Better late than never

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, mainly because I've been very busy. This is all going to sound a bit cryptic, but basically I met someone a short while ago (no, nothing romantic ;-)) who kind of inspired me to get on and do all the things I've been meaning to do for ages... join an art class, have friends round for dinner, get some exercise... So all these activities, in combination with life's everyday challenges and tasks have sort of taken away most of my free time. This increased activity in some areas of my life has been accompanied by a decrease of activity in others - i.e. cleaning the house. No, I'm not livivng in some dirty hovel now, but I've just come to accept the fact that I'm not the world's most tidy person, and I don't need to feel guilty about it, and not spending the whole weekend cleaning gives me more time for doing things I enjoy - haha! I'll be contracting a cleaner budget-permitting in October :-) What else....? Well last weekend was La noche en blanco (White Night) - a night when for once a year all of Madrid's museums and cultural centres are open and free of admission all night, there are also loads of open air shows, exhibits etc... It all sounds wonderful (And I'm sure it works well in Scandinavia - where it was invented I believe to provide some relief for insomnia when they have that 'it's light all day and night' thing going on) - but frankly I found it crowded and over-hyped (most of the decent exhibits had massive queues or were by invitation only). We started off at 9pm with a light show (I'm sorry, but light shows will never impress me, be they fireworks or lasers), then went to Templo de Dibod (Sp?) - an ancient Egyptian temple given to Madrid by Egypt, which had been lit up in blue and drowned in 'the sound of the sea' - which sounded like a dinosaur roaring - not relaxing and contemplative like the sea at all... At midnight we gave up and went to an Indian restaurant - Mughul in Plaza de España - very nice, I'll definitely be returning. This is my second White Night, and I won't be doing it again. In fact - next year I might just have a party at mine where everyone wears white.

Ok, on reflection, I admit that the light show was quite pretty (see palace in background on bottom photo) - there were just too many people.