Carnival!

Carnival starts officially on Saturday, but in most schools the whole week was somehow related to that subject and P's having great fun. This year he told me that he wanted to dress as Mario, the game character pictured here.
So we starting figuring out what is he wearing and first went to a local shop where they sell working outfits for the industry. There we found a great blue working overall and we're lucky that P is as big a many adults here so size was not a problem. Then we stop at Zara and bought a red long-sleeved t-shirt and the basic was done. In the local costume shop we founded the false moustaches and white gloves, but the hat remained the one thing we couldn't buy so we had to customise it somehow.
In the costume shop we found a plastic red bowler hat and "the husband" cut it and shaped it and they both designed and added the big "M".
Today P went to school dress as Mario and he said that as soon as the other kids saw him they all screamed "MARIO!" as they recognised him in an instant. They even didn't know who was underneath!! And he also said that the small children where all in total awe of him, some of them even asked him for autographs!!

Isn't he the cutest thing ever!!

Of course we're all going on Saturday to the local fiesta and P's going as Mario.

Reading again!

When I'm sad or there's something wrong in my life one of the first thing to suffer is my reading, and it always makes matters worst because if I can't read I feel worse!
I stop reading when Darwin died and it was not until a few days ago that I pick up a book again. Appropriately enough it was a book about readers and the power of reading in ones life. Is Alan Bennett's "The uncommon reader". I never read any of his books before but i was tempted to give it a go when I saw it on the best sellers list in Amazon.
As it's a tiny book it only took me a few days to go through and at the end I felt that familiar sense of lost that I get when I really liked a book and felt close to the characters and sad that I'm leaving them behind.
There's no many book in English in the local library and whoever buys them has a penchant for crime and mystery, genres that I don't particularly enjoy. So, thank god for amazon! So far the service is good and fast and only once did a parcel got lost and they offered to send replacements or a full refund as one of the book was out of print.
Now that I broke the jinx more books are queuing up in my bed table and I feel that I'm getting back to normal after all the grieving. In fact the very next book is Cesar Millan "Cesar's way". This guy has a TV program that I watched both in the British TV and the local one and he deals with dogs with behavioural problems. So, I'm reading his book now to hopefully learn how to avoid having problems with the next dog. I want to be the best dog owner that I can be so I'm starting to learn (at least the theory) well before the dog is actually here.

Now that I'm back on the books I'd really appreciate if you tell me what are you reading or listening now, it may inspire me! And is always good to check on other's reading bag. thanks in advance.

Nice January

So far I'm having a very quiet time this January. I knock on wood as not to jinx it, because I feel I truly deserve some peace and quiet.
We had a meeting with P's teacher and we're very pleased to report that he's doing much better. Now he's doing most of his homework and as he's actually revising for the exams, he's doing much better on the test. He also participated playing the piano for the whole school in the Santa Cecilia's concert and performed in a little play. However the teacher also reported that he sometimes forgets to bring the equipment for PE, that his hand witting is atrocious, that he's spelling in Catalan needs to improve and that he's still very shy and not play much with the other kids.
So, apart for the shyness, which I don't know what can I do (any suggestions are very welcome), I think that we did the right thing in taking away all the things that P enjoys at home (computer, Nintendo, Gameboy, TV time plus allowance.) and only given him some time to use them after he's done his homework and done some extra work. So now that he's back on track we're relaxing the rules a bit and we even started giving him some allowance as well and promised him an increase if (and when) he get better results at school.

We also gave a lot of though to the plan of getting a new dog. "The husband", ever the scientist, did a thorough research on every imaginable breed of dogs and their characteristics plus what we can realistic offer to it. So, after a while he found the Shiba Inu, a Japanese dog that's one of the oldest breeds in the world. I've never heard of them and thought that it was very unlikely that we were to find a Japanese breed here, but "the husband" was so taken with them that he managed to find a place where they breed them at just an hour from home. (for their web site click here).
So we contact them and went to visit their place on a very sunny Sunday. To start with they live in a such a small village that it's not even listed in the GPS so it took us forever to find the nearby village on the map that they send us, then we had to ask for directions to Alta-riba and after some driving we managed to get lost and arrived to a tiny village. It's such a small place that houses don't even have addresses and as it was siesta time (after lunch time where everybody goes to take a nap specially on Sunday) we just parked there and tried to phone them.
After 5 minutes a car arrived and as we approached them to ask for direction they told us they we just parked in front of their house and they were the dog's owners. As we arrived at the place by chance this is the closest thing to fate that I've ever seen.
They are a lovely young couple with two small children and theirs is not one of those awful dog factory but a house in the country where they have dogs that they obviously love. So, if you want to buy one dog from them you have to wait until one litter is produced, no fixed time, and they will give you the puppy only when it's ready to go, with all the papers, vaccines, etc. This may take time as their heat period is around spring time. They have 6 Shiba Inus and one rescued dog. I appreciated this as it shows that they do love dogs in general and are not dog snobs (in case there's such a thing!).
Of course the dogs were adorable and we all fell in love with them. The picture here is one of their dogs. They were smaller than I thought they'll be, more or less lighter that an adult Beagle. They've got more fur that I expected and we've been told that they shed it twice a year so they do require regular brushing and I can just imagine dog hair everywhere in our sofa! They're famous for being very clean, even fastidiously so, and very clever dogs, the owners said that they temperament is that of a big dog in a small body: calm and assertive.

Of course I do believe that we'd fallen in love with almost any dog and I'm not sure about the morality of spending a lot of money on a puppy, but "the husband" heart was set on the Shiba and this was his turn to choose (I did choose Darwin). So, after playing with dogs for a while and asking a lot of questions we decided that yes, we want one. I wanted a girl-dog, to even things out a bis at home, but "the husband" said that he always had boys and that he really, really wanted one and that it was, after all, his turn to choose. So, a boy it'll be.
We pay the first instalment (€250), meaning that we'll be the first to choose a male from the litter in summer. Then we pay a second instalment when the puppies are born and a final payment when we collect him.
We're looking forward to that.

I still miss my sweet and cheeky Darwin everyday. This is the last picture of us together. Nobody will ever replace him, but we do need some extra love in our life and a reason to get out and walk more.

bad bug and bad specsavers!!

After the poor Japanese family, on Wednesday it was my son's turn to get the bug and he has a bit of temperature and diarrhoea.
P's such a healthy boy that when he woke up in the middle of the night with a "bad feeling here, a sort of pressure from the inside" as he put it, he didn't even know that it was nausea. So he just sat there for a while when I was half awake and trying to figure out what was going on. Then he just proceeded to vomit half of the dinner on my bed.

So we have to change the bed covers, give some comfort and paracetamol to a sick child and try to get everybody sleeping as soon as possible as it was the middle of the week and everybody had things to do.

The next day P stayed at home as he was still feeling poorly and had some fever and i don't want him to be at school feeling terribly and passing along the bug.

I went to work on Thursday feeling very sleepy. Luckily, as this is the first week after the Christmas holidays for most of my students they were as sleepy as me and I hope that nobody noticed that I actually had different colours socks!!

And today, Friday, it was my turn and I had a stomach ache all day long and finally diarrhoea. Luckily none of my classes today was longer than one hour so I managed to rush to the toilet between them.
Of course I couldn't stop after work as I had to take P to the optician as his teacher reported to us that his sight is getting worse and he's not able to see the board from his seat at the back of the class.
I was a bit surprised because P go glasses in Bristol and he never used them much. Anyway, I though that because he's young it was perfectly possible that his eyesight is worse now.

After a very thorough examination, the local optician told me that there's a discrepancy between her results and P's old glasses. Apparently the glasses have 0.5 myopia in the right eye and 1 astigmatism but according to her result the inverse is actually the case. So she said that is very unusual that this will reverse in such a way, possible but extremely unusual. So she suspected that when they made P's glasses somebody along the line confused the eyes and gave him the wrong correction.
Luckily he never felt the glasses were making much of a difference and we never insisted for him to use them so not real harm was done!!
That's really add another meaning to the add: "we should have gone to specsavers" as we did got them there.
At the end we're going to use the same frame as P loves them and have the glasses replaced, something that we thought it was going to be needed anyway. So, now we're €75 the poorer and the glasses are going to be ready by Tuesday.

Gone.

The Japanese family who was staying with us left yesterday's evening. They finally managed to get their flat with running water, gas and electricity and it only took them 8 days to get it so... which for them is incredibly slow but not bad at all for Spain at the start of a new year as i told them before!

They all got a stomach bug that's going around Barcelona and they were really worried about their baby who has some fever on top of everything. I also think that is the water and food that they're not used to.
"The husband" took them to a local hospital to see an emergency doctor with baby Mebuki and they were surprised that everything was done fast, efficiently and free. The hospital was hard to find as we didn't know the address and when we tried to find it in their web page we found all sort of information about everything but not telephone or address!! This is typical of official web sites, they have all the blows and whistle. music and what-have-you but not any useful information!!!

I'm glad they've gone. First because now they have their own place finally. They were really good guests but it was getting uncomfortable to have so many people around the flat. You have to think that before their visit we never meet each other.
The good thing is that I feel that we've done a really good deed with them and they're going to enjoy their stay in Spain more thanks to us.

And there's also a bit more of good karma for everybody. A good way to start a new year!

Reyes Magos

The reyes magos or wizard kings are the three wise men in the English version of the bible. In Latin countries we celebrate them on the 7th of January, which is their day. But the real event take place the nigh before, when children all over the (at least) Spanish speaking world leave their shoes outside on a window or balcony, (together with some water for the camels and drinks or biscuits for the kings). If the children behaved well during the previous year the kings would leave presents for them but, according to tradition, if the children behaved badly the kings would just leave some coal.
Here in Spain there also a big event called the cabalgata de los reyes or the kings' cavalcade, when there's a big parade when the kings with their entourage go around town and everybody get out to see them and cheer them. Some children take the opportunity to deliver their letters to the kings with their list of presents. This happens all over Spain, from huge parades in big city to small and humble events in small villages. In Barcelona the kings arrive by see, from Orient, and they step down their ship in the old port amid much expectation.

Here in Sabadell we have our own parade, of course, and it's a great one. Luckily they do it just around the corner from us. Along with the kings the parade has many other features that change from one a year to the next. In our local parade they have a sort of representation of the solar system with the star of Bethlehem starting the whole event. Lovely. In this picture you can see some of the planets.

Some local associations also take part of the parade and are a big part of the show as some people go there just to see and cheer their friends and family members. This year the local scooter association chose to dress their members in what I think is the most funny and politically incorrect dress ever. I think they're supposed to be some sort of Arabs or Palestinians, as the kings went from somewhere in the east to Israel to give baby Jesus their presents, but their headgear looked more like old tablecloths. Just hilarious as this one in the picture.

In the parade, the kings' entourage throw sweets to the crows and everybody scramble to collect as much as they can. Old people and young kids, everybody!! And the old people can elbow you out of the way as easily and eagerly as any small kid can throw you out of balance, plus the old folks had years of experience so they very fast!! It's war!

We went and took our Japanese guests with us, I don't know what they make of this but we had a great time and have enough sweets to last us at least until summer!!

At the very end of the parade goes a horse-cart carrying big black pieces of coal to remind children of the deal. As this goes by you can hear the kids taking their breath in and some whispered boos!

The next morning P found a nice Charlie Brown book on top of his shoes, a Catalan edition, which is great as he needs to read more in his third language in order to do well at school. Also he got a small bag of coal!!
I have to admit that it was me who put that as a joke and it was a kind of special sweet made of black sugar that he ate first thing in the morning and then spend the rest of the day in a state of sort of sugar and kings' induced high.

Big long-time project

Since Darwin died I've been really sad and I cannot concentrate on reading or anything, which is quite unusual for me and a sure sign that I'm falling into depression.
After taking some time to mourn I decided to fight back and I'm doing it my way, with craft.

This happened before when I was at college and P was a baby and I was under a lot of (self-inflicted) pressure to do a good degree and rise a healthy and happy baby. During the second year I was quite fed up of everything and wanted to quit. But by that time I was very close to finish it anyway so, instead, I took some time off and taught myself to quilt and did a (bit wonky) but very pretty king-size bed cover that I still have. It took me months but when it completely took my mind of my worries and by the time I finished I was ready to go back to Uni and I graduated with a 2:1 and a prize for the best essay of that year.

So now that I cannot read I decided that instead of watch tv and get depressed I'm going to do something that I never did, something that it required learning new skills, concentrate and even design. And I decided to make a table cover with lace and fabric.

This picture from a sewing German magazine (Burda) is my inspiration and I'm loosely following their instructions. However, the fabric circles that I'm using are bigger than in the original and the thread that I bough is also different, so I'm going to need to adapt and design things as I go along.

Although I've been tatting for years, I've never done something that looks so complicated and sophisticated and it's a big challenge.

The first problem was that the magazine say to buy the fabric circles ready made and attach the lace as you go following their diagram. Well... I'm sure that you can buy them in Germany but not here. So I started by cutting circles that I previously draw in a very cheap fabric that I bought from the nearby Chinos where I also bought loads of white cotton thread.

(People here call "los Chinos" to the shops that are owned and run by Chinese people selling a huge variety of a motley crew of usually very cheap Chinese imports. You'll find everything there from cat food to clocks)

It took me a few days and many tries to figure out how to attach the thread to the fabric in an evenly way as I'm not very good at sewing and have none to ask. Luckily for me, there's a lot of people doing this sort of craft and publishing their works on the web so I found some ideas and finally one worked: I tat with the normal shuttle and pierce the fabric with it to attach the lace as I go.

This is the result. A circle with a round of 56 tatting circles and chains around. I chose 56 because is a number that can be divided by eight, meaning that each circle is surrounded by 4 others in a cross and then joined to them with 4 little doilies to fill the space between them. Does it sound clear?
The picture's a bit distorted by the scanner but the circles are quite even and the lace looks good enough. My idea is that any imperfection will sort of blend when the whole thing is finished and I can put plates and cutlery on top!

Now I'm doing loads of this circles in the same manner and when I have enough it'll be time to think on how to join them together and what sort of pattern I can use to fill in the gaps.

No idea yet about the size of the whole thing. It may be as smallish as the one in the original picture with only 25 circles or maybe bigger, I haven't decided yet although I'm aware that the bigger the project the longer it'll take and I don't want to finish this on time for P's wedding! (as he's just 10 years-old!).

So, I'll keep on posting on how this thing is developing. Which me luck!

Crowded but happy house

The Japanese family arrived on the first of January. They're Itchi (short for Itchioka, the father), Mariko and baby Mebuki.
Baby Mebuki is adorable and cute as can be, she's 11 month old. She was a bit shy at the beginning with us, but we're getting to know each other and she's a joy to be around. Here's a picture of both of us. It's great to have a baby at home.

They arrived late, tired, stressed and with loads of luggage as they're here to stay. They had problems with their visas, as Itchi got his work permit and visa all right but they couldn't get the visas for Mariko and the baby before leaving Latvia, so they're here with tourist visas until they can sort their situation out.

They're very nice, interesting and ultra-polite as the Japanese are told to be, and they're cooking for us as a thanks because we refuse to get any money for letting they stay.

When Patxi was a few month old we moved to Cambridge for a year. For some bureaucratic reasons we had to leave England for a few months in order for "the husband" to get his working visa, and it was very stressful to find a new place to live in a city we didn't know. At least we spoke fairly good English by then and "the husband's" boss helped us a lot as we even stay with him and his family for a few days until we rented our own place. So I totally understand the situation this family is going through and I'm glad we're giving them a hand as they don't even speak Spanish. This is sort of a karma thing for me, as people helped us when we were in a similar situation and now we're able to help others out.

We're a bit crowded as the flat is not that big. They're using P's bedroom as it's the one with a small toilet and allow them a bit of privacy.
Itchi went to work on the very next day after they arrived, which was a surprise for us as not many people are working until the 7th of January, but they seem to be quite a workaholic group he's in.
Poor Mariko wasn't feeling very well and she's been sick. I think it's a mix of all the stress of a big move to an unknown place plus the new food and water that, although are perfectly safe, it takes sometime to get used to.
They've already seen the flat I saw and liked so they're renting it. Luckily the señorita who owns it speaks English very well. The furniture is already there and the landlady got the electricity connected in a record short time but they're still waiting for the gas, in order to be able to move.
After that they'll have to deal with the local bureaucracy in order to register as living in the city, then getting a GP and so on. As they don't speak Spanish, I'll help them as much as I can around my working hours. This is very good for me as it takes my mind of my own feeling of sadness and loneliness after Darwin's untimely dead. This is going to keep me busy.

Finished skirt!

Last year I started working on this edging for a denim skirt and it took me a while to do it but is finally finished and look great (if I can say so myself).
I used to threads, one green to resemble the leaves and the other a variegated one in pink and white to resemble flowers. Then I sewed it to the skirt and added some sparkling beads. This was very fashionable last summer when I started it and it does add a lot of pizzazz to a boring and plain blue denim skirt.

Look at this close up.

New Year and guests

We spend New Year's eve with some guys from "the husband's" university, we were a bit of a sorry bunch of ex-pats without a family, but we had a good time and the food was terrific.
As I'm always the designated driver, I only drunk a bit at the beginning of the meal, a heady and unexpectedly strong mix of cava (the local champagne) and crushed pineapple that we always have back in Argentina. But that was at 9o'clock, so by 2 o'clock I was perfectly ok.
As usual, it was all about the food and the host really made an effort and cook a full 3 course meal that included stuffed mushrooms, Spanish ham and assorted canapés for starters, a lovely roasted lamb with potatoes and vegetables and we provided one of the dessert, a great baklava in honour of the only other guest who wasn't Argentinian, a guy from Syria; and assorted turrons and other traditional sweet to give the final touch.

All I want for at least the next few months is a bit of peace and quite. So we'll try to take it easy until we go back to work on the 7th. Although we're having people staying with us for at least a week, and people that we've never seen before.

Tomorrow we're expecting Japanese visitors from Latvia so we're going to spend the first day of the year cleaning the house.
A Japanese friend of a former college mate of "the husband" contacted us a few month ago. He's also a scientist and he accepted a job at the other university in Barcelona, the Pompeu Fabra University. He and his family (wife and 11 months-old baby) were living in Riga (Latvia) and he was hoping to rent a flat on the internet. HA! No way, Jose!
They wanted to live in Sant Cugat, a very posh village near Sabadell (where Patxi's rugby club is), because there's a Japanese school and community there. But it's a totally overpriced place to live with small studio flat costing up to €1,000 a month. So they started to look at flats here where renting cost are less unreasonable. At the end they managed to contact one owner of a one-bedroom flat a few blocks away from us and they asked me to go and check everything and see the flat.
Of course, I obliged, and the flat is tiny but it has a big and sunny balcony, a big storage room, a garage and, the best feature: a communal swimming pool and garden. plus is very well located and brand new.
The owner was a local señorita in her twenties who bought the flat before they starting building (something very common here) it with the idea of living there, but by the time it was finished her company relocated her to Madrid, so she wanted to rent it for a couple of years (something not so common as people usually want to rent for longer periods). She was very keen to rent it to a Japanese family as they have a reputation of being clean and tidy, plus they're only planning to stay a couple of years. But she was also worried of closing a deal over the internet with people she never meet. So I did my best to create a good impression while trying to suss her out.
The bad side was that it was totally unfurnished and it didn't even have the electricity or gas connected yet. But it was all negotiable.
And negotiate they did, but because the Japanese family was arriving the 1st of January we really didn't think that everything was going to be ready as most Spanish people work very little if at all during this time of the year. So we offered to stay with us in case they need it until the flat was ready. Here people join together Christmas with New year's celebration and the party doesn't end until after the three wise men arrive (tonight), so there was no way that they'd have the flat ready until the second week of January.
And so it happened. Despite her best efforts the señorita couldn't get the electricity installed on time and the Japanese family was faced with the option of going to a hotel for a week or staying for free with total strangers (but friends of a trusted friend).

They chose us.

So, as I'm writing this we're all cleaning the flat and getting P's room ready for a family of 3. They're going to arrive around 8pm today. Wish us luck!