, hopefully look young and with all my dieting and walks, feel healthy and on top of the world.  

So my friends, with that I leave you for this week.

Cheers till next time

Masha

Snow, to Barcelona and back, a reunion weekend with Andy and Charlotte, farewell Dave, great sporting news, goodbye Sara and other things.

Sunday 27th January 2013

The girls and their group of friends they call "la manada" off to Fresnedilla de la Oliva on Saturday for a goodbye weekend for Dave (in the striped jumper) who is leaving for Brazil.

Hi everyone and welcome back.  This week’s blogpost is full of news and looking back it has been a good week all in all.

On Monday morning I had a conference call with Stockholm.  You probably don’t know but I avoid conference calls like the plague and only accept them very occasionally.  However I couldn’t get out of this one, about our plans for the upcoming Mobile World Congress at the end of February in Barcelona.  The funny thing was that I was on line for about 5 minutes until my Swedish colleagues joined; quite unusual for them to be late.  Afterwards I drove to the office for meetings.  Of interest was the second meeting which was with the Chinese manufacturer of mobile phones, ZTE, about a possible joint launch of a new smartphone.  The Chinese were fast entering this market and now dominate much of it.  When I first started in the telecoms sector, it was the Americans and Nordic companies who dominated.  

I missed Olivia on the television that morning.  She had gone to Valencia on Sunday and would be working there all week with her cameraman boyfriend Miguel and I think they make a great team.  She did a live report about a very sad story of an abused baby in Castellón.  She hates this sort of news and so do I.  You can watch her here on this link if you go to 11.34h.

The news on Monday of course was the 57^th presidential inauguration in the United States and Barack Obama’s swearing in on the commencement of his second term of office.  The funny thing is he had to so in private on Sunday afternoon because the Constitution says that was when his office begins but as it was not a good day to do so publically, the live ceremony would take place the next day when, also, all Americans would have a day off to watch and celebrate the occasion.  In the private ceremony the main news was that his daughter Sasha remarked afterwards that he had done a good job and “didn’t mess up” in reference to his having to repeat part of the oath in the first Inauguration Day when he missed some words out.

I didn’t watch him swearing in on Monday but most of the world did.  The biggest news I have seen seems to be about how Beyoncé mimicked the national anthem instead of singing live.  I suppose she must have recorded it beforehand and preferred to lip synch just in case something went wrong.  But I’m sure she now regrets the decision after worldwide criticism.

Barack Obama at his swearing in ceremony and Beyoncé lip synching the national anthem.

 

On Monday in Spain there was much warning about snow forecast for the next day and there were warning signs on the roads in Madrid whilst the capital prepared for this unusual occasion.  I woke up hoping to see snow in the garden but was disappointed.  After breakfast it started to sleet and a few moments later it snowed.  Unfortunately the snow fall lasted under 5 minutes and that was the end of the story.  I was very jealous seeing photos posted on Facebook by my friends in Yorkshire of the snow that had fallen there this week.  When Kathryn commented that her school had been closed, that reminded me of the good old days in Yorkshire when they used to shut down my school, St. Joseph’s College and we would have great days off enjoying the snow.

Snow in Keighley West Yorkshire this week

 I drove later to the office for the weekly management team meeting and the traffic was pretty dense, because people were worried about the snow that never came.   I was meeting Julio and Fátima for a belated birthday lunch nearby but Fátima, so frightened of the snow, refused to leave her house!  I ended up picking her up and the two of us had lunch in Boadilla at one of my favourites: El Buey. We had a great girly lunch and agreed to meet up soon again this time with Julio.

Finally Wednesday came and my awaited trip to Barcelona.  I was going on a site inspection trip to scout for locations for a party and press conference for our participation in the Mobile World Congress at the end of next month.  I always travel these days on the high speed train which takes under three hours to reach Barcelona.  However, I was astounded to see that the ticket cost 300 euros, a lot more than the airplane and more expensive than a flight to London for example. This was my first work trip without lugging my pc and my first high speed trip using my adored iPad.  With it I was able to deal with my emails, look up the places we were going to site inspect and of course use Facebook and Twitter. With work out of the way I was able to enjoy the rest of the journey watching television.  Yeah, thanks to the BBC iPlayer I watched three hilarious episodes of Benidorm, a series about English people on holiday in that tacky resort town which I know so well because my parents bought a house in the mountains some 20km inland in the late 70’s – those were what we call “The Callosa Days” and saw my beginnings in Spain and which you can read about here.

There may have been no snow in Madrid but there was plenty in the countryside on my train journey.  It was sunny too and I captured the scene with my iPhone.

The snow I saw from the train going to Barcelona on Wednesday

Whilst I was on the train Olivia would be reporting live again from Valencia, this time from Denia in Alicante; an amazing story about a false doctor who had been practicing for five years until he was detected.  I was able to watch the piece later on this link.  You can too if you go to 11.37h.

Olivia live on TVE1 on Wednesday reporting on a false doctor in Denia

A funny thing happened on the train.  Just as Olivia was reporting live, a team of TVE ambled towards me.  They were doing a story on the prices of the high speed train (apparently to be decreased shortly) and I agreed to be interviewed.  The journalist was Antonio Parreño who Olivia later told me she knew.  After the interview I sent a whatsapp message to my friend the sports presenter Sergio Sauca who promised to let me know when the report would be broadcast.  So far it hasn’t come out.  But watch this space.  My comment in the interview was that I thought the ticket was extortionately expensive and that if I had to buy it myself I would think twice about taking the AVE (high speed train) and that if tickets were cheaper these trains would be much fuller.

We actually arrived 30 minutes late in Barcelona because the train had to slow down because of ice on the rails, but luckily it was sunny in the Catalan capital.  I took a taxi to my hotel, the 1898 where I always stay in Barcelona. It’s on the Rambla and a stone’s throw from the Plaza de Cataluña.  I quickly checked in and then took a taxi to where I was having lunch with Gloria and Miguel from my events agency, QuintaEsencia.  We had chosen another favourite, the Agua restaurant by the beach and next to the Hotel Arts.  Amazingly we ate outside.

The Agua restaurant in Barcelona right by the sea, a great location

We then had a very productive afternoon visiting all the recommended venues for the party and press conference in February.  I was finished by 6 pm and had plenty of time until my next engagement, dinner at Grainne’s house in Badalona later that evening.  I went to school with Grainne and her sister Brenda in Bradford so we go back a long way and I can never visit Barcelona without meeting this amazing charismatic woman of Irish origin.  In order to keep to my Dukan diet I bought some of the food: ham and steak from the Corte Inglés which I enjoyed with Grainne and her son Marcel at their cozy little flat in Badalona, a suburb of Barcelona.  We had such a good time catching up I’m afraid I forgot to take any photos.

The next day I worked from my hotel room until time to check out.  We were to have lunch in the Barceloneta area at Cal Pinxo and it was such a lovely day, I decided to walk there from my hotel.  Here Gloria, Miguel and I enjoyed another meal outdoors and remarked just how much we love Barcelona – except for the local language of course.

With Gloria at Cal Pinxo in Barcelona on Thursday

We caught the 15h train and I spent most of the journey being entertained on my iPad.  I watched another hilarious episode of Benidorm and also two episodes of a wonderful BBC period series called London Hospital.  If you know me well you will know I love hospital stories, although I hate hospitals in real life.

I was home in the early evening, a bit too late for our walk unfortunately.  I had been sticking to my Dukan diet in Barcelona and was very cross to see the result on the scales the next day: I had put on half a kilo.  Since then I have cut back on the oat bran biscuits and fruit yoghurt and luckily today, Sunday, I am back on track.

Friday was a quiet day at home, working, food shopping and general routine stuff.  In the morning we watched Olivia report from Calpe, a town close to Callosa by the way.  It was another awful story, this time about how a Moldavan woman was killed by her partner, the third case of female genocide this year in Spain. 

Olivia reporting from Calpe on Friday

On Friday too we were getting ready for visitors.  A friend from the past, very much involved in our Callosa Days, Andy was coming to stay with his daughter Charlotte who will be living in Madrid for 6 months to learn Spanish.  Andy got to know my family at the University of East Anglia in Norwich where my parents and Aunty Masha taught at the Russian summer course every year for about 10 years.  These intensive courses were a highlight of my youth as I used to go along for the ride.  In those days it was not easy for students of this language to go to Russia and this course became very popular with students of all ages and from many countries.  Andy, a schoolboy from the North of England, joined the course 3 times and won the prize for best student each time.  Being a pretty brainy chap he then went on to study Russian and Philosophy at Oxford.  One of those summers he joined us afterwards at Callosa.  I remember him as a lanky awkward boy not used to “foreign food” but today he is a mature husband and father of 4 children living in France and working in External Relations for the United Nations in Geneva with the International Labour Organisation. His memory is much better than mine and according to him the last time we met was at the train station in Oxford in 1978 when I was saying goodbye to my friend Amanda who studied there.  

So, on Friday, my Father and I were to see him for the first time in 35 years.  His beautiful daughter Charlotte, 20, is the age we were when we last met!  He was keen to see my Father as he said my parents were very instrumental in his youth and a great help and inspiration.  They both taught him at Norwich and he remarked just how colourful and fun my Mother’s classes were.  I can imagine as she was very charismatic. 

Suzy and Olivia joined us for dinner – I hadn’t seen them for a week – and we had a truly international family dinner and even my Father joined us which made us all happy.

Andy and Charlotte at dinner at home on Friday night

The next morning after breakfast we took Andy and Charlotte on what I call our “special occasion walk” in nearby Boadilla.  We took the dogs and it was their first time together in the car.  I had expected them to behave badly but they were ok.  The walk was magnificent, with the sun and the view of the snow capped mountains outside Madrid.  In fact it got warmer and warmer and we had to take our coats off.  So much for snow, it reached 17ºc, a lot more than our visitors’ home town near Geneva I guess.

Out walking on Saturday morning with Andy and Charlotte in El Bosque de Boadilla

After such a long walk we treated ourselves to drinks and tapas at lovely bar called La Lonja de Boadilla opposite the palace.  I was wondering how the dogs would behave but they sat quietly at our feet.

Tapas with Andy and Charlotte, Eladio and the dogs in the sun in Boadilla on Saturday morning.

Lunch yesterday was the last meal together as Andy and Charlotte left to spend Andy’s last afternoon with his daughter in sunny Madrid.  We said goodbye but knew it would not be another 35 years until we meet.  We hope to see Charlotte whilst she is Spain and her family when they come to visit at Easter.

The house seemed very empty afterwards.  The girls were not there. They had left to spend the night at a rented cottage in nearby Fresnedilla de la Oliva with their friends. They call their group “la manada” or the herd and they are very close knit.   It was to be a goodbye event for Dave, their friend from school who is leaving Spain to find his fortune in Brazil.  Many young Spaniards are leaving Spain as the job market is so desperate here.  Suzy herself will be going to London in May, also to find her fortune.  It just remains for me to say “farewell and good luck Dave”. The photo illustrating this blog is of the “manada” just about to set off.

They  (Suzy, Oli, Elena, Elena, Rocío, María, Carolina, Ana, Dave and Juli) posted photos all afternoon from their lovely cottage which is located in a field with donkeys (my favourite four legged animals) just half an hour’s drive from where Suzy lives.  I haven’t heard much since. I will probably not see Suzy until next weekend but am expecting Olivia back this afternoon.  It won’t be for long though as tonight she will be travelling to Valencia.  Tomorrow she will be going with her boyfriend Miguel for a week’s skiing in Spain’s most up market skiing resort, Baqueira.

The girls at the cottage in Fresnedilla de la Oliva this weekend. 

On a normal weekend we would have gone out to dinner but yesterday was a PP (pure protein) Dukan day, so we stayed in, had an early dinner and went to bed to watch the news.  The best news was about sport.  A Spaniard from Madrid called José Fernández (equivalent of Joe Smith in English!) had won the European men’s figure skating and became the first Spaniard ever to win a gold medal.  I later read that he lives and trains in Montreal, Canada, which I suppose is one of the skating capitals of the world.  I have yet to see his performance which I hear was amazing. 

Javier Ferández, the Spaniard from Madrid who won the European figure skating gold medal in Zagreb yesterday

Now is the time to write about other sports news that has interested me this week.  First there was the Bradford City football team’s first too this week.  This is the football team of the city I lived at in my formative years.  Their feat is being in the 4^th division and getting through to the final of the League Cup (now called Capital One Cup) by beating Aston Vila.  They will now play Swansea City in the final at the most iconic of football venues in the world, Wembley.  I really hope they win on 24^thFebruary.  Even if they don’t, they will still have made history for the club.

Bradford City FC fans celebrating their win over Aston Vila to get through to the final in Wembley

Today Sunday, there are two sporting fixtures that interest me.  First there is the Australian tennis final which Britain’s Andrew Murray is playing now against Djokovic.  If he wins he will make history for Britain.  So please cross your fingers.  The second is the final of handball world championship in Barcelona today when Spain meets Denmark.  You will have no doubts as to which side I am on, so please cross your fingers again my friends. 

And right now I am taking a break from writing this post as we are off to have lunch in Madrid at Eladio’s brother’s house, José Antonio and our sister-in-law Dolores.  We don’t often visit them, but today is special as it will be the last time we see their daughter Sara for a long time as next week she is going off for an extended stay in China.  My niece is yet another young Spaniard who is going to seek her fortune in another country.  It is a country she is familiar with as after University she spent two years there learning the language.  Again, then, I say goodbye and good luck.  Soon it will be Susana I will be saying goodbye to, but luckily London is nearer than Peking.

And now I am back at my desk from lunch in Madrid and have found out that Murray lost to Djokovic. We had a lovely time together and were joined also by Juan, Sara’s youngest brother and also Eladio’s godson.  I wish I had taken a photo for this week’s blog, but sort of hesitated as I know Sara doesn’t like her photo being published on internet.  We have all agreed to meet again for my birthday on 8^th February and which is also Juan’s birthday.  Sara, of course, will be in China and we won’t see her again until the Summer.

And now I will leave you.  You have all this week’s news and as Olivia has just come back, I want to spend some quality time with her before adding the internet links to this post as well as the photos and all the palava (a good word for my Spanish friends – a slang word for “hassle”) of uploading it and publishing it.

All the best then till next week

Masha

PS If you haven't heard Spain won the Handball world championship - another great sporting victory for Spain!