Christmas Day – Catalonia – 2006Celebration and joy. Or not. I chose today to have a dicky stomach. Just before lunch I took to my bed and prayed for oblivion.
How different from the meal we had last night, provided with panache by Toni’s mum with the assembled family partaking with gusto. The Christmas soup to start and then chicken with fruit followed by turron and coffee.
No meal in Catalonia is complete without Cava, so Cava we had. It seemed impossible to contemplate a further meal within the next 48 hours, but we made our plans to get to our Christmas meal the next day.
The most important part of the evening however, was the giving of the invisible friends' presents by the traditional hitting of the log. We all did rather well, though how I am going to get my presents back to blighty is not something to which I can apply my mind at present. The cornucopia provided by Carmen, Laura and Carmen Snr was a delight, filled as it was with some of the things that i was palnning on purchasing this holiday. Much appreciated
The next day was different because I felt like basura.
However, it seemed churlish to deny my presence at a meal that I had been looking forward to for some considerable time.
I was not enthusiastic, to put it mildly, when Toni asked me if I wanted the doctor. That, in itself, was enough to galvanize me into some sort of action. I dressed sluggishly and with something approaching a sense of despair I followed the others towards the restaurant. This year the restaurant was within walking distance so I felt that I could risk going there, knowing that an escape would be reasonably realistic with various toiletry facilities within staggering distance.
The soup was excellent and I managed a few spoonfuls of it before I had to admit defeat. The fish course which followed was white fish, langoustine and prawns in a lobster like seafood soup sauce. It was delicious and I managed most of the fish and some of the languoustine: the prawns I didn’t even attempt.
Things were looking poor and I was wondering how I could survive a full meal without a precipitate leave.
The next course was my favourite, the one which I had been looking forward to for a number of weeks: lamb shank. When it arrived it was with recognisable vegetables (!) and thin chips. It was, as were all the courses, delicious, and I picked at it, recognising the flavour and tender quality of the meat, and also realising that I couldn’t do justice to it. The meat was cooked just as I like it, falling off the bone, and it was wear and bitter resignation that I had to give in and leave a plate which still looked relatively full.
Then came the rally. This was precipitated by the arrival of the ice cream and sorbet. The sorbet was lemon and mandarin while the ice cream was a turron inspired chocolate confection which was delicious like (if you have been reading this you will realise) the rest of the meal. I devoured this postre and felt buoyed up: a condition which was noted more openly when the Cava arrived and I became a little more expansive.
This euphoric state continued (with a minor lapse) until the end of the meal. It therefore follows that Cava, pacheran and turron form the panacea that the world has been looking for. May I have my Nobel prize please?
This was the best Christmas meal that I have attended with Toni’s family and I hope that they will return next year so that I can do justice to the food!
The same division of forced occurred as last year. The youngsters split off and the older member of the family flocked together to do whatever families do on Christmas evening.
We returned to Toni’s flat and my DS Lite became the centre of attention while everyone found that their brain age was 80. I am beginning to think that this program is a complete fraud. To be successful the program will have to provide proof that the brain is getting ‘younger’: aiming towards the magic age of 20 – which is apparently the best you can do.
I would like to believe that this program can do what it says it can do, but I think that it is far more likely that the users of the program get measurably better at the exercises that they are asked to complete. It is exactly the same thinking which lay behind the old Progress Papers in English and Mathematics which were the practise test papers for the iniquitous 11+ examination that we had to take at the end of primary school. It did nothing to train our minds but it did give us an opportunity to experience the form that the examination was to take and therefore give us the advantage of familiarity and boost our scores so that we would be able to take our places in a superior secondary school – or condemn you to the horrors of a secondary modern school. God that system has a lot to answer for!
Anyway, although I am not convinced by the reasoning behind the selling points of the tests, I do think that they may have some use – if only to keep me off the streets!
I am now experiencing one of my down phases in the course of an illness which has affected Carmen the Younger and Carles: Toni next! We will see.
I particularly want to be well tomorrow because that is the day that we go to Toni’s aunt and have a traditional meal with the layered gambas and mayonnaise loaf cake thingie, which I particularly enjoy: I refuse to be ill for that!
Tomorrow, as they say, is another day.
Another day another dolour!
The next day was different because I felt like basura.
However, it seemed churlish to deny my presence at a meal that I had been looking forward to for some considerable time.
I was not enthusiastic, to put it mildly, when Toni asked me if I wanted the doctor. That, in itself, was enough to galvanize me into some sort of action. I dressed sluggishly and with something approaching a sense of despair I followed the others towards the restaurant. This year the restaurant was within walking distance so I felt that I could risk going there, knowing that an escape would be reasonably realistic with various toiletry facilities within staggering distance.
The soup was excellent and I managed a few spoonfuls of it before I had to admit defeat. The fish course which followed was white fish, langoustine and prawns in a lobster like seafood soup sauce. It was delicious and I managed most of the fish and some of the languoustine: the prawns I didn’t even attempt.
Things were looking poor and I was wondering how I could survive a full meal without a precipitate leave.
The next course was my favourite, the one which I had been looking forward to for a number of weeks: lamb shank. When it arrived it was with recognisable vegetables (!) and thin chips. It was, as were all the courses, delicious, and I picked at it, recognising the flavour and tender quality of the meat, and also realising that I couldn’t do justice to it. The meat was cooked just as I like it, falling off the bone, and it was wear and bitter resignation that I had to give in and leave a plate which still looked relatively full.
Then came the rally. This was precipitated by the arrival of the ice cream and sorbet. The sorbet was lemon and mandarin while the ice cream was a turron inspired chocolate confection which was delicious like (if you have been reading this you will realise) the rest of the meal. I devoured this postre and felt buoyed up: a condition which was noted more openly when the Cava arrived and I became a little more expansive.
This euphoric state continued (with a minor lapse) until the end of the meal. It therefore follows that Cava, pacheran and turron form the panacea that the world has been looking for. May I have my Nobel prize please?This was the best Christmas meal that I have attended with Toni’s family and I hope that they will return next year so that I can do justice to the food!
The same division of forced occurred as last year. The youngsters split off and the older member of the family flocked together to do whatever families do on Christmas evening.
We returned to Toni’s flat and my DS Lite became the centre of attention while everyone found that their brain age was 80. I am beginning to think that this program is a complete fraud. To be successful the program will have to provide proof that the brain is getting ‘younger’: aiming towards the magic age of 20 – which is apparently the best you can do.
I would like to believe that this program can do what it says it can do, but I think that it is far more likely that the users of the program get measurably better at the exercises that they are asked to complete. It is exactly the same thinking which lay behind the old Progress Papers in English and Mathematics which were the practise test papers for the iniquitous 11+ examination that we had to take at the end of primary school. It did nothing to train our minds but it did give us an opportunity to experience the form that the examination was to take and therefore give us the advantage of familiarity and boost our scores so that we would be able to take our places in a superior secondary school – or condemn you to the horrors of a secondary modern school. God that system has a lot to answer for!
Anyway, although I am not convinced by the reasoning behind the selling points of the tests, I do think that they may have some use – if only to keep me off the streets!
I am now experiencing one of my down phases in the course of an illness which has affected Carmen the Younger and Carles: Toni next! We will see.
I particularly want to be well tomorrow because that is the day that we go to Toni’s aunt and have a traditional meal with the layered gambas and mayonnaise loaf cake thingie, which I particularly enjoy: I refuse to be ill for that!
Tomorrow, as they say, is another day.
Another day another dolour!
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