Apologies.....

....For my lame blog efforts. It has been nearly a month since my last entry. There are several contributing factors to my blog tardiness:

1 - I do not have a computer of my own
2 - I am out of my house for about 14 hours each working day
3 - I never get more than 6 hours sleep a night
4 - I am always tired (see numbers 2 and 4)
5 - I have discovered that extreme tiredness makes me very hyperactive and I cannot stay still long enough to compose a blog entry worth reading
6 - Madrid is so fun, that spending more than 30 minutes at a time in an internet cafe seems like a very boring way to pass my free time. There are cañas to be drunk, tapas to be eaten and fun to be had.

But, today is Friday, I have the afternoon off, and therefore actually have the time to write this as well as do all the other things that must be done before I head home on Thursday for the festive season!!

So...where to start?? Well, the parentals paid me a little visit last week which was of course lovely. And not just because I got taken out for dinner and had Christmas presents bought for me - it was nice to see them too, obviously.
The Madrid sky pulled its finger out and decided to shine and sparkle brighter than it has done in a long while. I tell you, it´s almost worth getting up at 6am every morning in order to see the sky just before sunrise - it´s a deep velvet blue, that turns first yellow and then bright bright blue by 9am. And not a cloud. But....it is bloody freezing. A splendid, crisp cold that makes you want to brave having a caña in the beer gardens, all wrapped up in as many layers as you can fit under your jacket. But it´s also the kind of cold that splits the skin on your fingertips and turns your nose and cheeks a fetching shade of pink.

Believe it or not, I got robbed again. But this time, it was a pickpocket-on-the-metro affair. I got my wallet back though.....the culprit was a teeny-tiny woman who wasn´t really in a position to argue with me and Eugene when we caught her sauntering down the metro platform with my wallet down her trousers. It would seem that blonde hair and pale eyes mark me out as a foreigner only in negative ways, so the change in hair colour is booked for when I go home next week.

Work is going well - I am slowly settling into the routine of it, and the whole teaching thing is getting easier and less stressful, which is always good.

I am going home on the 21st for a week and I CANNOT WAIT to do nothing but eat, drink, sleep, eat some more, drink some more, maybe sleep some more for 8 whole days. Will be good to see all the friends too of course!!

So......have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I will be back on line in 2007.

Besos

Liv x x x