Autumn in Madrid

25.10.20 — Madrid

I point-blank refuse to believe that it’s just been two weeks since I last posted on here, as it seems like I’ve crammed enough errands and outings into the past fortnight to bring me up to the end of the year! Be it a quick visit to the Erretres office or a leisurely stroll around the city centre, I’ve been making the most of the last days of mild weather before winter hits, so let’s get stuck right in…

An event dominating my escapades recently has been Erretres’ move to our new office space! After hauling my iMac down the road as an intern four years ago and then playing around on the dry pool bed of our last office, this marks the third change of office that I’ve been part of. This move sees us head back into the city centre, and a space near Argüelles in the north of the city.

To prepare for the move, I made one last visit to our old office in order to pack up my desk and other belongings, and also bring my iMac back to my flat. This was because I wanted to buy myself a monitor, and didn’t know what size to go for, and so off I popped with my 27″ iMac in an IKEA bag that I’d found in a cupboard in order to make a comparison at home. It must have looked odd, as I bundled the huge computer – wrapped in a towel and shoved into a plastic bag – into the back of a taxi after having waltzed out of a huge house in the outskirts of Madrid.

After having decided on the screen that I wanted and placed the order, it was time to celebrate Jhosef starting his new job. This was marked with a shopping trip to pick him up a new suit, and then a huge plate of tacos to share!

My next trip out was with Sara, who took me to a fabulous Italian restaurant near her house – which is also handily in Argüelles – where we tucked into some delicious stone-fired pizza. We headed back to her place after our meal, where I met her housemates and polished off a decent part a bottle of vermouth, before heading home and spending the morning after with a bit of a heavy head…

Said heavy head wasn’t about to hold me back, however, as I had dessert to prepare. Me and a couple of colleagues had arranged to meet for lunch in one of their houses, where she’d prepared a huge helping of cocido madrileño, a traditional Madrid chickpea-based strew. I’d been left in charge of dessert, for which I prepared a huge batch of torrijas, a cinnamon-flavoured sweet which I first made as an intern at Erretres after having first tried one back in 2016, and which always go down a treat!

Once I had my torrijas made, I headed off and enjoyed a lovely meal, all washed down with a lovely few glasses of red wine. We spent a good while chatting away into the evening, helped on our way by a selection of cheeses and a glass of gin and tonic.

One back in my flat, and with my new screen unboxed, I headed into the next working week with my new desk all set up and in place. It’s certainly given my poor old neck some relief and made my working days a lot easier, even as we prepare to begin working in the new office.

After a lazy Saturday messing around on my new setup, I decided to get out of my flat and wander around the city to see what I could see before the cold winter begins to bite. This little walk took me to the Barrio de las Letras, Madrid’s literary quarter, where I stopped for some coffee and cake before mooching around some of the independent shops which line it’s pretty little side streets.

After my solitary wander, I headed back to the city centre and up to the Chueca district, where I met Hugo and Sergei for a drink and some snacks. Whilst on a quest to find some old lightbulbs to start a collection here at home (an old obsession of mine), I found a few little interior design shops that I’d never seen before, and managed to hunt down some old coloured incandescents.

A wander around the north of Chueca led me to find some quirky little shops.

That weekend ended with a lovely Sunday evening spent in Retiro, Madrid’s main park, with Jhosef. The two of us headed up to the idyllic spot on a bus, before wandering around the artificial lake, stopping by the Crystal Palace, and taking a leisurely stroll around the outside of the park. As darkness fell on Madrid, we left the park for home, stopping off at a churrería (churro stand) for some freshly-fried churros and a thick chocolate dip – bliss!

It’s churro time.

The next week began and saw me headed off to Argüelles for my first two days working from the new office. The new space is absolutely lovely, with balconies over the street below and a plethora of spacious rooms to work in. Although I was working alone in a room due to the limited capacity, it was nice to be in a different environment, and heading out for lunch with my colleagues was a lovely return to some kind of normality.

This, however, doesn’t constitute a full return to the office, and so I’ll still be working from home frequently for a good while yet. To keep up the good feeling of being out of the house, I’ve been heading out in mornings and evenings around my local area, snapping the odd photo of the dawn or evening light.

This weekend has kicked off with quite a busy Saturday, as I heeded up to the Chamberí Market with Jhosef, Sara, and my colleague Blanca. There, we met with another colleague, Jesús, who owns a burger restaurant on the market. Both me and Sara had heard talk about the place, El Toril Gourmet, and we certainly weren’t disappointed – we had some of the best tequeños (Venezuelan cheese sticks) and burgers (ranging from pulled pork to ribs) in Madrid!

After this, Sara, Jhosef, and I wandered back through the streets of Madrid, stopping off at a terrace in Cheuca for another drink. I then dragged the two of them into a shop to buy myself a dressing gown, before the three of us headed off for a quiet Saturday evening at home.

Now at home and lovely and cosy in my big fluffy bata (dressing gown), it’s time to bring this blog post to an end. I hope to have some new news over these coming weeks, as we’ve got two much needed three-day weekends in November!

The Second Lockdown Hits

10.10.20 — Madrid

With my last post focussing firmly on the inside of my flat, this post looks to my time out in the streets and hidden corners of Madrid. This is something that I’ve had to make the most of seeing as the looming prospect of a second lockdown has since become a reality. This new lockdown is – mercifully – less restrictive than the last, as it mainly concerns travel in and out of Madrid, and doesn’t leave us cooped up in our houses.

Without further ado, however, let’s delve into the past week’s worth of antics, which began with a bike ride which took me from the northernmost point of my local metro line, all the way down the eastern corridor of the city, and then back home. Starting in Moncloa, I sped off downhill through the Parque del Oeste, taking a little diversion which led me to discover a lovely bike trail along a less developed section of the Manzanares River.

I never knew about this hidden little cycling path and lovely patch of greenery.

From there I had to double back on myself before I ended up out too far away from home, and then proceeded to cycle my usual route along the river, past the Matadero, and back up the hill to my apartment. I was a little dubious as to whether I should have been following some of that paths that I did, as I did wonder if they encroached on some of the neighbourhoods of Madrid that have been in selective lockdown for a week or so now, but nobody stopped me so off I went!

Another evening was spent at a colleague’s house, when I headed up to her lovely flat in the centre to pick up some packaging samples for a new project at work. Upon arrival I was delighted to be invited to stay for tea (dinner, in standard English), and soon found myself plied with tortilla de patatas (Spanish omelette), jamón (cured ham), and a delicious homemade cream of pumpkin and carrot soup, amongst other goodies.

After chatting the evening away with her family, I returned home full of food and tipsy on cider – as every evening should end!

The next evening I headed out with Jhosef to celebrate his job offer at a company here in Madrid, where we headed up to a rooftop terrace for some drinks and pinchos, small dishes of food from the Basque Country. The evening was short but enjoyable, but I didn’t have long to wait for my next reunion, however, as I’d arranged to meet up with Sara who has moved to Madrid from Gijón in my beloved northern region of Asturias!

I last saw Sara two over two years ago now when I was last up in Oviedo just before Kevin left for the US, and so you can imagine my excitement when she messaged me to let me know she was now in Madrid! The two of us arranged to meet bang in the centre of Madrid, at the Puerta del Sol, below the iconic statue of Madrid’s infamous symbol: el oso y el madroño, “the bear and the strawberry tree”.

From there, we walked and chatted away non-stop for a good few hours, passing by the city’s cathedral, which looked absolutely resplendent in the evening sunlight. Along the way, we stopped for a caña (small beer) and some tapas atop an upturned barrel in the street along the way, where we caught up on each other’s news and gossip from the past couple of years.

The area around the palace and cathedral always looks dreamy at this time of day.

I’ve always been a fan of the pink sunsets that Madrid enjoys.

From the centre, we descended through Lavapiés and down to my neighbourhood, where we gorged on two of my favourite plates from my favourite local bar: chopitos (fried squids) and huevos rotos (chips with fried eggs and cured ham). We then stopped off at my flat, where we enjoyed a vermouth to end the night whilst messing around with the coloured lights.

A few days later, I took myself out for a trip through the city, which involved cycling up to the Chueca neighbourhood (the gay centre of the city, where I stayed the very first time I visited this city) and then passing through Malasaña. After passing through the streets of this kooky neighbourhood for a while, I stopped off for a fully loaded pitta at a lovely little spot my friend had recommended.

After this delicious lunch – which reminded me of the many evenings spent in Belgrave Music Hall in Leeds, where we’d often hang out and eat delicious food and sip on ciders as students – I went in search of some of Madrid’s most delicious vegan donuts. I was saddened to learn upon arrival at the shop that they’d all sold out, but I wasn’t particularly mad, as I’d enjoyed a lovely saunter around a neighbourhood of the city that’s not a typical haunt of mine.

To end a busy week of work and escapades in the city centre, I paid a visit to the British shop to pick up some Vimto, which I’ve since got Jhosef hooked on to also. I enjoy these little evenings out to the north of the city, where I take the opportunity to do a spot of reading on the bus, before cycling back through the city centre and back home.

This brings to a close my updates from the last couple of weeks here in Madrid, where we’re back on alert as we’ve been put back into an estado de alarma (state of alarm) due to the rising coronavirus cases. I’ll be heading out to visit some friends over this long weekend, but we’ll be wearing masks and socially distancing and keeping the numbers of people down to a bare minimum – we’ve all to do our bit!

Until the next update, ¡chau!

An Exercise in Flat Lighting

04.10.20 — Madrid

This year, most of us have spent a lot of time at home. With the strict lockdown which came into force in Madrid earlier this year, I have seen much more of my inside of my flat than ever before, and so have strived to make the place as welcoming and comfortable as possible.

If you’ve followed my blog in the past, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of lights – be it to illuminate a castle created by my dad, holding a karaoke disco in our car, or to decorate my university room with LED strips aplenty. Whenever I move into a space, I always adjust the lighting somewhat, as I find that I can’t relax without having the space properly lit.

This led me to install my current system of home lighting. For a while now, most of the lamps and other light fittings – oven hood included – have been connected to my phone via a combination of an IKEA Hub and Apple’s HomeKit, meaning I can adjust the brightness of most of the lights in my home at will, setting different “scenes” depending on the time of day and my mood.

Naturally, though, I couldn’t stop there, and so bought myself some coloured LED strips from IKEA to accompany a few that I brought over from England and which had once been installed in my university room. During quarantine, I set about designing and installing a comprehensive setup with these lights, such that the entire colour of my house can be changed with just a tap on my phone.

An important aspect of said setup, however, was that they should be completely invisible when not activated. I love the idea of being able to activate a host of coloured lighting to create different moods in my flat, but I didn’t want the inclusion of such a system to in any way compromise the clean and minimal look I have strived to create.

I thus designed a system which is completely inconspicuous when not activated, with the series of hidden LED strips providing full coverage throughout my house. Whether installed behind furniture, mounted along crevices in the architecture, or even inserted to blend in with the stalks of a plant, the activation of the coloured lights is as shockingly unexpected as it is aesthetically pleasing.

This all leads me to the series of photos below, which document some of my favourite corners of the flat as they are bathed in shades of red, pink, purple, and blue. Of course the colours can be changed, and I’ll definitely take more photos at some point exploring this, but for now do enjoy some snaps of this palette that I’ve been using so often as of recent…

Now it’s time to see if I add any more, as I’m currently setting up a new desk and computer setup in my living room now that remote working is becoming a bit part of the new normal. For that, and to see the place lit up in various other colours, be sure to stay tuned!

Late Summer Nights

27.09.20 — Madrid

It’s been a while since I posted about my day-to-day life, with exactly a month now gone since I last brought updates from Madrid. Of course I’ve been meeting up with friends, cycling around in the dark, and cooking up a few bits and bobs at home (today’s bake has been a huge batch of cookies), but there’s not been much that’s worth sharing on my blog – especially seeing as I’ve been a bit off my game recently in terms of taking photos along the way!

No fear, though, as I’m here today to right this wrong. We kick things off at a lovely brunch prepared by my colleague Blanca, who whipped up a delicious meal as I swung by her new flat to check out the new place. After some beers and a good serving of food (including an excellent poached egg, I have nothing on her skills), we chatted the afternoon away and I wound up giving her daughter an impromptu calligraphy lesson!

The facade of the famous "Bodegas Lo Máximo" bar in Madrid.

The next day I decided to spend a day out in my own company, and so headed up to Madrid’s version of Poundland, which is run by the same company, and so which offers a decent range of British goodies! Making good use of a 3€ discount voucher and scoring myself the deal of the century in the form of an official Apple iPad case for just 6€, I hauled my bag full of Vimeo and Cadbury’s chocolate into the basket of one of the city bikes, and took in the gorgeous evening views of the city as I cycled home.

The Puerta de Alcalá in Madrid in the sunlight.

The emblematic Puerta de Alcalá is pretty but a nightmare to cycle around.

During the working week I’ve been rather busy, but there’s always time for a wander with Jhosef down by the river or a quick run around the city on a bike – I’ve to make the most of the freedom whilst I still can. With certain areas of Madrid already in partial lockdown, I’ve a suspicion that a city-wide series of restrictions might be announced any day soon, and so any excuse to get out and about is very welcome!

A door surrounded by a checkerboard design with broken glass and covered in posters.

This weekend I’ve been back out and about once again, wandering round the city centre at just the right time such as to catch the gorgeous streets of Lavapiés and the city centre in the golden hour just before the setting of the sun. I also walked past a newly refurbished hotel, which is a gorgeous building that’s been under wraps and in renovation since the very first time I visited Madrid five years ago, and was happy to see that they’d covered the facade in a gorgeous series of ornamental lamps.

Multicoloured flags span a street with colourful facades in the south of Madrid.

The evening sunlight casts long shadows on the facades of a street in Madrid.

A spire of a church is seen on a street illuminated by evening sun and lined by trees.

Flags are seen trailing off a yellow facade against a blue sky.

The street leading to Sol in Madrid in the evening sun.

My evening wander ended with a lovely evening meal at Ramen Shifu, where my friend Hugo was working the evening. Whilst catching up in bursts as he attended other tables, I tucked in to a gorgeous beef ramen, all followed by some mochi and a lovely Japanese beer.

The atmosphere and the food at Ramen Shifu were rather splendid.

The interior of Ramen Shifu in Madrid, covered in red Japanese lanterns.

Just last night I met up with Jhosef again and the two of us headed down to the Matadero, and to a lovely outdoor terrace and bar that’s been set up to make the most of the post-lockdown summer nights. Stopping for a tinto de verano (a mix of red wine and lemon Fanta), the two of us talked the evening away whilst being serenaded by a live band who had created their own Spanish version of Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust”. Once we’d tired of these new lyrics, which spoke mostly of “energía solar” (solar energy), the two of us headed back to my flat and spent the evening watching Salt, a film which I’d never seen before and which had me hooked with it’s wild plot twists!

This quick update pretty much sums up my past few weeks of little escapes and explorations of the city, but I’m sure there’ll be more to come as we head into a rather sudden autumn – I say sudden because the onset was shockingly quick, with a few days of storms and a temperature drop of almost 10°C taking us all by surprise and with no time to adjust!

And so here I leave you, as I prepare to change out my summer wardrobe for my winter one – prepare to see the return of the yellow coat in the coming posts!

More Caudete on Film

20.09.20 — Caudete

In a rather late follow-up to a post published almost a year ago in which I shared some 35mm film photos, today I bring a few more photos from my summer 2019 visit to Caudete de las Fuentes, the hometown of friend Roberto’s family in rural Valencia. I had forgotten that these extra few shots even existed, and so it was a lovely surprise to find them bundled in with my photos of Tenerife after dropping off a roll of film to be developed.

A series of pots, wicker jars, and glass bottles covered in dust in the corner of the loft of an old house.

An old chest of drawers is littered with empty glass bottled, boxes, and an old alarm clock, all covered in dust and perched below an old wooden roof.

These photos document some of the scenes from their old family home, and were taken on an old Samsung in between explorations of the small town and time spent mounting a lightbulb spectacular in their back patio. The warmth and imperfection of the film shots combined with the frozen-in-time nature of the location make for quite a special set of photos, one which looks like it could come from another century.

A series of old string lights hang from a series of bamboo rods in the worn old loft of an old house.

Chorizo sausages cook in a pan on an old gas stove.

Roberto sets up a series of coloured fairy lights in the corner of an old patio.

A series of coloured lights adorn the old entrance to an outdoor bathroom.

A series of fairy lights hang on an old wall behind a table covered in empty bottles and plates.

As ever, I haven’t edited any of these photos, as I’m a fan of leaving such intimate and mysterious 35mm film shots as they come. This second half concludes the series of photos from this tiny rural Valencian town, and represents a contradiction that I took away with me from my trip: there was an eerie melancholy air to a town in decline and suffering from severe depopulation, but my time there with Roberto was a whole lot of fun and relaxation with someone who’s also a fan of lights like me.

Be sure to check out the three other posts from my visit last year: snooping around the town itself, setting up the lighting, and the first lot of film photos I had developed.