Monthly Archives: November 2020

26.11.20 — Journal

Christmas Around the Corner

We’re now a mere few days from December, and I’ve begun to make plans for my Christmas trip home back to England, trying to keep an illusion of normality and repeat last year’s festive holiday. We’re definitely in the latter, wetter stages of autumn here, with grey skies and miserable showers marking a stark contrast from the stuffy heights of the Madrid summer.

Christmas, however, has come slightly early for me, as I treated myself to a new phone which arrived a couple of weeks ago. I splashed out in order to get myself one with a great camera, and so this post will be punctuated with many photos that I’ve been taking along the way! Let’s see if this new camera marks a noticeable change like my iPhone X did three years ago…

In between my days at work, taking photos out of the windows, Jhosef came over to have a snoop at my new toy and urge me to finally move all my data over to it. After an evening of drinking tea, holding a spa evening at home, and a quick trip to the office to pick something up, I finally made the switch to the new device, and off I headed for the rest of my weekend’s activities with its three new cameras in tow.

The proceeding week was as busy as usual, with plenty of working hard and playing hard. With the arrival of another member to the Erretres team, we took the opportunity to head out for a team meal, and I made plenty of time to relax back at home after long days in the office. This relaxation is made even more zen by the coloured lights, which I have added to even further, with a new lot installed under the desk of my home office.

There’s nothing like a relaxing evening in with some chill music.

These evenings in the office do have their perks, though, as the new space receives some lovely evening light and offers great birds-eye views over the boulevard below. The new location is especially great for spontaneous evening plans after work, which came in useful when me and Jhosef arranged to meet up one Friday for an end-of-week lunch.

Autumn has to be the best time to be starting out with a new camera.

After work that day, I haded down to the rental bike station which sits just on the eastern edge of the Parque del Oeste, which was looking resplendent in the afternoon sun as you can see above. Instead of grabbing a bike and heading straight home, I called Jhosef to see if he wanted to nip up to a rooftop terrace for a beer and a bite to eat, and so the plan was made.

We had lunch framed by this amazing view down Gran Vía, Madrid’s main artery, and then headed out on to the outdoor section of the terrace to take some photos as we watched the sun set over the west of the city. From here, I talked Jhosef into taking a bike with me back home, and so we flew down the steep slopes of the south of the city at full pelt as day turned to night.

I began that weekend with a spot of decorating my flat ready for Christmas. In keeping with my minimalist take on everything, I opted to try to kit my place out with the bare minimum, decorating my existing plants with lights and tinsel that I had spare from the year before. It’s a stark contrast from my university room, where more certainly was more, and I went so far as to build a winter wonderland atop my coffee table!

I am rather happy with my little Christmas trees, even if they’re not the right kind of tree.

Making the most of my cozy new setup, I invited Sara and Jhosef over for the evening, and we took the opportunity to ring Kevin for a catch up. Sara, Kevin, and I met up often in my final year at Leeds University, where the two of them were studying their Erasmus, and since then I’ve spent many a drunken evening with the two of them up in the north of Spain before Kevin sadly had to leave us to the US.

The day after, and capitalising on Jhosef’s new found taste for cycling, I insisted that we take a ride down the river, an activity which kept me as sane as possible once the lockdown restrictions began being lifted. Once we’d managed to find two working bikes which didn’t make funny noises or start jittering as soon as we picked up any kind of speed, we spent the afternoon making our way northwards along the river, ending our journey with a delicious roast chicken lunch at a Peruvian spot that we both always enjoy.

Once we’d devoured half a chicken and a whole lot of chips between us, we sauntered up Gran Vía in order to catch another bike back home. There I grabbed my laptop and set to work on a few things that I’d neglected to do during the rest of the weekend – drinks with Sara and outings with Jhosef had kept me rather distracted – before heading off to bed early to ready myself for the coming week.

I’m now currently enjoying a couple of days off work which I’ve taken in order to make myself a much-needed long weekend, but the three days I have worked have been as action-packed as ever. This was broken up lovelily by an evening spent at Hugo’s, where he whipped up a batch of delicious enchiladas for me and a few other friends, all washed down with a very strong Russian drink that his boyfriend had brought along!

So concludes my little overview of the past few weeks of outings around Madrid. As I say, I’m hoping to spend Christmas and New Year back in England, but we’ll have to take things as they come in these uncertain times. Either way, I do hope to be back with another post before then, so I shall be back very soon…

09.11.20 — Journal

Evening Walks & Indulgent Spreads

Another fortnight has passed and a lot has happened, both in my own life and in the world. From the move to the new office to the long awaited end of the Trump era, it’s been a busy couple of weeks which have flown by once again, so it’s time for me to bring a quick update on what I’ve been up to in between times!

As I say, the move into November has marked the first few days in Erretres’ new office space, which has been a healthy mix of socially-distanced work sprints, video calls from every corner of every meeting room, and plenty of time spent trying to work out where the big plates are stored in the new kitchen. With a couple of new members joining the team, it’s also been a great chance to socialise, with various lunches held both in the office and in its surrounding restaurants.

As well as the restaurants, the new location also offers quite a few other perks, one of my personal favourites being the ability to grab a bike home from the nearby BiciMad (Madrid’s city bike network) station. The two-minute wander to the station takes me to the edge of the Parque del Oeste, with its spectacular view over the west of the city – hence its name, which means “Western Park”. It’s a spot that I frequented a lot with Ellie and Johann when they visited a couple of years back, as there’s always a good sunset to be enjoyed if you catch it just at the right time.

Last weekend was a lovely three-day break thanks to Spain’s celebration of All Saints’ Day, which was – of course – preceded by Halloween. To celebrate Halloween this year, we’d to get a little creative, and so Danni, Abi, and I borrowed an idea from earlier in lockdown: a virtual fancy dress quiz! Once again we’d hold an online quiz with the three of us connecting in full costume, and the results were as hilarious as last time!

After a miserable performance in the Halloween-themed quiz, I spent the Sunday after cycling around the city once more. My little route took me up to the north of the city and to the British shop to stock up on Vimto as I’d nearly run out – disaster averted!

As I said, I then had the Monday off too in order to relax, but Sara was having none of it, and dragged me out of the house and up to the north-west of the city for some lunch. After meeting up outside the rather impressive headquarters of the Spanish Air Force, we wandered around some of the streets of a neighbourhood I’d never properly explored, and wound up sitting down for a delicious lunch of spring rolls and huevos rotos (chips with fried eggs on top, but in an odd twist, these ones came with chicken and caramelised onion instead of the usual cured ham).

I would have gotten closer for a better photo but I didn’t dare approach the gate.

After some cheeky lunchtime vermouths with Sara, which then naturally turned into a full afternoon’s worth of drinks and nibbles, the working week begun. It was a busy week for my team, but it made Friday all that more rewarding and led us beautifully into another long weekend!

I kicked off the bank holiday break with a meal with Jhosef, his sister, and her boyfriend on Friday night. The four of us wound up in a lovely restaurant in Chueca that I’d visited with Jhosef a few months back, where we tucked into a garlic-prawn-filled tortilla de patatas (Spanish omelette) and a plate full of morcilla (blood sausage), fried peppers, and quail’s eggs.

It was nice to see the old Schewppes neon lit back up.

This was proceeded by a rather calm Saturday, which involved me heading out for the weekly shop and proceeding to deep-clean the flat – a couple of rather mundane things that I actually quite enjoy. A trip to my local supermarket, Mercadona, is always good fun, and I don’t mind scrubbing my shower if I can listen to Lorde on full blast whilst I do so!

Sunday was much more animated, however, as I’d arranged to host brunch at my flat. Initially I’d just invited Sara, who agreed to bring along a bottle of vermouth to share, but upon realising the sheer quantity of food that I’d prepared, I thought it best to invite Jhosef along too!

The issue of excess food didn’t really get resolved in the end, however, as Jhosef also brought along an absolutely delicious lasagne which we all shared alongside the vast spread that you can see above. After sitting around and chatting whilst we did our best to finish the feast, the vermouth soon kicked in, and before long we were all singing along to a playlist of some of the most iconic Spanish classics.

After Jhosef had to head off, me and Sara popped the coloured lights on and danced some of our energy off to the timeless tunes of the Vengaboys, reminding us of the many nights we spent drunkenly dancing to cheesy 90s and 00s hits in Leeds together with Kevin. After exhausting my playlist of songs from my very British childhood, the two of us crashed out on the sofa, grazing on the leftovers from brunch whilst we watched a couple of episodes of Derry Girls and brought our most excellent Sunday to an end.

I was then supposed to spend this Monday off advancing the design of my new website and writing (and translating) this blog post, but in the end I found myself dragged to IKEA by the need for a desk lamp and the thought of more gratuitous spending in order to further fill my flat with plants. Said mischief was managed, and so my desk setup is now complete and I have welcomed a whole eight new additions to my plant family!

I thus once more bring together another update looking at the past fortnight of shenanigans, of which I’m sure there will be many more as I inch slowly but surely towards Christmas. I’m still hoping to head back to England to spend a week or so with my family, but with England’s descend into a second lockdown, we’re all just having to take things one day at a time.

Missing bonfire night this year has also been a bit of a sad one, as I always remember the many nights spent at bonfires all over the place with my family, and then in Leeds in later years with friends. I also feel like it’s the only annual event that we celebrate in England which is 100% British without being related to any key dates of the current monarchy. But hey ho, and to quote my dad: never mind, we’ll just have to make the bonfires twice as big next year!

To conclude: Halloween is over, Bonfire Night has come and gone, and with it so has Trump. With him on his way out and only Christmas left on the 2020 calendar, things are looking up. Although I do have to recognise that I’ve been very lucky compared to many, I think we’re all ready for this year to come to a swift end!