This morning the IKEA guys came with all the new stuff and put everything together within three hours. Me? It would have probably taken three days – or more! BUT it meant that at 12.15 Peter and I were not only ready for “Beer O’clock”, but also that we were more than ready for the breakfast we hadn’t had time for.
Great solution? El Patio San Eloy. This place has been going strong since 1992 and the original location (my favourite) happens to be in the new street where I live. It’s a simple and basic “cheap & cheerful” place which sometimes is just what you are looking for. Like us today. After a frosty beer and a couple of montaditos we were ready to face our next moving challenge… Movistar! 😉
With the new place now pretty much set up for the movers to arrive on Monday, we now have to focus on getting rid of stuff here. Luckily I have until the end of the month to sort all that out, which gives me a week after I move. I know I will still end up taking more than I should over to the new Casa Azahar, but I’m also pleased at how ruthless I have been (except for sometimes) about just saying “out it goes!”.
Meanwhile… woke up this morning to find I had no internet and that it turned out Movistar had disconnected my present contract without advising me, and also without telling me when they’d be reconnecting me at the new place. Using iphones as modems until it gets sorted – not ideal.
So anyhow, hope you’re having a better weekend than me! xx
Stuff like this just makes my day. After a couple of hours sorting out “papeles” at the social security office for my online digital certificate, and then setting up appointments for blood tests and my next oncology appointment, it was definitely BEER O’CLOCK. But then I remembered reading about a place I’d never been to (yep, there are still a few of them out there) so Peter and I walked over to the 
Preview tasting menu: “solid cocktail” of Hidalgo fino, Lustau vermouth with trout roe and orange zest; grilled oysters with toasted butter and artemia; onion crisp topped with larded tuna, onion purée and tuna fat; cod liver salad on mushroom slivers, baby spinach and lettuce, fish emulsion and spicy vinegar; squid ink potato parmentier with cuttlefish roe and chipirón; sea bass with confit black trumpet mushrooms and fish emulsion; lemon meringue “pie” on a crispy biscuit.
A bit like when you see bullheads in a bar, you can always spot an inauthentic travel piece on Sevilla that talks about all the “spit and sawdust” bars here, with napkins strewn all over the floor. I’ve lived here for over 23 years and the very few bars in the centre that used to put down sawdust have long since stopped this practice. But every now and then you find one. This was taken at Taberna Azahar, a bar I’ve been planning to go to for ages (mostly for the name, truth be told). It’s up in the Macarena barrio, not a place I frequent very often. Anyhow, although they still put down sawdust, there are little bins throughout the bar for paper napkins.
Chef Óscar here at Casa Morales has no idea what the barmen have written on the specials board. Do you? The past couple of days I’ve been checking in at my usual “tapas tour bars”, saying hi to everyone, you know, just staying connected. And today this happened. Cracked me up…
Back in the “old days” women in Spain (as in many countries) weren’t allowed in bars, so of course there was no need to have a toilet for them to use. You can still sometimes come across old urinarios like this one, which didn’t even used to have doors on them. This relic is in one of my favourite sherry bars, 
It’s orange and lemon season in Sevilla.
Going through old pics today, attempting to catch up on 