Yesterday was Susan’s last Sunday in Sevilla and she treated me to this fabulously decadent lunch at Manolo León. Some of you may remember that after the erroneous second prognosis last October, when I was told that I maybe had a year to live, we (Nog, Pablo & I) went to Manolo León for a “post-prognosis party” in order to, well, eat like there was no tomorrow and get shit-faced. And so it was nice to go back there under more pleasant circumstances.

Yesterday was also the summer solstice, which ended up feeling a bit like Christmas…

Before and after lunch Sue and I made trips out to Tres Mil Viviendas because both of us had been cleaning out our closets and we didn’t want to just throw the stuff away. We hoped that some of the poor families living in Sevilla’s very own “pre-fab slum” would be able to use the clothes, which included stuff that the Kidlet had outgrown but was still in very good condition. And on our second trip we brought a carload of toys, dolls, games and a few other items that wouldn’t be making the trip to Florida, including a kiddie tent in the shape of a castle and a flashy pink tricycle.

On the first trip we didn’t see anyone around, but we noticed that there were a couple of inflatable plastic pools outside one of the buildings, which were packed full of kids when we returned after lunch. There was also a group of adults and children under one of the building canopies and it looked like a few families were having lunch outside. Well, as soon as the pink tricycle made an appearance women and children started running towards us, the kids grabbing the first colourful toy or doll they could reach and then running off with their treasures. Then one of the women came up and said “are there any clothes? I have four children!” and Sue showed her and the others the bags of clothes we had left earlier. As the mothers started going through the bags we drove off and it just felt so good to have brightened up their day a bit. It suddenly felt like Christmas in the middle of a very HOT summer solstice afternoon.