Tag Archives: friends

a day in córdoba with friends

22 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by in friends, internet, spain, tapas, travel, trips, twitter

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cordoba with jo and liam
Yesterday I spent the day in Córdoba with Twitter friends Jo @JoBW and Liam @AnFearBui, their daughter Cáit and friend Sean. I’ve “known” Jo and Liam for quite awhile and so was thrilled that I finally got a chance to meet them in person as they were holidaying in Granada and Córdoba this summer. And as is so often the case with Twitter pals, it felt just like meeting old friends.

As many of you know, I love Córdoba, so I don’t actually need much of an excuse to hop on a train (round trip ticket 21€) even if it’s just for the day. But I almost bailed when it turned out that this week we were in the middle of a crazy “orange alert” Heat Wave – not really the kind of weather you want to be out and about in. But then I reckoned that we’d probably be inside cool tapas bars most of the time, and I really really wanted to meet Jo and Liam, so off I went.

Previously I’d been in touch with the Palacio de Viana, which I’d visited last year. I wanted to know if they could arrange a tour for me and a friend (I thought Markus from veoapartment was coming but it turned out he couldn’t make it) and they were very happy to provide me with two free passes for the patios and the upstairs tour, knowing I would be writing about it both on my azahar’s Sevilla blog and also on Twitter. Then I told Jo about it and they all wanted to come too. So it was very kind of Viana to invite us all in when I showed up with four friends instead of one. We spent about two hours wandering through the patios and then taking the tour, which we quite enjoyed in spite of The Heat (those old palace rooms are not air-conditioned!). And so after that it was clearly time for a Very Cold Beer.

Plaza de la CorrederaYears ago on my first ever visit to Córdoba I “discovered” the Plaza de la Corredera totally by accident and it turned out to be a perfect spot to stop for a pre-lunch cold beer. Since then it’s become a bit of a ritual… I cannot go to Córdoba now without a cold beer stop in the Corredera. So that is where we ended up yesterday, and afterwards we took a quick tour of the little market on one side of the square. Then it was time to find the restaurant I’d booked for lunch.

This was another accidental find and it turned out to be wonderful. A Sephardic restaurant called Casa Mazal in the old Jewish quarter. We shared huge plates of battered aubergines, chicken in spicy paprika sauce with bulgur wheat, couscous with duck confit, grilled tuna belly, falafel… all in a gorgeous setting and in great company with lots of lovely wine. And then all too soon I found myself wishing I’d booked a later train! But there was just enough time after our long “sobre mesa” to take a quick trip over to the Victoria Market, a new gourmet food court, where Sean ended up having an impromptu sherry tasting at one of the stalls. I had ordered a manzanilla for him but the barman insisted that he try some of the local “sherry” (you can’t actually call it sherry if it isn’t from a small area in Cádiz) which ended up with Sean, me and Jo trying about six different wines, all on the house (!!) while Liam and Cáit wondered where we’d gone off to. Then we all had one final drink together before it was time for me to lurch over to the train station… and I’m happy to report that I made my train with a whole five minutes to spare!

I’m still smiling thinking of all the wonderful memories we made together. And I am already looking forward to seeing my new Dublin friends again, hopefully soon as they do come to Spain quite often. Meanwhile we’ll stay in touch on Twitter and by email, but it’s extra nice now having faces and voices to put to the names. I really feel like my life got a lot richer yesterday.

the best I can be

06 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by in blogging, cancer, change, chemo, friends, hope

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polaroid patThe other day I came across this post written by Pat Is this the best I can be? in which she’d linked to this post that I’d written on the same day in October 2009, and in those blog posts both of us were questioning our lives and our behaviour, ways of coping, etc. And it got me thinking…

First of all, I spent a bit of time on Pat’s blog listening to her voice again. She was such a naturally talented writer along with being wonderful in so many other ways. And I realised that it’s been almost three years since we wrote those posts. I’m still here, Pat is not. But who knows what the next PET scan in September will reveal?

And so what I mostly started thinking about was “wasting time”. It seemed that for awhile I was doing everything very intensely because it truly felt like DEATH was just around the corner. These days I am mostly aware of my condition (stage 4 cancer survivor – at least so far!) during my monthly visits to the hospital to get my chemo port cleaned out, and of course every six months when I go for my PET scan. The latter always terrifies me and I’m a mess for about a week or so before. Lucky for me that I get the results straight away and don’t have to also go through the stress of waiting a couple of weeks afterwards.

Anyhow, there are, and always have been, a lot of things I don’t like about myself, so that is a daily struggle. I mean, I think I am mostly a “good person” (whatever that means) but my days are full of self-criticism because I could always be Doing Better. And then I don’t do better because this (rather abusive) inner-dialogue tends to wear me out, though I think I still end up mostly Doing Okay. When I was going through chemo and recovering from operations I tended to cut myself some slack and not be so hard on myself and I guess that reading those blog posts made me aware that I’d slipped back into this beating-myself-up rut. Which is, frankly, a waste of time. Not to mention counter productive. And exhausting.

When Azar, the love of my life, died last September I made a promise in honour of his memory to try and be the same person I was with him when with other people. You see, he was just so easy to love and it turned out I actually really liked who I was when I was with him. Because with Azar I was always the best I could be. And well, I haven’t always remembered that promise but all this recent thinking has brought it back. So I’m going to start making that my daily goal, and I even think I’ll try to include myself along with those “other people”.

Wish me luck!

another fabulous málaga day

27 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by in food & drink, friends, twitter, video, vine

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loleta
These fabulous things keep happening to me. Woke up this morning, my last full day in Málaga, wondering what to do. I knew my friend Victor (We Love Malaga) was busy and other friends were away… so what to do on this last day in town? And so I got on Twitter and asked what I should do. And bless, there were suddenly all kinds of very kind and interesting replies and suggestions, including one from the guy I’m renting my FAB APARTMENT from @lerele and also from @LoletabyLoleta (her blog is here). And they both recommended a place called Pez Tomillo in Pedregalejo. So I googled it and saw it was a new bar here in Málaga started by the same group who run three very successful and trendy bars in Sevilla – and I know the chef Ernesto Malasana! So this was all just sounding too good to be true – had to do it, right?

Then Loleta got in touch with me by private message on Twitter saying she would love to join me, with her husband Juanje and 10-year-old son Javier (who is in a competition to become a junior Masterchef). And thus the afternoon all came together and was fabulous. I walked over to Pedregalejos, the old fishermen’s quarter about 45 minutes from the centre of town. And when I got to Pez Tomillo I saw there were family and friends from Sevilla I knew working there. And then Loleta and family turned up.

We ate very well, though we all thought the wine list NEEDED to have Botani on it. Curiously the menu was almost exactly the same as at Bar Antojo back home. I’d thought they’d be doing more typical fish stuff, but then it did seem a good idea to offer the barrio something a bit different from the usual over there. I truly wish them luck as I think it’s a place with lots of heart … and also very good food.

At the end of our lunch young Javier cut open the hot chocolate coulante to great effect…

a special málaga day

25 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by in food & drink, friends, holidays, Malaga, spain

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homemade paellaNot that I don’t love meeting friends and going out for tapas, but it was a refreshing change yesterday to be invited to lunch by Victor (We Love Malaga), this time at his parents’ house to try his mother’s fabulous paella. Their beautiful sprawling mult-level house (with huge garden and swimming pool) is up in the mountainside so Victor’s father picked us up in the centre of town. I have to admit that I was a bit unsure about going to a family meal like this and wondered if I would feel awkward and not have anything to say. Well… no problem! Turns out the whole family is quite gregarious and also very welcoming. I felt at home with everyone right away.

“Everyone” included Victor’s parents Paco and Mariola, and his older brother, Damien. Like Victor, Paco and Damien are also official Málaga tour guides, so of course I should’ve known that they would all love talking. Mariola is a retired school teacher and also an amazing cook. Aside from the wonderfully tasty paella we had a nice crisp salad and lovely fresh melon for dessert. Definitely the most “well-balanced” meal I’ve had while in Málaga. Also one of the most enjoyable.

botanical gardenSuitably stuffed (I swear Mariola gave me the largest portion of paella – I did my best but couldn’t finish it) Victor suggested we take a drive over to the nearby Botanical Gardens. I’ve been wanting to do this for ages,  but it’s really not that easy to get to by bus. In spite of The Heat and it being the hottest time of day this was actually a good plan because as soon as we walked into the garden the temperature dropped considerably and the cool breeze under massive shade trees and vine-covered arches. I’ll do a separate blog post on Azahar’s Sevilla Blog a bit later on but I already know that my photos don’t do it justice. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the gardens and still didn’t see even most of it. It was great being there with Victor because he knew his way around and also knows quite a lot about botany.

Finally got back home around 6.30 and an hour later met up with Arpy for a farewell drink and tapita as she was leaving for the UK in the morning. Luckily this was a much more subdued and sensible outing than the farewell evening we had for Arpy’s husband Fred and their friend Paul who have headed out on an Awfully Big European Adventure. In fact I was home again by 10.30 and tucked up in bed with Morcilla before midnight. Also had the best sleep I’ve had since I got here – must’ve been all that fresh mountain air. It really was a very special day.