agua de azahar

10 Monday Feb 2020

Posted by in retail therapy, sevilla

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Victorio & Lucchino Agua Nº 1 Azahar

Yeah, I know I’m supposed to be cutting back on spending, but this was on sale (11 euros!) and I couldn’t resist. It’s actually been rebranded since this photo and is called Azahar Radiante, so I didn’t realise until I got home that it was more complex than that. Basically the bergamot hits you first, then you smell the orange blossom, followed by a background note of patchouli. Now I understand why I couldn’t resist this – turns out to be three of my favourite smells ever. Well, I didn’t know that patchouli was one of my favourites until a few years ago when a sommelier took a sniff of me as I walked into his wine shop and said … patchouli! Say what? Apparentlly it’s one of the ingredients in my signature Clinique Elixir perfume. Seriously, I get so many compliments on Elixir that I worry I may have put too much on, but no. It’s just quite distinctive and apparently I wear it well.

Anyhow, I wasn’t actually looking for another scent for my body (tear my Elixir from my cold dead hands!), more something I could spritz around the house, escpecially in winter with all the balcony doors shut, in order to bring a bit of springtime indoors. And wow, is this wonderful. A spritz or two and suddenly it smells like heaven at home, and it lingers just long enough.

coolest thing ever or creepy conspiracy thing?

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in computers

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So when I was with Josephine at Puratasca on Friday we talked about all kinds of things, at one point discussing online privacy and the general snoopiness of practically every company out there, mining all our personal data. Both of us agreed that we would never have an Alexa, and I mentioned that Facetime glitch awhile back where, if one of the people on the call didn’t hang up afterwards, they could continue to listen in on the other person/people after the app appeared to be turned off. Apparently that’s been fixed, but I immediately removed that app from everywhere, even though I don’t use it. Can’t be too cautious. Likewise I have a piece of black tape over my laptop webcam, which means the lens is now probably all gacky from the glue, but I never use it so anyhow it doesn’t matter.

Then it was time to leave and we stopped by the kitchen to thank chef Raúl and he gave us some SWAG on the way out, including a ceramic fridge magnet celebrating their 10th anniversary and that little tchotchke on the right. Ever seen one of those before? Well, I hadn’t. What you do is stick it over your laptop webcam (with the circle over the cam), and then the top part slides open and shut. Genius! Except, hang on… we had just been talking about this. Was there a microphone in the bread basket, a listening device under the table, was the fork really JUST A FORK?? I mean, what are the odds that we would be randomly discussing covering up our webcams (Josephine does it too) and then get presented with a solution. Eh… eh??  😉

josephine

07 Friday Feb 2020

Posted by in food & drink, gastronomy, tapas, tapas bars, tapas tours, travel

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So this was fun! The other day Twitter mentions popped up with an introduction by the lovely Shaney Hudson @shaneyhudson to her journalist pal Josephine @_josephineprice (they both write for Nat Geo Traveller). Josephine is in town this weekend doing research for an article on Sevilla and so I took her around Triana, one of the barrios she is going to feature. As you can see, we had a very tasty time.

Shaney was first here in 2010, and has been back since. She was one of the first people to write about my tapas tours. Love that we are still in touch and I hope that she will make it back to Sevilla again before too long.

après oncology

06 Thursday Feb 2020

Posted by in cancer, friends, gastronomy, hospitals, sevilla, tapas bars

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I mean, what the heck, right? Have to say that I always look forward to après oncology when I have a midday appointment. And of course it’s always extra nice to have a friend come with me to see the oncologist, especially a bilingual friend who can help me out with any language “issues” (like totally forgetting how to speak or understand Spanish…). This is the second time Claudia has come with me and I appreciate it so much. She and Paul also accompanied me for the endoscopy and Claudia will come with me for next week’s colonoscopy. I’m usually fine going for tests on my own, but the ones where they drug you up require that I have someone with me. Anyhoo… this time we stopped over at the fabulous Yebra for post-hospital tapitas and had a great time.

The upshot of this oncology visit, after reviewing the results of the barium enema from a couple weeks ago, was that… they still don’t know if I have a fistula (leakage from my intestine into my abdoman) or not. So I am now going to have more tests, this time a barium x-ray taken of my upper gastro area (so will have to drink it this time – ick), another colonoscopy, and yet another CT scan, plus more blood work. They don’t think anything cancerous is going on, but so far they still haven’t been able to prove there isn’t. At this point I reckon I’m going to die of radiation poisoning before anything else gets me. Wish me luck!