TILTING AT WINDMILLS - THE LEGSYBOYS' EURO ADVENTURE

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.