Overload

Last Sunday I wrote that the Mayor of Madrid had decided to postpone lighting up the streets with Christmas lights until this Friday. Although I haven't seen any lights in the trees in the main street near my house, I assume that somewhere, and especially in the centre, the lights will be up. The Christmas lights in my area are nothing spectactular - just a few white lights they hang in the trees. The businesses of each neighbourhood are responsible for paying for the lights. I suppose here they must be Scrooges or maybe it's because there are so many banks. We only get white lights in trees.

Still, lights in trees are better than no lights at all. Thursday was the Day of the Constitution, so most people who could afford it probably took a 4-day weekend. I always use this time to start thinking about decorating for Christmas. I know this may seem late for many people in the US, but our Christmas officially finishes on 6th January. Everything in my flat is electric, and in Spain we contract the electricity we think we need, and there is a limit you can contract . I think I have a limit of 4,200 kilowatts or so. Anyway, on Thursday I was using the heating because it's December, the oven, the cooker, the water heater, fridge, the TV and anything else I may have forgotten when I decided to heat up a cup of coffee in the microwave. This was the straw that broke the camel's back! Off goes everything! 

Actually I think my overloading the circuits was the TV's fault. Well, not the TV itself but a TV station. A friend and I (and now I've discovered another person) are always joking that we only have one channel. I don't watch a lot of TV, but I like knowing what's happening and I like this particular channel for its coverage of the news. The station in question has been on strike for the last week, so I'm obliged to watch the news an hour later on another channel if I want and can. They're in the process of laying off a good number of people. This will lead to more blackouts this week over all at news time when, in theory, the idea is to broadcast only news programmes in future.

One of my friends on facebook has been posting the evil doings of their elf Tim. My photo, believe it or not, was a tomato. I can't remember exactly when I bought him or his brothers - some time in October I'm sure. Note that the photo was taken 2nd December. These were the hardest most tasteless tomatoes I've ever bought. Even though I gave them a chance to ripen and soften up, they never did. I never, never put tomatoes in the fridge because that ruins them. I have no idea where these tomatoes were stored before I acquired them. I could not eat this last one! As an 'experiment' I left it sitting on the counter until it 'developed' into what you see. I call it the 'Zombie Tomato'. What did I find inside when I opened it? Seeds? No! What looked like dead maggots! All very disgusting, but the tomato stayed hard until the end! Please don't think all foods are like this in Spain. I assure you this was an aberration of some sort.

This was some of my week. Hope everyone has a good week ahead.