During our summer holidays at the Savoy Hotel (among the three or four best five-star hotels in Madeira), we went out every night so we didn’t really get much sleep as we had to be at breakfast before ten. So on Sunday evenings we never went out, not only because most of the bars and discos were closed but because we needed to rest as well. We took the night “off” to go to bed early. On one of these …
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Just now we were talking on the phone and laughing while we recalled the crazy things we did when we were young. We met during our first year at University but it was only a year or so after that we became inseparable friends and shared almost everything: studies, exams (as I usually did my oral exams immediately after yours), evenings out with friends, going to discos, making up “stories” for your parents and my grandparents, dressing up for parties, …
This year my son Pedro and his friends will all be turning eighteen. In Portugal, of late, there is this tradition that eighteen-year old parties are a big celebration, and both girls and boys dress up for them. In the case of boys, they are expected to dress formally, with a jacket, a tie, a white or light blue shirt and grey or beige trousers, and leather shoes of course. A few days ago Pedro told me “Mom, next week …
She arrived from Paris on a cold February Friday evening and he was waiting for her at the airport. She had been there on a training week and God knew how she had needed that space. She needed time away from him, from work, from home, from their problems. She needed distance; she needed to confirm there was a whole different world out there, different from the one she had built around him. She needed to understand her feelings – …
It was a cold November morning. We had agreed to meet at 8.30 at Versailles (probably the oldest – and most beautiful – café in Lisbon) for breakfast. It opened in 1922 and is richly decorated in an Art Nouveau style, with a predomination of gold and mirrors and a look of older times. I’ve been going there for many years and I still love it. Besides – it has the most wonderful “duchesses”, small cakes with pastry and “crème …
Sometimes in your daily life you forge the most unexpected and improbable bonds. The building where I work is huge and toilets are outside the offices in the long corridors. After a certain time we get to know people – women, in this case – that you meet over and over again when you go there. It is also the case of two very nice cleaning ladies that we usually meet there, while they are working – sometimes they have …
As I write I’m still waiting for news from my friend, the one I first wrote about in my post “The toughest moment”. She was operated on about a month ago and, although she was prepared to have a full mastectomy and in fact it was one of the possible scenarios, it was not the case. However, when she was operated on she already knew that her tumour was a complicated one. Not in the sense that it was not …
It’s dark now. The house is silent and he’s working on a project. He puts on a collection of his favourite music and he concentrates on his work. Then, suddenly, he hears the first, unmistakable notes of “Wish you were here” by Pink Floyd and he’s violently transported back into the past, many years ago, to the happy days when their paths had first crossed. Falling in love His first glimpse of her was at a cafe downtown in his …
Back in 1917, Fátima was a parish in the municipality of Ourém, in the interior of Portugal, that no one had heard about. Today, it is a very well known name, both in Portugal and all over the world. Curiously, the legend goes that Fátima was the name of a Moorish princess of many centuries ago, who fell in love with a Christian knight, converting to Christianity so that they might marry. And the name stayed on. The story of …
Today a friend of mine who is following my blog told me she would like me to write more about my lifestyle (i.e. fashion), in addition to my stories. This is a younger friend, in her thirties, and she is very stylish. I told her I had already written about bags (my weakness!) but then thought: “Why not?” – after all, it’s a subject dear to me. I have always been a little vain – not too much I hope …