We were going for a walk on a Spring afternoon that felt like an early summer, and he told me about his father. He’s such a smiling, carefree person, but as he talked, I saw the sadness in his eyes. He had a happy childhood and early teens. When he was about 17, his father abruptly decided he wanted to divorce his mother. For years he had been having an affair with his personal assistant, and apparently, …
Tag: divorce
She looks out of the window. It’s raining outside, as it is raining in her heart. She remembers an old song by Leo Sayer “It’s raining in my heart”, but then it meant nothing to her, as her life was full of sunshine, no heavy clouds on the horizon. Unfortunately, it now seems so appropriate. Forty years Forty years, she thinks. Forty years of love with a man, youthful years shared, then a life built together, the happiness of …
We crossed paths many years ago, when I was a university student of 18 and he had already finished university and was beginning his career as a researcher and University professor. A different kind of friend He was some five or six years older than me, but it made a difference at the time. We met during some holidays in Madeira, when I was experiencing one of those summer passions that came and go as fast as a tropical …
Today, like so many times before, I pass by our wedding place, that wonderful, old manor house that stands in the midst of the Sintra mountain, surrounded by the dark green of centennial trees. Again, I see the whitewashed walls and the imposing gates and at the bottom the small chapel where we were married. We were among the last couples to be married there, remember, as soon afterwards the Church decided all marriages had to be celebrated in the …
I love a good love story and Nieves Herrero, a Spanish journalist and writer, has certainly given me a few good ones, but her latest book “Esos días azules” (“Those blue days”, in English) has touched my heart in a very special way. A meeting of souls As her other novels, it is based on a true love story, that of the famous Spanish poet Antonio Machado and his muse, whom he called Guiomar. Long after his death (in …
I’m driving – not exactly driving home for Christmas, as in the beautiful song by Chris Rea, but on one of the many errands I have to do during this busy season. As usual at this time of the year I put on Christmas songs, the inevitable Last Christmas by Wham and Chris Rea’s as well – and I sing along. The weather is fine – one of those sunny crisp cold (but not too much) winter days that make …
Today I was officially declared by my doctor as being in menopause. I was not surprised, of course. A woman knows her body. During the summer I started feeling those “heat waves” commonly described as a symptom. Not that they happened too often, or were too bad – the problem has been the dizziness I have suffered from in the last two months, and that I associate with it. Or maybe not. As I looked at my doctor I remembered …