07 Tuesday May 2013
After a long Sunday afternoon of serious tapas & wine indulgence, visiting London foodie friend Nicola came back to casa az for – what else? – more wine. It was then and there that Loki turned this unsuspecting “non-cat person” into his belly-rubbing slave. The remotes are for when he wants to control us from a distance. Wouldn’t want him to have to get up…
04 Saturday May 2013
Posted in food & drink, friends, tapas, tapas tours, twitter, twitter friends, wine
Just over a couple of years ago I met Nicola Swift @ShedLikesFood on Twitter when she got in touch about taking one of my Sevilla Tapas Tours. It turned out to be a memorable evening as not only is Nicola a true foodie, as well as charming and fun to be with, but I showed up for the tour on crutches. In fact, it was the tour I mentioned in this post. I didn’t know at the time that Nicola and I would stay in touch on Twitter nor that two years later she’d be back, this time with her parents, for a week-long visit in Sevilla. And so of course we had to do another food tour! This time it was the Market & Tapas Tour on Friday, which you can see was a great success. Especially because Nicola actually tried two things she’d never had before – caracoles (small snails) and fried ortigüillas (anenomes). So now the challenge is on for her to eat something “weird” every day she’s here.
Of course I’ll be helping Nicola in this endeavour as much as I can. We’ll be going out for lunch on Sunday and then to the Feria in Jerez on Wednesday (her last day in town). Stay tuned…
02 Thursday May 2013
Posted in cancer, food & drink, friends, tapas, tapas tours, video
Just over a month ago I got an email from a woman called Ellen who said she was an acquaintance of Pat’s from the Colon Club forum. Ellen had seen the video I’d made for Pat and, as she was going to be in Spain soon with her partner Hilary, asked about the possibility of doing Pat’s Tapas Tour. And well, I was delighted to do this.
So on Tuesday I met them at the Cathedral and we headed off to the first stop. It was quite an emotional experience talking to someone who had known Pat, even a little (Ellen had only had contact with Pat on the CC forum, looking for advice about her then partner, who has since died of cancer). But it was also fun to see how both Ellen and Hilary recognised the places we went to, as well as the food, and also some of the waiters and owners. And of course we talked about Pat… brought back so many feelings and memories.
Still miss you, Pat. And I always will. xx
01 Wednesday May 2013
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So I didn’t forget like last year! It was seven years ago today that I started this silly ol’ blog. And going on I-don’t-know-how-long that I started doing a post a day – that started while I was sick on chemo and I decided that if I only managed to do one thing during the day it would be to post something here. And as this is just a scrapbook of stuff going on in my life I never feel like it needed to be anything profound. Just me checking in, you know? And just as in Real Life, some days are more interesting than other.
The stats tell me that as of today there have been 2498 blog posts and over 27,000 comments and 675,000 visitors here on casa az. Thanks everyone! Wouldn’t be the same without you.
22 Monday Apr 2013
Posted in animals & pets, cats, friends, health & happiness, home, hospitals, life stuff
I’m going to have to stop taking days off … they’re too exhausting. As it turns out, today is my only day off this week as I have tapas tours booked from tomorrow until Sunday (eep!). So of course today I had to GET THINGS DONE. This started off with answering a few emails (yes, work related stuff, but when you’re freelance these things need to be done) and then I decided it was a good time to wash, iron and rehang all the floor-to-ceiling white living room curtains.
That done (they look fab now!) I scooted off to the gym, thinking I’d have just enough time before heading over to the hospital for the monthly chemo port cleaning. Which I did. Just.
After that I walked over to Pablo’s to see the kittehs since he lives in the general vicinity of the hospital and I hadn’t seen the wee darlings for a week. As you can see, they are a little bit bigger now, though what you can’t see is that they are much more wide-eyed and frisky and checking things out. But it was feeding time when I arrived and they were less than thrilled about me “unplugging” them so I could hold them and take a closer look (still can’t decide which one is MINE!). By then it was lunch time so Pablo and I headed out for a nice tapa lunch in his barrio, handily a place I’d been wanting to update on Sevilla Tapas for some time, so okay, that was kind of work related, but it was also lunch.
After lunch I decided to walk home, which took a good hour or so. A lovely long walk past the park that I hadn’t done in ages. Then I stopped off at the Flamenco Museum to book and purchase tickets for one of Peter’s tours, which yeah, was kind of like working. But it was ON THE WAY and anyhow was a lovely afternoon and perfect walking weather.
Finally got back home and dealt with a few more biz emails (yeah, yeah I know!) before heading out to get my hair cut. And (just like my curtains) I look fab now! Then I had to pick up a few summer lingerie essentials and also had a quick look around to see if there were any nice summery clothes in my SIZE that I liked. There weren’t. So it was back home again to feed the cats, change my sheets (it’s Monday!) and have a second shower after all that running around.
And now, if you don’t mind, I think I shall pour myself a lovely chilled glass of rueda and put my feet up. Cheers!
casa azahar 