I’m on a plane once again and I close my eyes and look back to the summer that has just ended. I’m a summer person – I suppose due to being born in Mozambique where we had warm weather almost all year long – so I long for Spring and Summer, strongly dislike autumn and really dread the winter months. In April and May I feel that delightful expectation of the summer months to come, and September, even if the …
Category: Personal
As we take the cable car to go down to the beach of Garajau I remember another time when I stood on the high cliff looking down and he was telling me how special this place was for him and how he wanted to share it with me. By then there were no cable cars and we walked hand in hand down to the pebbled beach. Today the sky is overcast and the sea looks like silver; back then the …
As I wait to board the plane I think some things never change, such as the gestures, rituals, hopes, feelings, that have always been intrinsically linked to most of the months of August of my life. As coming to Madeira. Holiday rituals Yesterday as I was ironing some clothes to bring with me I recalled it used to be a sort of “pre Madeira ritual”. I did it in Granny’s sunlit kitchen and it made me so happy that …
Dear readers I dedicate this post to you, so that I may thank you for reading my blog and following me on Facebook and Instagram. I want to tell you how and above all why it all began. A few years ago I started feeling this urge to write. At first I began writing a book about my professional experiences but then I thought it wasn’t the right time to write about it – not yet. So, I thought, why …
I’m sitting outside the Café de la Paix, one if the most iconic cafes in Paris, and all kinds of thoughts come to my mind. First of all, I feel contented. It is a warm summer evening and I’m sitting here by myself, feeling the city all around me. So many people pass by, a Japanese fashion victim impeccable from head to toe, an Eastern family with three small children, the veiled mother pushing a double pram and hurrying behind her …
It was first discovered by Portuguese navigators in 1419. It is said that they were frightened when they had their first glimpse of those green high mountains that rose sharply from the dark blue sea. And then, when the ships approached land, there was no place they could disembark on, because the whole land was covered with trees, an abundant thick forest that came all the way to the sea…and then, because the sailors wanted to settle there and there …
Today I was reading in a magazine how two recent mothers have created a blog where they talk about the “realistic” side of motherhood, leaving behind the “romantic” descriptions that usually describe it as a “blissful state”. Nothing further from the truth, they say. And they go on to describe the horrible nausea they felt in the early stages of pregnancy and their vomiting everywhere and in the less convenient places; their feeling like a bloated whale in the last …
There is no such thing as a “happy” divorce. The decision to end a marriage is always painful, especially when children are involved. But it does not have to be a dramatic affair or leave everyone concerned hating each other. As a young girl I dreamt of finding a true love that would last a lifetime. I was the child of divorced parents in a time when it was most uncommon, and they had been very unhappy with each other, …
Eight am of a lovely spring morning. I’m driving to work and I take the usual route. It’s barely 4 kilometres but almost every street, every corner and every building holds a souvenir of my life, of moments happy or sad, but still important all of them. And I suddenly realise – I who have always looked at Lisbon as the place I had to come to after leaving my native city in Mozambique – that I’m in love with this …
I did my ten minute morning meditation as usual and when I finished I felt happy, ready to face the day ahead. I put on some music on my iPad and sang along while I got dressed and put on some make up. In the car I got a phone call. It was from a colleague from work, someone I like very much. She is a few years younger than me, a great professional but above all an incredible human …