The day my baking was appreciated by the former Spanish Minister of Defence.

My cakes never turn out exactly how I envision them. But fortunately, cake is cake, and with the amount of sugar that goes into them, it is hard to seriously fail. Perhaps my problem is that I rarely actually follow any sort recipe. But then I never expect my humble attempt at a lemon cake to come under the gaze of anyone famous. Ha.

On my penultimate day in my job here in Madrid, I baked a cake for my colleagues - a lemon cake no less - as a farewell. As is custom, we went down to the cafe beneath our office for our morning coffee break and to cut the cake.

One of the advantages of having an office backing onto the entrance to the Spanish Congress of Deputies is that we often find ourselves sipping coffee next to Spanish politicians and famous journalists... not to mention occasionally crowding round the office window to watch a distinguished guest enter the parliament.

So this morning it just so happened that as we were happily tucking into my cake, who should walk in but ... Bono. Unfortunately no, not the Bono you are thinking of. It was José Bono, the President of the Spanish Congress of Deputies, and also the former Defence Minister, so still, not someone to be sneezed at. He was passing us when he noticed our happy faces and full mouths, smiled, raised his eyebrows at seeing my cake, and stopped to wish us all "buen provecho" (bon appetit). What a proud moment it would have been for my mother had she been there. All those years of letting me help her bake cakes as a child and allowing me to lick the bowl.

I, naturally, had no idea who the distinguished guest was, apart from the slightly awed expressions of my ten colleagues, so was slightly late on the uptake.

A few moments later a band of video cameras and microphones entered, in the pursuit of a young man in jeans, wearing a blindfold and being led by the arm, apparently thoroughly enjoying the experience. Again, I had little idea what was going on, but it turned out this was "El Follonero", the presenter of a popular Spanish news program, about to interview Señor Bono.

Altogether, a rather exciting morning. Perhaps I should bake more often...

French Kissing...

Anyone who has moved around in Europe has experienced it: that awkward moment of greeting a person from another country, when someone is left hanging, expecting a second/third/fourth kiss on the cheek. 

As a teenager visiting France I was introduced to the concept of the two kisses on the cheek, a novel and bewildering experience for a young Brit. After several mornings of the rather pretentious air-kissing with an entire class of French schoolgirls, I became acutely aware of the importance of remembering to brush your teeth when abroad! Later, moving to Brussels, I was embarrassed to be left hanging repeatedly, until I eventually found out that, of course, in Belgium only one kiss is necessary. 

However, this is not merely a question of Brits adapting to continental life and kissing personal space goodbye. Among other Europeans there appears to be confusion as to exactly how many kisses are to be anticipated. Even now, accustomed to the traditional two kisses in Spain - and foolishly assuming that I had sussed the European ways - I met my friend’s parents from Luxembourg a few weeks ago, expecting two kisses as I greeted them, only to discover that a third kiss was required. Yet another awkward moment.

When my boyfriend visited me last month in Madrid and was introduced to my work colleagues, he was taken aback to find himself for the next three minutes being kissed on each cheek by every single female member of the office! His girlfriend was a lot more amused by the situation than he was...

 

Similarly my sister, in Paris a few years ago ,was traumatized as we walked home one evening, to find a strapping young Frenchman on a dark street come and kiss her, not just on one cheek but two. He turned out to be a colleague of mine from the restaurant I worked in.

For a Brit who is used to their own personal space, European greetings can come as quite a surprise. So, before you go travelling unsuspectingly around Europe – beware!  It is unbelievably easy to offend perfect strangers all over Europe by miscalculating such a simple affair as how many kisses. One, two, three, four...? Well, that depends who you meet...

"From politics, it was an easy step to silence."
     

Jane Austen

This woman lived in a totally different culture, and died almost 200 years ago... but she is still capable of making me laugh!

What Makes a Woman a Heroine?

This week a friend and I went round a new art exhibition, here in Madrid, entitled "Heroínas" (Heroines) - an exhibition which depicts women  through art, spanning many centuries and focusing on the different aspects which have been drawn out by the artists. 

Whilst slightly begrudging the fact that we paid the entrance fee, only to discover half way round that the second half of the exhibition was in a different art gallery (!), we were intrigued by  variety of the collection of artwork, and the thought behind its presentation. It was worth the walk to the second gallery to finish the tour.

 

What particularly interested us was the way in which the art was categorised, not chronologically, but in themes. The buzz word for feminism over recent years has been "empowerment" and this idea is established from the very name of the exhibition, which awards the title "heroine" to the array of different women depicted through the pictures: some iconic such as Joan of Arc, some highly symbolic, others merely peasant women, and a significant group are the female artists themselves.

In the light of this desire to portray the empowerment of women through art, the choice of categories is intriguing. The paintings or photos are grouped under the following aspects: solitude, work, delirium, sport, war, magic, religion, reading and painting. Several of these show obvious links to the idea of "empowerment", while other sections, particularly "solitude" - which depicted women in a state of apparent waiting, loneliness and passivity - do not seem to fit with the generally accepted idea of a heroine.

So what makes someone a heroine? The dictionary definition for the word is "a woman of distinguished courage or ability, admired for her brave deeds and noble qualities." Does that mean, as the exhibition seems to imply, that you can award such a title to any woman, simply for being female? The exhibition was thought-provoking as to the less conventional qualities of a heroic person... Solitude for example is claimed in this exhibition to hold "the seeds of independence and even resistance". 

What qualities would you expect from a "heroine"? Personally, I think I value qualities like kindness,  passion, wisdom or faithfulness in the women I admire, more than  I do rebellion or resistance.

When the lights go out...

Could we survive without electricity? Yesterday I read in the news that the Japanese government is having to cut the electricity periodically for three hours at a time because there currently isn’t enough energy to go around. After all the atrocities that have gone on in their country during the last week, it is going to be a long and difficult road back to stability for the Japanese. Loss of power, as well as even portable water in some areas, means that the direct effects of the crisis are far from over.

The article made me reflect on just how dependant we are in the 21st Century on electricity in every part of our daily lives. It started me thinking about how much would be different:

•  No lights- so you couldn’t carry on normal life after dusk

• No phone – so you would be unable to contact people
• No computers – offices would have to shut down
• No internet or television – for news, entertainment, etc.
• No street lights or security cameras – it would no longer be safe at night.
• No trains or traffic lights - so your travel would be effected.
• No microwave/toaster/kettle or possibly even cooker – so you would have to eat cold food.
• Freezers and fridges would defrost so food would go off.
• Automatic doors/cash registers/ in shops or public buildings would not work.
• For hospitals... I don’t know where to begin.

The list goes on and on and it is amazing to realise just how powerless we would be!

A power cut can be troublesome and awkward, or maybe even quite fun depending on your situation. But I imagine the fun would soon wear out and ultimately our society today would fall into chaos after a prolonged lack of electricity. So... I hope they find an adequate replacement by the time the world’s crude oil supply runs out! Otherwise, I guess we really should at least start buying energy saving light bulbs...

Free Needles for Heroin Addicts

A few miles the south of the buzzing, metropolitan city of Madrid lies a small "gitano" village which is home to some of the most desperate people I have ever met: heroin addicts. The gitanos (travellers) make a good living out of drug trafficking but there in a rubble-filled, deserted car park the drug addicts sit in small makeshift tents or just lie out on worn out mattresses. Those who have been on drugs the longest are easily identifiable by their swollen, blackened hands and shuffling steps. It is hard to imagine, walking around the vibrant, lively centre of the Spanish capital, that such a subculture exists just a few kilometres away.

Betel, the church that I am going to here in Madrid, has a huge ministry to drug addicts. Betel started here just 25 years ago with the dream of helping the addicts kick their habits and has since spread throughout the world. Thousands of changed lives from around the globe testify to the love of these Christians and the power of God in breaking chains of addiction.

The team from Betel visit the site daily to give them food, tea and clothes, as well as to encourage those who want to that they are able to escape from the trap that they have found themselves in. They have several different rehab centres in the city where those who choose to can go to turn their lives around: a far longer and more painful task than it may sound. While out with the team, I asked what the large coach was doing on the site and one of them explained it was a government project which handed out free needles to the addicts.

Apparently, giving out free needles for the prevention of HIV is a Europe wide initiative. Clearly the EU has carefully considered this as the best option, yet it seems a controversial way of “helping” the situation. There were also several policemen around the area, and while we appreciated their protection, it seems strange that they were doing nothing to stop those taking drugs. One of the addicts who had just been shooting up went to the coach to get his arm bandaged up. 

The government seems to feel it is more important to prevent HIV than to discourage drug abuse. These addicts have been deemed beyond rescue. However Betel would disagree and it has been wonderful to meet several of the recovering addicts on Sundays, many years on, with families and jobs and a bright future ahead.