Hippo, Birdie, Two Ewes!
It's 5am on Sunday morning and I'm just arriving home after having celebrated my birthday with friends. I've had a lovely birthday weekend in spite of having come down with a rotten cold the night before I turned 45 (Ugh!). On My new friends here in Alcala really made my birthday special. Baz, besides doing amazing work on my kitchen, gave me some lovely gifts including a posh bottle of wine, some nice biscuits and a digital indoor/outdoor thermometer. Getting the thermometer was quite a coincidence as I'd planned to buy the exact same thing for myself as a birthday present!
I spent all day on my birthday in bed as this cold really knocked me for six. My friends Jenny and Terry had invited me round for a birthday meal and I was desperate not to cancel so I slept and slept until right before I was supposed to go to their's. Fortunately, I was just barely ok to leave the house and, in fact, I enjoyed a wonderful evening with them. I received a lovely candle as a gift and we ate some delicious food. Jenny made a North African dish of lentils and sausage served with a relish of sweet and sour figs which they'd made themselves. Wonderful!
I spent literally all day Friday and much of Saturday sleeping in order to shake off this cold, knowing that several friends were coming out tonight to help me celebrate my birthday. To be honest, when I left home this evening I felt quite weak and unsure about going out but I put on a brave face. I'm so glad I did! I had a great time with friends! We did a bar crawl, starting at La Piedra, continuing at La Lola, then Casablanca before heading to the karaoke bar. Helen, Julia and Mayi bought me a lovely gift of assorted wine glasses and a bottle of bubbly.
I think they were hinting that I should invite them around! In fact, I'd been scheming with Baz recently saying that I'd like to have a wine tasting party. There are many very nice Spanish wines available here, lots of which are sold very cheaply. My idea was to buy a selection of wines at various prices and do a blind tasting. I'd cover the bottles with paper sleeves and assign each a letter. Then I'd give each of my friends a score sheet to rank each wine as we tasted it. Later in th evening, I'd add up the scores for each wine and declare the winner. When I mentioned the idea to my friends this evening they loved it!
I mentioned above that we ended up in the karaoke bar. I was the first of our group to be brave enough to sing. Actually, I love to sing in public so I wasn't the least bit shy! I requested Frank Sinatra's 'New York, New York' and received lots of applause in spite of being handicapped by my cold. Mayi sang a Spanish song very nicely and Julia impressed with her rendition of 'Big Spender'. At the very end of the night I sang 'My Way', another Frank Sinatra hit. I was so pleased as I got a huge ovation. Everyone in the bar was clapping and a group of young, gorgeous women in one corner kept shouting 'Robert! Robert!' I blew them kisses and used the opportunity to flirt with my adoring fans! Ha!
Well, it's now nearly 6am and, as you can imagine, I'm absolutely shattered so I will end now in order to get some sleep. If you're reading this, I wish you well!
- Posted by bobinspain on 30/09/2007.
- bobinspain's site
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