Celebration Time

Recently I’m a bit slow with the old blog posts, as I’m busily working away on programming my new website and various other projects that I’ll discuss once they’re a bit further into development. For now, I’ve to get everything here up to speed, and we start that with no less than another wedding!

It was my ex-colleague Teresa’s big day, which brought together a collection of past and present Erretres employees here in Madrid. María and I headed over to Julia’s house in the morning, where the three of us got our glad rags on. I managed to squeeze into a suit for the occasion, with the only drama being the cufflinks I’d bought not fitting into the corresponding button holes on my shirt. A bit of huffing and puffing from Javier and Julia soon got them in place though, and we were ready to go!

Then followed a lovely ceremony at a rather splendid church, after which we all hopped on a bus and up to El Pardo, just outside of Madrid City, where there were canapés and drinks before the wedding meal. This involved a surprise ending, with bingo cards being handed out and Teresa taking the mic to read out the numbers in her best teacher’s voice.

You can then imagine my surprise when I had one number left, number 27, and that was just the number that Teresa called out. I jumped to my feet shouting ‘bingo’, and was then shocked to be presented with a whole leg of cured ham. I’ve never had a proper jamón: it feels like the process of españolización (becoming Spanish) is advancing slowly but surely.

The meal was delicious and the dance after was a great laugh. Teresa told me that she had included a song for me in the playlist after I played it once in the office, but I had no idea which one it could be. I thought it might be Barbie Girl by Aqua, so you can imagine my surprise when it wound up being Tarzan & Jane by Toy-Box. What a random throwback!

The next weekend I was out dancing (read: jumping up and down) once again. Sara, Rocío, and I had bought tickets to the Teatro Barceló, an old theatre which has now been turned into a well-known club. As we’re not drinking, Sara had discovered that they offer an early party from 6pm until 11:30pm which just plays old classics from the 90s and early 2000s. My kind of night!

We had an absolutely fabulous time, dancing along to a mix of Spanish, European, and even British hits from our childhood. I got so into a Mónica Naranjo classic, Sobreviviré, that I didn’t even realise that they’d turned on the house lights and were shooing us all out of the door…

The next day my feet were rather worse for wear, but by Monday I was right as rain and off to a client meeting up in the north of the city. Afterwards, me and some colleagues went for lunch, after which I ran into an enticing looking new job opportunity…

In case it wasn’t obvious, ‘diseño gráfico’ means ‘graphic design’.

I then had a rather busy week between work, the gym, swimming, website development, writing, and reading. It was only fair that I should have a relaxed weekend, and the Madrid weather seemed to agree as it turned cold and threatened to rain. I took the opportunity to do a spot of cooking, making a tortilla de patata with a touch of chorizo, which I must say came out rather well.

Sara and I then met up in the evening to go to the cinema, something I’ve been doing a lot more of recently as my colleague has got me hooked on films. We then wound up in a kaitenzushi restaurant, helping ourselves to plates of sushi and chatting way into the evening.

The poor weather then continued throughout the week, but I was way too busily along with my weekly routine to notice. My culinary adventures continued as I made an apple crumble and some vegetable soup, both of which received Pedro’s seal of approval. I also introduced him to proper English butter after I’d had the chance to pick some up when down in Murcia. He was very much sold!

My other weekly outing was for another client workshop, a day which was a lot of fun and took me to a part of the city that I don’t normally explore, but one that I may visit more in the future as I’ve discovered that my gym has another location around that area.

The only thing left for me to do now was to rest. Well, that and clean my house, as I’d a set of very special guests coming for a few days. More on that next time…