Things I like part five - Daniella

With Daniella it was love at first sight. Which sounds ridiculous, but it's true.

Long before the bloke and I got back together he would send me the occasional email telling me bits about his life. And I would do the same. But of course it was only the good parts - the bits that made me sound extra fun and just that little bit wild.

After all you don't want to tell the person who once made your stomach tie up in knots (and still did a little) about your moments of self doubt. The times when you really scratched your head and looked at the years stretching off ahead, wondering where they would take you.

One of these emails came with a picture attachment. "I've got a cocker Spaniard," wrote the bloke. "Take a look at my bitch Daniella."

After I'd had a little chortle to myself about the Spaniard/Spaniel confusion I opened the attachment. The bloke's brown eyes hit me like a brick. But before I could start to dwell to much on the ghost of relationships past, I looked at what he was holding in his arms - the cutest white little dog I'd ever seen.

After I'd decided that she seemed to be smiling, I stopped to check out the bloke's messy Seventies-style kitchen. Then I started to think about who would have taken the picture. Not for one minute did I ever think that I would one day make dinner in that kitchen. That I would effectively walk right into that photo.

But I did, and Daniella was part of the bargain. All of a sudden I was part of a ready made family of three. Constantly picking white hairs off my clothes, out of my shoes, and even out of my own hair.

By rights, she should have hated me, an intruder stealing away attention. Because of me she was instantly demoted from sleeping in the bed to her own basket on the floor, and was banished from the furniture. But she didn't.

Maybe it was because I took her on nice long walks, unlike her master. Or maybe it was because I made said master happy just by being around. Or maybe it's because - for all I love her - she's really not that bright and couldn't connect my arrival to her new rules.

There were new rules for all of us, after all. I couldn't play the radio really loud in the morning - you can't really do that in a duplex apartment to your poor sleeping partner at 5.30am. He couldn't play the TV really loud till the early hours of the morning - you can't really do that in a duplex your partner who needs to get up at 5.30am.

Deep fat fried anything wasn't on my menu. Salad wasn't on his. We found a middle ground - as eventually did, both habitually and culturally I think. And Daniella was there through all of it.

I like her for this and more. How she barks in her sleep when she'd never dare do that in real life. For the way she'll bustle happily up to any living creature she finds in the street - where it's a rotweiller or an angry mangy cat. How she's so loving with the bloke's nephews, even when they pull her ears and poke her in the eyes.

There is nothing bad about my dog and all the memories I have connected with her are good ones. How many things or people can you say that about?

Things I like part four - being friends with my parents

We're sitting in el maison de puerto, the bloke and I with my parents. They look so out of place to me here - staring round the room like it's an exotic foreign place they've landed in. Which, I suppose it is.

We won't be long, just a little stop off on the way to having lunch with the bloke's parents. As he is such a regular, we're being treated like kings. Plates of tapas keep appearing at the table, which we pick at. Mum is torn. "Oh this is so lovely," she says. "We shouldn't leave it or it'll look rude… But we don't want to fill ourselves up, do we?"

Dad has no such qualms. He'll have room for everything. "This is marvelous, isn't it Margaret?" he says to my mum, between putting slices of jamon and queso manchego in his mouth. He is hypnotized by the huge sizzling plates of t-bone steaks - chuleton - being whisked out of the kitchen door and carried through to the restaurant, leaving trails of steam in their wake. Nothing impresses my dad as much as food.

At this point he turns to me, and grabs my arm. "You've made the right choice here mind pet, " he tells me, and I feel that he's talking seriously to me for the first time since they've arrived. For the first time in maybe years, actually.

"You have such a great life here. Much better than you would've had in England. We're so happy for you."

It's a sentiment that mum expresses too. Almost with a sense of relief.

"The people at the Spar supermarket always ask granddad after you," she says. "He tells them, 'Oh she'll never come back to this country. She's got it good over there'."

It makes me laugh as I can see him doing it. Walking stick in hand, and his cheeky lopsided smile - one side higher than the other.

They are both relieved, bless them. How hard must it be when one of your children is living somewhere so far away. And you don't really have a clue how they're doing. When for so many years the phone calls are few and far between and the standard answer, rolled out without much of a thought, to the question of "how are you?" was always: "fine".

Somewhere, in the golden space of time between when I left home - aged 18 - and now, my parents stopped being mythical bullet proof creatures and started being real people. I couldn't tell you exactly when I started seeing them this way – perhaps it's something that's crept up over time. More likely the thought began to take root when I began to really fully process the fact that they aren't going to be around forever.
 
And in turn, their perception of me seems to have changed. My mum is no longer incredulous with disbelief when she rings up to find I'm cooking something. There's a sense of being a co-conspirator when we launch into one of those 'oh how hopeless our men are (but we still love them)' chats. Though we were never that inseparable, 'tell each other everything' mother-and-daughter team of which everyone knows at least one, we have become equals. We have become friends.

Over the course of the weekend they're in Madrid I realise how much I enjoy their company. We have real conversations. Even dad's crappy jokes - "I was born just after the second world war - it was in all the papers" make me laugh rather than irritating like they did when I was younger. Even though he's still rolling out the same ones.

They've been married over 40 years. And though they're not the type of people to kiss or hold hands in public, it's clear to me how much they love each other. They simply couldn't function apart.

They met in a sausage factory. My dad did deliveries and my mum worked in the office. She had lots of young men asking her out, but she chose dad, and they were married when she was 23, and he was five years older.

I feel so grateful that they're still both here, and still together. And I'm beyond relieved that they love the bloke almost as much as I do, and he loves them in return.

When we have to say goodbye at the end of the weekend, something strange happens - I feel tears prickling at my eyes. That never happened before. Is this what being a proper grown up means?

"I'll miss you," I shout down the road after them. These two people who are my now my friends. Who will go home with lots of happy stories about eating baby pigs and huge slabs of meat. "I can't wait till Christmas to see you again." And I smile inside, knowing I really do mean it.

Champions of the world! (things I like part three, football)

Does God answer prayers relating to football? And who does he answer when he's got millions of people on either side praying for the opposite thing? That's what I find myself pondering as I see the bloke pull out the St Joseph pendant necklace he got for his christening and kiss it for the thousandth time.

Please don't let them score. Please let Casillas save it. I'll be good, I'll even quit smoking, God, I swear I will. You can almost see the words forming above his head in a thought bubble.

We are in our local, bar Yuppie, watching the World Cup final. The same place we've watched el classico when it's away, yes - but back then, it seemed like a different place entirely.

I've never seen it so packed, and nearly everyone bearing something showing their allegiance to Spain. A flag painted on the face, or the full on kit from head to toe. Ramon has hung an enormous flag behind the bar, and another on the wall, underneath the giant screen which is only brought out on special occasions.

We arrived an hour early, but we weren't the first to take our seats - which we reserved after the semi final. Behind us a group of young madrileños are already chattering wildly and sporadically tooting on horns. all are wearing red, apart from one guy with a white t-shirt emblazoned with the curious slogan 'No sex, please!' His partner in crime is wearing the tiniest pair of white shorts I've ever seen and a viking hat made to look like a half football.

In front of us an elderly couple - and they must be at least in their 70s - sit down and peer around with what my dear dad would describe as 'faces like slapped arses'. They're wearing matching white Spain caps and they soon order a bottle of Moet and Chandon. Which they're soon knocking back.

On the giant screen we're seen the replaying of all the goals and are now watching the VIP guests arrive. Charleze Theron slinks past the camera flashing us a dirty look, and Morgan Freeman sits down wearing what looks like a Dutch scarf. Then the Queen of Spain and her son Felipe and his wife Letizia arrive in the VIP box with the Dutch royals Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Maxima. And they all start hugging each other.

The rowdy Madrileños shout "guapa" when the queen comes on the screen.

Through all of this the bloke is quite calm. But when Rafa Nadal appears on the screen with his face painted yellow and white his nerves crack.

"Do you think we're going to win?" he asks.

"Of course we are. Pulpo Paul has never been wrong," I assure him.

Pulpo Paul the physic octopus. Another reason why this World Cup has been the best ever. he's predicted the winning team - by choosing between two muscle-filled boxes bearing each team's flag - every time. And tonight he's picked Spain.



The bloke retreats into himself, chaining fags with the rest of the pub and swigging his rum, until the starting whistle.

"Que nervous!" he tells me. "I never felt like this before with a game of football. I got the same feeling like I get before I've got an important meeting at work or something."

Before long I start to feel sick too. every time the ball goes near Casillas I join in with the screams of "No, coño!" and every near miss down the other end makes my stomach drop an octave.

It's soon clear this is going to be a dirty, violent match. And the British ref Howard Webb seems to be not calling it right. A clear red card - a karate kick in the chest - is let off with a yellow. But maybe he just doesn't want to ruin the game by bringing the Dutch side down to ten men so early. by the end he's given out a record 14 yellow cards and one red - double the previous final record of seven.

The first half ends nil nil, and then the second drags to the end with the same result. I can't take much more of this, really. I've perfected the the downward head between knees 'i can't believe it' move and the hands raised to the top of the head 'that was so close' formation. But it's gone to extra time.

This is torture but it's brilliant. I've never cared so much about football in my life. i remember a time I could take it or leave it. But right now I wouldn't be anywhere else in the world apart from watching this match.

And just when i think I can't possibly take any more - seriously, penalties might just kill me - Torres makes a play for it and Iniesta finishes the deal. It's going in, I can't believe it. As the ball hits the back of the net the reaction is instantaneous. the whole bar erupts, the smoked filled air filling with screams of joy.

I grab the bloke and we pogo up and down. On the screen Iniesta whips off his top - something which lands him a yellow card - revealing a dedication to Dani Jarque - the Espanyol player who died of a heart attack. Then the screen shows Casillas crying like a baby, and I realize I'm crying too. So's the bloke. So are most of the people around us. Hugging each other and crying. we're into 116 minutes but in our minds we've already won it.




The final whistle blows, and there's a fresh surge of celebration. The old man with the slapped arse face is completely transformed. He's on his second bottle of Moet and is spraying it like a Formula One winner. His wife whips a Spain scarf around her head like her life depends on it. The madrileño boys are high fiving and embracing, and still crying. A group of Brits at the bar are shouting "Champinones!" (mushrooms) instead of "campeones". No one bothers to correct them.

"I wish my granddad was here to see this," says the bloke, thinking of his grandpa Antonio, who sadly died coming out of a football match. So we toast to him and all the people we know who aren't around to see this.

Somos campeones del mundo. World Cup Champions for the first time. In history. Dare I say it, but I couldn't be more happy if England had won. There are five million unemployed in Spain and the economy has gone to shit but none of that matters now. Euphoria reins, and will do for a long time to come.

It's magic. Casillas breaks down when he's being interviewed live on TV by his reporter girlfriend and gives her a kiss. the manager Vincente del Bosque says: "Esto es la leche." (this is the bollocks)



Later we make our way home to the sounds of beeping horns. When I drop into bed, emotionally and physically drained, the chant of "Yo soy Español, Español, Español," rings in my ears and I can see a sea of red and yellow even when I close my eyes.

Viva España y viva el futbol!

Things I like part two - the Metro

Once upon a time - in what now seems like a different life - I lived in London. For five years, in fact. Considering I've now been in Spain for six, the actual time I spent in the wicked city seems so disproportionate to the importance I put on it, and the way I still look at it as one of the defining periods of my life.

I arrived thinking I'd discovered the centre of the universe. It was a big fat "hooray" with a side helping of "yippee". I couldn't imagine living anywhere else, ever. Yet five years later I crawled away on my hands and knees.

One of the many things I was pleased to see the back of was the Tube. Something which seemed so cool and sophisticated when I first staggered off the train from Durham - "Wow, it runs every two minutes?" - but soon started to turn into the annoying friend who you think has got your back, but is actually - via a series of clever put downs - slowly eroding your self confidence.

It's zombie central in the morning. You try to avoid eye contact, and keep your face out of dangerously close armpits. If it's rush hour you're packed in like sardines, and it's so small you can almost feel the rounded walls closing in on you. Is that guy deliberately brushing up against you? should you say something and risk getting stabbed?

If you do manage to fight your way to one of the scratchy, carpeted seats - you have trouble trying not to think about the story which details what was found by a group of scientists when they took one of the seats away to be analyzed.

The blood of 10 different people, urine of as many, ditto sperm. Oh and two dead rats. It might be an urban myth, but it's something nice to think about when you accidentally touch the carpet.

Oh yeah, and that's not counting the nutters, the alkies, the flashers you might be lucky enough to meet, either on the trains themselves or in a semi-deserted station near the end of the line. and don't even get me started on the people who try to get on the train as soon as the doors open, before you've even got off. Is it any wonder you want to kill that posh bird who tells you to "please mind the gap between the station and the platform"?

So what's different about the Metro, you may ask. Surely the Metro has the potential for all of the above things. (Apart from the carpet filth, that is - the seats are made of plastic.)

And yes, perhaps it does. Perhaps I'm just lucky that I don't travel at rush hour. And maybe I've just been lucky in avoiding the gropers and nutters. But I genuinely like the Madrid metro. Would even, at the risk of being called a saddo, admit to being a bit proud of it.

It's so spacious and clean. No dust. No litter. impossible to play 'spot the rat' here. Not even the sniff of a mouse (though i did once see a boy with a hamster on his head). Yes there are beggars and buskers, but they're not in your face. Some play the pan pipes, one old guy even sells his poems.

And it's so cheap. 46 Euros for an abono - your monthly travelcard. I have no idea how much they are in London these days, but I'm guessing they're not that cheap (even with this new fangled Oyster card thing).

Far from busying themselves looking at the floor, people on the Metro openly stare at each other. It's something you'll soon find yourself joining in with. Whatever my obsession of the moment is, i find myself checking it out on other people. If i hate my toenails, i'll check out other people's manicures. I'm thinking of changing my hairstyle, so i'l look at all the other barnets in the carriage, and give them marks out of ten. I'll look over people's shoulders and read their book with them, their revision notes, the minutes from their meeting. Everything is public property on the metro, as far as the eyes are concerned.

The thieves would take it further, though - to them, your possessions are also up for grabs. And in fact i've had my wallet lifted, but not even that put me off. In fact, the security guards saw the theft happen and apprehended the robbing little cabron before he could leave the station. I got my wallet and all its contents returned to me. When does that ever happen?

But really, why do I like the Metro so much? Perhaps if i really sit and think about it, it has much to do with where it takes me. In the morning it delivers me to a job I love. In the evenings it drops me off to a home where I am genuinely happy or to see my friends, always so full of fun. Could it be the contented thoughts have just filtered back in a pavlovian way?

Things I like part one - Saturday mornings, 6.15am

I feel like I've arrived as a blogger - I've been tagged in my very first meme. The idea with this one is that you write seven facts about yourself, then you tag other bloggers and set them the same task, effectively passing the meme on.

While I don't actually know if I've been around long enough to start tagging other people, I will definitely take up the challenge myself.

Thanks to the very excellent Mr London Street for tagging me. If you haven't already checked out his amazing blog, you should. Be warned though, it's addictive.

So on with the meme. As Mr LS did, I'm going to go with seven things I like. Starting with…

1) Saturday mornings, 6.15am

Every Saturday - well, almost every Saturday - the alarm goes off at 6.00am on the dot. Crazy, I know. When you've been getting up at 7.00am Monday to Friday, why would you want to drag yourself from your slumber so early on the first day of your hard earned weekend? What would be so good to justify it?

One word - fishing. Putting fake rubber worms on the end of a hook, dangling them in the water and whipping them out with the force of a juggernaught when you feel the bite. When you reel in that whopper, it's all worth it. Well, as far as the bloke is concerned, that is.

That alarm is not for me, you see. It's his early morning 'up and at em' call. The one that gets him out of the bed faster than a black bass chasing his prey. it's unbelievable. This is the man who needs nine alarms to get him out of bed on a workday for a 9.00am start. Yet 6.00am on a Saturday morning is no problem, if you throw slimy scaly water dwelling creatures into the mix.

One thing you can say for my boyfriend is that he doesn't do things by halves. If he likes something, he'll take it to the extremes. Snowboarding in Spain won't do - he instead goes to Alaska, where you've got the best runs in the world, only accessible by helicopter.

When he was into making music, he would spend hours locked away in the studio he built himself, driving himself crazy with listening to loops and sorting through a thousand different synths, searching for the perfect one.

His new mistress is fishing. And over the course of the past year, she's crept into our lives, slowly but surely bewitching my boyfriend and trying to steal him off me.

Friday evening trips to the fishing tackle shop have become a regular thing. You wouldn't believe the amount of paraphernalia - imported from America and Japan - you could fit into one room. Racks of brightly coloured-fake worms - some with glitter in them, some smelling of different fruits; a million different sized hooks and weights, little fake fish baits that look scarily real, and a million other things that i have no idea about.

And on the walls pictures of the owner Paco with various monsters he's caught during various competitions. One day the bloke hopes to have his walls filled with similar pictures, I'm sure.

Luckily the bloke has a partner in crime, my friend Sa's boyfriend Chucho. While we meet up with Two Shandies and PB for drinks at Lago, the boys go off fishing.

"I wonder if they sit and talk about you and Sa when they're together in the boat?" wonders Two Shandies.

"No, they just talk about fishing," says Sa.

"What, for seven hours straight?" asks Shandies, disbelieving. "Surely that can't be possible?"

Yes, it is. i've seen it in action. And the bloke has done his research. His bedtime reading is 101 Bass Fishing Tips. Whenever he's alone with use of the DVD player, he sticks on something that features men on boats showing you how to do drop shot or some other technique to raise your chance of success. They usually feature Kevin van Dam, the god of fishing - an American who's become a multi millionaire through fishing competitions. Some of the big tournaments have 1 million dollars prize money. The fact that i know these things troubles me.

But really, not that I mind so much. i've been on the boat with him and I can see the appeal. The sun is setting, blowing up pink and purple candy floss clouds in the sky. The lake is a rippled mirror, and it's all so peaceful.

I've even felt the thrill of hooking a big one. On my first go the bloke showed me how to cast, and pointed me in the direction of where he knew there was a a big female.

Before my hook had even hit the water, she jumped out of the water and bit down on the bait, and my rod bend double as she raced away. The bloke's eyes nearly popped out of his head. he grabbed the rod off me and wrestled the monster into the boat. She was the biggest catch of his fishing career - 3 kilos - and I had hooked her. The range of expressions on his face were comical. From pride and wonderment to extreme annoyance and jealously that his girlfriend had trumped his record.

I never much bothered with it after that. It's not like I can ever do better. I like to go out on the lake - but with the intention of sunning myself and reading a book. I certainly wouldn't leave my sleep at 6.00am on a Saturday morning - no matter how beautiful the lake looks when you're the only one there and the sun is creeping above the horizon.

So 6.15am is the time i love best. When the bloke has showered, got his fishing gear on, given me a goodbye kiss, and skipped out the door into the darkness. Not that i've seen him skip, but I'm sure that he's not far off actually doing this.

I fluff up the pillows, spread myself out in the bed, which is now all mine for the rest of the morning, and fall back to sleep. When I wake up four hours later the sun is probably shining and I can't help but feel happy with my lot in life.