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.

Puente

Any long holiday weekend in Spain is called a puente - literally 'a bridge' - often because if, say, the Thursday is a holiday they make it a bridge to the weekend by taking the Friday off as well. This past Monday was a puente in Madrid, so we felt it was only fitting to visit a famous puente on our way back from Estepona.


Ronda is one of the oldest towns in Spain, with remains in the area going back to the stone age, though it was under the Arabs that it really rose to prominence, a fortified rock in the middle of a high, fertile plateau, ringed by mountains that became a regional capital. Once Spanish control of Andalucia had been firmly in place for a couple of centuries, they decided the old part of town didn't need to be quite so inaccessible, and so the bridge for which Ronda is now chiefly famous was built, a beautiful construction spanning a plummeting gorge. However Ronda was not just a one-trick town. Even the drive there had been worth it, as we wound our way up the mountains of the Sierra behind Marbella which offered stunning views across the Straits of Gibraltar to Morocco, the Atlas Mountains clearly visible. Ronda itself, with its pretty whitewashed houses, doors open to the cobbled streets revealing beautifully tiled vestibules, was a pleasure to walk around and well worth the diversion on our way back to Madrid.

Return to Eden

We just spent a lovely, relaxing weekend at Patty Pan's Paradise, just outside Estepona on the Costa del Sol. While still on our honeymoon, we had spent a great week there and we'd been itching for the chance to get back down, see the friends we'd made and catch some sea air. The 4-day weekend seemed an ideal time, so we loaded up Delilah and headed off. The drive was pretty easy - a cool 6 hours - though there were some hair-razing moments as the road twisted spectacularly through the mountains towards Jaen. Amazing views for Kate, sweaty palms for Theo! We arrived to a very warm welcome from Patty, who promptly put us up in her (absent) daughter's room - much comfier and warmer than Delilah!


It has suddenly got chilly in Madrid, with coats and jumpers coming out of cupboards, so it was wonderful to wake up to flip-flops and T-shirt weather. Naturally, hitting the beach before lunch was the only sensible option. Only Theo was brave enough to go swimming, though in fairness Kate's still getting over a chesty cough, so the bracing waters probably wouldn't have been a good idea. Funnily enough we had the sunny beach and views of Gibraltar pretty much to ourselves.

That evening Patty cooked a delicious roast, and we were joined by Patty's boyfriend, San Steveo (patron Saint of vans), plus our friends we had met at the Rocket Festival, Andy and Kerine. Our attempts to poison Patty, who has a nut allergy, with various chocolates and a nut roast all failed, so we had to resort to beating her at Scrabble. The evening went on late enough that our vague plans for a daytrip to Cadiz on Sunday faded out of view.

Instead Sunday was another wonderfully chilled day of reading, Scrabble, home-cooked curry and an enjoyable stroll along the beach with Patty, Steve and assorted canines. We left earlier today, clutching gifts from the garden and an awesome travel backgammon set made of coloured cloth, which Patty had brought back from India. Hopefully we'll be back soon, especially as Patty wants to be the Jewish godmother of our as yet unborn child. There is definitely a touch of Maureen Lipman about her...

Weekend of the Workers

Another weekend, another puente. They seem to have a lot of bank holidays in Spain, which is brilliant in some respects (a day off work - what's not to like?) but also results in a cut in income for me, as being autonimo, if I don't work, I don't get paid.

Anyway, as in the UK, May Day is a public holiday. Here, it's held to celebrate the workers and you usually find various trades unions, socialist organisations and other groups of a leftish inclination putting together a token march or two for solidarity.

Theo and I have celebrated Workers' Weekend in time-honoured fashion by lazing about not doing anything much at all. Actually, in deference to the occasion, we have both planned a few lessons, so we haven't been entirely idle.

The weather is near perfection, with temperatures in the comfortable low to mid-twenties and all is resplendent with sunny springtime verdancy. The pattern of our holiday weekend has involved a relaxed breakfast with the newspapers (Guardian Online, mostly), followed by a little light creative work, then a picnic in Parque Tierno Galvan, which is a couple of blocks from our flat.

Tierno Galvan park is rather lovely: much less crowded than the Retiro, with better tended vegetation and set on undulating slopes with interesting cityscape views and on a clear day, sightlines out to the Sierra Guadalajara. At the moment, the mountains are still snow-capped, but I suspect they won't be for much longer if the current warm weather continues.

The interior of our appartment block has also truly come alive. After months of quiet emptiness as people hid from the winter chill in their flats, the sunshine has enticed everyone outside and as I write, the inner courtyard is a riot of shrieking children, watched indulgently by their adoring relatives.

Children are king in Spain and rather than trying to keep them quiet and out of the way, they are made welcome and provision is always made for their needs. Children are also considered a much more important part of the community than they might be in some other parts of Europe I could mention. In the last few weeks, Theo and I have been invited to several birthday parties for 5-7 year-olds, as general invitation posters have gone up around the appartment block for their fiestas in the shared sala. We've been quite tempted, too. Judging by the joyous racket going on, they really know how to party, these little'uns. Haven't seen their improvised kitchen flamenco yet, but I'm willing to bet they could hold their own.

City Guides Redeemed

It's not like we owe anything to Madrid, exactly. I mean, we both pay our taxes (or will do in Theo's case when the Spanish system finds time to sign him up), we both contribute our euros to the city's economy in various ways, we integrate with the locals and we are both providing a much-demanded service, English lessons. So why did I feel like I needed to apologise for showing the city in a less-than-entirely favourable light after receiving our first guests from home? I did indeed apologise to my mother and godmother, who bore the brunt of our (unintentionally) rather sparse hospitality on that occasion. It's a bit more difficult to say sorry to a city. Where do you start? With the mayor, perhaps?

In our defence, Theo and I couldn't really help the fact that we were working for much of the duration of our first guests' sojourn - their stay was during the week and like most people, that's when we're busy earning our crust. And it was just bad luck that the same week caught both of us in a state of illness and attendant tiredness, crotchetyness and low energy levels.

I suppose, having been living in the city for six-or-so weeks by then, we should have been able to offer more inspiring suggestions for outings and certainly should have had a few special bars and restaurants up our sleeves. But much of our time since arriving in Madrid had been spent working, recovering from working, sorting out the necessary bureaucracy and being ill. Thus, our tour guiding was at best, somewhat patchy. And that's putting it mildly.

Our one attempt to show our guests a bit of the "real" Madrid went spectacularly wrong when our short stroll to the trendy and accessible La Latina area took a wrong turn and became a hike through the mean streets of Lavapies. The latter is a fairly popular area with those seeking an authentic city expererience, but isn't really the right place to take your respected (or even disrespected) elders for a nice glass of sherry. Something about the skulking groups of shifty-eyed, baseball-capped young men hovering in the semi-deserted alleys, I think.

The wonderful San Gines chocolateria, with its cups of thick, dark, sweet nectar and stacks of churros helped improve our guests' impressions of Madrid a little, but I fear by then, the city had rather lost its shine. A shame. Madrid, as I have mentioned before, is not as pretty, impressive or antiquitous as other Spanish cities, but it has a lot to offer in terms of culture and buzz. As salesmen, we were simply inadequate to the task of showing it off at its best (especially as I am a woman).

So it was with relief as well as delight that we observed our two most recent guests fall in love both with Madrid and its people (natives and extranjeros). They chose the "puente" for their visit - a Thursday public holiday which leads many to take Friday off as well (puente is Spanish for bridge) so consequently, Theo and I were far more available to offer company, as well as food and lodgings (our previous guests had stayed in a hotel, which was definitely a better option for them - as elders and betters, I don't think the sofa and foam-mattress on the lounge floor would have been acceptable). Also, we were both in rude health and spirits AND we'd had a chance to make a few finds when it came to places where we could take visitors, so we were able to play host with a lot more confidence. Various of our Madrid pals, as well as a visiting phalanx of Valencianos, came up trumps with an exuberant, nattery Anglo-Spanish mix of open-armed welcome, which helped show Madrid in its warmest, most sparkly light. To cap it all, both our friends were hit on by members of the opposite sex - and nothing beats a good flirtation for making some top-notch holiday memories.

In summary, you win some, you lose some. In this case, it's one-all. Madrid, I hope you accept the apology.