la sobremesa - by Theo

One of the few annoying things about our flat is the horrible glass-topped pedestal table in the living/dining room. It's not very attractive, it's very heavy (and thus can't be moved) and only fits 6 around it, and even then it's a squeeze. Hence we could only invite Belen, Cesar, David and Nataly around for lunch, when really we could have done with a couple more mouths for all the food I'd made.

As I was trying out a couple of new things - a carrot tart, chilled beetroot soup, and baked onion bhajis - I overcompensated with the other dishes I was making, worried that I'd either mess up the new stuff or they'd turn out to be not very nice. So we had toasted goat's cheese with cherries accompanied by a sun-dried tomato salad to start. The former went down very well with Rosie. Then the soup, then buttered asparagus and feta and courgette fritters with the main. It all seemed to go down very well, although Rosie was dubious about the soup, but there's plenty left over.
After all that, we decided in preference to sitting around for la sobremesa (the Spanish word meaning "conversation after a meal") we'd take a little walk, which was convenient as Rosie needed her nap by this point. Nataly had been doing a sterling job keeping Rosie (and herself) amused by reading some of Rosie's books, but it was time Rosie had her siesta.

Being good hosts, we of course put our rooms at our guests' disposal, should they want a siesta themselves, but they were happy to come out to the park, except Cesar who stayed to monitor the pudding in the oven and the Grand Prix on live-stream. We had a little turn around Parque El Calero, stopped for a drink on a cafe terraza and let Rosie play on the slide, before heading back for hot brownies and home-made strawberry ice-cream.

And we didn't even touch the chocolate cake David and Nataly had brought for pudding! We'll just have to eat that in the week. What a shame.