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Well this was a funny old day

This was one of those days that I thought I had all planned, but as Rabbie Burns said, “The best laid plans o’ mice and men gang aft agleigh.” I think you get the drift.

I had a Zoom call set with a potential new book client at 11 am, so I made an effort, got dressed, fixed my ever-lengthening hair and put on some makeup. At 10 am he messaged me to say he is fighting an illness and could we reschedule for next Wednesday. Oh well, not a big deal, just a slight change of plans.

A couple of months ago at met a woman called Susan at a tango party I had gone to with Alejandro. She lives five minutes from me, but we had never got together. Out of the blue she emailed me yesterday and suggested we might meet with shopping bags in hand and go for a walk — we would be going to the store according to the rules, but just taking the scenic route!

I met her at 2.30 pm and we had a lovely walk. Socially distanced of course, but a nice conversation getting to know each other better. I popped into the Nataria Portuguesa and bought two Portuguese custard tarts (pasteis de nata) to take home. Then we stopped at the corner cafe and chatted a bit before she left. I was going to pick up coffee, when I realized I had forgotten to buy some fruit and veggies, so I walked just a few yards to the greengrocer. Then back to the cafe and picked up my cafe con leche.

Walking across the street, I think I was concentrating on the coffee and the bag, and I tripped over my own feet and fell flat, about 3/4 of the way across! I went down heavily and it took me a few minutes to get any strength back to stand up. When I looked up, there were about six people looking down at me, all speaking Spanish through their masks! Anyway, one woman asked me my name and where I lived. I was only a few yards from my building. Next thing I know, Alejandro, my portero, arrived. He picked me up bodily and carried me into the building — and put me down on the steps. Next thing I know there are two police officers there — don’t know who called them — but they took my name and address and document number. I don’t know what that was about, but hey, it’s Buenos Aires.

The woman who had called the portero was also there, and she gave me her name and phone number and told me to call her if I needed anything as she lived just down the road.

Alejandro wanted to call a doctor, but I really balked at that. In the present circumstances they would be wanting to test me for Covid-19! So he brought me upstairs and left me. I felt a bit wobbly so I lay down for a bit and then I was just fine.

Ten minutes later there was a buzz at the door, and there was the other portero (the weekend guy) standing there with a bouquet of flowers – sent by the lady who gave me her name and number! How nice was that? Another example of how caring Argentines are, and why I love living here!

So I’ve had my dinner and now I’m having ice cream and malbec. What ? It’s the perfect comfort food combination! And thus ends a very strange day.

Well at least something happened — a break in the monotony of lockdown!

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What a Fun Birthday!

Well, today was my birthday, and even though it was strange it was lovely in its own way!

I began with a WhatsApp video from my brother’s grandchildren wishing me happy birthday, which started my day off well.

Then some friends collaborated to have a delivery from the bakery cafe across the street, which included coffee, two medialunas, pancakes (which I kept for lunch) and a piece of cake, which I am about to have for dessert after dinner. They also included a bottle of champagne!

Then Cecilia’s son, Joaquin, arrived to pick up some stuff belonging to Cecilia, and he brought a lovely bottle of  Malbec — Joaquin is a wine guy and only buys the best!

My brother and sister-in-law FaceTimed me from Scotland, and while that was going on, my next door neighbour, Maria, arrived at my door, complete with mask, and presented me with a birthday gift — apparently Cecilia told her it was my birthday. I’ve just had a Whatsapp from a friend of Cecilia in Mercedes, whom I met several years ago. Clearly, Cecilia has told everybody in Argentina it’s my birthday! I haven’t heard from the President yet, but the night is not over yet!

At 7 pm I had a virtual party with several friends here, and a couple from here who are currently back in Canada. It was hilarious, and I’m inserting the Happy Birthday video here. As you can see, we had had a few glasses, and what with two languages and the built-in delay in Zoom calls, it is pretty much unique!

And the phone is still pinging! I would never have expected to have so much fun partying while in lockdown! It will certainly be one to remember!

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Impromptu Chat with Good Friends in Canada

The other night my computer beeped to say I had an incoming call on Facebook Messenger, which doesn’t happen often. Imagine my delight when I saw it was my good friends Michel and Barbara calling from Toronto! Barbara said they had been talking about me and decided on a whim to give me a call — I’m so glad they did.

At the beginning of lockdown I had a conversation with a speaking colleague, Stephanie Staples, who lives in British Columbia. She told me whenever someone pops into her head, she calls them! She has had conversations with old school friends she hasn’t spoken to for years. I think it’s a wonderful idea, and with the technology we have at our disposal today, very easy to implement.

I have to admit I haven’t actually done it yet, but this surprise call from Michel and Barbara has brought it back to mind.

So you just might get a call from me when you least expect it!

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The Family Quiz Is More than a Quiz

Last night I took part in the weekly family Quiz again, and I have to say it is feeling like much more than a quiz. We were actually on Zoom for 2-1/2 hours, and the quiz itself took about 45 minutes. The rest of the time it was a visit!

It can be challenging to understand everyone, as we often end up talking at the same time, but with lots of “pardon, what did you say?” it all works out in the end.

Alan jumped on the Google Earth app street view, and we had fun looking at all our homes — including mine in Buenos Aires. Then we moved on to Costa da Caparica in Portugal, where we have spent many happy holidays together, and then Tenerife, which is a current favourite of some. And of course that inevitably took us on a stroll down Memory Lane!

With the 4-hour time difference, of course, they had all eaten dinner by the time we started, but I hadn’t. So by the time we finished I had had three large glasses of Malbec and nothing to eat yet! I was quite careful cutting the veggies in case I lost a finger, but all was well!

My family is very close, and all the others see each other often. I, however, am taking advantage of these weekly events to catch up with family doings and see the faces of those I love. Next week I’ll try and remember to take a screen shot and post it to set you see it all in action.

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What to Write When Nothing’s Happening!

Blogging is fun when you have interesting or fun things to report. Over the past several years, I’ve really enjoyed telling you about my life in Argentina, and usually there’s no shortage of material — given my normally overloaded social life! So it feels strange these days not to have anything to report, because basically nothing is happening. And in fact, sometimes something does happen but I’m so out of the habit of posting that I forget!

That’s what happened this past week when I had a Zoom call with some girlfriends in Toronto. We got together a number of years ago with the ostensible purpose of writing our memoirs. Over time, that kind of got lost, but we enjoyed our get-togethers so much we just carried on. We rotated hosting duties, and a great feature of our meetings was the amazing food we brought — usually with requests for recipes afterwards. The conversation ranged from the minutiae of our daily lives to high level, important topics about what is going on in the world at large. (I see I’m writing this in the past tense, not because the group stopped meeting but just because I moved away and wasn’t part of it any more.)

The only problem was that we are all so busy it was often a challenge finding a date that fitted us all. Well, that’s not a problem these days! So someone had the idea of a virtual event, and we all duly jumped on Zoom. Lynne is currently somewhere in the Quebec countryside, I am down here in Argentina, and Sharon, Brigitte and Nina are still in Toronto. Using the technology we take for granted now, Lynne walked us round her lovely home, and I showed off my great apartment. It was lovely to get together again and it was a highlight of our week. So much so that we’re going to do it again in a month.

Last night I had an unexpected video call from my friends Barbara and Michel in Toronto. They just thought of me and, on a whim, jumped on Messenger video, and we had a lovely catchup chat. I think people are doing more of that these days, I suppose because we all have more time on our hands. Let’s hope it continues after we’re all finding our way back to normal.

We are now going into week eight of total lockdown in Buenos Aires, extended to May 24. After that, who knows.

Anyway, I’m sorry to be so quiet and I hope you understand. I can’t wait till the day I can tell you I’m dancing tango again!

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Accomplishments for the Week

My main accomplishment this week was having two highly productive days out of five. My target for this week is three — I think I’m setting the target pretty low!

Anyway, here’s this week’s effort:

1. Made excellent chocolate chip cookies (even though I was supposed to be writing at that time!)

2. Started a new course on “How to Write a Bestseller”. This is business related, but not strictly part of my work at this time. That’s why I list it as an accomplishment.

I hope to do better this coming week!

 

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Links to Some Great Videos

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting pretty overwhelmed with all the videos coming my way these days. I watch most of them, and some are outstanding. I decided to start collecting the links to the ones I particularly enjoyed and post them here for you to watch on your own schedule if you like. Here are two from this past week.

Britain’s Got Talent, amazing 8-year-old magician Issy Simpson. Even Simon was gobsmacked!

Va Pensiero from Verdi’s Nabucco Of all the wonderful virtual choir recordings coming out every day from immensely talented people, I think this is my favourite. It’s one of my favourites anyway, and this version is something very special.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I did — I’m keeping the second one in my favourites list so that I can watch it again and again in the future.

 

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Another Interesting Idea You Might Want to Try

I reported a couple of weeks ago that a few of my writer friends are meeting virtually every Friday night to “write together”. We do a couple of creative writing exercises each time, and it’s a combination of practising our skills and socializing.

Usually we choose random words from random books and use them as prompts to write one fiction and one non-fiction piece, each in ten minutes. Then we share what we’ve written. I have to say I am hugely impressed with what we have come up with in that short time.

This week, Cliff brought us an idea that’s a bit different, and you might even be interested in taking up the idea, either by yourself or with a select group of friends or family.

The idea was that we were to write a letter to ourselves one year from now. The exercise itself was challenging, and the four of us wrote completely different things. We found them so interesting that we decided to take the process one step further.

We will take a few days to polish the writing, because although we all came up with the ideas, the writing was a bit rushed and messy. Then, probably next week, we will share the final versions. But here’s the fun part.

We will set a date one year from now to meet and open our letters. Then we’ll be able to compare what we wrote with what will actually have happened, and how each person’s situation compares to what we were thinking when we wrote the letters. Interesting, eh?

Let me know if you decide to do it too.

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Fun Event for Lockdown

Last Sunday night I was invited to join a family Quiz Night on Zoom. My family in Scotland had done it the previous week and it was so much fun they decided to continue, and Alan invited me to join the fun.

Altogether, there were six households represented. Each household had to come up with six questions, everyone took turns asking the questions and then at the end the answers were revealed. My presence was to be a surprise, so some of the questions were Britain-centric. and I didn’t know them, so I’m hoping there won’t be as many of those tonight! (I have my questions ready, and I think a couple of them might be challenging!)

I’m passing this idea on just in case any of you might want to do something similar. Good luck and have fun!