 | shari on the most hated family in the… |
 | Teuchter on hairball |
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| nursemyra on hairball |
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| Jane on hairball |
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| nursemyra on hairball |
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| noggin on hairball |
Today is Nog’s 55th birthday and it was also exactly five years ago that he & I first ‘met’ on h2g2. So it seemed a good excuse reason to go back to Eslava , this time to check out their restaurant. I’d first visited the tapa bar there just a short while ago.
It was a very nice meal. . .
That’s what it’s called - little black dress fragranced body bar.
Bonus post today as I’ve just received a belated birthday prezzie from the lovely nursemyra. Trust her to come up with sexy soap! It really does smell divine and it also does behove one to stretch out birthday celebrations as long as possible.
Muchísimas gracias, honey! 
It might have appeared to some of you that Nog was conspicuously absent from my birthday post the other day. That’s because he was actually absent or, to be more precise, he was being a grumpy old git. But I wasn’t about to not have a happy birthday just because I was being ignored. And you guys all really helped with that - thanks again for all the good wishes and making me feel special and cared for.
So anyhow, Mr Grumpy finally came out of his slump this week and said that he wanted to make up for the ‘lost birthday’ and so I’m having a second birthday today. Started off with Nog bringing me arabic pastries in bed with hot coffee. Then he had to go out and give a class so I went to the gym and we both got home around the same time. We had a bit of shopping to do and while we were in the supermarket Nog asked me what we were going to have for lunch. I just looked at him like he’d suddenly sprouted four heads and went off to get some cava. When he caught up with me he said - “Let me rephrase that… where would you like me to take you for lunch?” Yay! 
I suggested we try the dining room at Enrique Becerra (we’ve only ever had tapas at the bar there) but as it was already 2 o’clock and we didn’t have a reservation I wasn’t very hopeful about getting a table. And sure enough, when we turned up the bar was totally packed and we were told the dining room was fully booked. In desperation I said to the maître de … ” oh no! But it’s my birthday!” - and one of the waiters standing nearby stage whispered to him “but it’s her birthday!!!” - and so it was suggested that we be taken up to ‘the office’, which in fact is a small private dining room for two, and totally charming. It really couldn’t have been lovelier. We were very well taken care of by Pablo and Rafa. Pablo even said we could have one of our favourite starters from the tapa menu (the dining room menu is a bit different). And well, the meal was just fabulous!
You can see the pics here … Enrique Becerra (scroll down to photos 18-22)
Not sure if Nog has anything else planned for this second birthday, but if not I’ll happily rewatch the first episode of House (season 4) at 8.30, drink some more cava and maybe enjoy my last packet of Orville’s. Anyhow, I’m glad he’s stopped being an old grumpy boots… and it was very nice being taken out for a birthday lunch. So I guess I can take the ‘looking for a new flatmate’ ad out of the paper now. 
. I never work on my birthday anyhow, but at least this year I don’t have to feel guilty about turning down the always much needed cashola.And so I’ve been thinking about what it means to be actually in my fifties now. Feels a bit unreal, to be honest. Kind of like something that happens to other people. But of course I’m glad to have made it to another birthday and today, unless Nog has something special planned, I think I’ll just buy a bottle of 
and enjoy this last day of the holiday season with a good book or a film and some of my favourite popcorn (my friend guspemar picked some up for me when he was in New York last week). And I may even get round to changing the only-a-woman-in-her-50s-would-be-caught-dead-wearing frumpy brass buttons on my pretty new M & S red cardy , so that I can finally wear it.
It’s the custom in Spain (or so I was once told) that the birthday person buys everyone in the bar a drink, not the other way round, so ever since that first birthday in Salamanca that cost me a small fortune, I’ve pretty much stayed clear of bars on the 7th of January. Of course, virtual bars are quite a bit more economical (well, except for the buying a computer bit), so please come in and make yourself at home… and welcome to my birthday! 
Born August 5, 1993 at 10.30 am
Well, the approximate time. Lua’s four kittens were born between 10-11 am and there was no way of telling them apart. That pic is of Sunny just after we moved from Salamanca to Sevilla - he was 6 weeks old. I can’t believe he was ever that small.
And now as I write he is almost exactly 14 years old. Big lovable hunk o’ dude that he is.
Here are some BIRTHday photos… 
Losing my Star Wars virginity.
It’s 30 years since the release of sci-fi classic Star Wars, considered by many to be among the greatest films of all-time.
But what would it be like to watch it now, for the first time?
BBC News entertainment reporter Kevin Young’s sole exposure to science-fiction to date consists of lusting after Gillian Anderson in The X-Files for a while in the 1990s.
Despite fearing it was two hours of his life he’d “never get back”, he offered to lose his Star Wars virginity.
I find it hard to believe that a BBC News entertainment reporter could be considered a true Star Wars virgin - even if he had never seen the film he must have known the basic storyline. I’ve seen the original trilogy so many times that I can’t remember how it felt seeing it for the first time. Though I do remember having a panic attack at the cinema watcing a scene with Darth Vader and the Emperor in The Empire Strikes Back.
Do you remember how it felt being a Star Wars virgin?
Also, check out 30 pieces of trivia about Star Wars.
And visit Archie’s Archive for prequel Lego Star Wars.
~ spoiler alert warning for those who are true virgins ~
Here’s a wee Azar in the square where he was born.
The reason I know his birthdate is a bit of a long story which started when I kind of adopted a street cat here in Seville. He just turned up one day - gorgeous black thing, long and sleek with amazing green eyes. And very affectionate. I called him Cat (after Holly Golightly’s cat in Breakfast at Tiffany’s) and he ended up also becoming the ‘mascot’ of the bar across the street. I’d buy the food but everybody who worked at the bar would feed him and he was always welcome. Then one day he disappeared and I didn’t see him again for about two weeks - then I found him hanging out in a square not far from here . . . with his pregnant girlfriend! So of course I named her Holly.
Well, Cat was not looking well at this point. I think he’d got into a fight and his eyes were damaged. And although I gave him antibiotics one day he just wasn’t there anymore and I never saw him again.
Meanwhile, I kept going to feed Holly and a few weeks later (on April 7th) she gave birth to six kittens - two tabbys like her, two black ones like Cat and two black ‘n white ones (obviously some other dude’s). I kept on feeding her every day, but after awhile I noticed that one by one the kittens were disappearing - it turned out that someone was killing them off! I remember one day finding a little tabby kitten head in the gutter. And so finally there was just one kitten left - a little black one.
And then one day I found this last survivor with his left front leg all broken and bent and bleeding - obviously the same horrid person had tried to kill him too. Unlike Cat, Holly and the kittens were quite wild street cats and had never let me touch them. So as I couldn’t get near enough to help - and I kept telling myself there was no way no day I could have three cats in my apartment - I reckoned the poor little thing was a goner. But eventually his leg healed (though it remained bent like a hockey stick) .
And well, you guessed it - I finally just couldn’t stand it anymore. I knew he would never survive in the street with only three usable legs, especially as he wouldn’t be able to defend himself. So one day I went and caught him in a box (no small feat) and took him home. And although he and Sunny became best mates immediately it took three months before Azar would let me touch him, though now of course he is the most affectionate thing ever. And with a very appropriate name - it means chance or happenstance in Spanish.
Happy 12th birthday, Azar! I’m so glad we found each other. 
A poem for the love of my life on his birthday…
My Love
Your skin glows like the banana, blossoms shiny as the gardenia in the purest hope of spring.
My heart follows your guitar voice and leaps like a coyote at the whisper of your name.
The evening floats in on a great swallow wing.
I am comforted by your jumper that I carry into the twilight of sculpturebeams and hold next to my thigh.
I am filled with hope that I may dry your tears of water.
As my bottom falls from my sock, it reminds me of your window.
In the quiet, I listen for the last music of the day.
My heated breast leaps to my overcoat. I wait in the moonlight for your secret sky so that we may warble as one, breast to breast, in search of the magnificient blue and mystical ship of love.
Happy Birthday honey! 
Many thanks to Archie and the Love Poems Generator. 
Welcome to casa az, which is somewhere in that postcard view of Sevilla below.
click on the sun to read a random post
