To eat (meat) or not to eat - that is the question - by Theo

Yesterday was Rosie's one year check up at the local medico's. Mercifully there were no injections due this time (the next are at 15 months) but sadly her appointment for her weighing and measuring wasn't with the friendly, amiable nurse, but with the grumpy pediatrician, who has the beside manner of a coat hanger. She's the one who criticized us for using a sling and expressed disbelief at our vegetarian diet. Naturally this was a subject she returned to again.

Rosie weighed in at 7.3 kilos, standing (or, rather crawling) 69 cms tall (long). Apparently this means she's underweight. Well, yes, technically she is - consulting the curve on our Documento de Salud Infantil she is just below the lowest percentile band for weight, though she's within it for height. After quizzing me about her diet (which includes such protein-rich foods as quinoa, chickpeas, lentils, eggs, cheese, sweetcorn in pretty much every meal) the pediatrician saw this as her cue to berate me for starving my daughter of the necessary chicken and fish Rosie apparently needs to put on muscle mass (naturally we want our daughter to be a sumo wrestler in later life). Veggie proteins just won't do.

Being a relatively recent convert to vegetarianism (5 years) I'm quite the Zealot and thus would really rather not feed my daughter meat or fish for a variety of moral and environmental reasons. Plus I'm not too worried about Rosie's size, for a few reasons:

1. Kate is just over 5 feet tall (1metre 52), as are Rosie's aunts on both sides of the family. They all ate meat and fish as children. So, I reckon that Rosie would still grow up to be petite even if we fed her prime steak 3 times a day. It's just in the genes.

2. While Rosie may be underweight for a 12 month-old, she is not underweight for an 11 month-old - and she was born a month premature. So, if we adjust for that, she's fine...

3. Finally, she's perfectly healthy and seems to be reaching all the development milestones at around the normal time.

Obviously Rosie's health and development would trump all other considerations. So, if by the next weigh-in in 3 months time she's fallen even further behind the curve then I'll slaughter the chicken myself. But for now it's chickpea and sweetcorn pancakes...

old haunts and old friends - by Theo

One of the very first restaurants we went to when we arrived in Madrid was an excellent Indian restaurant on Calle de Echegaray, in central Madrid, when I met for the first time some old friends of Kate's, the Frosts. Now, nearly two years later, with both families being one more in number, we met up again for a delicious, if late, Sunday curry. We even sat at the same table!

Ian Frost, the patriarch of the clan, went to school with Kate's dad - that's how far back the connection goes, and his and Jill's daughter Kirsty lives here in Madrid, along with her husband Juanmi and, now, baby Emily, who is 6 months older than Rosie. Sadly Emily wasn't feeling too well, but we (Kate, Rosie and I) had a lovely time nonetheless, with Rosie delicately munching on a poppadom. Funny to think how much has changed for both families since we last met there, and how much better we all know each other.

The following day, Monday, we were back in the same area, although one street over, at the delicious Artimesa on Calle de Ventura de la Vega. One of the first veggie restaurants we'd found in Madrid, we hadn't been for ages but picked it as the spot to meet up with Clara Molden, an old University friend of mine, and her friend Nat, both former Madrid residents here for a long weekend. Clara was always an amazing photographer, with her pictures regularly featuring in various Magazines I was involved with back in Bristol, but I hadn't seen her for sometime - she now lives in London and works for a picture agency, her photos now gracing the front-covers of British broadsheets. It was lovely to see her again, reminisce and hear about her work; what she's achieved at such a young age, in a very competitive and male world is incredibly impressive. She's been on 4 week long hostile environment training, photographed numerous stars and occasionally taken the odd, mundane shoot as well! How ironic then that none of thought to take any photos!

The Big Four Oh... By Kate

So, I've hit forty. Actually, I would like to think I got there in a more decorous fashion, but it probably wouldn't be true. I could say I have started my fifth decade, but that's a bit scary, so I won't.

What a good job I have a thoughtful, loving husband who appointed himself in charge of celebrating the end of decade number four in such a way that I would at times forget the age aspect of the whole affair. The very fact that he is eleven years my junior is helpful in itself - I can now spend one year and one month bragging about having a husband in his twenties while I'm in my forties. I fully intend to do so at every opportunity.

Anyway, back to the birthday weekend. I wasn't very good at suggesting special fortieth-type birthday presents (a hair-brush and a new baby-carrier were the best I could come up with) so Theo decided his main present would consist of persuading my sister to transplant herself temporarily from the far west of Cornwall, her husband and four children and come and stay. What a winner! I would have been knocked sideways if it had been a surprise, but the fact that I discovered the plan ahead of time meant I could enjoy my birthday present even more by luxuriating in some pleasurable anticipation too.

So Bex duly arrived on the Friday evening and I stayed up beyond my customary nine o'clock bed-time (made necessary by my beloved multiple-waking baby daughter) to greet her and clink glasses of Cava.

The next morning I had a surprise extra birthday present from Rosie in the form of a lie-in until 08.00. Seeing as her customary getting up time is between 06.00 and 07.00, it was a princely gift. OK, she still woke up a few times along the way, but I wasn't about to look a gift-horse in the mouth.
More of the Cava was duly consumed in the form of Buck's Fizz with freshly squeezed orange and after a birthday present opening session (thank you cards now being written to the kind donors...) the four of us set off to the small town of Chinchon, about 50km outside Madrid.
There we met up with our friends Bianca, Stephane and Ollie; Kirsty, Juanmi and Emily Grace and Anne. After a stroll around the picturesque streets of Chinchon (famous for its anise spirit, garlic, local wine and buns in the shapes of breasts and testicles...) we settled down on the terraza of a restaurant in the Plaza Mayor and enjoyed a long and leisurely - and rather tasty - lunch. Even the babies were inclined to remain mellow, either napping in their prams, grinning and allowing themselves to be passed around for cuddles or a bit of high jinx in the town's bull-ring.The next day we took Bex on a fast-paced Sunday tour of Madrid, including a second breakfast of churros; the rastro; Picasso's Guernica; cafe-con-leche in Plaza Mayor and finally lunch at a vegetarian restauran in La Latina, along with our pals Jon, David and Nataly.Not surprisingly, we were all exhausted when we got back. Bex was delivered to the airport by Theo (and then had to put up with a delayed flight and an overnight drive home...I can only appreciate her logistical sacrifices to make the journey...) and I collapsed into bed, feeling every second of my forty-plus years.They say it's when life begins. In that case, I'm going to need more energy. But my forties have been pretty good so far, let's hope they carry on this way.

Lisbon: planning to plan

Kate and I suck at planning things.

Ok, so our wedding went pretty well - we're not saying that things go badly when we plan them, it's just that we seem to be rubbish at sticking to plans. We're too impetuous, too easily distracted and too prone to improvise. For example, originally our European travel plans hadn't included Spain and Portugal AT ALL - now we're spending a month here (all largely because of a thread we saw on the CHOKE forum). As a result we had hardly any plans, and hadn't even got around to purchasing a proper road atlas for the Iberian peninsular until we got to Bilbao.

Today was another great example of us making plans, not sticking to them, making more plans, not sticking to those either, but of generally having a lovely, if footsore, day anyway.


We're in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, a south-facing port on the Tajo river. Our plan had been to get up early, have breakfast, head into town before 9, wander around and see some of the sights, then come back for a late lunch and siesta before heading back into Lisbon for a night out in the big city. We started well, but by 12.30 we didn't really feel we'd seen much by way of the sights, just some lovely narrow, cobbled streets with tall town houses on the sides and cafe tables in the middle, opening out to big pracas named after various kings and explorers. We did find an ornate street elevator, originally steam powered and a cute funicular tramway, but we decided it was too early to eat out and anyway we weren't that bothered about a night on the tiles. So we bought a day rider (might have been a good plan to get one earlier, but never mind) and headed to the riverside Belem district, where several of Lisbon's best monuments and palaces were to be found.



After changing our plans regarding lunch a couple of times, we found a charming little pavement cafe where we managed to assemble a reasonably decent vegetarian meal from various entree and soup options. Monuments checked out, street art spotted, ice cream eaten, feet beginning to ache, we resolved to do the rest of our sightseeing by tram and bus to make the best use of our four-euro tickets. Inevitably we ended up on a different tram to the one we planned to take, but Kate's instinct was right as we were rewarded by gorgeous views on the castle circular in a splendid old fashioned vehicle with sash windows and leather sunscreens, polished wood and ample chances to exchange greetings with pedestrians and people in passing trams.

Naturally our plans to return to the campsite via a variety of Metro trains and buses were altered, changed and rearranged several times and two missed stops later, we made it back. I had planned to get our washing in from earlier then cook, but Kate had other plans, hence she's cooking and I am blogging. About plans.

thank god I'm not wheat intolerant...

It's hard enough being a tea drinking vegetarian in France, so I'm glad neither of us have other dietary requirements we'd have to struggle to explain. Last night we were invited to a dinner party at some friends of Cathy. She had explained in advance that we were vegetarian, and the response had been "that's ok, we're having paella"....

oh well. still after some salad, lots of bread and cheese and two deserts each we didn't feel hard done by....

I've given up on ordering tea as well - I'll just stick to Chocolat Chaud.