Celebration and Relaxation

I think that we have had our year’s allocation of rain given the torrential downpour that we went through yesterday.  It made driving home even more of a delight as lunatics ploughed through the standing water on the roads and made driving just that little bit more exciting as one’s view of the road was obliterated by sheets of water.

Although traffic was heavy going to Terrassa for the joint name day it did keep moving and so my exasperation was kept within check.  Just.

The main element in the celebratory meal was a gigantic five-foot long baguette which changed filling half way along its monstrous length.  There was also the largest croissant that I have ever seen in my life which was filled with sobrasada – which is the raw, cured sausage with paprika that is a speciality of Majorca.  The Cava was rosé, but still tasted good.  The kids were still impossibly full of energy and, as I can never resist whipping them up into frenzies, I was soon as drained as they were hyper!

The trip back was generally better on emptier roads but as soon as my feet touched home turf the exhaustion of the day came back in spades and I retired to a bed of blissful unconsciousness.

The best that can be said about the weather this morning is that it is not raining.  As is usual at times of climatic depression I will pay a visit to MediaMarkt to fortify my sunless soul with a gadget or two!

I am now the proud possessor of two insubstantial yet frustratingly expensive pieces of kit – which I have discovered I could have got much cheaper if I had bought them on Amazon.  Though postage does bring the price up absurdly.

My delayed birthday present is now up and running.  This is a hard disc of 1T which is able to be linked to computers and television and record programmes and photographs and god knows what else.  In theory it is supposed to release memory elsewhere on my computers because they are getting clogged up with documents and pictures that I do not use on a regular basis.  This is the theory; I have a feeling that the practice will be a little different.

Toni has of course, got it up and running and he has already recorded one of his DIY programmes on it.  And that worked.  I have downloaded a few photos and that appears to have worked as well.  So far, so good.

Lunch was unspectacular but good value with the food being washed down with Toni’s favourite fizzy Italian pink!  The restaurant that we go to on a Saturday must be the only place in the world where Lambrusco is treated as an exotic , quality drink and it gets its own, coveted wine cooler!  Though I have to say that About.com calls it “a vastly under-rated wine” – each to his own.

The most astonishing thing about today has been the purchase of Strepsils for Toni’s sore throat at €5.20 a packet I hope that they have a damn sight more active ingredients than their cheaper British equivalents!

Our evening’s entertainment was watching “Up” the animated film of an old man uprooting his house with helium balloons and being wafted (with boy scout on board) to South America to fulfil a long held promise made to his dead wife.  It is an excellent film and the short section of animation which covers the growing up of the young boy seen at the beginning of the film into the old man who is the hero of most of the film is one of the most economical and masterly pieces of compressed narration that I have ever seen.  Wordless, it covers marriage, married life, pregnancy, and death of a child and death of the wife in a moving but unsentimental way; and it’s a cartoon.  Brilliant.

The weekend is whizzing away and Monday is looming.  And if you are saying that on a Saturday evening then that is telling you something about the experience of work that you are expecting!