It was12.30 pm on the 27th of December of 2013, after travelling for almost 20 hours with Aurelia and baby Juanan. We left Manila the night before, heartbroken to say bye to Nick and Gab who would stay with the grandparents until our return in 13 days.
The Guardia Civil checked the luggage of all the passengers from our flight Dubai-Madrid which caused a delay for collecting bags of 45 minutes at the airport of Barajas in Madrid. This unfortunate event didn't make any happier to my eldest sister and two of her kids who were waiting for us at the arrivals gate, for a long time.
When we finally crossed the gates in the terminal 4, I saw a multitude of families, friends, lovers giving hugs, kisses and smiling. A typical scene of the movie Love Actually; a bit cheesy but nice to see it, why not.
It was still Christmas time but a rainy day when we arrived. It didn't snow in Madrid during our two weeks. Poor Aurelia, she never got to see the snow in Spain as she assured, utterly excited, to her friends in Manila. She told them she would bring them a tupper ware with a snowball for them in the flight back to the Philippines. Goodness gracious me, she is nearly 7 years old and has never seen the snow except in the movies and books!
I always feel butterflies in my stomach when the pilot announces " Welcome to Madrid, the temperature is…I hope you enjoyed the flight ". I don't usually enjoy the flight, dear pilot, because I am scare of flying, but I do like the first words you said except that I changed mentally Madrid for home…but is it my home?
It is the weirdest feeling you could imagine when you have become an expat and you return to your country for holidays. How would you describe an emotion that makes you happy, joyful, content but nervous, melancholic and lost at the same time…? I don't know, it feels like an earthquake ( and I can say it from my heart because I had been in one! ) but it shakes your inside, not your outside.
I love going back to Spain though. The family is the main and most important motivation, just being with them makes me happy and my kids too although they don't know each other very well, lets be honest. Children feel the family, you don't have to explain it.
There are more reasons such as my friends, the food, the streets of my Madrid and in general, the whole amazing culture of a country where I belong to but somehow, one tiny part of me, it doesn't anymore…
I hope that small part that flew out of me during these 11 years it went into my children in the shape of a seed. It is my illusion to make that seed grow into a beautiful red clavel, my favourite flower since I became an expat.
Today I have had an intensive day. I slept only 5 hours, I took Aurelia to the doctor and spent 2 hours to check two types of virus she has, I came home and found Gabriel vomiting on his cot. Also there were a few men inside the dinning room ( where I was about to breastfeed Juanan ) knocking on the walls and doors with metal instruments ( and making loud noises ) to kill the termites inside of this old house.
At 1pm I rushed back to the hospital with Juanan to put his weekly cast and came back 4 hours later, exhausted and starving. When I was in the way back I couldn't think of anything elso for dinner than a gourmet sandwich of a nice small steak fillet with my tomato chutney and a glass of Malbec.
Well, the steak was so hard that when I tried to cut it into thin slices to fill my sandwich, the knife slipped and cut my index finger. Not kidding. The worst meat I had in a long time The way I cooked it? Maybe, I was hungry and I hurried things up, but I also think the meat wasn't of good quality ( cheap cuts are ok for braising but not for grilling or frying, I think ).
The photo looks better than it tasted. I ended having some cheese and of course, the wine. I truly wished, deeply inside of me, that the alcohol would make Juanan to sleep by 10pm after an awful week of jet lag!!!!!! yes, I feel guilty now…but he is actually fast asleep and it is 11pm! hahaha
Despite this crazy day, I managed to make the mango roll ups for Aurelia as I promised her last weekend and in my post " When you make a promise".
After the failure of my first experiment, my daughter gave me another chance to see whether a home-made fruit roll up was better in taste and in quality, not only cheaper, than a bought one. When she tried my mango fruit roll up she was happily convinced and I knew she liked it because she said : "mum, when the roll ups have finished, we just have to buy more mangoes!"
The texture was much better than the first time I made fruit roll-ups, it was chewy and the taste was really nice. I was amazed again how easy it was to make it from scratch and how good it turned out this second time I experimented.
When you persist in doing something you might end adding a new skill to your repertory.
Mango roll-up
Makes 20
- Pre-heat oven 120C
- Peel and chop 7 ripe mangoes and add them to a pot with the juice of one lemon and cook all with the lid on until soft.
- Add 2 cups of brown sugar and 1 cup of puree cooked apple ( it is always handy to have in the freezer to add some to soups, cakes…). Blend it and spread it on a large greased tray ( you will need two big ones ) with a baking paper.
- Put it in the oven for 7 hours and then remove it and cut in into large stripes.
Ps: After a bad day the best thing you could ever had to make you smile again, it isn't the food this time, it is a note from your child saying " dear mama and papa, you have gave me everything so I am giving you somting ", with a little gift for Nick and for me : a hand disinfect gel for me and some stickers she'd been given at disneyland in HK and a 20m swimming achievement badge for Nick, both presents wrapped with at least a metre of sticky tape. I don't have a clue where this thought comes from but it was so sweet that it made us smile. I had to take a picture of it.
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