As April advanced, it seemed as though we were witnessing the first glimpses of the transition from the cold mornings of winter to the sunny afternoons of springtime. In this optimism we were, however, mistaken, as the arrival of spring brought with it wildly unpredictable weather. Days of supposed clear skies soon turned into torrential downpours, and the scaremongering of the weather forecast and its promise of thunderstorms gave way to perfectly clear skies.

On one of these particularly confusing days, I had arranged to meet Luis for a drink by the river. I left the house clothing my umbrella after a rather pessimistic forecast was recited to me by my Google Nest speaker, and gingerly hopped on a bike below suitably threatening grey skies. By the time the two of us had picked up some free bread from a promotional van and grabbed a beer, however, the blue skies were back and we perched ourselves on a patch of grass by the river to enjoy the afternoon rays.

We spent a good while chatting down by the river – too long in fact, as I’d to leave cycling like a madman in order to pick up a pizza I’d ordered and head over to Bogar’s for an evening of listening to nostalgic music and chatting about all kinds of nonsense. When it came time to leave before the 11pm curfew, however, my luck had taken a turn for the worse, and I rushed home holding onto my brolly for dear life as I was lashed by a thunderstorm that had chosen the exact moment I left Bogar’s to dump a month’s worth of rain onto the streets of Madrid.

The next day the weather was up to no good once again, with mischievous dark clouds blotting the otherwise blue sky, but the plan to have lunch with Luis and a group of his friends remained. The two of us met up once again by the river, grabbing a bike each and cycling down to another riverside spot before pre-lunch drinks. From this new spot we could see a near-black wall of storm clouds hovering over the mountains that surround the city, but we arrived at the (thankfully covered) lunch spot just in time for another downpour to drench the capital.

After a delicious lunch at the Café del Rey, a spot we used to haunt when we both worked at Erretres’ previous office near the Plaza de España, we headed to another spot full of memories. This is a bar that to this day I don’t know the name of, as we always have and always will call it either “el bar de la esquina” (the bar on the corner) or simply “el sherif”, in honour of one of the eccentric waiters who always proudly bears a sheriff’s badge.

Once sat on the terrace there, round after round of wine and tapas then ensued, and our lunch turned into a whole afternoon affair. All the wine left me with quite a heavy head on the Monday morning after, and so after I’d returned from work, I headed out for a wander around the neighborhood to see if I could find any new spots that I’d never before visited.

That I did, and ended up following the railway line from where I’d accidentally stumbled across it in the south back up to the north and back home. This did provide some interesting views of my local park, Parque de las Delicias, and some intriguing seemingly abandoned storage areas built into the side of the mound constructed to bear the train lines.

The towering heights of the smokestack and the climbing wall loomed eerily in the dark.

After another week at work, it was once again time to make the most of the weekend, and I kicked things off with a rather relaxing night in. Once I’d mixed myself a gin and tonic, bedded down in a comfy pile of sheets on my sofa, and set the lights to cinema mode, I re-watched the magnificent film that is James and the Giant Peach for the first time in probably more than fifteen years.

The day after, and as seems to be becoming tradition on a Saturday evening, I headed out with Sara and Jhosef into the city centre for some drinks and nibbles. We kicked things off with some cocktails in the writer’s quarter, before heading to a South Korean restaurant that Jhosef had been meaning to take me to for a while. There, we tucked into some delicious dishes, all washed down with soju, and wound up having to get the bus home such as to make the curfew!

That Sunday was spent nursing a particularly nasty hangover, and so I didn’t really leave the house – although at least it had cleared by Monday morning ready for another week of work! During the past week, as part of a push on my part to start living a healthier lifestyle, I’ve been eating better and getting out walking more. One of these evening walks took me down past the Royal Palace and the works that are being carried out around the Plaza de España area, works which it seems have uncovered a pretty intricate old basement!

This brings us round to this weekend, which seems to mark a moment where the weather forecast has finally begun to reflect the reality present in the skies over Madrid. Google informs me that today will be very overcast and cold, something which I can vouch for as I sit here with my dressing gown over my jumper and all the lights of the house turned on, keeping a watchful eye over the towels that I’ve hung out to dry.

Because of the shoddy weather that we’re most likely to suffer for the whole weekend, I doubt that I’ll be up to all that much, with another night in messing around with my lights and another nostalgic movie on the cards. Maybe I’ll have a mad moment and turn the whole house blue again to pretend that I’m in a UV party at a club.

Ah, clubs – remember those?

It’s a Wednesday evening and sadly the last day of a week off that I’ve just enjoyed, as I took three days of holiday off to complement the two days of Easter holidays awarded to us by the Community of Madrid. As I mentioned in my last post, I had planned to get out and about, but in the end I kept things pretty quiet – but more on that in just a moment!

Before these Easter holidays began, I had a weekend to enjoy before a short three-day working week, and this was spent eating and drinking with friends in various places around Madrid. Things kicked off on Saturday, when me and Sara headed out for an evening of drinks and dinner in Madrid’s Writer’s Quarter, El barrio de las letras. After bar hopping and enjoying a bowl full of sunflower seeds and peanuts from one particularly friendly bar owner, the two of us switched out the beer for a glass of wine and a bite to eat atop a little table along the street.

The next day, and after nursing a bit of heavy head after the mixing of beer and wine, I headed up to Retiro – the Central Park of Madrid – and met up with Hugo and Bogar for a bite of some tequeños (Venezuelan cheese sticks) and our first glass of tinto de verano (literally “summer red wine”, which is red wine mixed with lemon Fanta) of the year.

After Hugo had to head off for work, Bogar and I decided to make the most of the evening sun, and grabbed a bike each to cycle around the park and watch the sunset. We stopped for a moment by the lake as the light began to fade, before heading back home, where I indulged in a spot of knitting – something I haven’t done for quite a while!

On Thursday, and after just three days of work, it was time to head out for the first plan of the holidays. Me and Bogar had decided to try out one of the many places I have marked on the map that people have recommended that I visit, and after some drinks with Hugo and Sergei, we headed up to a little Italian restaurant called Menomale in the north of the city.

We had a lovely meal at the restaurant, sharing a delicious salad for our starter which was followed by a couple of tasty pasta dishes. Returning home via bike (as is now custom), we were then joined in my flat by Jhosef, and an evening of drinks and chit-chat ensued. We wound up so engrossed in our evening that we totally forgot about the curfew, and so I became a hostess once again as the two of them stayed over until the next morning!

The day after, me and Jhosef were to see each other once more, as we’d arranged to have lunch with Sara and her boyfriend Eric in an Asturian restaurant they had recommended that we visit for a while. As the two of them are from the region, I was very excited to eat at the place they talked of so much – Sidrería La Cuenca – and boy was I not disappointed! We tucked into some absolutely fabulous dishes, which came in rather generous portions, washing the whole thing down with natural Asturian cider, shots of crema de orujo (a cream liqueur), and then some gin and tonic.

Needless to say, we left the place very full and quite tipsy, and so headed back to Sara and Eric’s for a nap before some relaxed evening beers. This combination of alcohol and plentiful food – from fried squid to the infamous cachopo – left me nostalgic about my first time visiting Asturias, and left us very sleepy as evidenced in the photo below!

The cider and overly-generous portions left us quite knackered on the metro…

During the weekend, Jhosef came over for a day working at home, where I took the opportunity to work on my new website design and build some new electronic contraptions at home. The two of us then met up with Bogar once again on Sunday; first to relax at the park, and then to head out for a spot of shopping that I wanted to do. Once I’d restocked on Vimto and Lush face masks, we decided to have some tea (dinner, to most) out around the neighbourhood. This took us to Goiko, en excellent burger joint, where the food was excellent as ever.

Tequeños and burgers combined made for an excellent Sunday-evening tea.

I left for home quite excited on that Sunday evening, as I had quite the Monday lined up, with a trip to the Parque de Atracciones, Madrid’s central theme park, booked and my e-ticket downloaded and ready to go! You can imagine my dismay, then, when I awoke to a text message from the Madrid government at 9am on Monday morning to inform me that my neighbourhood was now in lockdown, with all but essential access in and out of the small area now prohibited.

As you can imagine, I’d then to contact the theme park and cancel my visit, as well as mentally cancelling all the other plans that I’d made for my three holiday days. Not to be beaten by this last-minute bombshell, I spent a day working on my website and cleaning my flat, before heading out to check out the borders of the new exclusion zone in which I suddenly found myself.

I was greatly relieved to discover that the bars within my neighbourhood are to remain open, and so I’ve spent the last couple of days frequenting the terraces which I can still legally visit, calling friends on the phone to conduct “virtual drinks” with them given that most of them live outside of the border line. Although a bit of an odd one, this new hyper-local lockdown is still much easier than the initial one we suffered back around this time last year!

This brings us to this evening, as I’m sat watching a film, sipping on a gin and tonic, and preparing to head back to work and back to reality tomorrow. I shan’t complain, though, as I’ve a mere two days to work before another weekend rolls around. And I shall have to gargantee to myself that, despite being am stuck in this odd little lockdown, I’ll be sure to make the most of it just as best as I can!