Friday 31 December 2010

the perils of not having a Spanish keyboard - by Theo

Unlike French computer keyboards, Spanish ones are basically the same as English ones, which is generally helpful. However, when writing in Spanish, our English Mac Book is deficient in two important ways.

Spanish has two special characters. The first, the tilde, is an accent. While it doesn't change the sound of the vowel it marks which syllable should be stressed in words that don't follow the usual rules of pronunciation. As a non-native speaker I find this extremely helpful; pronunciation (even in English) has never been my strong suit. So, if it's just to do with how you speak Spanish, should it matter whether you include the tilde in written Spanish? Often it doesn't, but sometimes the tilde is the only indication of a change of tense. For example, hable means "he speaks" while hablé means "I spoke", hablará means "he will speak" while hablara means "he spoke (subjunctive)". So, out of context, the lack of a tilde can change the meaning. (Compare this to the English verb "read", which looks the same in both present and past forms, but is pronounced differently in each case.)

However it's the second Spanish special character that really causes problems. It's the 'ñ', pronounced n-ye, and often found with its own separate listing in Spanish dictionaries. As such using an 'n' instead of an 'ñ', a completely different letter, changes the meaning of the word entirely. This is particularly a problem around New Year when wishing Spanish friends a Happy New Year electronically; año means "year" while ano means "anus". Much copying and pasting individual 'ñ's from the El Pais website is therefore required.

So, Happy Anus Everyone!!

Lots of love and thanks for reading - we wish you love, peace and happiness for 2011!

Theo, Kate & Rosie x

Thursday 30 December 2010

Miss Rosie's Feeling For Snow By Kate

How wonderful for our tiny daughter that the magic of a white Christmas was bestowed on her for her very first one. The same thing happened to her mother, in fact. And it's taken me another forty years to experience a winter wonderland on December 25th, so it was a rare privilege to share it with my first born.

Rosie, of course, didn't register the specialness of the occasion, although she did take a passing interest in the cold white stuff surrounding her, as you can see on the clip.

I think it's safe to say her reaction to snow was a tad dubious and the relief on her face when she was whisked away in her Daddy's arms is plain to see.

Wednesday 29 December 2010

She is the passenger - by Theo

Before we left for Cathy & Jean's, a 1000km journey, which, sticking to Spanish and French speed limits, is about 9 hours, Kate started a thread on Facebook which got a swift and speedy response. She asked how Rosie, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the infanta Jesusina (no crying she makes) and 10 being the sister of Satan, would cope with the trip.

Most respondents figured we'd get an hour of quiet reflection followed by 10 to 11 hours (allowing for stops) of the kind of hell on four wheels usually reserved for Chevy Chase movies.

But it turned out that Rosie is basically the world's best infant passenger (in our humble opinion). Sure, she whinged a bit, but no more than she would have done out of the car, and thanks to Kate's tireless entertainment efforts Rosie napped, ate, laughed and chortled most of the way there, and most of the way back. Hurrah!

Monday 27 December 2010

White Christmas - by Theo

Considering we had thought that Rosie's first Christmas would be spent with only her parents in their Madrid flat, things certainly turned out differently. Not only did she wake up to find Santa Claus had visited in the middle of the French countryside surrounded by snow, but she also ended up spending Christmas Day with her Nonna and Papi Jean...and the extended Gerdolle family as well.

Marcel and Margitte are old friends of Cathy and Jean's, and are also their landlords, therefore we've met them and their son Phillippe and his wife Silvie many, many times before. Thinking that Cathy and Jean would be on their own for Christmas, Marcel and Margitte invited them to join their family for Christmas Day, a rare honour in France, and naturally the invitation had stood even once we were added to the bill.

So, after I had traipsed through the snow for an hour with a snoozing, snow-suited Rosie slung to my chest, we headed over to Silvie's house for 12.30 aperos. Very sweetly they had bought presents for Rosie, so she now has toys that talk French as well as ones that speak English and Spanish. Sadly her parents aren't quite so trilingual, but we managed to just about communicate in a melange of French with Spanish words thrown in.

Christmas Day lunch was very different from what we would have cooked for ourselves, but still very enjoyable. While our hosts, who included Silvie's parents, her two young children and Margitte's mother, tucked into oysters, seafood salad and foie gras, we stuck to the veggie option of salad and grapefruit. Kate had made a nut roast for our main, which was delicious and even tempted a few of our French friends to try a bit as they tucked into potatoes dauphinoise, green beans and venison. Pudding was the traditional buche, a yule log essentially; their second attempt, as a magpie had stolen the first one as it chilled on the window sill!

Kate and I took Rosie out for her second sling nap - the roads being far too thick with snow for the buggy (despite the photo above), though actually it's rather lovely having our little girl snoozing so close to us - and we returned just in time for the obligatory game of belote, a whist-like card game extremely popular in these parts. I acquitted myself reasonably well I thought!

We got back in time for Rosie's bath and Christmas Day phone calls on Skype. It certainly beat being on our own.

Friday 24 December 2010

Just in time - by Theo

We made it to France, just in time. If we'd left it a day longer to set off, or stopped overnight en route, we wouldn't have made it. The snow that has been causing such chaos in the UK has moved south and we woke this morning to find the hills around Cathy & Jean's blanketed with thick, white snow. Where they live is so rural, the roads so tiny, there wont be any snowploughs coming to clear the roads. We may have a 4x4 but we wouldn't have got through (and, if it doesn't melt, we won't be getting out). You see, after spending €94 on snow chains for Delilah Delica, I promptly left them in the hall back in Madrid. Boy do I feel stupid!
Anyway, we're very pleased we're here. We may be snowed in, but we've got lots of food, drink and wood for the fire, not to mention great company (and wi fi!) It's also extremely beautiful, and I've really enjoyed the two longs walks with Rosie in the sling and Cocky the dog so that the former could have a nap and the latter a walk. It's so quiet and still, and I've seen not a soul.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone. See you when the snow thaws!

Wednesday 22 December 2010

The Pain in Spain falls mainly... - by Theo

...in my mouth.

It's been quite some time since I last went to the dentist. I don't trust the drill-happy buggers; the last one I had in Clifton (the Mall) talked me into having my wisdom teeth removed (expensive, painful, unnecessary) and filled my mouth with so much silver paste you wouldn't think there was enough tooth left to actually support a cavity. However, over the past few weeks one of my molars has developed a bit of an ache so, after the obligatory prevaricating and procrastinating (I was an arts student after all) I finally booked myself an appointment at a nearby health centre.

Typically my tooth then broke and stopped hurting. However, I felt I shouldn't see this as good news, so still went along to my appointment having learnt the Spanish words for 'filling' (empaste) and 'cavity' (carie). After a cursory glance the cheerful dentist said, "Yep, there's a cavity. So do you want me to pull it out for you?" When I replied in the negative, she explained that if I wanted a filling I'd have to go private as I couldn't get anything other than an extraction on the Health Service. I should expect to pay between 30 and 50 euros for a filling.

The dentist across the road from us quoted me €90, which I shied away from rapidly (it didn't hurt that much!) but I eventually found one nearby that would do it for €50. Still the top end of the scale I'd been quoted, but definitely better than the first place I went to.

Now, I'm not so sure. They immediately decided I needed a tooth reconstruction, which would be an extra €65; they are damned good at getting money out of you these dentists. Twenty minutes later, after lots of painful drilling despite the injection, I was done and €115 poorer. Still at least my tooth was fixed.

Later that night, while brushing my teeth, the pain from my newly fixed tooth nearly made my eyes water. The dull throb has been transformed into a searing pain when combined with a cold liquid. Great.

Tuesday 21 December 2010

Pueblo Ingles Reunion - Theo

A couple of weeks ago we met up with our friends from Pueblo Ingles who, in many respects were the reason we moved to Madrid (and didn't stay in Barcelona) in the first place. Some, like Belen, we see regularly here in Madrid, others like lovely Amalia, who lives in Valencia less often, while the charming Alfonso and Silvano we somehow only seem to meet up with at this now annual event, which is a real shame. [Cesar we of course see very regularly - but he never attended Pueblo Ingles, hence why he ended up taking the photo!]


Very sweetly they had all acquiesced to our request for a non-smoking eatery and had even gone one step further, by booking a vegetarian restaurant, Al Natural, in the centre just off Calle Alcala. We were slightly apprehensive about how Rosie would cope; not with the new faces as she's usually fine after a period of adjustment, which she proved, but with the timing. The booking was for the very Spanish time of 2pm; her afternoon nap is at 2.30pm. Hmmmm. We decided to simply take it in turns pushing her around outside and to switch half-way through.

In the end it worked out fine. When I took Rosie off at 2.20pm not everyone had arrived; when I phoned Kate at 3.10pm then hadn't even ordered!! As it was, we switched 15 minutes later and I still got a starter, Kate coming back in with Rosie moments after they'd served the main course; our group was the last to leave the restaurant (at 5pm!). They'll make Spaniards of us yet!

Monday 20 December 2010

Those Hollywood moments.... By Kate

Rosie gazed up at me and my heart flip-flopped inside my chest as she opened her mouth and uttered her first word: "Mama."

And then I woke up.

Theo commented a couple of weeks ago that he'd imagined more "Eureka!" moments as a parent - first smile, first time rolling, first time crawling, first words etc. etc. - but they haven't happened. And he's right.

Rosie's firsts simply haven't been definitive. Neither of us can remember when she first smiled properly because it was a gradual process until one day we realised the rictus she had been sporting really was a smile. I had to take an executive decision on whether the hands and knees thing she was doing really counted as crawling and it took a further three days before it was undeniable that she really had got the idea.

As for first words, well, they've happened. We think.

Rosie says "Mama" a great deal, or "Mum" or "Umma" - and often in such a way that it seems to be addressed to me. I always answer "Yes, Darling?" anyway. Just in case.

We've also had "Dada", which seems to be uttered more when Theo's around. And I'm pretty sure she's saying "Yes" quite a lot. "Dat" is another one she comes out with a fair amount and my theory is that she means "that". Or something.

The one moment Theo and I CAN recall was the first time Rosie laughed. She was about five months old. We were all in our bedroom and Theo was playing with her, making silly noises and faces. Suddenly Rosie made a sound we had never heard from her before and our mouths fell open. It was most definitely and indubitably a chuckle.

I'm sure we'll get more and more meaningful chatter out of Rosie as she continues to develop her vocal abilities. But in the meantime, her laughter will more than tide us over.

Friday 17 December 2010

And she's off.... By Kate

Rosie's been on the point of not-quite-crawling for weeks now - then, over the last few days, with a bit of help (room rearrangement to facilitate free movement) and a few confidence-knocking head-bashing moments, she suddenly realised she could get herself places instead of wailing for Mummy or Daddy to help her out.

The world - or at least our flat - is her oyster.

Let the baby-proofing commence.

Tuesday 14 December 2010

Christmas Cheers - by Theo

Let me state something clearly now. I may be married and a father and more often than not already in bed by 10pm on a Saturday but I in no way feel I am 'missing out'. Nonetheless, I am often curious, when listening to my colleagues tales of what they got up to the night(s) before, usually because I don't quite understand how they manage to stay out until 7am. Leaving aside whether, either through drunkenness or tiredness, I'd be able to keep myself awake that long, I think I'd simply get bored staying in a bar that long. Not that my work colleagues are boring, but I honestly think the only time I've stayed up all night have been at festivals or seriously good parties. Bed (especially if Kate is in it) beats bar for me every time.

Anyway, last Tuesday's staff Christmas party gave me just such an opportunity to satisfy my curiosity, as we all ventured out on the boss's euro. As we had to wait until the last class finished (9.30) we didn't get to the bowling alley until 10 where, yours truly "Thunder" Berry took an early lead with my partner Scott over Jane and Marina, with me scoring the highest across the lanes in the first round. In the second we were paired with the boss, Will, and last year's champ, Tim. Tim's form had been off and Scott and I quickly built a lead. The boss was not happy; some disparaging comments about Tim's future employment prospectus. Selflessly I decided to throw a couple of tactical gutter balls for the sake of my colleague's job security - the amount of beer I'd consumed had nothing to do with this - thus allowing the boss the victory he so craved. Sadly it also meant I surrendered my high score as Jane, who we had previously vanquished, was having a stormer on lane one. Oh well.

So it was gone 12.30 when the taxis arrived in torrential rain, and dropped us back on Calle Alcala near the Geographic Pub where, like Cortes's conquistadores, we swiftly pillaged the bar and colonised the most comfortable sofas. The boss was still buying - hurrah! - and though a few of my weaker colleagues made an early exit we were still 8 strong by 3am; the last customers in the bar. I confess the time passed swifter than I might have imagined; I hadn't intended to stay out so long. Anyway, by this point a motion had been passed to head on to the "legendary" (well among my colleagues anyway) Vertigo bar, an odd little place under a shopping centre which my colleagues regularly frequent as a) it has a pool table and b) it's the only place in the barrio open after 3am.

I went along for one before realising that I really, really should be getting home while it remained an option. I did, after all, have guests coming for lunch the next day. As to my colleagues, I am still none the wiser really; for while Vertigo was indeed a curious place, with a pool table no less, I still feel no desire to frequent it quite so often. Once is surely enough.

Thursday 9 December 2010

Water on the bridge - by Theo

Spain seems to have no end of "Puentes", or 'bridge' weekends, where a holiday during the week means that people invariably take the workday off to extend their weekend. Last weekend was a particularly long one with Constitution Day (Dec 6th) falling on the Monday and the Day of the Immaculate Conception falling on the Thursday (Dec 8th), hence meaning some people effectively got a 5 day weekend! Not me - I had to work the Saturday and Tuesday - but I'm not really complaining. It was, however, an extremely wet weekend, the rain bucketing it down, and hence we spent most of it indoors.

On Sunday we entertained our Senegalese friends, Prince and Ibrahima. Rosie has met the brothers several times before, though of course she has no memory, but after a bit of staring she quickly relaxed and had a great time with them, as you can see!



We first met them in our Spanish class, and although we communicate now in Spanish it's embarrassing how much better they are than us considering we've been learning for the same amount of time. They also speak about 4 other languages, although not English. Ibrahima plays football for 1st division youth team (Las Rosas), so we're hoping to go and watch when he plays Real Madrid - should be something!

The following day, Monday, we headed out to San Sebastian de los Reyes, to Belen and Cesar's, where we were joined by David and Nataly (David, as ever managing to stay out of the photos.)

Belen cooked us a delicious veggie paella and Rosie had a fab time attempting to eat their rug, Cesar's pointy Moroccan slippers and Nataly's hair. She seemed particularly enamored with Nataly, permitting herself to be cuddled, which she almost never does with us.

I elected to do the afternoon buggy nap, but miraculously the rain clouds stayed over the town, while I walked Rosie around the park laid out on the outskirts - very strange and fortuitous!

Tuesday night, after a relatively quiet set of classes - many students were away - it was our staff party - bowling and drinking. To do full justice to both my colleagues and the evening will require another blog, but suffice to say I stumbled home at 4.30am rather worse for wear. Kate, lovely, gorgeous, sensitive woman she is, let me lie in until 11.30am, though I still woke tired, hungover and really, really pleased I'd invited friends for both lunch and tea!! What a good idea of mine! Hence I found myself pretty quickly in kitchen cooking lunch when I really wanted to be lying in bed feeling sorry for myself.

In the end though it was a lovely lunch, with Jon and his new girlfriend Sophie, who seems charming and mercifully happy to speak English - I was in no state to attempt Spanish! They even brought pudding. I did the afternoon nap with Rosie which went some way to helping to clear my head, and then I got back to have tea with our photographer friend Anne (who had been invited to lunch but had declined on dietary grounds) to round off our very sociable, if very damp puente.

Monday 6 December 2010

The lengths we are prepared to go.... By Kate

As a parent, sooner or later you realise that you would take a bullet for your child, should it ever (god forbid) become necessary. In the thankful absence of such dramatic events, there are other smaller yet no less significant acts of self-sacrifice that happen on a daily basis.

Today, Theo and I carried Rosie in her buggy down four storeys' worth of stairs and up again (cursed lift on the blink...) so she could have her essential nap. Theo elected to do the buggy walk, so he got himself appropriately dressed for the persistent rain.
I think it's fair to say that whatever remained of his dignity after months spent wearing a flowery backpack has now entirely disappeared.

The things we do for our beloved daughter.

Sunday 5 December 2010

Spanish lessons - by Theo

People often ask, with the full range of possible motivations and insinuations, why we moved to Madrid. (Why!?!) The answer is rather simple: because I wanted to learn Spanish. OK, there's more to it than that, and it wasn't just my decision, but moving to Spain to learn Spanish had been a long-standing ambition of mine that Kate, thankfully, was happy to go along with.

So here we are. In Spain. That's part 1 sorted. Now, part 2 - the actual learning. It was all going pretty well until Jan 2010, with Kate and I going regularly to lessons, but then something happened, I can't quite remember what around January this year. We just stopped. I thought that maybe, given we now had a solid grounding, we would just cruise along, slotting new vocabulary and idioms in to the grammatical framework we had acquired. However, by the end of the summer it was clear that this simply wasn't happening. So, I began to form a plan.

The problem with lessons had been that the ones we'd gone to were always in the morning, at around 10, finishing at 12, a good 45 minutes journey from our flat. Given that I was now working until 9 every night, this made for a long day, a rushed lunch and little time with Kate and Rosie. What would be great would be to be able to have my Spanish lessons at my place of work, immediately before I started work. That way it would be just a case of going into work a little earlier. My boss had no objections to me using a room there, provided one was free. So far so good; now just to work out how to pay for it.

Spanish teachers - like English teachers - are pretty thick on the ground here in Madrid. However, they also charge about the same - €20/hour more or less - so, unless I suddenly won El Gordo (the Spanish lottery) I was going to have to find some fellow students to split the cost with. So off I went on a recruitment drive among my fellow teachers at the two branches of the English Language Academy where I work. I was thrilled to find that at least 14 of my colleagues were interested; now came the headache of timetabling and level testing. Tuesday and Thursday, at my branch, from 1pm until 2.30pm was my ideal time; naturally then, after taking on board everybody else's preferences, the advanced class ended up being on Monday and Wednesday at 12 at the other branch. Oh well.

So, I now had my Spanish classes, at the outrageously cheap rate of €5 per 90 minute class. Bargain. The teacher was a friend we'd met while he had been training to become a teacher - we'd been his guinea pigs as it were. We had a space to hold the classes. All good. However, I also now found that I had, along the way ended up with responsibility for a beginners' group as well. Well, naturally - they didn't speak Spanish, so I had to do the negotiations for them.

We're now heading into our third month of classes, and they're going really well. We've reviewed past tenses, which are often confusing, and prepositions, which are always confusing. Next we'll be tackling the subjunctive. However the content of the classes has been the least of my concerns; it's keeping people at them that's been the problem. As the cost is split between those attending, if some students drop out it makes the class more expensive for those who stay on. This has become a problem, although not in the way I expected...

Among the other teachers who come to the advanced class with me, two have Spanish boyfriends. Another spent his Erasmus year in Granada, while another has been in Spain for over 3 years. If anyone was going to drop out of the classes, I would have expected it to have been one of them - after all they are already pretty good. But instead it's been the beginners that have been dropping like flies - from an original 7, they are now down to 3. I don't understand it - do they not plan to learn Spanish at all?! Perhaps not. Several have complained that they can't afford it, which I again fail to understand - we are all earning the same, yet they'll be paying less rent (living in shared flats) and don't have a wife and child to support. It's not like they'll find classes any cheaper elsewhere. Oh well; si los de mi clases seguen, me da igual.

Friday 3 December 2010

The Mortal Enemies of Naptime by Kate

How many miles (kilometres, sorry - we are on the continent, after all) have Theo and I walked in the name of Rosie's precious daytime sleep? We've certainly got to know the roads around our barrio very well and have also pushed a snoozing Rosie across the very heart of Madrid, passing such landmarks as Sol, Plaza Mayor, the Ventas Bullring and the Retiro Park. As long as we're properly attired for the weather, don't need to empty our bladders and Rosie co-operates by actually nodding off reasonably quickly, then it's an enjoyable way to get a bit of fresh(ish) air and exercise.

But it's hardly what you would describe as a relaxing stroll. Nope. The savvy pushchair navigator has to be constantly alert to all the circling hazards that can kill a nap without a second thought. They are many and various and include:

1) Stopping the pushchair. Getting the timing right at pedestrian crossings is a tricky business and Theo and I have both been observed running full tilt to catch the green man, walking v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y to avoid stopping at the red, or doing figure-eights or back-and-forths on the braille pavements to keep that essential forward motion going at all times.

2) The changing weather. Manic re-positioning of the parasol to avoid sun rays hitting Rosie's reposing eyes; enveloping the buggy in the rain cover (or indeed removing it); hastily improvising wind-breaks with bits of string and bulldog clips... all of this without stopping (see point 1).


3) Sudden sharp noises. During the deeper part of her sleep cycle, Rosie can sleep through pretty much anything. But when she's moving from one cycle to the next, typically at the half-hour mark or thereabouts, any number of sonic interruptions can effectively assassinate the remaining nap. These include:
*dogs barking
*toddlers throwing tantrums
*vehicles tooting (junctions are dangerous - Spaniards tend to be very impatient with cars that don't move forward the instant the light turns green, or preferably, a second or two earlier)
*air-brakes (buses are the worst culprits)
*emergency sirens
*roadworks
*chatting Spaniards (they tend to talk VERY loudly)
*chatting Africans (they tend to talk EVEN MORE loudly)
*mopeds and motorbikes
*baby-loving passers-by ("Que cosita!!" They shout at our sleeping daughter, ignoring our pleading expressions as Rosie's eyelids start to flicker alarmingly)
*buskers (I'm a music lover, but I could cheerfully kick a hole through any accordion threatening my baby's sleep. It usually is an accordion.)

Any of the above can send us skedaddling down side-roads, sprinting across parks, executing 180 degree hand-brake turns with the buggy - or any means necessary to avoid Rosie being woken prematurely.

Which is why an hour and a half of successful sleep from Rosie while out and about tends to feel like a mission as we set out and imparts a glow of satisfaction when we return with the snooze quota fulfilled. But it's no wonder that after the initial stampede to use the loo, we buggy-navigators need to sink gratefully onto the sofa with a calming cup of tea. Those walks are almost always fraught with incident from the most innocent-seeming sources. Strolling has never felt so adventurous.