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casa azahar

~ my life in sevilla

casa azahar

Category Archives: friends

casa az is 8 years old!

01 Thursday May 2014

Posted by azahar in blog 365, blogging, friends

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

blog, blogging, blogoversary

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! πŸ™‚ 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! πŸ˜‰ You are always welcome in my home – mi casa es tu casa!

led astray…

26 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by azahar in friends, holidays, sevilla, tapas

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

friends, holidays, sevilla

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. πŸ™‚

lean on me

23 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by azahar in friends, health & happiness, home

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

ankles, friends, health

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 maΓ±ana. As long as my back holds out!

What are you guys up to?

all bundled up

17 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by azahar in friends, health & happiness, holidays

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

hospitals, sprained ankle, sprained foot

bundled up
After a very long night with very little sleep I got up this morning and went AAAAAAARRRGHH!!! as I gingerly placed my feet on the floor in an attempt to get out of bed. Holy crap. It hadn’t occurred to me that the PAIN from yesterday’s accident could actually get worse. Which was when I started getting scared. I mean, at least last time I had one leg to stand on! Also, the more I shuffled around on two tortuous feet I could feel that my back was starting to go wonky. And the very last thing I need is excruciating back pain added to all this. So around midday I finally took up my friend Juan’s very generous offer to pick me up and drive me to the hospital.

The X-rays showed that my left ankle had a small fracture (!!!) but upon closer inspection it turned out that it was from the first time I sprained it three years ago (!!!!). Seriously… what?? I was walking around on that sucker (with crutches) after a couple of days, even doing tapas tours. I had no idea it was broken because I didn’t go to hospital that time. So when I was told today that I need to stay in and rest my ankle for two weeks… well, I don’t see that happening. Yes, obviously like right now when putting any weight on it at all makes me want to cry, I’ll be avoiding doing that as much as possible. But I hope to be (gently) out and about again after the weekend. The right foot is also badly sprained (thankfully nothing is broken) and so I ended up getting bandaged up like this and sent home with prescriptions for Ibuprofen and Paracetemol. Coming home we ran into a Semana Santa procession and Juan had to let me off where I could normally get home in 3-4 minutes. About 20 very-very-very painful minutes later I finally got home again and I’ve been slobbing out on the sofa ever since.

I was telling Juan that yesterday on the way home Peter had said “let’s go this way” and I said “no, let’s go this way, it’s shorter”…. if I’d gone Peter’s way this never would’ve happened. And then Juan said that if he wasn’t taking me to the hospital he might have been killed in a car accident that afternoon. Point taken. But especially yesterday I kept wishing that I could REWIND and take the other way home. Though of course I might have have been run over by a beer delivery truck…

Life, eh? How’s your week going?

a day in jerez

10 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by azahar in food & drink, friends, travel, trips, wine, work

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

friends, jerez, lunch, tapas tour, wine tasting

lunch in jerez
It was a crazy busy day, starting off with catching an earlyish train to Jerez for a massive wine tasting – about 50 wineries from across Spain were showing off their best. This was followed by this fabulous lunch you can see up there, after which I had a bit of time to catch up with my friend Sylvie who happened to be in town for the day before I had to race back to the station to get the train back home (made it with 7 minutes to spare). As soon as I got back to Sevilla I took the tram to the centre in time to pick up my tapas tour clients for the evening. Phew! I’d like to write more about the wine tasting event on Azahar in Sevilla. Perhaps next week…?

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