Madrid Tour Guide In English

Weird title, eh? But for the last four-ish days, that's what I've been (also fairly expert cook and bottle-washer). We've had visitors from England. The lady visitor (we'll call her V) was our very bestest buddy for our first two or three years in Do-Buy, but, as often happens, got screwed by her employer and had to leave in a bit of a hurry. She visited us a couple of years later in Dubai, but that was ten years ago. We haven't seen her since. But she turned up on FaceBook, and we invited her and her boyfriend (let's call him S) of eight years to come visit. So last Thursday they arrived. Damn fine timing, because it was MamaDuck's birthday on Saturday. We've had a wonderful, wonderful time. V & S got MamaDuck some luvverly prezzies, and as a bonus, V demolished the ironing mountain while the Duck was at work. Meanwhile I was busy making Death By Chocolate v2.0.



It looks much better than v1.0, but the flavour was a bit crap because I managed to burn the chocolate while trying to melt it in the microwave. I expect that, just like software and rock albums, version 3.0 will be pretty much perfect.

Today was their final day in Madrid, so we spent the morning in town, having first made the pilgrimage for S to Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. You can see V & S crossing the road in this picture.



When I'm cooking for guests, I'm always careful to ask if there's anything they don't like / just don't eat / are allergic to. No declarations were forthcoming, so it was a bit worrying when V didn't feel too well after eating the steak and mushroom pie that I made on their first evening. The next day we discovered she doesn't do very well with celery. Damn. I had used mirepoix (finely chopped onion, carrot and celery) as a base for the gravy. I made a paella on the second day: fortunately V & S went to the market with me, and V declared that she couldn't eat bell peppers. So that got cooked separately. The next day we were talking about offal, the eating thereof. I discovered that V was no fan of kidneys either, and explained what a stroke of luck it had been that I couldn't find any at the market, otherwise the steak and mushroom pie would have been a steak and kidney pie.

And tomorrow I've got to get back to work.

Senior Moment?

All I know is, I was building a paella. I hadn't managed to buy a red pepper, because the supermarket I went to (yes, I know, I shoulda gone to the market, but it was the middle of the afternoon, so they were siesta-ing) would only sell me a bag of five, and we can't eat that many before they rot. So I bought a jar of pickled peppers.

I was struggling to open this jar when my phone rang. It was the boss telling me her ETA. No problem. I returned to the kitchen. Couldn't find the jar of peppers anywhere. Looked in the bin, all the cupboards, the oven, the fridge. Gone. Abducted by space aliens, more than likely. So I started writing this and then remembered: I'd put it in the freezer, because that sometimes makes things easier to open.

So I've got it now. Still can't get the fucker open though.

How Green Is My Baggie?

My shopping bag is this green:



Okay, maybe you think it's orange, but the printing on it says 'this bag is green'.

Yes, this Guardian-reading, tree-hugging, eco-minded person now does not leave the house without this thing stuffed in his pocket. And when he gets to Dia, he smirks at their offer of advertising material at 3 centimos apiece. If he goes to Carrefour, they are welcome to keep their undersized, underpowered biodegradable bag-ettes at 5 centimos each.



But now we have a slight problem: we need plastic bags to stick in the kitchen waste bin. So now I occasionally go to Caprabo and stuff my pockets with their free, but ecologically-sound* bags.

*About six months ago they had notices around their shops explaining how they were no longer printing a white background on their bags: this was being done to save white ink and therefore made their bags environmentally friendly**.

**Now they give you credit on their loyalty card every time you don't use their bags***.

***Obviously the next step is to charge for the bloody bags, and then I'll have to buy waste-bin liners. Or just chuck the stuff out the window, like we used to in the olden days.

Ridiculosity

For fairly easily-guessable reasons, my mobile phone bill didn't get paid this month. It's not a big deal, and I've been trying for the last few days to find out how to pay the outstanding balance. I finally managed to speak to an English-speaking agent at Orange who gave me an account number and told me I could pay it at any Banco Santander branch.

So I went to my friendly (not) local Santander branch, and tried to pay the bill. The teller laughed at me, and pointed to a sign: the one that says utilities and phone bills will only be accepted between the 10th and 20th of the month, Mondays to Thursdays, 0830-1030.

I'm not joking. These people are fecking mental.

UPDATE: THE NEXT DAY
Spoke to several people at Orange this morning. You can apparently pay via the post office, but it can take up to 14 days for them to bother to give the money to Orange (are they using PayPal, I wonder?). The only other option is to pay by credit/debit card, or do a transfer from a Spanish bank account. So I slapped some cash into my bank. Then I called Orange: gave them my card details, but they barfed at the 3-digit security code bit. Feck, double-feck, treble-feck. It fecking works for Ryanair and EasyJet! I'm just wondering if they're storing my card details in their database, rather than doing a real-time look-up (the card was replaced about six months ago - same number, but different code on the back). In which case I'm fecked.

Once again, all I'm trying to do is give the bastards money. All they're trying to do is come up with reasons why I can't. Feck, feck, feckity-feck. The modern world will be great when it's finished.

UPDATE A BIT LATER
The buggers have my account details on file: why can't they just press a button and get the money? Buggered if I know. Sob.

FINAL UPDATE
I called them again this morning, planning to ask for their full bank details so I could do a TT. But before doing that, we had another go at doing it with my debit card, and this time it bally-well-worked. (I suspect yesterday's lady thought it was a credit card). So, the next challenge will be to get some money into my account in time for the next payment in about a week's time.

Death By Chocolate

One of the things MamaDuck got me for my millionth birthday a few days ago*, was a bar of Lindt & Sprungli 90% dark chocolate. I've been consuming dark chocolate with red wine for a few years, ever since my buddy DubaiBilly (now QatarBilly) introduced me to the concept a few years ago. But I've never had 90% chocolate before, and now I know why. The stuff is inedible. It's basically compressed cocoa. MamaDuck tried a bit and agreed with me.

'But all is not lost,' she said, 'you can make a chocolate fudge cake.'

Like hell I can. People who know me are kind enough to say they enjoy my cooking, but I almost never do a dessert, and I've certainly never baked a cake in my life. But I woke up this morning and thought 'how hard can it be?'

I trawled the interwebz a bit for recipes, and thought this one from Nigella Lawson sounded pretty good. One problem: you can't get cocoa powder in Madrid supermarkets - although you can get something called ColaCoa, basically a kiddies choc drink with built-in milk and sugar. But Madrid does have a shop called 'The Things You Miss' in Chamberí which sells nothing but Brit brands - stuff like PG Tips tea, Wall's (Some Of It's) Pork Sausages, Oxo cubes and John Smith's beer. So I went there and got me some proper cocoa powder.

When I got home I started making the cake. I'd kind of thought of just making a small one to begin with, and assumed the quantities Nigella was talking about would result in something like that. But as I mixed this huge pile of flour, sugar and cocoa, I realised this was a much more serious proposition. I checked the recipe again. 'Enough,' it said 'for 10 servings, or one if you have a broken heart.'

Bugger!

I ploughed on regardless and baked about two-thirds of the mixture in a ceramic dish. After the allotted time I was surprised to see it had risen like a volcano, and even more surprised when I tipped it onto a wire rack and the whole thing disintegrated. There was a soggy mass in the middle of it that was nowhere near cooked. So I piled it all back into the dish and gave it another twenty minutes.

When that was done, I put the other one-third in to bake. This half-filled a spring-sided tin, and when the cake was baked I was able to get it out of the tin without trashing it. It did disintegrate a bit when I tried to slice it in half, but here's the finished result:



And here's the one I made earlier:



* 'The Resistance' CD by Muse, 'Nation' by Terry Pratchett, and a jelly-bean dispenser, in case you're interested.

Reasons To Be Cheerful - Part Two

Well, it could be another reason to be grumpy, but it's my birthday tomorrow. I hear you asking: why grumpy, Keefie? I reply: 'cos 52 sounds like a helluva lot to me.

MamaDuck has been on several secret missions over the last few days, and this evening she made my mouse mat unusable by plonking this load of stuff on it:



Talk about temptation! I've never been good at waiting for Christmas and birthdays. She refuses to accept that these events start at 1 minute past midnight. I'm under orders to ignore it until 8am tomorrow. Meh!

Related topic - lots of my FaceBook friends have been wishing me happy birthday (in fact I was out with a client yesterday and mentioned it would be my birthday soon: 'I know', he says. 'Well how do you know?' I ask. 'It's on FaceBook, mate,' he replies). I don't recall this happening before, and, more sinisterlyly, I don't recall telling FB when my birthday is. Although I suppose I must have told them at some point, but forgot 'cos I'm so old and prolly got Altshweiner's.

Reasons To Be Grumpy

MamaDuck's cold, which has been incubating for a while, burst into its full glory this morning. So she hasn't gone to work, and needs to see a doctor. In our usual lackadaisical way, we haven't registered with the local Health Centre since we moved in April. And that's because we didn't get a new Empadronomiento* when we moved. We nearly did: we got as far as downloading the form and filling it in, but didn't actually give it to anybody. So, off we trot to the Ayuntamiento*, along with half the population of our district. When we found the building, there was a queue to get through the door (all bags and bodies were being x-rayed). Then there was a queue to get a ticket for the queue. And then there was the crowd of people waiting to be seen by about 15 officials. Our number came up after about 50 minutes, and we presented every scrap of documentation we had to the nice lady at the counter. She looked at it, tapped something into the computer, and handed us the sheet of paper she'd just printed. It was clearly not an empadronomiento. It was an appointment for tomorrow.

Ho hum. So MamaDuck got herself an appointment at our old Health Centre in Chueca, and has gone to cough and splutter all over a doctor.

*Empadronomiento =registration with the local council so they know how many binmen, schools and traffic wardens they need.

* Ayuntamiento - Town Hall.

Reasons To Be Cheerful

If you're an expat refugee from the UK (Contains Nuts^TM), there's two stories in today's news that should make you glad you left.

1) Mother refused wine at Morrison's in case daughter (17) drinks it

2) UK quality of life poor

I Have A Feeling...

'Tengo Una Corazonada' is the slogan for Madrid's bid for the 2016 Olympics. It means 'I have a feeling'. Today, the IOC will make its decision. I have a feeling that Madrid has no chance for the very simple reason that 2012 is in London and they never have consecutive Games on the same continent. Still, we live in hope...

Shall I venture a prediction? On the basis of almost no evidence: Rio, Madrid, Chicago, Tokyo. Let's see how wrong I can be!

5.20pm: Chicago out!

5.30pm: Tokyo eliminado!

5.45pm: We have to wait another 45 minutes. Tension is mounting. I think Madrid can do it: 70% of the infrastructure is already built (including Metro station Estadio Olimpico): this makes it a good bet in these financially-straitened times. Plus security is not the concern it might be in Rio. Fingers crossed...



I wish I'd known this was happening a bit earlier: coulda gone down to Plaza de Oriente (outside the Royal Palace) and got me a BIG HAND.

6.25pm:
TeleMadrid is showing Plaza de Oriente and Rio side-by-side: I have to say if it depends on the size of the crowd, Rio wins.

6.55pm: Rio. Borrocks.

So I was three-quarters right with my prediction, and there's always 2020.

La Noche En Blanco

Last night was La Noche En Blanco (White Night). This is a thing that's been happening in Madrid for the last four years, but it's the first time we've actually been. It started in Paris in 2002, and now happens in Brussels, Riga, Bucharest, Valetta and Amsterdam and other places. It's basically an all-night arts festival. Traffic is banned from the centre and the streets are thronged with people. Galleries throw open their doors (and vast queues form). Places that are not normally open to the public host events. There's a beautiful garden on the corner of Cibeles; it's part of the Army's HQ, and normally you'd stand a good chance of being shot if you tried to get in.

MamaDuck arrived back from the UK yesterday afternoon and said she wanted to go. So we hadn't really planned an itinerary, and just spent a few hours wandering around. Lots of people had white balloons, and we finished up in Plaza Mayor where they were being inflated and handed out. There must have been about twenty inflation stations, but the queues to get balloons were lengthy. Being a bit geriatric, we were home by 1am, but the events continue until 6am. The Metro stays open till 3am, instead of closing a 1am as it normally does.

Good fun.

Richmond

The day after MIL's cremation, those of us who hadn't had to rush off home went up to Richmond in North Yorkshire to scatter the ashes. MIL was a great fan of 'All Creatures Great And Small', and we all felt she would have loved this idea. One of my brother's-in-law had arranged for us to have lunch at the Frenchgate Hotel in Richmond. Despite my Yorkshire/Geordie roots, I'd never been to Richmond before, and I was quite amazed by how beautiful it was.

The Frenchgate in Richmond

David Todd, the owner, always smiling in the face of adversity

The Frenchgate is a small, privately-owned hotel and restaurant. It's a gorgeous Georgian town house that has been lovingly restored. We were greeted and served by the owner, David Todd, whose calm confidence and wicked Yorkshire wit put us at ease immediately. I have to say this was probably the best meal I've ever had in my life, and I have had some good 'uns. I had partridge with potatoes boulangere, chorizo and swede (I hate swede, but this was little roasted cubes and it was perfect). There was also a blob of pumpkin mousse. MamaDuck had lamb stuffed with quinoia. After the main course, David brought the chef out for a well-deserved round of applause.

The lamb

If we can manage the finances and the time, I really want to go back next summer and spend a couple of days there. And if you ever find yourself within a hundred miles of Richmond, you should too. Tell David Richard Branson sent you.

The Frenchgate Hotel's website is here.

Dripping

I got back from a week in England yesterday. I actually enjoyed this trip, mainly because I wasn't on my tod. The reason for the trip was sad - MamaDuck's mama passed away a few weeks ago and we had gone for her cremation and then scattering the ashes in 'Herriott Country' in North Yorkshire. So I had a couple of days with my dad and his girlfriend, and then carried on to MamaDuck's ancestral home in North Lincolnshire (okay, her dad's flat in Scunthorpe).

As you may or may not know, my wife comes from a large family, so her four brothers and one sister were there, plus some of their spouses and offspring. This kind of gathering doesn't happen often: two of the bros live in France, one in Holland, and one in Bristol. Added to that were my mother-in-law's three sisters, who I've never actually met before (one lives in North Wales, one in Brittany and one in Oman), plus two of daddy-in-law's brothers, who I have met many times before. And our very own Offspring came up from London too.

The night before the funeral, one of the brothers had the idea of doing something with old photos we found in MIL's albums that we could have on display during the service. So, starting at midnight, we scanned about 30 pictures, and I Photoshopped them into a collage with a border and drop-shadow round each image. We finished this at about 2.30 am. We were up early the next morning - there were flowers to collect and the collage to be printed as large as possible and mounted on something solid. I found a shop that opened at 8.30 that could have done it had their printer been working. But it was broken. I bought some mounting board and spray-mount from them, and waited for the Kodak shop they'd recommended to open at 9 am. The guy was in there, tinkering about, but resolutely ignoring the anxious punter on the doorstep. The funeral was at 10, by the way, and I had to get this done, get back to the mansion and get changed by 9.35 latest. Miraculously, it was done in time.



After the service we all retired to a pub for lunch, after which we sat in the garden and were entertained by the sight of three illegal car-washers in the pub car park being arrested by a van full of cops who appeared out of nowhere.

I'll do another post later about the scattering in North Yorkshire. But this post is entitled 'Dripping', so I should really tell you about that.

There are certain things from your home country/region that you get attached to when you are an expat. Things you just cannot get wherever it is you live. For me, this includes decent teabags, yellow split peas, pearl barley, gravy granules and Oxo stock cubes. For BIL (Brother-In-Law) Bill, pork dripping is a must-have item. If you are unfamiliar with the idea of dripping, it's the fat and juicy/jelly stuff that escapes from a chunk of beef or pork when you roast it - basically like lard, but tastier. He bought four tubs from Scunthorpe market. One we consumed on toast for our breakfasts during the visit. He took one home with him, and gave one each to me and anuvver bruvver.

I was a bit careless with packing mine: I had intended to tape the lid on, but forgot to. I was careful to keep my bag upright during the trip to Liverpool Ringo Airport, knowing that the dripping would probably be fairly liquid by then. Of course, when you stick your bag on the conveyor for the X-ray, it has to go on sideways. Oops.

Now, I don't know if there's an elevated security level in the UK at the moment, but when I arrived they actually checked every single passport - a few months earlier when I came, there was nobody personing the desks at all. But this time I had to queue for fifteen minutes to get in. And to get out from Liverpool there was a 30-minute queue. For probably the first time in my life, I managed to get through the arch without it going insane. But I still got a fairly intimate frisking. When I went to collect my stuff, I saw my bag had been held back: the X-ray operator dude said he thought I had a pot of Brylcreem or something. The bag was brought over to me and I explained it was pork dripping. This clearly meant nothing to the security guy, and I found myself hoping he wasn't a Muslim. I took the dripping out of the plastic bag it was in with my other stuff. He put on some latex gloves, and gingerly placed the offending item into a plastic bag for removal.

Anyhoo, I had an uneventful flight, and am now back in Madrid.