Catching up

So much to do, so little time......

We has a lovely new year with Esther and Paul. They came and sunbathed for 3 days (see photos-and yes, Paul is reading A Christmas Carol). Later we went to Greg and Clare's house for 12 0'clock, where we ate the traditional twelve grapes, as is the Spanish custom, AND sang Auld Lang Syne. We are all hoping for a double dose of luck this year, and wish the same to you too.

Since then it's been busy, busy, busy. We started daily Spanish classes again with Marga who is back from her maternity leave and have started making plans for my birthday in March. As part of this, we are going for a weekend in Sevilla in a couple of weeks to check out hotels and restaurants....and have a good time. We really are a disgrace to soon-to-be-pensioners everywhere.

I have just finished reading Winter in Madrid by C.J.Sansom, a Christmas present from Naomi. I gather it is in the best seller charts in the UK and I recommend it. It is a story that claims to be (as far as I can tell, with some justification) set against the backdrop of 1940s Madrid and one of Franco's secret work camps in Ceunca. It is a spy novel and a thriller so not the kind of thing I would normally go for but gripping to the end and a way into what must have been a horrendous period in Spanish history. Someone should make it into a film.

We were talking the other night about why Spain has such difficulty talking about resolving the ETA issue and felt that still after all these years the shadow of the civil war and the re-opening of divisions in society that seems to find it hard to be cohesive must have something to do with it. This morning I opened El Pais, our favourite Spanish newspaper, and read an article about Mazagon, a village in the province of Huelva (part of Andalucia to the west of Sevilla), which is demanding autonomy from the other villages in the area on the grounds that, according to my translation, "The inhabitants, more than 4000 of us, have a different history and different characteristics which differentiate us completely from Moguer and Palos (the other villages)." See what I mean?