Category Archives: friends

a very sherry monday

06 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by in food & drink, friends, sevilla, tapas, tapas tours, wine, work

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So after resting my sad and sorry feet all weekend I ended up out and about all day! First stop was the official Sevilla launch for the fabulous Tío Pepe en Rama, which meant being on my feet quite a bit (though I took the tram part of the way there)….

tio pepe en rama 2014

Then it was home again to rest up for a couple of hours before my Sherry & Tapas Tour. Peter has been helping me out lately by doing some of my tapas tours, but this is one that I have to do myself. As you can see, it went very well…

monday sherry tour

After that I was on my way home with Peter, who’d come to meet me at the final stop, when we got kidnapped by the owners of a new bar in my barrio. They were holding a pre-feria party – including lots of fried fish and fino – and invited us in. Well, would you have said no…?

monday sherry party
So today I’ve been a good girl and have stayed in resting up for more tours starting mañana. How was your Monday?

sunday song – friends

04 Sunday May 2014

Posted by in friends, music, sunday song, video

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I’ve been feeling pretty blue these past couple of weeks (actually going on three!) since The Incident, with this goddam constant pain and being stuck at home, feeling fat and floppy and – yes – a bit sorry for myself at times. Then today my friend Victor @welovemalaga was in town and we met up for a quick lunch while he was on a break from his tour group here… and it was the best tonic ever. In the words of the Divine Ms M, you gotta have friends.

casa az is 8 years old!

01 Thursday May 2014

Posted by in blog 365, blogging, friends

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8 years old

It was 8 years ago today that I published my first blog post, not having any idea what I was doing here, nor what I was going to do with it. So, that hasn’t changed then! 🙂 But I can say without any doubt that my life has been changed by everyone I’ve met via this blog. You’ve become friends – many of whom I’ve met in person! – and some of you have also become my family, standing by me when I was sick and supporting me through that very hard time. And of course we’ve also shared some very good times.

Having this blog also led to me starting other blogs like this one and getting involved in other social media platforms when they came along, especially Twitter, which in turn led to meeting even more people and eventually starting a new life for myself as the Tapas Queen of Sevilla.

It was during my illness that I started doing the “blog post a day” thing, mostly because it gave me a focus, something to achieve each day, even if all I did was put up some photos or a video. And that’s when casa az turned into a “daily scrapbook” which I’ve kept going ever since, even if sometimes I have to play catch up. In part I keep posting stuff in this scrapbook for myself, so I can look back and see what a particular week or month was like. But honestly, if I did ever let it go for a few days or a week, I’d somehow feel like my next post would have to be something IMPORTANT. Too much pressure. I’m okay doing that with my other blogs – yes, I am a blogaholic – because they are actually about something (Sevilla events, recipes, photos, tapas guide, Spain, travel) so I just post stuff as it happens. But this personal blog is just about me and my day-to-day life. Hence the name.

So thanks to all of you for sticking it out here in the hope that I may post something interesting some day! 😉 You are always welcome in my home – mi casa es tu casa!

led astray…

26 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by in friends, holidays, sevilla, tapas

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kyranclaire
I’d been looking forward to the Return of Kyran & Claire for months! And then it turned out that their five days in Sevilla coincided with me being on crutches and not being about to go out and play much. But we still managed to pack in a couple of serious tapeos. In retrospect I may as well have done the sherry tour I’d promised them. Each time we met up it was only for “a quick tapa” and somehow ended up with me getting home several hours later…

kyranclaire collage
I really didn’t want them to leave. But they promise to be back again later in the year. 🙂

lean on me

23 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by in friends, health & happiness, home

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lean on me.pngMy best friends are my new crutches! Well, only one is new. I bought one last year during a BACK PAIN incident, not thinking I’d ever need a pair again. Looking back at my old blog posts from February 2011 it seems I was out and about a lot more and much sooner after spraining (actually fracturing, as I found out last week) my left ankle. On the other hand, I had one good foot back then, which made getting around easier.

I went out on a tapas tour yesterday afternoon, finishing up at La Azotea where I had planned to meet my friends Claire & Kyran who are in town this week. Talk about bad timing! I had wanted to take them out for sherry & tapas, but they seem to be doing well enough on their own.

Anyhow, it felt really weird going out yesterday – the first time in almost a week – and it took me awhile to get over feeling “vulnerable” out there. But on my way to pick up my clients I passed a woman with one crutch who waved at me and said “looks like I’ve got some competition!”. So we stopped and chatted for a bit. She had a hip problem and was sporting the same style and colour of crutch as mine (like those on the right, but black and silver). And somehow that encounter made me feel better.

So yeah. Pretty painful walking still. Curiously my right foot hurts more than the left ankle, though perhaps that’s from the bruising? The whole top of that foot is still black and blue. And of course I’m now getting all kinds of secondary pain from walking funny. Cramps in feet and calves and – the worst! – my back almost giving out yesterday. You know, as much as my feet and ankles hurt I can deal with that way better than serious BACK PAIN. So today I’ve been slapping on the BioFreeze (thank you Sled!) and am back to being housebound. Basically because tomorrow I’ve got a press conference to attend, and then will meet Claire and Kyran for lunch. There will be less walking involved this time, but who knows, it might actually be easier mañana. As long as my back holds out!

What are you guys up to?