Driving around for Christmas - by Theo

I had had the silly idea that, since we'd moved back to the UK, spending holidays driving round the South West visiting family were a thing of the past. What a foolish notion.

Deciding that GKK (our clio) wasn't up to it, my parents kindly lent us their BMW (after we'd driven to their house for the Yuletide festivities) for our visit to Cornwall. Rosie had a splendid time on Christmas Day, with many of her favourite people (and cat) being there.

Despite all the driving and the disturbed nights (even when Rosie doesn't wake up, she's such a fidgety sleeper that we invariably do), it was wonderful to see everyone. We'd spent the night with my parents - Cathy, Kate's mum had joined us too - then headed back to Bristol on Boxing Day for a party at Pete and Ems' place. Rosie spent much of it delightedly spinning round in their office chair or falling backwards off their sofa onto a pile of cushions. Then, on the 27th, we dropped Cathy off at the airport and headed down to Penwith to stay with Becky (Kate's sister), her husband Dan and their tribe of four children - or, as Rosie calls them, 'the cousins'!


Rosie was in her element - a house full of books and toys, a big garden to run around in, and four doting older playmates. I even got to relax a bit and read a few books!
Day trips out to Kate's dad and grandparents in Falmouth, and to friends in St. Ives (Jon and Sarah) were also on the itinerary, and on the way back, through fog and rain, a stop with the Presswells in Devon. Again Rosie was having a fab time with her cousins there, but the presence of a puppy (Mylo) made her a bit nervous and was why we weren't staying for too long.

It was, as usual, a lovely trip, especially for Rosie who revelled in seeing everyone. But goodness did it feel good to get home!

Christmas come early - by Theo

Tomorrow we're heading to Cirencester for Christmas Day with my parents - Kate's mum is also joining us - and we're hoping to get away reasonably early. Realising that presenting Rosie with a full stocking from Santa, then demanding she abandon her new (or newish - Santa's big on second hand) possessions to get into the car for an hour was just begging for a tantrum. So we decided to go all European and arrange for Saint Nick to come a day early, after Rosie's nap.

Rosie woke up from her nap a good 40 minutes earlier than usual, catching us a bit unawares (Santa hadn't even begun putting Daddy's stocking out), and the sight of a big pile of brown paper parcels outside her door freaked her out a bit.

When she finally calmed down, she became engrossed by the first present she unwrapped - a squeezed ball-globe - to the extent that she didn't unwrap another for a good half-hour and barely went on her new (£3.20 on eBay) trampoline except to retrieve said ball.

That soon changed when she discovered the joy of chocolate money, and then the hunt was on to find more. Luckily, as there wasn't any, she was soon engrossed by some new books. Predictably, and rather depressingly, the four Spanish books weren't as popular as the single English one - a 'Little Princess' title.

As Mummy's mango bodycream threatened to become a point of contention (Rosie wanted to open it and, probably, eat it - "I like mango!"), we wheeled in the big package which grabbed her attention. "It's Thomas!"

I think she's going to be hugely disappointed when she discovers that it's merely "a" Thomas. Still, plenty of fun to be had in the meantime.

Missing Madrid - by Theo

For the first time since we moved back from Madrid at the very end of June I find myself missing the city itself. Our friends there and the free-time we had have long been missed, but as Christmas nears I'm missing some of the great things about winter in Spain's capital.

Some things I miss are quite boringly mundane - like the cheap, regular and heated buses that I used to take to work. There's nothing like getting caught in a storm of hail while cycling to make you yearn for the days when we had a decent and affordable public transport system on our doorstep. I also miss living in a flat and benefiting from the heating of the surrounding flats, especially now we're in an end of terrace house and seem to be fighting an endless battle against mould. Other things are more romantic.

I miss the mornings. Crisp and cold, with temperatures often well below freezing, but usually dry and sunny, they were times to enjoy a frosty stroll through the park with Rosie wrapped up in her pram. It did snow mind you the three winters we were there, but the city was kitted out for it - it functioned, rather than ground to a halt.


I miss the street-corner kiosks selling roasted chestnuts. I never bought any, but they smelt good and I liked the fact they were there!

I miss the Christmas lights, both the big bold ones along Gran Via and Calle Alcala, and the more parochial efforts on Jose del Hierro in our barrio. Oh sure, there's Christmas lights in the UK, but none near us it seems.

I miss the little markets that would spring up in random squares, selling tacky Christmas decorations, beautiful wooden toys and warm woolies.

I miss the Christmas sweets. Spaniards as a rule have a special pastry for every conceivable occasion and Navidad was no exception - roscon, polverones - with fabulous traditions surrounding their consummation.

Mostly though, I miss the fact that all though it was usually very cold in Madrid during winter, at least it was dry. Unlike this windy, soggy city we're in now. When I got to lectures on Tuesday I had to change my clothes completely and hang them up at the back of the lecture hall to dry.

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.

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!

Christmas in Madrid

We finished work on the 22nd December - for Kate her last day as she won't be returning in the near year. It was a horrible, wet day but still some students made it in, and what with our uber-generous boss Will handing our glasses of Cava and plates of turron to teachers and students, much fun was had. The generosity didn't end there, as we were both given (as were all the teachers) a Christmas hamper containing Champagne, Rioja and chocolates. Nice!!

We promptly opened one of the bubbly bottles the following night when Belen, Cesar and Nataly joined us for a Christmas dinner: mulled wine, nut roast, roasted spuds, cauliflower cheese, broccoli and onion gravy, followed by Christmas pudding and rum butter. The Spaniards seemed to enjoy it all and though we had so much left over we knew we wouldn't need to cook again on Christmas Day itself!
Christmas Eve morning was spent hanging around while the technician from Telefonica fixed our internet, then we had a lovely lunch with our American friend Anne at Artemesia after checking out an exhibition at Alcala 31. Then, after some last minute Christmas shopping - Fosbella had finally decided what she wanted to get Kate for Christmas so I went to pick that up - we settled down to watch a whole load of You Tube.

Kate and I have clearly been very good this year as we woke up to two very full Christmas stockings at the end of the bed. Kate got some tea, chocolate, underwear and handbag; I got boxers, turron, and a jumper. Eventually we got up and had scrambled eggs on toast, Skyped our families, ate left-overs and opened more presents. My family gave us some useful baby things, including a sling. We both practised wearing it, using a stocking stuffed with clementines as a baby stand-in.
Kate gave me an Ipod - awesome - and I got Kate series 1 to 4 of Bones, while the Rainbow family had sent us the movie Once on DVD, so we snuggled down to watch those. Nothing particularly Spanish about our Christmas, but bloody lovely though.

First mince pies of the season

Although we've been stuffing ourselves with turron and pannetoni, we didn't manage our first mince pies until Saturday, when Juanmi, Kirsty and Emily invited us to their Christmas party in Rivas.
We were late arriving, having had to work until 2.40pm, so there was a fair crowd clustered round the food when we arrived. It was like a meeting of Expats Anonymous, or rather, Anglo-Spaniard Couples Anonymous, for as well as our hosts our friends Fermin and Rebecca were there and everybody else we spoke too seemed to be in mixed Spanglish relationship. Just a run down of the names (Tracy & Ignacio, Manuela & James, Jason & Dolores) makes it pretty clear! I was worried I wasn't going to get a chance to practice my Spanish at all, but luckily we managed to find about the only other linguistically homogeneous couple there, Nani and Jose Ramon, who grew up in our barrio to chat to. It was a lovely afternoon, with plenty of recent or soon-to-be mums for Kate to compare hospitals and midwives with, plus some carols round the piano.

We nipped off earlyish in order to do some shopping in Carre Four on the way home, where we encountered the most impressive Belen (nativity scene) yet. The Spanish go for their Bethlehem scenes the way a certain type of English male goes for model train sets, and this one, with its functioning water wheels and hand-painted miniatures, was really quite something. For childless couples only though, methinks.

Well that was a surprise

Yesterday was a bright, beautiful, sunny day. No indication we'd wake up this morning to a blanket of snow over streets and roofs!

Funnily enough I'd been complaining that the warm weather was stopping me from feeling really Christmassy. Let it snow, let is snow, let it snow!

O tannenbaum, o tannenbaum

We're starting to get into a Christmas mood. Madrid is looking pretty, with lights strung out over the streets and little markets popping up all over the place. We've got what must be one of the smallest Christmas trees ever: it's a cypress tree we picked up at the Rastro last weekend. We didn't want to buy a fake one, and we couldn't find a real fir so this was the closest we could get. Still it looks very pretty.We'd already been availing ourselves of the piles of Turron and Panettoni beginning to make their seasonal appearance in the shops, and yesterday we stuck all our Christmas cards in the post. Plus, we embarked on a mammoth Christmas-music playlist compilation on Spotify yesterday to ensure our first Madrid Christmas is suitably sound-tracked.

Naturally we've gone for the cheesy party tracks - The Pogues, Boney M, Band Aid - but for when we just want to chill we've found some lovely versions of some traditional hymns; Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band singing "I saw three ships" and an instrumental version of "The Holly wears the Crown" by Martin Simpson - weirdly we couldn't find a decent vocal version of "The Holly and the Ivy" though there were loads to choose from - they were all too slow. We found a cracking Dolly Parton version of "Go tell it to the Mountain", there's some Jethro Tull, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (controversially, perhaps, we've gone for his version of "White Christmas" rather than Bing's). Speaking of Bing Crosby, his duet with David Bowie was annoyingly prefaced by 2 minutes of chatter, so we picked the Jackson Five for "The Little Drummer Boy" instead. There's Handel, Troika, Gaudete and the Snowman in our playlist, but what's really making me nostalgic and bringing up memories of Christmases past is Nat King Cole singing "Holy Night" and "O Tannenbaum"; it reminds me of Christmases in Kenya as my parents would often play it back in the days of cassettes. Once we moved back to England and bought a CD player he disappeared from our Christmas soundtracks. I'm glad he's back.

bonding and bowling

We had our work Christmas Party last night. Well, there wasn't much that was Christmassy about it, but it was a party, and it's nearly Christmas, so.... Anyway, our boss kindly treated us all to a trip to the bowling alley with beers, food, taxis and suitably ridiculous nicknames all thrown in. Very nice of him.

As Theo "Thunder" Berry I was paired up with Anna "Maverick" McKendrick as we took on Tim and Kate B in the first frame. (Kate S having decided that bowling and pregnancy weren't a good combination, she'd relegated herself to a cheerleading capacity). Sadly, while Anna and I ratcheted up a combined score that would have beaten any of the other 4 teams, Tim and Kate B turned out to be the two best bowlers there, both being the only people to manage three-figured scores.

Still, what's important to remember here is that Anna and I won the following two games comfortably and the beer was all paid for.

visitations

One of the the things about living overseas that I did know (having previously lived in Yemen and Kenya) but had forgotten was just how hectic trips home can be. Being back for a mere couple of weeks and trying to squash in visits to as many people as possible within that time frame is pretty exhausting, particularly when the time in which you are doing it is meant to be your holiday. Mind you, it's definitely worth it - it was wonderful to see so many of our friends and family again.

We were back in the UK for 3 weeks exactly over the Christmas and New Year period and hurtled around the country - London, Bristol, the Cotswolds, Chepstow, Devon and Cornwall - meeting friends in cafes and pubs, sleeping in 8 different houses (plus a Yurt for 2 nights and Sheena for one) and just generally catching up with the news. New Year's Eve was wild - we finally got to bed at 9.30am - and I'm still not entirely sure I've recovered. Cheers to Dean and Nikki for having a bunch of people they barely knew round for a party! In fact the whole visit was great; lots of comedy, some tragedy and lots of romance with first our friends Stuart and Sam announcing their engagement and then my sister Hermione agreeing to marry the wonderful Richard. The perfect beginning to a New Year!