You may remember Pilar – one third of my fabulous team in the nuclear medicine department. Well, it turns out that just after my last PET scan in January she fell ill and has been off work ever since. We’ve stayed in touch by phone, but she hasn’t been up to going out until the past week or so. And so she organised it so that we would meet up with another old pal of ours, Montse, and her baby Irene.

Here we are sitting outside a tapas bar in Montse’s barrio, enjoying some cold drinks and snacks and catching up. Both Pilar and Montse were also students of mine at various times over the years but, although I’ve seen Pilar quite a bit, I actually hadn’t seen Montse for about three years. I knew about her first child but was surprised to see her almost ready to have her second. And Pilar looked great, with lots of energy, but she doesn’t expect to return to work until after the summer. Which means Monday will be the first time I’ve had a PET scan without my “Pili” there to make me feel at ease and – very importantly! – to give me my results straight away. But I’m hoping that either Isabel or Ricardo will be able to break the news (either good or bad) to me before I leave the hospital. And I also hope that Pilar gets better soon so I can start giving her the year of pre-paid English classes I still owe her.

After a couple of very pleasant hours we said our “hasta prontos!” and I met up with Nog to have one more Cold Beer before going home. Stopped at a kind of rough & ready place around the corner from the house that I wouldn’t choose to eat at, but it had Cruzcampo “Glacial” and a nice terraza that was catching a lovely breeze. So we sat out and listened to the Gay Pride concert that was going on at the Setas. This was the view from the terraza.

Finally came home to cuddle cats and turn on the a/c for awhile before going to bed, and I found myself thinking about what a wonderful day it had been (including my early morning Corpus Cristi walk) and what a wonderful place Sevilla is to live in. Happy.