Friday 24 July 2009

Home alone!

Hmm, so now there's just little old me rattling around in my nice 3-bed apartment!

Yesterday morning, far too early, I waved goodbye to Eve as she headed back to Ireland with her many suitcases! Mind you, given that when she got to the airport they pointed out that with Ryanair, it's a total luggage weight of 15kg per person, not per suitcase, I'm surprised she wasn't back here a couple of hours later.

It's weird that she's not coming back, well, not any time soon. Not that I mind living on my own, I've done it plenty and I like it. But it was a really fun few months sharing with her, so now it seems a bit quiet with no prospect of a cheery Hola, or her chuntering on in any one of 3 languages! No-one to laugh at me when I pile through the front door, gasping for air after the 8 flights of stairs which, after 4 months, still kill me! Plus of course I am now the only thing directly in the line of sight of Ugly Naked Guy on the balcony opposite!

Still, I'm only here on my own for another week, then off to Vaughan Town for a week, then straight to the UK for 11 days. By the time I get back to Madrid, I imagine there will be news on the people moving in in September (and the geraniums will probably be dead)!

Meanwhile, I'll continue to do the girly version of a bachelor flat occupant, make some more tea, settle down on the sofa and carry on watching Sneakers! Robert Redford and River Phoenix sharing screen time. Who could ask for more? It certainly gets my vote for recovering from gastric flu, or whatever I've had.

Oh, and Eve, if you're reading this, you clearly didn't take the poltergeist with you. The same white bowl enjoyed more aerial acrobatics across the kitchen this morning! ;-)

Wednesday 22 July 2009

Gonna have a moan!

Feel free to shout at me for posting a negative blog, but it can't be all sunshine and flowers all the time. Well, OK, sunshine maybe!



Am feeling distinctly cheated that I'm where I want to be (for now), doing what I came here to do (sort of) yet at the moment, I feel like crap.



I've had a bizarre inexplicable swollen foot for, well, far too long and the only way to keep it down is to wear my trainers from morning til night, done up really tight. Not fun in this heat. And before anyone mentions it, for reasons that are far too boring to go into, I can't go to a doctor here. But I do have very expensive horse chestnut extract from the nice lady at the herbolario.



And to add insult to injury, an unknown git brought a stinking cold to our party on Saturday night and it's knocking me out. I can't breathe, my voice is practically gone, again, and I have a temperature. Which when it's 99 degrees outside, is not fun. My nose would be well suited to Rudolph due to all the blowing, all the eucalyptus oil in the world isn't helping.



Our murder website email server decided to crash and refused to send/lost a very long email I sent to a customer yesterday, so having waited all day for a reply from Tech Support (never came), I eventually had to go back in and compose the entire thing again, once the emails were up and running.



I feel so crap I can't even consider job hunting for September as I'd never make it through an interview at the moment! So I'm going to be trying to find a job in late August at the rate I'm going.

Even the virtual hug I was just sent didn't manage to cheer me up as much as it should! ;-)



Given that most of you have probably stopped reading by now if you've got any sense, I'll stop, though I could go on!!!



5 more lessons to go this week then I'm going to have a bloody long rest (well, apart from blitzing the murder mystery!)



And since I'm in moany mode, why does almost no-one ever comment on my blog?!!!!! Is it that boring?! Someone please tell me, and I'll stop (or at least get a ghost writer!) It's set up so that anyone can comment, you don't have to be a member or anything. So even if all you want to say is "Shut up moaning" then I'll be bloody grateful!

Time for me to go to bed, I reckon!!!

Monday 20 July 2009

And then Cathy was here....


.....so my life in Madrid attracted another visitor. Cathy came for a lovely long weekend.



Her time here was slightly shortened by Easyjet's inability to get a plane off the ground on time, so she was over 2 hours late arriving.



We had a fun weekend - involving (surprise, surprise) some sitting on the balcony in the late evening sun, huevos y patatas in town, shoe shopping, picnic in the Retiro, dinner at Isla del Tesoro (heavenly veggie food), a wander round the Temple of Debod and just general chilled enjoyment. Because she'd been to Madrid 3 times before, there was no pressure on either of us to rush around the touristy things!



In the middle of all this, of course, was Eve's goodbye party at the flat! But that is for another blog!

Due to a combination of my camera battery unexpectedly running out, forgetting to take it with me, being drunk/hungover or being somewhere that photos aren't really appropriate (the veggie restaurant!), there aren't as many pics as I would have liked. Still, what there are can be seen here:

http://picasaweb.google.es/emsr2d2/CathyVisitJuly09?authkey=Gv1sRgCKPL3aGa_b-C7gE&feat=directlink

It was a lovely weekend so thanks to Cathy for her company (and well done for managing to get up at 4.30 this morning to get to the airport!)