Midnight Feasts; A Childhood Treat

(First of all I searched on Google for an interesting image of a midnight feast, unfortunately the term midnight feast seems to bring up many photos of Elle Macpherson, anybody have any idea as to why??)

Martha and I were chatting the other day about owt and nowt and the topic of midnight feasts came up. Something that I haven't thought about since I was very little. It was the highlight of having somebody to stay over when I was little or of going to sleep at a friend's house. We would set our alarm clocks for midnight so that we could creep downstairs, or in my case down the hallway, to the kitchen to collect delectable snacks! At Laura Hampshire's house I remember that before we went to bed we would investigate the stairs and remember which steps were creaky and which ones were ok to walk on. Once at my house Laura and I snook into the kitchen to get some food. It wasn't as good as being at Laura's because they had a treat box that was full of chocolate bars and sweets and my mother wasn't big on buying us 'teeth-rotters' so on one midnight feast I think we had some crackers with cheese and a Superted Vitamin Tablet!

Those were the days!

Agghhhh!

I have procrastinated for too long and now I am paying the consequences! I have been shackled to my computer for about 7 hours today tap tap tapping away on the keyboard trying to write something vaguely interesting about consciousness-raising and narrative tenses. I have finally finished it although it is sure to come back for amendments! It was the worst essay I have had to write so far, I have been putting it off since December when I actually taught the class that goes with this assignment. But I have pushed send on the email and it is flying through cyberspace to Alistair's inbox as we speak. Fingers crossed that it's not too bad an offering!

The big read continues....

Still plodding along with the list of 1001 books you should read before you die. It has been slow going these last couple of months because I just having been in the mood for reading. I have read several books which don't deserve mentioning, I honestly think people can die without having read them, either that or they might die while reading them...of pure boredom. I am beginning to question who exactly has put this list together and on what they are basing their opinions. I know I don't have a degree in English literature or anything but some of the stuff on this list is just pure shite. However, two books which I definitely recommend you read are the Life of Pi by Yann Martel (adventure story of an indian boy on a lifeboat with an array of zoo animals - but it goes deeper than just action and excitement) and the other book is Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Cloud Atlas is made up of six interlocking stories which you have to read in order and then in reverse order to find out the ending of each tale. You will need to perservere with the second book, it starts off quite badly, the first story is pretty dull and heavy going but it just gets better and better. And as much as i don't like the story that starts and ends the novel, it wouldn't be the book that it is without it. Well worth a read, even Richard and Judy think so!

I love t'internet!

I was surfing the net the other day and I decided to search for Jaime's village, La Vid de Ojeda. I came across a webpage that someone has built to show photos of villages around Spain. There were more than a thousand photographs of Jaime's village and I begin to look through them all. I was amazed to find pictures of Jaime's father when he was younger, Jaime's house when it was still a working water mill, loads of photos of the house as it is now, members of Jaime's family and I even stumbled on a photo that looked like Jaime as a child. I wasn't sure because who ever had posted a comment on the photo had named everyone apart form the little boy I thought was Jaime. He was labelled 'desconocido' meaning 'unknown'. I showed Jaime the picture when he came back from work, and I was right. It's him. Can you work out which one is Jaime in the following pictures?

I also found this amazing aerial view of Jaime's house...


T'internet is just great! It never ceases to amaze me!

A Disgusting detickery

Had my first meeting with a tick or two at the weekend in the village. I had jus tfinished eating lunch with the family and I had gone outside to see what the lads were doing. Jaime was standing by watching his brother search through the fur of their pet Rottweiller, with a pair or garden gloves on. I assumed that this was for protection from the dog, which at the time I did think was a little flimsy to protect someone from the jaws of Mozar. At closer inspection I decided that the boys were pulling dried peas or garbanzos out of the dogs fur. How did they get there, I wondered. Then Jose threw one of these peas on the floor and it started to move, then Jaime stamped on it and a load of blood squirted out. Very strange beans these, I said to myself. Then the men, the oracles, enlightened me as to what was going on. I then spent the rest of the afternoon, and well to be quite honest I am still doing it now, itching and checking that no ticks have crawled into my ears. Grosse! If anyone is interested in seeing what happens when you stand on a tick you can check out this youtube video that I found. I swear that website is mental, anything you could possible want to find must be on there somewhere. Some nutter with a camera will have taped it at some point!

Here comes the bride....

Jaime and I went to the village this weekend to attend his cousin's, Agustinin's, wedding. He married Puri on the 21st of April. The ceremony was lovely if not a little long. I was extremely uncomfortable and ready to leave, after an hour the priest told us we could go in peace and I was very relieved, which was shortlived since he then changed his mind and decided he should sing a hymn before we all left. Another five minutes later we all poured out of the church into the glorious sun, which was quite surprising for April in the village. After the whole photograph palavar, we hurried off to the reception to have a few drinks and stuff our faces. And stuff ourselves we did at the Asador el Roble. We started with a plate of Lomo and Jamon Iberico and paté, then we had fiddler crab, then we had langostinos, then we had clams in marniere sauce, then we had hake stuffed with prawns in an almond sauce, that was followed by Lemon Sorbet and then that was followed by Log oven roasted lamb and then we had dessert and then we had cava and then we had coffee and then we had a licquer and then we....



Well, you might think that we went on to dance and drink and what have you but unfortuantely something terrible happened. Jaime's 75 year old father slipped down the stairs and cracked his head open. We had to call an ambulance and he had to have 14 stitches before being taken to the nearest hospital 60km away for scans and x-rays. Luckily everything is ok but he gave us all a very nasty shock. Jaime's mum had an anxiety attack and we had to take her to the health centre too but she calmed down when Bis finally arrived back home at 1,30 am with his sons Jaime and Jose (covered in blood but relieved). Thank god. Although it just goes to show how our lives can change in a mere second, one moment we can be as happy as larry feasting and having fun and the next moment we can be worried sick about our loved ones or lying on the floor in a pool of blood. It really makes you realise that you have to live each moment as if it were your last.

I'm back from outta space...

I've been absent for a very long time, been a) too busy and b) too lazy to post anything for a very long time. I thought I had best make an appearance before people begin to write me off as a blogger. Not much happened in March, I had another DELTA observation which I passed with a distinction which made me v v v happy. I wrote some essays too but I still have quite a few to go and I am quickly running out of time!

Easter has been and gone. Jaime and I went to the UK to visit the family and celebrate my mother's 50th birthday. I arrived first and a few days later I went to get Jaime form the airport in Nottingham only to discover that he had forgotten to catch the plane! Numpty! So dad and I had to trek all the way back again the next day and collect the silly bugger. When he finally arrived we made sure that we had a good time. We went out for a couple of lovely evenings first with Tara and Terry from Uni to a Kareoke bar where Terry gave us an interesting rendition of All I want for Christmas. He put his heart and soul into it, bless him. And the rest of us put our earplugs in. We also went for a beautiful meal at Mustard and Punch in Honley with my school friends and their other halves. (Here's another pic, cos Sara was missing from the first). On the final Saturday my mum had a big pie and pea supper for 40 or so friends at the house and everybody had lots of fun, Adam, Jaime and my uncle David, who had come over from South Africa were having a merry time in the garden gazebo, while others in the conservatory were showing signs of having used the chocolate fountains set up in there. All in all we had a good trip, got to see a lot of close friends and family and I got to do a bit of shopping, which is always a bonus.