It might seem odd that, given I’ve spent so many years living in Madrid, I’ve never had the chance to welcome both my parents and my sister into my house at the same time. With both my mum and dad still working and my sister fully engaged in her PhD, though, it’s something that had just never happened. Until now.
After picking the three of them up from the airport, the four of us squeezed into my one-bedroom flat ready for the ultimate test of family dynamics. I’d given up my bed to my parents, so me and Eleanor were on the sofa bed. We made it work, though: helped in no small part by Ryanair’s restrictive baggage policy meaning nobody could fill my house with crap…
Jokes aside, we had a fabulous time. We spent the days eating, drinking, and wandering around as a family. We stayed around my neighbourhood and went exploring the posher parts of town. Highlights included a lovely Italian meal that the four of us went for in the fancy Salamanca neighbourhood, as well as a bike ride down to the river to catch the sunrise one morning with Ellie. I’d not been up on my feet that early since suffering from jet lag after my Japan trip. It was nothing a well-timed siesta couldn’t then fix, though.
Ever trying to keep everyone happy, I ensured that we passed by the Mercado de San Miguel for my mum, NAP Pizza for my sister, and did plenty of general wandering for my dad: he can find something to take a picture of in the most unexpected places.
Despite the cold March air and the grey skies that threatened to put a damper on our plans, having the whole family around for a few days was an absolute joy. I might be the black sheep of the family that moved a thousand miles away, but these moments where we can all get together and do something a bit different make the distance worth the while. I hope to have them all back again soon.
It’s been a while since I posted on here, with my last post going over the fact that I needed a bit of a break to rethink how I manage the decade-long project that I call my website. I’m back today with an update, and this update consists of little bit of good news and a little bit of bad news. Against conventional wisdom, I’m going to have to start with the good and end with the bad, as the conclusion I’ve come to dictates that I go through it in that order.
So, here’s the good stuff.
I think I’ve figured out a way to make my blog much more sustainable in the long term. This consists of reworking the format of posts from the current combination of text and image towards a model with less text and a more curated selection of images. While this may sound like blog posts will be less engaging, I’m excited by the challenge of packing information into smaller and more manageable paragraphs, as well as the possibilities provided by a new way of displaying photos.
Now for the bad news.
In order to make this change, I’m going to have to wait for my new website design to be ready. The new format requires higher resolution images, an entirely new post template, and other technologies that I just don’t have on my current website. This means that blog posts will most likely be on hold until the end of the year. Behind the scenes I’m doing all I can to finalise the new website design and begin technical development, but there’s still plenty to be done before I start coding.
So there’s the update. I’m excited to get back into my regular rhythm of posting with this new format, but both you and I are going to have to wait a little bit before it’s all ready to go.
As I write this, sat on a plane from Oslo to Madrid and watching a very red sun set over the west of France, I’ve had a little bit of a brainwave. In order to keep you entertained until I get the blog back up and running, I’m going to set up a new page on my blog with a comprehensive list of every blog post ever written. That way you can easily look back over the eleven years of content that’s already here. Read on to see if I’ve managed to get that up and running on time…
It’s been about eleven years since I started writing my blog.
I began back in 2013 when I moved to university, as I wanted an online space to show that I was more than just the list of experiences on my CV. I wanted future employers to know that I do other things with my spare time, that I have other hobbies: travelling, cooking, photography, writing, baking, knitting, and so much more.
I started off with the goal of writing one blog post per day, a pretty ludicrous proposition in retrospect. For a while I managed to keep this up, posting a couple of photos with a bit of hastily written text and calling it a day.
Naturally I couldn’t keep this up forever, so in the end I resorted to one per week. Over time, this steadfast rule loosened, and I began writing posts as and when I had something interesting to report back on: sometimes more than once a week, sometimes less.
This has been the format that I’ve stuck with for the past ten years or so, with very little changing. In that time, I introduced the ability to search my posts by destinations and begun peppering my daily updates with the odd more reflective piece and even a bit of prose, but the general idea has remained largely the same.
One thing that has changed has been the amount of detail I put into each post. What were once a few photos with a bit of explanatory text have turned into detailed accounts of my adventures with more carefully selected and edited imagery. I also began posting everything in Spanish too. These changes mean that each blog post now takes me longer than ever to write, translate, and publish.
In short, the blog now takes up a lot of my time.
Recently, I’ve been trying to spend more of this time doing other things. I’m getting into the swing of things at the gym, I’m really enjoying swimming, and I’m making more time to enjoy the simple things like cooking and reading and spending time with friends. I’ve also got a few little side projects on the go which I’m very excited about, but more on those when they’re ready to go.
As you can imagine, I can’t fit everything in all at once. Something has to give.
That’s where my blog comes in. I can’t keep up the scope and detail that I’ve tried to in the past, and so I’m reevaluating the format and frequency with which I post updates on here. This will mean that I post less often, but it will also hopefully mean that I will post better content.
My idea going forward is to not get so bogged down in the finer details of what I’ve been up to, but rather switch to a more entertaining overview of the best (and the worst) moments from my daily life, travels, and shenanigans – of which there will be even more this year!
I do love taking photos and I do love writing, so there’s no risk of my blog disappearing any time soon. I just need to rethink the format a little bit so that I’m not constantly conscious of having a lot of photos to post and things to write about. I want to enjoy writing on here, not be fretting over a growing list of pending posts.
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.
From Spain to Japan and then back again.
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…
It feels a little strange to be writing this post, seeing as I felt like I’d said my goodbyes to Murica last year when my auntie and uncle sold their apartment and moved back to the UK on a permanent basis. I did end the post, however, with an allusion to the fact that they might rent an apartment at some point. That they did, and so once again I grabbed a train and made my way down to the south of Spain to spend a few days with them.
They were staying in an apartment on the same golf complex but in a different location, something which felt quite odd as we drove in on the Friday evening and then I tried to make my way back to the next day. I was up bright and early on the Saturday so I went for a snoop and a trip to the shop to pick up some goodies and enjoy the morning sun.
The area is rather beautiful, more so in the morning sun.
It was nice to have a relaxing first day because we’d plans to spend the evening with a couple of my auntie and uncle’s friends. Hopping in the car together, the five of us headed to a lovely restaurant in a nearby town, owned by a Chilean guy and his wife who is from Madrid. I first went to this place with my auntie and uncle a couple of years ago and we had a great time, so I was excited to go back.
This cat was keeping watch of things as we headed out for the evening.
At the resultant, the food did not disappoint once again, with a seemingly endless selection of soups, seafood, meats, and drinks. With the whole restaurant on endless glasses of wine, things soon got a little animated, ending in a quasi-karaoke session complete with wigs provided by the owners. It was lots of fun!
The next day it was time for us to head down to the coast, where we’d booked a table at one of our favourite tapas restaurants. The weather wasn’t looking so lovely but we did run into a little street market, where I got chatting to a lady on one of the stalls and bought a surprise gift for one of my friends.
Despite the grey skies, the food was excellent and I was happy because we stopped off on the way home to grab some chocolate from Aldi. Chocolate makes any day better!
As Monday came around it was time for me to connect to work, something I did rather less begrudgingly than usual as I managed caved out a spot for myself on the resort’s terrace. It was a glorious day with the sun beating down, so I ordered an orange juice and started work under the shade of a parasol. Fabulous!
In the afternoon the sky began treating us to a colourful light show.
My auntie and uncle swung by the resort’s bar just before I finished work, which gave us chance to have a quick chat and a drink before the sun began to set. When it finally did, we were in for a real treat, as we were lucky enough to just catch it as it began to illuminate the sky over the lake. I love a good sunset, so I stayed there for a good while taking photos while the two of them walked back to the apartment. Here’s a photo dump, selected after much agonising over which were the best of the best.
The next day was then my last; these trips down to Murcia always seem to fly by. I had the day off work and we had a plan, so we got in the car and made our way back down to the coast for a bit of shopping and a quick stroll along the beach. I was happy because I managed to get some Branston Pickle from the British shop and my auntie and uncle were happy as I then took them out to lunch to say thank you for having me. I’ll say it again on here, though: thanks for having me!
Once we’d enjoyed a rather filling menú del día, it was time for me to get one last lift to the train station and await the first of two trains that would take me back up to the capital, with an hour in Alicante which gave me enough time to enjoy the sunset there whilst I had a coffee.
I’ll end the post with this photo of my auntie, which I’ve checked and she’s happy for me to put on. It’s from the night at the Chilean restaurant once all the wigs had been dragged out!
