Watch This Space!

Friday, December 23, 2011

Both of us are keeping very busy. Susan has been working on winnowing down all her food pictures to find the best ones for a 2012 calendar. Magic Agora is keeping me busy with both editing and translating. Our social calendar for the next ten days keeps filling up. It’s a tough life, but somebody has to do it.

Yesterday morning was a market day and since the holidays are upon us and we are not too sure what will be open when we bought larger quantities of ham, cheese, fruit and vegetables. We also picked up some chicken and a couple of steaks. After we put everything away we continued to work on our above-mentioned projects. As 2:30 rolled around we thought that it was getting to be lunchtime. We had enjoyed an early breakfast. Susan used the remainder of the El Parisien chocolate and orange bread to make some French Toast. Topped with yoghurt and fresh strawberries and bananas it was absolutely delicious.

We decided to have lunch at El Refugio. It is about a twenty-minute walk from the house and we needed the exercise. The staff was getting to accommodate a large party in the main dining room, but fortunately there were several empty tables in the bar portion of the restaurant. We both chose from the menu of the day. Susan started with a five vegetable soup and I opted for an egg roll filled with vegetables, squid and crab. For our main dish we chose a vegetarian dish of quinoa, artichokes, sundried tomatoes, and Kalamata olives. It was well seasoned and frankly quite delicious. For dessert we chose the brownie and the cheesecake. We both had coffee and the proprietor offered us an after-dinner drink. Susan chose the mistela – a liqueur made from muscatel wine – and I had an orujo, which had been put together by a friend of his in Utiel. Orujo is a relative of grappa and can be mildly unpleasant. This one was smooth and flavored with ginger.

Back home we spent a few hours reading and then we ventured forth a little before 6:00 to visit a relojería – a watch store – that we always pass on our way to the market. We had seen a couple of things in the window in the morning and we wanted to check them out. We ended up buying a digital wall clock that shows the time, day, date and temperature. I ended up with a Citizen watch that has a black face with illuminated numbers and a stainless steel band. Susan ended up wit a lovely lady’s style Citizen watch with a very nice leather band. All three timepieces cost us a total of 60 Euros.

In the evening I headed out for a meeting of los veteranos. We spent close to two hours chatting about this and that and it appeared that no one was prepared to show something new. There are days like that and it’s no problem. Afterwards we all walked to Sha Ley, which is near the Serrano Towers and we had a variety of tapas that we washed down with cold beer. When we left we all walked together, but when we reached the Calle de Caballeros, we each went our separate way. I got home a little after midnight and discovered Susan reading her Harry Bosch novel comfortably propped up in the easy chair. We both gave up the ghost at 12:30 and went to bed.