New year, new resolutions

Every year around this time I ask myself the same things. Shall I bother to make any new year's resolutions? (Yes, but, no but, yes... but), Will I be able to keep them (the majority, no), Why is this time of year any better than the rest to make promises to oneself? (It isn't), Will I feel shitty if I dont keep them (Yes, a little)....... arghh. Anyway, as with every other year for at least the past 19 (you do the maths ;-)) my answer is yes to a little self-improvement (I wonder if my embarkment on a lifetime yearly 'must be better' projects coincides with when I first read Cosmopolitan??).

So, here they are (at least the non-embarrassing ones) in no particular order:
1. Make as much recovery as possible from 'you know what', do all the exercises, all the time.
2. Be organised, don't procrastinate, just do it.
3. Be more careful with money.
4. Phone my family more (whilst at the same time paying heed to resolution Nº 3!).
5. Here is the space for some career-related resolution which hasn't been decided upon but would probably be unpublishable anyway.
6. Keep fit. This one comes up every year on everyone's lists I would imagine, but I'm hoping that this year will be different as for the first time I don't want to exercise to look good, but instead to avoid having a heart attack at some point (a bit alarmist, I admit).

To be continued...

Winter is here

I haven't posted in a while as I've been busy feeling sorry for myself; let's just say I had some medical treatment for the BP which didn't go according to plan :-/ Anyway, feeling much better now and am digging myself out of the ditch :-) I know I'm feeling better because I'm cooking lots again (a sure indicator!) - new favourite recipe: Chicken and root vegetables with teriyaki sauce and honey. A simple as it sounds; for about 45 minutes roast free range chicken joints (unskinned), baby carrots (stalks on, peeled and cut in half lengthways) and chunks of sweet potato in a mixture of olive oil, thyme, teriyaki sauce and honey (according to taste). Again, no photo as I ate it too quickly. Nothing else to say today, just that it's been snowing in Madrid and that I'd like (love) to live in the house below ;-)

Photos and things

I've finally worked out how to get my photos on here again, so here are some embroidery pics (with hindsight, cupcakes are better than Chinese fish), the cyclamen which I've miraculously managed not to kill, and the beautiful beautiful teapot that Catherine bought be for my birtday :-)

This weekend I had som of my Ex-OUP friends over for dinner. I did the usual psuedo-Arabic repertoire(Sp?) and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Was really nice to catch up with them and we ended up drinking mojitos (expertly made by Amaya) until about three in the morning... We must do it more often! I don't think I've mentioned - I've been embroidering - I would have been the perfect Victorian lady (apart from my Sudanese background :-)). I have taken to carefully stitching kitschly coloured cupcakes onto napkins, so relaxing, and they say embroidery is the new knitting - so I'm sure groups of cool people (not me) will be sitting round in cafes in Chueca eating brunch and dropping their applique into their eggs benedict (nooooo!). Will post a photo of said napkins (for whose benefit I don't know) as soon as I find my media card.

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.

Back to work

...and in some ways, what a relief: structure, order, routine... everything that this year has lacked!

Back from Cairo

Hot, hot, hot, that's how I can describe Cairo in August... That said, I had a lovely time. Before I went my plan was basically to eat, sleep and relax, and amongst other things, that's basically what I did, and boy can you eat well in Cairo... I've put on at least 2 much-needed kilos (yeah, right, Nadya the fatty porker, I hear you mock!). Besides eating, I read loads, Cairo is fantastic for bookshop-cum-cafes and you get imported reads from all over, plus lots of fiction and non-fiction with a very local focus - great for reading up on the middle east which just gives you a whole other insight into that part of the world... I think I'd go as far as to say that without reading a bit about egypt (other than tourist guides) before you go or whilst you're there you really do miss out on experiencing the 'real country'. The other thing Cairo is great for is shopping, not just locally made 'ethnotat' (excuse the description, but rarely do you find well-made local handicrafts in Egypt) but international big-brand shopping... a rare luxury when you live in Madrid where 'local is best'. Cairo is also good for buying bling, and repairing your broken bling! And the best thing is that it's all 22k plus! OMG I'm turning into an Arab princess, must stop...


Apart from consuming everything in sight, we did make a few local trips, one to the lovely AlAzhar park - beautiful arabic gardens, in fact Cairo contains some of the greenest, lushest gardens I've ever seen - how do they do it in a country that NEVER rains?

I don't really have many touristy photos, because we're not really tourists when we're there, but here are a few snaps of some things we saw...

P.s. a couple of great reads are Nine Parts of Desire (The Hidden World of Islamic Women), Geraldine Brooks - a much more riveting read than it sounds and full of surprises, and In an Antique Land, Amitav Ghosh - shows there's so much more to Egypt than Pharoes and Islam...

AlAzhar Park

The Citadel in the background

Is this the view from our flat or from AlAzhar Park? I don't remember...

Chez Merghani, ha ha

Mum and Mimi in Crave, lovely restaurant, but obscene looking plants...