TV dinners and general updates

Living in Sant Miquel over the last week has been a lovely experience, despite being slightly overcrowded. Anyone who knows me knows that I can be difficult to live with, between my slightly obsessive need to do things my way, my door-closing, and my inability to sleep when there is the slightest noise, but as I suspected these may be exaggerated by disquiet in my life and haven´t been a problem lately, except the door-closing because my efforts to close doors just led everyone to laugh as there are several doors that just won´t close.

Being a pauper from the moment I moved in, the idea was I paid my rent as did Nathalie, and the lads would help out with food. But they really were great and every evening there was food ready and waiting as well as beer or cava. These South-Americans have their priorities right (plus they are chefs). Every night is accompanied by music or film and lots of talking and laughing. I think the most astonishing thing was the TV dinner left for me one day though - a monster of a whole roast chicken in orange sauce with roast potatoes! You wouldn´t be able to find a TV dinner like that in Ireland, and it was delicious. I made poorhouse soup with the bones, and flat bread which sustained us for the last day until payday.

Saturday night was the leaving party of Mauro and Tato. I swapped shifts with Nathalie so she could stay the night at the party, as she had the midnight shift. It was nice to be finally able to do something for her. I returned at 8 am to find five of the lads up and about drinking beer. I had every intention of going to bed, but my rubber arm was twisted into agreeing to go for a beer locally. So we went for a mini-tour of the area (for the lad up from Madrid) and I finally discovered the Square of the Fusiliers which features in the book the Shadow of the Wind, and is one of the most emotive places I´ve been to here. The square itself is small enough, with a small hexagonal fountain in the middle of greenish tiles and brackish water. There stands in front of it an old wall where you can see wounds in the mortar from where men were lined up by Franco and executed. High up the wall there are many bullet holes from when the executioners shot above the heads of the prisoners, but at heart level the wall is decimated from when the deviant executioners too were lined up and shot. It would be a beautiful romantic square if it weren´t so shocking and reminiscent of death. When you stand there you could be in the 1905 as easily as 2005.

We eventually found our way to a cafe bar and sat outside on the terrace watching goldfish ponder the morning as the Santa Maria Del Pi chimed every quarter behind us. The lads were drunkenly discussing plans for a food documentary that they plan to shoot when they reach Brazil, and eventually I left them to it and went home to bed.

When I woke up, I was being shaking by a really gee-eyed Tato shouting "I can´t sleep! Talk to me!" The poor guy doesn´t even remember. He fell asleep pretty much straight away, and snored his head off, something that lead me to discover that despite his size he is one heavy mother! I tried to roll him over and I am not weak, but it was a mission and a half. Poor Nathalie returned home at 4pm, after a morning at work without any sleep, and she was meant to sleep in the bed. But we couldn´t rouse Tato now sleeping diagonally across the bed, nor Mauro who was comatose in Tato´s bed, so I went for a juice with Nathalie and she went to sleep in a friend´s.

I ended up going for dinner in Audrey´s house then and staying the night there to give the guys some space. It was a very french affair, with myself and a Welsh lad called Owen being the only two who didn´t speak the language but it was great fun. I did the unpardonable and arrived without a bottle as all the shops were closed, but I promised to invite them, bottle-less, for dinner soon. Many glasses of wine and a lovely meal later we were playing name games and alphabet strings around the table - something that resulted in the usual male/female divisions in the name of sport. The women all wanted to play just for fun, the men wanted that losers had to drink a shot of whiskey every time they forgot something or took longer than 5 seconds. The women tried to help each other out, the men blatantly cheated and didn´t let on til the end, upon which they forced each other to down "punishment" drinks. It was great craic but I was hanging due to lack of sleep over the last week.

Eventually everyone left to go to a club, but I just climbed into bed and fell asleep...

The cat in our house has most definitely adopted me. Every night she climbs in under the covers and falls asleep until I get up. It´s nice and a little sad as she reminds me of the kitten I used to have who was run over.

Anyway, just to update you fully, Tato left last night for Brazil, and Mauro leaves tonight. I know Nathalie is sad but I think she is also relieved because they need the space and are driving each other crazy. Both of them could do with finding their own selves a bit and then returning to each other instead of being overly reliant and therefore insecure as hell. The amazing thing is that they both understand this. I finally managed to sign my account for my work, but still haven´t signed my contract. I have to come in on my day off to do this, which I am a bit annoyed about. The weather is still muck, but I got paid so I have been eating well and splashing out on stupid things. I bought 60 euro worth of beads and I have been making things for anyone who will have them! I also recorded 3 songs recently with Darren, met a possible drummer, and should be rehearsing again on the next day off I have, which is Wednesday. And I am already excited about going home in December! Woohoo!