In Portugal we have a beautiful, tragic, romantic story that equals that of Romeo and Juliet or Tristan and Isolde…but certainly has an advantage, because this story is part of history, even if over the years it has become inextricably linked with legend. Pedro was a prince, the son and heir of King Afonso IV of Portugal. As was usual in the early 14th century, his father arranged for his marriage with an infanta of Castile, Constança, and she came …
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When I saw her a few days ago, sitting at her desk and looking pale and drawn, she who is usually so energetic and joyful, I asked: “What is the matter with you? Are you ill?” She looked at me sadly, asked me to sit down and told me her story. “I don’t feel well” – she said – and when I asked her about her symptoms, was she feverish, did she want me to get some paracetamol, she shook …
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 …
Juliet Marillier is one of the few writers I’m unconditional about, such a as Barbara Erskine or Carlos Ruiz Zafon. There are of course other writers I love, or rather writers who have written some of my favourite books, such as “1984” (George Orwell), “Brave New World” (Aldous Huxley), “Love in the time of cholera” (Gabriel Garcia Marquez), and also authors whose books I have faithfully read for a time such as Isabel Allende, and lately Mario Vargas Llosa…and then …
Invariably, in every article about Emmanuel Macron, the new president of France, journalists write he is married to a wife 24 years his senior. Whatever they say about him, or her, at a certain point there it is: his wife is so much older than him, she has children his age, she has several grandchildren, they met when he was very young and she was his teacher at school…I must say I am fed up with this kind of chauvinistic …
The words in Tony Braxton’s song echo inside my head, but they describe something that seems unattainable – as if it were possible to bring together again the one million pieces of my shattered heart. From the beginning I knew that by choosing you I was choosing the difficult path. I knew you loved me, but somehow I always felt you would never love me as the one I was leaving for you had loved me during all those years we …
As she sits across the table and smiles at me she tells me “I have much to be thankful for”. I know she has. Barely a year ago she was diagnosed a very bad form of breast cancer, fortunately in its very early stages (read the story in my posts “The toughest moment” and “Medical malpractice?”). She underwent two complicated operations and painful radiotherapy. From the first moment she faced her ordeal with incredible fortitude, determined to win the fight – …
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, …