Take the Life Expectancy Calculator Quiz and find out! To be honest, I’m not sure I want to live to 87, but ask me again when I’m 85. 😉
how long will you live?
04 Friday Aug 2017
Posted in health & happiness, quizzes
04 Friday Aug 2017
Posted in health & happiness, quizzes
Take the Life Expectancy Calculator Quiz and find out! To be honest, I’m not sure I want to live to 87, but ask me again when I’m 85. 😉
22 Saturday Apr 2017
Posted in cancer, friends, hope, life stuff, love

For ages this was the only image I ever had of Lee, from her Facebook page… and I came to think of her as this sassy Raggedy Ann chica. Then at long last I had the chance to meet her in person when I was in Madrid last January. She was still quite weak from cancer treatment, but was up for going out to have lunch, and we spent a lovely afternoon together.
Lee said she thought of me as her “cancer sister” because reading about my various struggles with cancer on my blog helped her when she was diagnosed. We could compare notes, as it were, and although our situations were very different, Lee felt like I would at least “get” what she was talking about. And yes, I think I did. I also got to enjoy chat sessions with a bright and funny woman, who loved cats as much as I do. I was also thrilled to meet her beautiful boy Tony during that last visit.
Anyhow, this morning I was out at that gastronomy event by the river and was randomly going through messages while enjoying a beer in the sun. Then I saw a message request on FB from someone I didn’t know. I clicked on it, and it was Lee’s dear friend Chris, telling me as delicately as possible that Lee had passed away a few days ago. And since then I haven’t known what to feel. Because the feelings are all so mixed up, the happy and sad ones, the scary and hopeful ones. And the worst one of all, the one I can’t yet accept – that I won’t ever be able to talk to Lee again. So for now, that’s all I can say. Except… be sure to hug someone you love today, and let them know how much they mean to you, how much you love them. xx
Lee and I enjoying a fabulous lunch at Tandem in Madrid
07 Tuesday Mar 2017
Posted in hope, life stuff, twitter, video
When you think there is no hope, take heart in knowing the hope lies within all of us to make it happen. Also… Twitter power!
Megan Phelps-Roper: I grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church.
Here’s why I left.
23 Saturday Jul 2016
Posted in home, retail therapy, sevilla, shopping, spain
Tags

I always like to take advantage of the summer and winter sales here to stock up on basic stuff like sheets & towels, so today I went out to see what I might find and ended up with a whole whack of towels and one new set of sheets for me. I thought I was being quite decadent until I checked back on the blog (so handy that) and saw that the last time I splashed out on new sheets was in 2013 (I honestly thought it was much more recent). Then I was shocked to see that my last new towel purchase was a year before that! Well, judging by the state of my towels I shouldn’t have been that shocked, but whatever. Now I have lots of everything, though I still want to get a second set of new sheets for me.
What’s weird is that for at least the past 25 years or so, I have never bought patterned sheets. Or coloured towels. I’ve always had a thing for white or off-white when it came to sheets and towels (and nightdresses too, come to that). Okay, a little embroidery was fine, but no colours, other than in quilts and duvet covers. And suddenly today I wanted these happy bright poppies on my sheets and deep blue for the “guest” (actually roommate) towels. Roommate also got new sheets along with the new bed in May, so I am feeling totally up-to-date in that department.
So what to do with the massive pile of old towels and sheets? Well, what I always do with old clothes and such. I wait until after 8 pm and leave them next to the bins up on the main road near me, in unsealed bags so people can easily see what’s inside. And they are usually gone within an hour or so (municipal rubbish pick up is long after midnight).
I don’t even know what’s “normal” when it comes to stuff like this, buying new sheets and towels. Once a year? Every two years? Three? Also, as I said in another blog post, this has never been a huge priority for me. I always prefer to spend my money on experiences. How about you?
12 Tuesday Jul 2016

So yeah, the BIG NEWS is that I’ve decided to take a couple of weeks off, and possibly longer. Well okay, not exactly OFF in the sense of not working, or going away somewhere, just not doing my tapas tours for awhile so that I can focus on getting caught up on my other work (massive backlog of blog posts and photo editing) as well as work on some new ideas for We Love Tapas. Re: the latter, there are a couple of things coming up this autumn that I think will be very exciting, but I do need some time to get those going properly. Yeah, I know my Trip Advisor rating will probably suffer as a result, with all the posers racking up fake reviews on a daily basis but, to borrow the pithy words of the Divine Marina O’Loughlin… “I don’t hate it because it enables reviews of and tickets for cruel animal attractions, or for its climate of blackmail-enabling entitlement. I hate it because it’s shit.” Suggest you read this article.
Of course it’s great that while I am “away” I can steer my clients towards We Love Tapas, because the team is going to be working all summer long. Meanwhile, my summer getaway plans are still going ahead, with Galicia Getaway booked for the end of August, though I may swap San Sebastián for London, not sure. Or do them both?? Really no idea at this point. All I know is that for the next week or so I am on “hols at home”, which is mostly about doing a lot of research and writing. But it feels great, and I’m also focusing on healthy light eating at home. Feel very privileged that I can work like this, doing things I love, in the way I want to do them. Anyhow, watch this space…