BUZZY TURNS 8!!

Can it really be that long?!?!?!? It's hard to believe that in only 10 years time he'll be drafted by the mighty Demons to assist in their eternal quest for a flag.

The little fella had a great weekend. A bonus was that Grandad and Nana were still here, and so the kids have both been lucky enough to have grandparents present - Grandma and Papa being here for Aimee's earlier in the year.

He took lolly bags to skool for his classmates on the Friday and came home with Bonny the class mascot for the weekend. His reaction when receiving gifts is fabulous. I reckon you could wrap up last week's dinner scraps and he'd still react the same way. He simply LOVES everything - what a great way to be - and he was showered to the point of excessiveness. Kids are so lucky these days - I remember when I got my first footy - it was made of rolled newspaper, not like the whizz bang yellow Barca ball he's now kicking around the skoolyard. El Correos was kept busy delivering parcels and cards from family and friends back home - you will all hear from the little fella this coming weekend. Cumpleanos dinner was at Tommy Mel's, an American 50's style diner which was a lot of fun.

Dinner at Tommy Mel's

Billabong tank top and cash - bliss!

Heart beating true.....

Rockin' Jim Jams

NinjagoBoy

This only took 2 days to build!

The new road cruiser scooter - and no, sadly that's not our Porsche!

 

On Saturday he had his party at City Kids - we're not having tribes of youngsters traipse through the house any more. Javier, Jasper, Felix, Lyndon, Travis, and Aimee's friend Ines made up the party and they had a ball on dodgems, trampolines, 4D movies and jumping castles. A head clash on the jumping castle resulted in our hero breaking his nose, but the show went on. Afterwards, the mums and dads of Jasper/Felix, Lyndon, and Javi came home and we enjoyed a relaxing merienda (and a couple of nerve calming copas) whilst the kids enjoyed a nerf gun war....yep, he got under our guard by lobbying his friends at skool and he is now the proud owner of 3 of 'em!

  

Class mascot watches the trampolining

Buzz & Bonny enjoy birthday treats

4D moviewatcher - didn't have 'em in my day

Quiet time after a hectic weekend

So the Spanish birthdays are all over for the year. Eight and eleven - jeez time flies.

NB: As we don't have prior authorisation from parents, please note that we respect privacy and there are no pics that include other kids. Just take our word for it that they had a ball!!

HOLA BOLA

Phew, time flies when visitors are here. Don't get me wrong, 'cos we absolutely love it. We've just had two special guests over the last 4 weeks - Daddy & Judith - but that will be a separate story.

We were tickled to have an old friend ANDREW PITMAN and his beautiful wife MICHELLE pop into Madrid. They had just finished a gastronomic tour of northern Spain (around San Sebastian) and were en route to Morocco. So Dulcinea and I hightailed it into the city and we went into the ancient part of the city to enjoy some Galician repast. AndyBoy and I worked together in PNG in the early-mid 90's and it was great to see him again. We had lost touch and a quick thanks to Skull for acting as a contact intermediary, and apologies that this was a rare occasion when I forgot to take along my '3rd eye', so had to resort to a totally inadequate iPhone snap......

Don L, Michelle, AndyBoy

 We've made some lovely friends here, both Spanish and, as it happens, Australian. Liam has a new friend in his class this year - JASPER - who's mum KIRSTEN is the resident string puller at the Australian Embassy (she's currently visiting Andorra on official business, so don't let anyone tell you public servants don't work!). Sadly, Kirsten's assignment comes to an end in January so Buzzy's new friend will be off home with his other brother FELIX. Never mind, the kids are loving each other's company as we are with Kirsten and her dynamic husband CONAN. We ventured around to their hacienda for dinner recently, although Kirsten tried to put us off by slicing the top off her finger (luckily, this isn't PNG, and the local hospital was fine). We had a great night, but I have to tell you that Conan embarrasses me - he is a GUN in the kitchen. He serves the best latte in Madrid - it's made with Swiss watch precision and is a work of art (I did have a foto of his coffee but I was so peeved at not being able to emulate it that I deleted it!), and he is surrounded by all these amazing cooking gizmos that would make Gordon Ramsay swear with jealousy (oh yeah, he does that anyway!). The great man whipped up the best pizzas, from scratch, that we've had in Madrid, including the spin-in-the-air pastry base. This may not be a big deal to some of you, but I battle to successfully boil the kettle. As for the pav he whipped up, well what can I say - unbelievable. Oh yeah, it was all washed down with a lovely little drop of Oz woin!! It raises an interesting point though - how is it that the leading chefs of the world are predominantly hombres (and did you know that the highest ranked female chef in el mundo is Spanish)? Again, the iPhone struggled to catch the moment adequately but you get the picture, so to speak.

Kirsten in Conan's Kitchen - note the EH&S glove!



Conan - el rey de la cocina

The great man at work....



 

....the perfect base.



 

Just look at THAT!!!