After a week of hospital tedium my mother, beloved Alexandra, was finally allowed to come home post peritonitis. "Where is Pedro with the car? where. is. he?"
The home arrival comes with a new set of house rules.
1. Stefi continues nursing duties (albeit with access to facebook and project runway (Go Althea!)).
2. Maternal delegation means Papa Cortés is now expected to do things which would previously have constituted unexplored territory for a sixty-ish year old man. Trips to the pharmacy (closed from 2 to 5, we take our siesta VERY seriously in Spain) to buy a small packet of latex gloves to change mother´s dressing results in a large box of 100 surgical gloves. "oh well Stefi. He tried. He is a man. He was never going to get it right."
3. Due to germ phobia, Dirty Harry has now been banished to the kitchen where he slumps in solitude. Poor Harry remains ignorant to the intricacies of daily human comic drama and as a result does not understand this sudden canine apartheid in the household. Instead he shuffles back and forth with his head bowed down and body language that Papa Cortés can only describe as looking "squashed." I try to reassure him by giving him a kiss on his little fluffy head, but this only succeeds in getting his wispy white hairs covered in red lipstick. sigh. i tried.
On a more positive note, I have discovered hidden around the kitchen the contents of a rather delicious Fortnum and Masons food hamper (Christopher´s very english way of saying thankyou for the holiday) and, shifting through the jars of Picalilly sauce and exotic chutneys with a trained eye, have grown particularly fond of the dark chocolate and macadamia nut biscuits. Rejoice! Not since my early teenage years have I encountered such delirious amounts of non diabetic chocolate in the house. Hurrah Hurrah!
