It is often said that babies do not come with a list of instructions, and the first few days with your new born baby – especially the first – can be very stressful, to say the least. But you survive, and then you learn to cope and start enjoying the wonderful – and challenging – adventure of raising a child. Time goes by and your children grow up. They go to school, they become teenagers (probably the most challenging time …
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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 …
In the last few months my younger boy, my “baby” as I call him, has become a man. He was a beautiful baby, with large greenish eyes in a round face and yellow-blonde hair. He looked like a cherub…his first months were difficult, as he was often ill with bronchitis but fortunately when he was a year old I began taking him to a homeopath who did wonders for him – and my baby who was constantly coughing did not …
He remembers the first time he saw her, the friend of a friend…tall, slim, with dark blond curls falling down her shoulders, deep set eyes the colour of the sea when it is more green than blue… He loved her then as he loved her during the next three years and a half when they were going out together. And it feels as if he has never stopped loving her in fact. Their time together was intense yet serene, adventurous …
I rarely read a book twice, as there are always so many new and exciting reading adventures waiting for me – but for some time now I had been wanting to read George Orwell’s “1984” again, especially after reading the amazing “The handmaid’s tale” by Margaret Atwood. This book strongly reminded me of “1984” and “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, two books that strongly impressed me in my youth. As an incredible coincidence, I also saw the movie “1984” …
In normal circumstances, today we’d all be together celebrating your birthday. But then, for many years, circumstances haven’t been normal, have they? Rival My first memory of you is from the evening you were born, and it’s not a pleasant one. I can picture myself sitting in the car outside the hospital with my nanny, with the horrible feeling that everyone in the family had deserted me, as they were too busy with the newcomer. From that moment on …
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 …
In my earliest memories I always see myself with my Barbie dolls, so I suppose I must have been given my first when I was about three, but I cannot be sure. By the time I was five or six I already had a few dolls, and they all corresponded to what became known as the Barbie “stereotype”: the doll portrayed a blonde, blue eyed, long legged, slim and ample bosomed woman, a sort of “ideal” woman such as those …
Sometimes it is your children who tell you stories. As happened the other day, when Pedro told me a story he was clearly impressed with. “Mom” he asked “have you ever heard of a singer called Rodriguez?”. At first I thought he was joking with me “Rodriguez? Just that? No…”. But he went on: “Mom, it’s an amazing story”. And I sat down to listen. Rodriguez (later I learned his full name is Sixto Rodriguez) was born in Detroit, Michigan, of Mexican …