One back in Spain after my lovely Christmas break back in the UK, it was pretty much straight back to work after a quiet New Year’s Eve, which I spent at home eating grapes as per Spanish tradition! The 6th of January signalled the Spanish celebration of the Reyes Magos (which we know as the Three Kings or Wise Men), which meant that we’d all to tuck into some Roscón de Reyes, a traditional pastry consisting of sweet bread topped with candied fruits, nuts, and sugar.

This pastry is even more delicious when dunked in thick hot chocolate.

After a rather grey and rainy first week back in the office, the weekend finally brought a little spot of winter sun. This was just in time for some weekend plans that me and Bogar had made, involving watching some previews of musicals in the city centre, and yet another trip down to IKEA in order to pick up a few bits and pieces – I wanted some more electrical components in order to fully automate all the lights I had brought back with me from England!

We watched one of the performances, and then headed to a café for a spot of breakfast, before returning to watch the one that we’d been dying to see: La jaula de las locas (The cage of the crazy women, to translate literally). This involved a show run by drag queens, and spearheaded by a particularly witty queen, who even had the audience involved with the confetti canons as their 20-minute set came to an end!

Once the show was over, we headed down to our favourite Swedish shop and made the rounds, stopping, as usual, for some meatballs. I grabbed myself a bookshelf to organise my wardrobe, some other electronic tidbits, and yet another plant.

We also checked out some of the discounted Christmas goodies…

We then headed back up to our neighbourhood in a car, and helped each other assemble the various bits of furniture in each other’s respective houses. With so much manual labour undertaken in one day, we felt that we deserved a cheeky evening meal out, and so went to check out Gracias Padre, a Mexican restaurant whose praises Bogar had been singing.

There we ate the best bowl of nachos I have ever had in my life – and bear in mind that I’m not the biggest fan of nachos – and a huge gringa (like a quesadilla, meat and other ingredients sandwiched in cheese between two tortillas). This was all washed down with beer and lemon juice (yes, that’s pure lemon juice), before an early night which I was desperately in need of.

The following week saw me head off to my new dentist for the first time ever, and after a diagnosis meaning I’ll have to come back at the end of this month, I managed to get lost whilst looking for Chamartín train station to head back to work. I eventually found a back entrance that I’d never seen before, but which gave some pretty cool views over the station building and the four (soon to be five) towers in the background.

Another weekend soon came around, and I once again had plans with Bogar to have some breakfast in the centre. This was after I finally remembered to pick up a vinyl record that I had ordered – even though I don’t have a record player here in Spain. Oops.

We had a lovely bagel brunch in HanSo Café, a popular spot in the hipster district of Malasaña, and I then took Bogar to try the best palmeras (heart-shaped pastries) in the city. These can be found at a lovely little bakery called La Duquesita, where I took a cheeky selfie in the old mirrors that line most of the walls.

Nothing beats a sweet craving quite like a generously frosted palmera.

That evening was quite a busy one for me, as I’d finally arranged to meet up with Roberto again after our summer adventures in rural Valencia! Luckily, he has a vinyl player, and so I pottered over to his house with my Rodrigo Cuevas record in hand.

There I met his flatmate and had a snoop around his lovely new pad, and we popped open some beers and listened to the record for a while. Once we were ready for some food, we headed to Buns & Bones, one of my favourite places to grab a light tea (dinner).

After we’d eaten, I picked my vinyl up from Roberto’s place and then headed home, but I was soon back on the Metro and heading into the city centre, as Bogar’s friend Gil was leaving the country and so there was a farewell do to attend! We had a good drink and a boogie in a bar in Chueca, but once they decided to head out to a club, I decided I was too tired and so escaped back to the comfort of my bed.

The day after, I decided to whip up a couple (yes, two) of carrot cakes, sharing one between friends and the other between colleagues. I don’t wish to boast, but my carrot cakes always go down quite the treat!

Just a couple of days later, I found myself once again on a train down to Murcia, but that shall now have to wait until another blog post. It’s been a hectic few weeks, so I am running somewhat behind with these updates, but I hope to catch up a little this weekend and next!

My last regular blog post was entitled “The Arrival of Autumn“, but that was a month ago, and now we are now definitely well into winter! Work was still as busy as ever as we moved into December, but we had the fun of the Christmas meal to look forward to. This was a riotous evening, with plenty of tacos and cocktails flowing, all culminating in a boogie in a club down in the center.

Outside of the office, I had a chance to catch up with Bogar over some lovely food, which was a welcome chat after a while not having seen each other nor visited our favourite local bar. One day, I also had the opportunity to visit the students at the IED (the European Design Institute), where I chatted to some master’s students about my history with Erretres and our working process.

The day after my visit, I arrived back home and had to get to packing: it was time to head back to England for Christmas! Much like a couple of years ago, I picked up my cellophane-bound backpack and made for the airport, boarding my suspiciously noisy plane to Manchester Airport.

Once I’d landed and picked up my bag, I headed out of the terminal and to my dad who was waiting in the car. There was no time for faffing, however, as we’d to head straight to the wedding party of one of my childhood friends! After having ripped him out of said party to pick me up, we made a stop in a service station so that I could change into an (admittedly rather creased after such a journey) shirt, and then headed straight to the event.

After an evening of jiving and sampling the local gin, I was in no rush to get up and ready, but I eventually had to shift myself to the train station in Todmorden in order to head over to Leeds. I was Yorkshire-bound as I’d arranged to spend the evening with Rhea, who was home alone as Luisa had headed back to Germany to spend Christmas with her family too.

Upon arrival, I headed straight to the Co-Op, a supermarket near the house where I used to live, and bought half a shop’s worth of snacks for our evening. I was soon joined by Rhea, who picked up some ingredients for a fancy breakfast the morning after, but we didn’t bother with anything for tea (dinner) – we’d already decided that we were going to grab some grub from our two favourite takeaways! With my visits to Leeds now increasingly fleeting, and Rhea moving to Birmingham at the end of this month, it was our last chance to chill out in her house and eat some of our favourite food.

The morning after an evening of kebabs and RuPaul, Rhea set to work cooking a slap-up breakfast consisting of chorizo, tomato, onions, garlic, eggs, and bread – all of my favourite ingredients rolled into one! With the delicious concoction devoured, we decided to open a pack of “unicorn ice creams” left over from the night before and have them as dessert…

Ice cream after breakfast because we are grown adults and we can do what we want.

Once I’d grabbed a train back to Burnley, that Sunday evening we’d planned a family tip to the Manchester Christmas Markets, which we make a habit of going to every year. Only five minutes down the motorway, however, we were shook by a loud bang, and within a flash we found ourself on the hard shoulder, one of our front wheels completely blown out.

Ellie was the first to think fast, and reminded us all that we’d to get away from the car and the motorway as quickly as possible, and so we all grabbed our umbrellas, turned on the hazard lights, and headed out into the drizzle. As we’d stopped under a bridge, we had to head around the side and climb up the embankment, looking back down the motorway from above whilst my mum rang our insurance company.

After we were told that a tow truck to rescue four people would take over an hour to arrive, we had a quick look to see if there was any way of reaching the top of the embankment and finding somewhere to warm up, but we were confronted with barbed wire and a dead end. Resigned to our fate on the roadside, we eventually turned to singing Christmas carols and games of I Spy to keep ourselves occupied and warm.

We were eventually rescued, but our wheel wouldn’t be replaced until the afternoon of the next day, which presented a problem to me and my sister Ellie: we’d booked a festive afternoon tea for my mum as an early Christmas present! We eventually had to get a taxi to the Nº 62, a lovely spot in Colne which I’d first visited just before leaving to Spain in January last year.

After a relaxing day at home, it was suddenly Christmas Eve, and my mum had a little surprise in store: a little bag of Christmas Eve presents! As she was working Christmas Eve night, she surprised us with some gifts to open the night before, which got us all in a festive spirit after the failed trip to Manchester just a couple of nights before.

The gifts included matching elf pyjamas and mugs for everyone!

After we’d opened these, we headed to drop my mum off at work, and then headed off to bed ready to head back on Christmas day morning to pick her back up. Once home, we opened our presents, but then my mum had to head back to bed, and so the rest of our 25th is always somewhat unconventional: we all go away and do our own thing, and then reconvene when my mum’s awake and order a curry in!

Whilst we waited for my mum to wake up, me, my dad, and sister headed out for a walk in order to get out of the house for a while and take in the lovely landscapes surrounding my childhood home. I think it was on this walk when I realised that one of my New Year’s resolutions should really be to get more in shape – after half an hour of walking I was knackered!

After our curry tea and an evening watching Élite (a fab Spanish series) as a family, we began the celebrations usually saved for the 25th on the 26th. In the morning, Abi and Danni swung by so that we could do our belated gift exchange, and then preparations began on our family’s tradition of a delicious cream of cauliflower soup which we devour for lunch.

The only way to properly recover from a huge bowl of creamy soup and fresh warm bread rolls is to head to bed for a good ol’ nap, which I thought would be a half-hour affair. Three hours later I woke up in a panic, with the smell of turkey and gravy making me worried that I had missed the Christmas dinner entirely! Thankfully I hadn’t, and I arrived in the kitchen in time to help out with some of the final prep and serving.

Mum’s Christmas dinner was as delicious as it always is, and ended our main two days of Christmas celebrations. The day after was mainly a day for rest and digestion, but in the afternoon we headed back over to Yorkshire in order to pick up some fish and chips in Hebden Bridge and visit my grandparents in Bradford. We had a lovely catch up, and then in a blink it was already the 28th of December, and I was headed back to Madrid on the 30th!

I started the day heading up to a local pub with Danni and Abi for lunch, which was delicious and accompanied with plenty of gin and many laughs. The two of them concocted some plans for a night out on the spot, but I’d to pass on them as I’d plans to be up early the next day to get the bus to Manchester – I feel like I managed to use every method of transport possible during my trip!

This trip to Manchester had a dual purpose. Firstly, I’d arranged to meet Luisa (who was now back from Germany) and Declan for a catch up, and secondly I was to then head to the Royal Exchange Theatre with my dad, as I’d bought him theatre tickets as a Christmas present (a bit like a couple of years ago!)

I managed to be late for my breakfast appointment with Declan and Luisa (shocker), but once I’d made it there we had a lovely breakfast and a catch up for a good couple of hours. It was lovely to hear about Luisa’s new career as a teacher, and how Declan has now moved to Brighton in order to work for a company which sounds right up his street.

After another coffee elsewhere and a quick visit to a design bookshop (naturally), I had to dash off and find my dad in order to head to the matinee performance at 2:30pm. The piece that we were going to see was called “Gypsy“, but I had done zero research before we went, so the whole thing was to be an exciting surprise. Heck, I didn’t even know that it was a musical!

Me and my dad had a wonderful time, enjoying every moment of the show, which was full of energy from start to finish. Once the bows were over, we headed to a bar, where we found my mum and Ellie already cradling a cocktail. I didn’t need much convincing to grab myself one, and we were all soon merrily away with our anecdotes.

The four of us soon grew hungry, and so it fell on me to decide where we should go for tea, as somehow it was my last evening in the UK. For some unknown reason I really fancied visiting the Trafford Centre, even though the shops had closed by that point, and decided that I thus wanted to relive happy childhood memories and have a cheesy bites pizza at Pizza Hut.

Pizza Hut consumed, my last night in my very springy childhood bed spent, and my bags half packed, the morning of my last day was spent with Amber and Jess. We met up at another local pub, where I treated myself to a proper full English breakfast, and told them all about Gypsy and various other drama from Madrid. All too soon, though, I had to be dropped back off at home, where I finished packing, cellophane-binding, and weighing my bag ready to head back off to the airport.

My dad managed to manage his shift in such a way that he could come along with us to the airport, where I said my goodbyes until March, when my parents will be visiting me here in Madrid once again. I’m already thinking of what we could get up to! Until then, I’ll have to see what I get up to here in Spain. I’ll keep you all updated, of course!