maravilloso madrid

So, I haven't done much of Spain.

I spent a bit of time skiing in the Pyrenees in a tiny Catalan village in my gap yah, but besides that, it's one place that I knew I'd conquer one day but was never in a great hurry to do so.

British people love Spain. It's hot, the people are relatively friendly, and the food comes in hot pockets of deep fried heaven and/or cheese and ham. It's paradise for anyone coming in from a wet, grey place. A specific sector of British society sadly has the reputation of flocking to Spain in summer, baking themselves in the sun and going a bit mental while they do so. (Sun + alcohol + heat in large, uncontrolled quantities just doesn't fare them well.) 

And that is one of the reasons I haven't really done Spain yet. The thought of buying fish and chips on the Costa del Whatever in amongst groups of Northerners on stag do's, doing unthinkable things in the streets really puts me off. Lads on Tour in Benidorm is kind of why I've always preferred France.

Well, that's changed.

There are pockets of Spain - like anywhere - that I am happy to avoid, and there are authentic areas of Spain that are still very much Spanish in every sense of the word.

I flew over there on a press trip last week, and tore around the city on a cultural detente, stuffing my face in endless, delicious platters of tapas, and enjoying throwing around my basic Spanish in the lispy fashion that it is known for. ("Grazias" is actually "grathiath." If you just go around saying "th the the the" you can honestly get by.)

After two days of work, we wrapped up and I welcomed my boys to the city for the rest of the weekend. The Brit flew in with Sebastian, and I expected to see a haggled husband stumble into the hotel with toddler pooh running down his arm, an eyebrow missing, and a squealing child in his wake. Couldn't have been more wrong. Sebby was good as gold on the trip apparently.  Not even a squeak. Now, if that had been me...

It was a bank holiday weekend in the UK, so we had until Monday to walk endlessly around the city, chill out and picnic in Retiro Park, eat ourselves sick on the endless market food on every corner, and enjoy the perfect temperatures that is Madrid in May.

Damn but look at that ham.

Twenty-five degrees, warm, not baking, sunshine out. It is difficult not to love a place that was climatically perfect. When you're there.

Madrid is spread out. It's an expansive old place. Typically large, wide boulevards, framed by trees and colourful flowerbeds.

If you love shavings of artisan ham drizzled in olive oil and pepper (just try to ignore the trotter on the end of it); soft, creamy triangles of cheese, huge, bulging olives stuffed with anything you can dream of; potato 'croquetas' warm from the pan; potatoes slathered in salsa; more ham, and finally; hot, sugary sticks of dough - "churros" - dipped in a cup of molten, thick, custardy chocolate  - and this is just for breakfast - then you would love Madrid. If only for the food.

They don't do a decent cuppa tea or coffee, but they know how to serve plates of delicious tasters  - sometimes nine at a time - for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We ate and ate and ate, knowing that I wouldn't need to see another piece of serrano ham again for a long time.

I did a bike tour with my work group before the Brit and Seb touched down, which gave me a good idea of what to revisit and linger on when we had time to walk around for the rest of the weekend.

We hit up Malasaña, the hip part of town one evening ("Shoreditchification" comes to mind), with Sebastian asleep in his buggy, and took in a live rock concert and some food, while roaming the streets with the rest of the twentysomethings on a big night out. (Followed by suddenly feeling very tired and heading home to bed. My 9pm is your 11pm, childless person.)

Sebastian is starting to walk, with us holding his hands, and starting to casually start letting go of things. So we did lots of strolling around in parks with him, which is such fun to see - especially the delight on his little face.

 The fashion in Madrid. Mate. Amigo. It's all flowy, azteca, bold, yet muted colours and shapes-heavily bohemian, but somehow also extremely elegant and well cut. I never realised how well the Spanish dress until now. Also, baby clothes. The French and Spanish, hands down make the cutest baby clothes. We did a full shoot on location. [Well, to come.]

Mango, Zara - both Spanish companies. Lemmetellya, I shopped, and it was fucking bueno.

While there isn't anything specific about Madrid that defines it like other Grade A European cities/capitals - as in there isn't a "Gaudi landmark" like in Barcelona, or there isn't an Eiffel tower, or rows of canals like in Venice - it is a place I could completely see myself living in. Fantastised while slowly pounding the streets, living the vida loca. I could do Latino living. I really could.

They start the day at 10am, and they end it at midnight. With a two hour siesta in between. Isn't that a lifestyle we should all strive for? Obviously the economy is a disaster down there, and there are entire villages for sale in Spain at the moment - and it's perhaps no wonder when everything is on "Spanish time." But still.

The Brit and I were debating this over the weekend. Hot countries have poorer economies than cold, wet countries. Just look at Europe and how it's split. He thinks this isn't the reason why, for example, the recession has panned out like it has, and actually that the property crash is to blame.

I just think the amazing lifestyle the Spanish, and Italians and Greeks have, certainly hasn't helped fix the economy. And why should it? There's food to be devoured, beaches to be sat on, siestas to be slept, and the heat just slows you down even more.

Tranquillo baby.

Either way, when you're sitting there in the sun under azure skies, with your chops wrapped around a bocadillo, as you take in the terracotta architecture around you, then close your shutters and have a wonderful two hour snooze in the heat of day - completely guilt free - who gives a fuck about the economy anyway.

Spain. So fuckin' chill.

So. Madrid was nice. And I am definitely interested in seeing more of Spain now. If you can find those authentic little spots, tucked away deep in the country, I kind of get now why Spanish Fever is a very real thing.

 Tapas with Daddy. More cheese, ham and bread than you can shake a stick at. If I lived in Spain, I'd be the size of Spain. You get me?

south african airways. it's vibes.

In order to distract myself from The Big Thing That's Happening Tomorrow, and having now chosen my The New Girl But Actually The Old Girl outfit* already, I thought I'd tell you a story.

I really should be writing this as a letter and sending it to the appropriate powers in the hope they'd actually take heed of what I'm about to say, but then I realised that's fruitless because
1) I'll never fly South African Airways again;
2) SAA is owned by the South African government (I actually did not know this, but that means it all suddenly makes a LOT of sense); and
3) The last time I wrote an important letter, nothing happened. Still waiting, the NHS. I will wait forever if I have to; and
4) I'm fairly certain someone else on that flight would've already done the honours. If not at least five people. (Keyword: SA236 to LHR).

So. Imagine this scene for a second.

We arrive, after a lovely month of sun and South Africanness, to OR Tambo airport. We've packed up all our shit, prepared meals for our child, got into the travel zone vibe, and feel as mentally prepared as only parents can be, for the journey home. We know he might not sleep the entire way, as this time he will be lying across our bodies, but we venture forth in the hope that he will sleep at least some (maybe even most?) of the way.

Regardless, it'll be fine. One night of hell, and tomorrow morning we will be home in London.

We sit down for a meal just before boarding, order a final plate of sushi from the Ocean Basket, and an email pops through saying something like "Sorry folks, we've cancelled your flight, we'll depart at 8am tomorrow."

One of two things ran through my head.

1) Someone has obviously made a grammatical error, what they really mean is we will arrive by 8am. Not 7:20am as originally planned.

2) Fuck.

No one made an error, because after running around the airport, wild-eyed and with murderous intent, we found a check-in desk that confirmed the awful truth. We would be departing at 8am tomorrow. Which meant we would be flying with a baby all day.

We were too late to try and get onto another airline carrier by this time, and the next overnight flight was only scheduled for two days time.

SAA had plucked their spokesperson from a nearby broom cupboard, for this person had definitely never dealt with a crisis situation before. A mob of angry passengers demanding to know what the fuck; spittle a-flying. After some flustered and excruciatingly general corporate fliff flaff about "sorry but we're not sorry," it emerged that the windscreen was cracked and therefore fly, we could not.

Meanwhile, terror seared through our skulls. Eleven hours on a daytime flight with a child, our child, who doesn't know how to stop moving.
Sebastian doesn't crawl yet, but he might as well do. His attention span - at a stretch - spans about all of 3.4 seconds. He gets bored and needs to do something else, while wriggling, or pulling my hair, or eating the remains of his breakfast he finds in the soft folds of his leg. He is all boy. He is physically demanding on all levels.

We, back at seats 63D and E, would need to entertain this kinetic little ball of fun, for eleven hours. Non-stop. We knew he might nap - on us - twice. Maybe if were are lucky, for 40 minutes at a time. We also had to make sure he had enough food and milk, so while the full gravity of the upcoming situation was beginning to take hold, we walked ourselves off to the pharmacy to buy a bunch of bottled food.

We were put up in a hotel in Isando, and awoke at 5am only to stand in a queue to leave the hotel to catch a shuttle back to the airport.
Eventually - as it was going to be the longest day of our lives as it was - we decided to call an Uber to take us across the highway, basically.

We get on the flight. Sebastian and I immediately fall asleep. This wasn't ideal, as when we awoke an hour later, we realised that was Sebastian's morning nap done. And we hadn't even taken off yet.

It's now 9am; we've been sitting on the runway for an hour.
"This is the captain speaking. Sorry for the delay again folks. It's just that we realised we'd left 35 pieces of baggage on the runway."

Fawlty Towers of the skies maybe. All the lolz. Right? Wrong. We were also in the midst of the rudest staff contingent in the world.

Let me explain. Throughout the now 12 hour journey to London, this is the shit that went down:
Every time we tried to ask for something (er, like what time lunch was being served, for example), we got twice "In a minute, I am in the middle of a conversation with my colleague."

I'm not even fucking joking.

The staff clearly got bumped for the daytime flight too, and made sure we all knew about it. (Like we wanted to be on a longhaul daytime flight ourselves?!?!!?)
They had more attitude than Kelis when her milkshake lost appeal and stopped bringing boys to the yard. They were almost crazy rude.

They looked angry and sulky, and as we were sitting quite close the galley, we managed to catch most of their conversations, many of which included sentiments such as, "I hate the day flights, you have to look after everyone the whole time," and "It's so busy on daytime shifts, I much prefer the night time ones where you don't have to do anything for most of it."

Weren't air hostesses meant to actually like people?

One snapped at my husband for leaning on an armrest so that others could get past, and then telling me under no circumstances could I let my baby sit on the floor by my feet as it was "strictly prohibited."

(I let him sit and play on the play by my feet anyway, I had to. I thought I'd just play very, very dumb. "Oh this floor?" Or "Oh, the actual floor?" Or "Non comprehend des Anglais, wot eez a flaw?" Sebastian doesn't give us much choice when he doesn't stop moving. None of the hostesses saw anyway, mainly because they were "too busy.")

This is in vast contrast to the airline's customer service policy. "Warm and welcoming?"

But the cherry on the cake was the absence of a meal for 9 hours.

We ate breakfast at 10am, and dinner was served just before we landed at 8pm. In between Zambia and France, we nibbled on the canapes and finger foods placed about us. The pages of Sawabona magazine were especially tasty, when engulfed by the methanol jus of a refresher towel. Also liked gnawing on the earpiece of the headset, mmmm nom nom nom.

Eventually - because I was starting to snack on my husband's arm like in that movie about the Andean crash victims that eat each other - the Brit got up to enquire about food.

"Oh here it is, help yourself. We're too busy to give it out."

You have one job. That's to give out food. (And occasionally smile and point towards the toilets).

So many people didn't know it was on a help-yourself basis, and never got lunch. Because we grabbed a couple of sandwiches we managed not to eat each other, or the baby. (Who would've been more delicious. I almost nearly eat him everyday anyway.)

Then, just to top it all off, the entertainment systems started to pack in. I just had mine on the Map, staring it down with my crazy eyes, willing the plane to move faster - please Jesus - over the vast expanse of the African continent. But others were watching movies, and were therefore pissed.

It was at this point we genuinely started to consider whether we were, in fact, on a new season of Punk'd. And Ashton Kutcher would run through the aisles screaming "HAHAHAHAHA, I GOT YOU GOOD, DIDN'T I? HAHAHAHAHA YOU LIDDLE FUCKERS."

But no. This is apparently the vibes in which SAA operate now. I haven't flown them in a while, and the downhill slide into (bankruptcy, I believe?) is almost inevitable.

Look, I'm glad they didn't fly us with a broken windscreen. We all would've died. And given that planes crash quite a lot these days, one must always be grateful that they fucking didn't. Although truth be told, I really thought a lot about dying on this flight. I thought it just might happen on this one. (And at times, I just wanted it to.)

And it's unfair to compare this flight to the one out to Johannesburg. We flew overnight. However, apples and oranges, folks. We flew British Airways outbound, and Sebastian got a bassinet to sleep in (SAA doesn't allow children over 6 months to sleep in a bassinet, and don't stock "car seats," a reclined seat for older babies to strap into on the bassinet area. TAKE HEED. DON'T FLY SAA WITH A BABY OVER SIX MONTHS UNLESS YOU'RE PREPARED TO BUY THEM THEIR OWN SEAT/HAVE THEM ON YOUR LAP THE WHOLE JOURNEY.)

BA supply all this stuff, and are fantastic with babies. While Sebastian slept beautifully all the way to Johannesburg, the poor woman's baby next to me, did not. He cried, coughed, vomited, basically lost his shit, all the way to Joburg.
She was on her own, and the hostesses did everything they could to assist her. They rocked him, offered to change him, find antihistamine, bring him extra milk, you name it. She also said, "I only fly BA. They are the best with babies."

It was like night and day. Well, it was night and day.

What about compensation? SAA decided, after much furore and pants wetting, to give everyone on the flight, a free flight. To anywhere. This was one good shout, and finally got it right at the end, after everyone had had a shit fit about the delay. They also got a capable, calm spokesperson in front of the raging crowd.

Can we fly to Hawaii I wonder.

Anyway. Just thought I'd let you all know about our twelve hour marathon. And remind SAA that they really, really really need to up their game. It's embarrassing.

Now. Back to stressing about my first day back at work.

* In case you're interested, a grey Zara dress, faux fur gilet, and black tights and boots. Not jazzy; but not mumsy either. I think. 

maltese falcons

Quick.

Five reasons to go to Malta.

1) It's scorchio. 36 degrees in the summer. Right now.
2) It's fucking old. 700 BC is what one town, Mdina, is dated back to.
3) It has the most clear, crystaline, tourquoise Mediterranean water you've ever seen
4) You can jump off boats and rocks with reckless abandon
5) It's literally an architect's paradise

Typical Maltese-style buildings, in Valetta. With the added charm of laundry hung out to dry. The laundry always looks amazingly breezy, not shit.

My granny was born there, and I really wondered why she ever left and went back to England. I suppose she was about 7 and didn't have much of a choice. But still. Still.

I EasyJetted in, and was immediately met with a simmering 38 degree temperature. Usually I get heatstroke in such climes,  but somehow after three ice creams and two gin and tonics it didn't really bother me. It was fucking perfect, to be fair.

We had hired an apartment from a dude at Air B&B (literally the best thing, bar fun hostels, for holidays. Hotels can be so sterile, impersonal, not fun or adventurous at all. Apartments you feel part of the vibe and more of a traveller as opposed to a tourist.)

The entrance to our apartment.

 Me. On the balcony. Behaving like Eva Peron.

Dove was only due to arrive a few hours later, so the dude and his girlfriend took me out for some lunch in Valetta, the beautiful town we were staying at. Had we stayed at a hotel, this would never had happened. So they showed me around, and told me where we should go.

After fully checking out Valetta and marveling at the beautiful jutting out balconies, shutters and dilapidated stone, we headed to St Paul's Bay in the northern part of the island. It seemed nice at the time, but it wasn't as pretty as the other parts of the island we went to.
Either way, Malta is small - a 45 minute bus journey from one side to the other, using an all day bus card for only 2.60 euros, so you can't really go wrong.

It's also extremely Catholic. So Catholic is Malta, that they believe that 'Italians don't have much of a moral compass.' A Maltese man told me that. The pope is Italian. So when I say they're Catholic and devout and hectic, I'm not pulling your chain.
Divorce was illegal in Malta until three years ago.
There are more churches on the island than cars.
It's frowned upon to walk around showing too much skin.

And to think that once upon a time I was Catholic. Interesting.

The one thing with this place, as it's so sunbaked and hot, is that when you're on the coast you basically need to jump into the sea every twenty minutes to cool your body temperature down enough that it's not the same as Satan's when he's sitting in the firepit of hell.

The sea is extremely salty - there are caked areas of salt on the rocks, and you float. It's true salt makes you float, which is kind of novel, until you dry off in the sun and you're one big salt cake.

There aren't a lot of sandy beaches in Malta, so you end up jumping off the rocks. But there are always little ladders everywhere so you can jump off wherever you please.

 Our rock near the apartment.

The day afterwards we found the most beautiful part of the place, entitled 'The Blue Grotto,' on the southern tip of Malta.

'The Blue Grotto' just sounds nice.  And by fuck, it really was.
 The tiny village of Zurrieq near the grotto is just a cluster of houses - a restaurant or two, a pub and a shop. It's perfect. It's all you'd ever need on holiday.
We took a boat trip around the coast, where all the blue caves were, and the boat guide drove us inside all of them. We could jump off the boat and swim, it was just amazing, the colour of the water and how clean and crazy it was.

 Dove snorkelling. And hanging out in waters that are 12 metres deep, but don't look like it.

 It's very rocky and arid, but there's something really sparse and lovely about semi-desert.

 the local fresh fish restaurant in Zurrieq.

 Yeah.. so it's a bit shit.

We ate fresh fish for lunch and then bought a whole bunch of gear. ("All the gear, no idea.") for the shop. Snorkel, goggles and two lilos. The Med is so flat, so lilos are king. You just float and hang onto the thing, and chill out on the water.

We did this all afternoon. God it was sublime. The world was a million miles away.

We also visited Mdina, the walled city in Malta, where battles were fought, and all sorts of shit went down on the hills of Malta around 700 BC. Oh and Game of Thrones was filmed here. Which is obviously a huge thing.*

 Midina is on the top of the highest 'hill' in Malta, in the centre, to protect itself from the barrage of wars that have happened since 700 BC. There have been lots. Obvs.

 This is me. Trailing the streets and loving my hat. Got majorly attached to this white straw hat I found in the apartment. And didn't steal. But still think about.

 Horse and carts coming barreling towards you in the tiny alleyways; if you don't find a door frame to duck into, you die. Adds a nice edge to the holiday.

 Only 400 people live in Mdina, and most of them are rich. And live in houses that look like this.

It was a cool 38 degrees, so we ate a lot of ice cream. Luckily the houses are tall and light, so when you walk through the tiny alleyways it's actually quite cool. Just don't stand in the middle of the town square with the sun beating down.

On our final night, we decided to demolish a bottle of wine, Peas and Dove style, and create a story or script in our heads. Which we did. so watch this space. Or rather, watch Twitter. Not this space. We are going to be THE NEXT BIG THING. Let's not rip the ring out of it; we are going to be huge. It'll be nice if we are.

After the wine we thought we'd either:
1) Blow up our seven euro lilos, and use them as inflatable toboggans to do stair races.

On the 2000 year old steps in front of our apartment.
But then we thought, "we might perhaps break ourselves open or crush our coxixes, or bruise ourselves to absolute shit. And wake up the Catholics."

2) Find a nice place to drink more wine.

The stairs. For reference.

We stumbled into a little bistro owned by two Italians, and sat with them at the last table on the street, as they poured us delicious wine and cut us pieces of saucisson. They, in beautiful and typical Italian fashion, said that their bistro was not a restaurant, it was 'art.'

"Ziss-a is-a not-a a restaurant. Ziss-a is-a art-a. We will-a make-a sure za people-a zat come-a here are ...artists-a."

Fair enough.

We went on the search for another bottle of wine after the art-restaurant conversation seemed to start repeating itself over and over again, and luckily didn't find another bottle.

I never did see which hospital my granny was born in, and we never did find Manuel, the hairdresser Dove's mum nearly married.

But I do think I'd love to go back, it's one place on the Med that is extremely underrated.

* I don't watch it. The Brit does. I think it's a bit of a hype-shit.