Having a lovely time..

Well, my sister arrived safe and sound on Monday evening and we have yet to stop talking.. it's been great!
The children are absolutely delighted to have their auntie here with them too.

Yesterday and today, we have spent the morning in Valladolid, shopping - and taking in the sights of this beautiful city - and some rather nice coffee and more tapas.  Tapas are courtesy of our mum who most kindly provided us with a stash of cash that would buy us a whole month's worth! Thanks Mum - we're off out again tonight to try and do justice to your intentions.

Last night, we took on my in-laws at Escoba and won hands down - so there's a grudge match due this evening - my father-in-law doesn't like to be beaten. We're feeling confident!

Tomorrow, we will go to Simancas if the weather stays as sunny as it is and walk down by the river with Nemo and on Friday, we'll wrap Christmas presents and write cards together. And then, after maybe some more tapas - we'll have to wave goodbye and hope that the next visit will bring her to our new home.

Christmas feels like it will be good. I feel more organised and we've decorated the house. We have also turned a corner recently; the pleasure of living so closely with relatives was wearing a bit thin but the arrival of my sister has helped to ease the little irritations away completely and I know that by the time Noche Buena has been and gone - in just over a week - we really will feel that parting is such sweet sorrow and be genuinely sad that our time here will have come to an end.

And where are we going...?

I'll know better in a day or so I hope!!

Tapas in town; churros en casa

Saturday - first day of holiday (another!) here in Spain. It's Spanish Constitution Day on 6th - though I haven't yet managed to find out what this means - I'm working on it. More importantly (apparently), on 8th it is the day of the 'Inmaculada Concepción' - which I find a bit hard to get my head round - timing's definitely wrong in my book if today is the day of the immaculate conception - ¿no? I leave you to ponder and, if possible, to explain. It could be related to the changes in the calendar over the years - I had to look this up recently when Romy asked me why there were some months with more days than others. It's very complicated and there's no easy answer that I can share here - but just consider this. September, October, November and December are named for their position in the original calendar.. seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth respectively. And going back a long time, March was the first month of the year, coinciding, as it did with Spring and the new year (in northern hemispheres at least!) and that might be why February was cut a bit shorter. And then the Roman emperors started interferring.. and oh gosh, I am getting seriously sidetracked here!

Starting again - here in Spain we have five days of holiday - two at the weekend then three more without school! Hurray!! So, on Saturday, we wrapped up warm and trotted into Valladolid to soak up a bit of atmosphere and try out a few tapas. Not something we do very often for reasons of economy and that fact that our children have neverending appetites!


Before we even got to try our first tapa, we were stopped by the sight of a beautiful old carousel in the middle of the Plaza Mayor. Mateo and I wanted to go on, but decided against but Ruy and Romy were tempted onto a top tier horse each.

Then we hit the 'Marisqueria' - seafood speciality. We were lucky to find a table!

And although we didn't have to wait long, we were treated to a few impressions by Ruy - I didn't capture 'Wolverine' - shame.

And then, I am ashamed to say, I put my camera down and ate patatas bravas and mussels in a piquant, chilli sauce and Cesar and I drank cerveza con gaseosa (shandy!) and I forgot to take photos of any of it!! So we had to go to our favourite place for pinchos morunos - delicious, spicy lamb kebabs.
They arrived good and hot from the fire!

And they were pronounced good!

 Too good for words, really.

Good enough to fight for a bit!

And all that was good but when we got home, we felt it was the sort of day to press Yayo into churro production..

And Yaya into hot chocolate production!

A delicious day!!