We headed out for yet another embassy bash last week. It was the fiesta nacional of Spain at the Spanish Ambassador’s Residence and what a beautiful place it was. Imagine a huge white villa with palms leading down through a beautiful tropical garden to an elegant pool.
We were greeted by the Ambassador (rather dashing) and his wife (looked a little like a younger version of the Queen of Spain) and then handed some useful freebies: a fan and a lighter before heading down to join the crowd down in the garden. It was a big turn out and there was a fair amount of Cava being quaffed. I fell upon a few Brits that night, a very nice chap from the embassy, one who acts as consul for Finland and is about to retire and Toby who runs a tourism and film and music production company. I met Canadians, Brazilians, Chip from the US Office of Interest, Belgians, French, Norwegians and of course a fare few Spaniards.
It was a hot night and people were sweating a lot, so I was glad that I was feeling pretty cool calm and collected despite the grown men dripping around me. We spotted the Spanish contingent of the film school students moving around in a gaggle but never quite caught them up. We headed home at a pretty respectable time and sat outside cooling off in front of the sea in the breeze.
The other night as we were doing exactly this a little tabby kitten was spotted running along the wall. She jumped down and slowly made her way towards us looking more for love than food and that is how Cuba the Cat as she is now known came to live with us. She is young, impeccably clean and pretty and even seems to quite like hanging around our 3 not very gentle children. In fact she has a lot of Cuba in her. A little survivor who has a past, she has, in the most charming way, quietly seduced us.
We have another much larger cat that has a presence in our house. Next door to us, in between Club Habana and us, there is a beach and social club for the Ministry of the Interior known to the locals as Club 99. The have a little zoo or more of a menagerie as it is small, the animals are small and the cages are small except for one bloody huge male lion, which is in a shockingly small cage. Anyway this lion roars, especially at night so I often fall asleep to the sound of the sea and the lion roaring in a rather pathetic cat in a cage way. It is strange and poignant to have this rather unusual neighbour and also something that makes me muy triste. But alas you don’t mess with the Ministry of the Interior. But if any important people in the Ministry are reading my blog (yeah right) please put the lion somewhere more comfortable.