Plenty of Pampering

01.06.21 — Madrid

At the end of my last post, I speculated whether I’d be able to travel around a little bit this summer now that Spain is lifting restrictions after the central government deactivated the state of emergency a couple of weeks ago. Well, it would seem that my prayers have been answered, as I start writing this blog post sat at a desk in a lovely hotel room in Bilbao, where the grey clouds have finally parted and it looks like we’re going to be treated to a day of sun.

Stories from my current trip up to the north of Spain will, however, have to wait until the next blog post, as we’ve some catching up to do — or should I say I do, as I’ve had my blog somewhat abandoned for the last few weeks…

We pick things up after my week of little birthday celebrations, and another week at work which was punctuated by some lovely evenings with friends. One evening I met up with Sara and Jhosef at a lovely little terrace near my house, where we were treated to a generous selection of tapas before ordering two huge plates of delicious grub to share — calamares (calamari rings) and huevos rotos con jamón (chips with cured ham and fried eggs).

Another evening brought with it another birthday celebration, this time for Hugo. For this, four of us headed to an Italian restaurant that I knew Hugo was a fan of, and tucked into some delicious courses (including a dessert that came recommended by a colleague) in between lots of laughs and some particularly lovely white wine.

I’ve always been a big fan of prawns with spicy tomato sauce.

With my belly full of a rich and spicy tomato and prawn pasta, I hopped on one of the city bikes to head back home, passing by some of the places that I had first gawked at when I first stepped foot in Madrid all the way back in 2015. I passed by the Instituto Cervantes, the Banco de España (Spain’s national bank), Cibeles, and the southern train station, Atocha. Upon arriving home, I set the lights to a relaxing purple colour combination and unwinded for the evening with a book.

I mention the book because I’ve recently gotten back into reading in a big way, having finished three books in the past couple of weeks. Without wanting to turn this post into a book review (I used to hate having to write those in primary school), I’ll quickly detail the experience as I think they are three very interesting pieces:

The first took the form of a novel I received through the post as part of an anonymous book exchange I participated in on Instagram. I’d done this on a whim, doubting that much would come of it, but I actually received two novels in the end! The first of these was this one, Los renglones torcidos De Dios by Torcuato Luca de Tena. As you can tell by the title, this was a Spanish novel, and represented the first time that I’d ever read a full novel in my second language. It wasn’t an easy read, both because of the need for constant pauses to look up unfamiliar flowery terminology and because of the subject matter: life inside an old psychiatric hospital. The hauntingly beautiful title, which translates roughly as “God’s twisted lines of text”, is a great window into the contents of the novel, for which Luca de Tena himself feigned mental illness in order to live an unfiltered, first-hand experience within a psychiatric hospital. This exposure shines through in Luca de Tena’s ability to captivate and maintain dramatic suspense until the very last page. Unfortunately there’s no English version, but I’d highly recommend it to any hispanohablantes out there.

The second book took the form of a biography. I’m not usually too fond of biographical works, but I made an exception here after watching a short documentary on YouTube on the life of this extraordinary woman. The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster by Sarah Krasnostein documents the turbulent and often heart-wrenchingly sad life of Sandra Pankhurst. The book explores — with often blurry or incomplete details thanks to Pankhurt’s possibly trauma-induced amnesia — her early years as a mistreated adopted child, her subsequent transition to a woman, and then her eventual role as the founder of a company dedicated to trauma cleaning. Trauma cleaning, for those in the dark, involves cleaning up places where trauma has occurred, such as the scenes of a murder, suicide, or the homes of hoarders. Although this book again details with a subject matter which makes for little easy reading, it was refreshing to learn about something which is often readily overlooked by society and the compassion —born surely of an ability to empathise due to her personal experience of trauma— with which Pankhurst handles each client and case.

Lastly we have the third book, and this time we find ourselves dealing with an equally obscure but much more light-hearted topic: grammar and punctuation. Written by an ex-proofreader from The New Yorker, Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris was a lovely light-hearted deep dive into the use of language and the punctuation with which we pepper our sentences in a manner which — as Norris would probably attest to — is often rather slapdash. I was seduced into picking up this gem of a book by the “Comma Queen” part of its title, as I’m often lauded by friends as being quite the fusspot with the use of commas. Needless to say, Norris didn’t disappoint, delving into the mechanisms of the English language (albeit in American English, which I’m not a huge fan of) in a light-hearted yet often very informative manner.

I’m now on another book, but I shall conclude this little book-club-esque section for now for fear of boring any of you who may not be interested. If you are, however, be sure to let me know. Maybe it could become something I write more about on here.

Anyway, let’s get back to more mischief from Madrid. Just one day after our evening out for Hugo’s birthday, I found myself cycling down to Luis’ flat with an unopened bottle of vermouth for some drinks and nibbles with him and a couple of friends. Sitting on his lovely private terrace, the four of us shared anecdotes and laughs over some delicious plates of jamón (cured ham) and cecina (cured beef), all before a quick dance to burn off some of the alcohol which was flowing freely.

Just 48 hours later and I was back with Luis again, this time taking the metro up to the north of the city and to Sunday Service, an event organised by my colleague Blanca to launch her line of custom handmade jewellery. The inauguration of Tony Blanco Jewelry took place in a photography studio, where we enjoyed pizza and beers and caught up with both old friends and new, as well as having the change to have our photo taken or bag ourselves a new tattoo – both of which I passed on for now.

After Sunday Service, me and Luis were joined by my colleague Maria for a couple more cheeky drinks and a spot of lunch in the city centre. After being joined by a couple more of Luis’ friends, Maria headed off and the rest of us sauntered down to Chueca, where we continued our afternoon of drinks with some gin and tonics.

This afternoon of drinks would have been all fun and games if it weren’t — as eagle-eyed readers amongst you will have already deduced from the name of the Tony Blanco event — on a Sunday. The shenanigans left me with a heavy head on Monday morning, but that had cleared up by the evening, when I dragged Jhosef out for a bike ride up through a green corridor in the north-west of the city.

Grabbing two of the motor-assisted BiciMad city bikes, the two of us followed the western length of Río Manzaneres, the river that runs through Madrid. This led us to a spot that I’d discovered by myself a while back, where we stopped for a moment before heading further onward, eventually arriving at a bridge which spans the main northern motorway out of the city. Here we stopped for a while, taking in the views of the city and the sunset over to the west, before turning back for home.

At home I had a random nostalgia trip and craving for — of all things — a hot chocolate from Costa Coffee. Although Costa may not be the height of the UK’s culinary offerings, I set about whipping myself up a concoction from pure cocoa powder, milk, sugar, squirty cream (which probably has a technical name but I’ve always called it that), and a sprinkling of cinnamon powder. Between my hot chocolate, the mood lighting that I’ve wired my flat up with, and a face mask kit from Lush, I had myself quite the evening of pampering.

Last weekend saw me continue with this theme of pampering, as me and Bogar headed back to Hammam after we’d last gone just before the pandemic erupted here in Spain. We returned to these Arab-style baths to take a dip in the thermal pools, sweat out our woes in the steam room, and have our stresses rubbed away during a relaxing massage. Once we’d been thoroughly revived, we cycled back to our neighbourhood, where we stopped at our favourite local bar for a delicious meal. Never was there a more perfect way to end a weekend!

All this brings us to just last week, which passed by relatively quickly, thanks to the combination of a few busy days in the office with the knowledge that I had a four-day weekend ahead to travel up to Bilbao in northern Spain with Jhosef. As I said at the beginning of the post, I’m still here in the hotel as I write this, although I’m sure I won’t muster up the energy to edit and upload the photos until I’m back in Madrid.

For now, I’m going to enjoy the two days I’ve got left here in this lovely city, and you just know that I’ll be back as soon as possible with some stories from the trip and a generous smattering of photos that I’ve taken around this quirky place. Until then!

Summer’s Coming & I’m Getting Old

09.05.21 — Madrid

The wet and miserable weekend that I predicted at the end of my last blog post turned out, unfortunately, to be a correct prediction. After a Saturday stuck indoors, however, I was determined to get out of the house, and so jumped at Napo’s offer for a pizza lunch out in Lavapiés.

Heading out under very dark and menacing skies, I hopped on a bike and cycled up to the nearest station to NAP Pizza, me and Napo’s preferred pizza spot for their delicious Neapolitan wood-oven-fired pizzas. There we had a lovely catch up over some equally lovely pizza, but we left to some not-so-lovely weather. The heavens had indeed opened, but thankfully my half-broken umbrella held out long enough for me to get to the bus stop and back to the safety of my flat.

After this rather quiet weekend came a busy week at work, but a sudden change in weather and the arrival of some sun kept me in good spirits. In another move to try and get more active, I made the most of the sunny evenings to phone friends and walk and cycle my way back home from the office.

These evening walks often took me through the Parque del Oeste (The Western Park) which sits just by my office, a path which passes by the Templo de Debod, the African Temple gifted to the city by Egypt which now sits atop a hill overlooking the west of the city. From there, I also pass by the Royal Palace and its surrounding gardens – not a bad commute at all!

As the week came to its conclusion, it was time for the annual chaos that is my birthday. The start of my twenty-sixth year on this earth was heralded by a suspiring amount of gifts, with my parents sending over a lovely new shirt and some Cadbury’s chocolate, and Abi and Danni treating me to a huge box full of some of the best of British snacks!

At work I was then surprised by a lovely gift basket from some of my colleagues and a box full of homemade brigadeiro from another. This traditional Brazilian birthday sweet consists of condensed milk and cocoa powder, with all kinds of toppings in order to protect the gooey center. For this occasion we had flaked almonds and multicoloured sprinkles: both excellent options!

To continue the celebrations, I headed out for lunch with another colleague, before then nipping home to quickly change and prepare for an evening meal out with Sara and Jhosef. This I didn’t do quickly enough, evidently, as I rocked up at the Venezuelan restaurant half an hour late – oops! I quickly got up to speed with a few vermouths, however, and was surprised by a lovely Lush gift box from Jhosef before enjoying a bottle of wine and some delicious plates of shared food.

With the Madrid curfew still in place, however, we were handed the bill at half ten, but decided that we weren’t done with our evening just yet. Hailing a taxi, we headed back to my flat, cracking open some gin and tonics and throwing on some music to keep chatting away until the early hours.

After we all awoke at my place with heavy heads, I then spent the day mooching my hangover off at home, only venturing out again in order to meet up with Bogar, Hugo, and Sergei for a burger meal out. I enjoyed a delicious burger with great company, but headed home relatively early as the big meal hadn’t cleared my head as much as I had hoped it would.

The four of us wait for the burger restaurant to open as I nurse a heavy head.

Thankfully, my birthday weekend was a long one, with a bank holiday allowing me to recover the day I spent mooching around nursing a hangover. I made the most of this extra day to cook up some food for the short week ahead and head out for a wander around my neighborhood.

The Spanish breakfast of bread with tomato, olive oil, and salt never fails to revive.

This week has seen the temperature suddenly increase to near-summer levels, and so this weekend we arranged to hold a picnic in Retiro, Madrid’s main park. Settling down by the lake, we enjoyed some cheese sticks, empanadas, and even some KFC that Bogar had brought along – all washed down with some beer and lemon!

Bogar stole my rude fan (translate it if you dare) for a photo shoot by the lake.

Once the sky had clouded over a bit and we had become frustrated by the lack of places to buy more snacks and drinks, the four of us hopped on a bus and made our way down to Bogar’s flat for some more drinks and to waste the evening way sharing our favorite music videos – oh, and some more fried chicken…

I left Bogar’s at half eleven at night – possible now thanks to the end of the curfew in Madrid – and have then spent the most of today cooking and cleaning as I usually do on a Sunday. Being stuck inside today has been made somewhat easier, though, as the clouds that came rolling in yesterday have turned into scattered showers today.

With the easing of restrictions in Madrid and throughout Spain in general, I’m hoping that this summer I’ll be able to get back to safely visiting a few places like Murica or Tenerife – perhaps, depending on how things go over there, I’ll even be able to get back to England! Who knows…

Spring’s Deceit

24.04.21 — Madrid

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?

Eating Through Easter

08.04.21 — Madrid

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!

March Mayhem

26.03.21 — Madrid

It’s now been a whole month since I last dropped by here to update you all on the latest goings on from Madrid, and boy has it been a busy month. In between plenty of work, I’ve not really had all that much time to do anything too exciting, but I’ve certainly been out and about in between times to appreciate the arrival of spring in the city.

We kick things off with a work-related evening of fun, which involved research in the form of a padel match! Without revealing too much, one of our clients deals with the sport, and so I headed off to play en evening of matches with two of my colleagues and Jhosef. I headed down to the sports centre on the bus with Jhosef, and we met up with Zoe and Cris on the courts themselves, where hilarity ensued!

After some rather competitive shenanigans and a kebab to end the night, I was left with aches and pains all down my right arm from so much wild swinging on that Monday evening. This didn’t stop me heading out later in the week, however, when I headed off to Citynizer to check out their new space on their opening week. The Central House, a new hostel in the trendy Lavapiés district, is a longstanding client of ours, and I worked on the branding for their bar and restaurant (Citynizer) last year. It’s a pretty cool space, and it was great to see my work printed and applied all over the place!

As the week concluded, it was time for a bittersweet moment, as María left Erretres to move on to an exciting new project. To give her a decent sendoff, we headed down to El Toril Gourmet, where we enjoyed some delicious burgers and stayed out late on the terrace reminiscing the best moments from her time at the company. We’d soon see each other there once again, but that’ll have to wait just a moment…

That weekend, as if one evening of food and drink out wasn’t enough, I also spent an evening out in the charming La Latina area of Madrid with Sara and Jhosef. After searching in vain for a table in one of the main squares, we tottered down a side street and to a Mexican restaurant where we held the Erretres Christmas party just over a year ago. There we tucked into tacos and margaritas aplenty, had a great lot of laughs, and wound up having to grab a taxi back home in order to comply with the 11pm curfew!

I began the Sunday after with a bit of a heavy head – apparently after a year of the pandemic I can’t handle a mere three margaritas – and then headed out to the river to have some drinks with Hugo, Bogar, and Sergei. We also took the opportunity to take a super-tacky tourist photo at the new “Madrid” sign that they’ve erected down by the section of the river which runs past the royal palace and cathedral.

The week after ended with a rather exciting chance to reconnect with my alma mater, which took the form of a Q&A conducted over Zoom with the students graduating this year from the course I studied. After a quick chat with my former tutors, I was joined by Izzy and some other alumni who have gone on to do some really great and interesting things, and had the chance to respond to some intriguing questions from the current students.

Once the call was over, and as I hinted at just a moment ago, I headed out for another trip to El Toril. Here, María had been surprised with a birthday meal that she didn’t know was happening, and my arrival signaled that it was time to present her with her birthday present: a tattoo machine that we all pitched in for!

The day after I was back out again, when Luis called and invited me to have a quick gin and tonic with him and some friends down by the river. This then turned into another gin and tonic and some food down by his house, where we caught up on all the latest shenanigans going on in each others’ lives. All of these great distractions were fabulous, but they were just that: distractions; meaning that the day after I had to run all of the errands that I hadn’t bothered to do during the previous couple of days!

After rewiring my desk, cleaning my flat, and heading out to buy some supplies for the coming week, I had a full five days of work to keep me busy. The weekend that followed – just last weekend – was therefore a welcome break, and I made the most of the springtime sun to visit some of my favorite spots in the city, namely two of the city’s parks: Parque del Retiro and Parque de las Delicias.

This past week was quite quiet, with just one chill evening out with Bogar to break up the working week. On Thursday we spontaneously decided to surprise Hugo at the restaurant he works at in Chueca, Ramen Shifu, and headed there to eat a delicious bowl of ramen with gyozas for starters. Full of tasty Japanese food, me and Bogar then said goodbye to Hugo in the kitchen and headed back home on a bike, after I convinced him to sign up to the city’s public bike system that I use so keenly!

I sit here now on my sofa, glass of wine in hand and some trashy YouTube videos playing in the background, and it’s pretty obvious that the weekend is beginning! I’ve plenty to get sorted this weekend, but I’ve some holiday days coming up next week and the week after, so we’ll have to wait and see what kinds of nonsense I get up to…