Like most britons, the idea of the café society appealled to me. The romantic idea of sitting in comfortable surrounds, drinking wonderful coffee, delicious food, watching the world go by, reading the paper, talking high falutin talk with one's associates.
Ideas change.
April 29, 2004
Café Society
April 26, 2004
The Extended Family
The extended family is very important in Portuguese culture. Who else is
going to look after the kids for free? Women of a certain age virtually
enslave themselves to their children and much of the time it is the
grandmother who brings up the grandchildren, though the children's own
mother still gets to tell the grandmother what she is doing wrong. As a
concession, the grandmother gets to be called "Dona" Whatever, a
nomenclature of respect, for the privilege of being the family
gopher/cook/bottlewasher/nanny/cleaner. Hmmm. One day, that WON'T be lil'
ol' me.
April 22, 2004
April 17, 2004
Fwaaaaaarch
Ok, sorry, this is very very silly... but it really happened outside our house the other night...and it is so UN-portuguese.
April 16, 2004
April 14, 2004
Introducing Vitriolica (Vit) 'n' Majolica (Madge) Webb
Why have a blog? Well, I am British and live in Portugal, have done since
1999 (I have a pt husband and two half pt kids, so I'm here and that's that)
and Portugal drives me crazy.
I have to vent this.
Otherwise I'd be sure to have a nervous breakdown.*
Portugal, if you don't know the place, is an exceptionally beautiful
country.
But it makes me mad for thousands and thousands of reasons, and you will
have to read the whole of my blog to find out what they are. Madge (the main
artist) and myself (Vit, her what writes and sometimes draws too) do
actually live in the the same body and that has its difficult moments, but
mostly we get along fine.
The left hand does the drawing and the left brain does the writing. The
Madge part of me is an illustrator, a real proper one, who went to art
school and everyfink.
The Vit part of me is entirely unschooled.
*disclaimer: this is just "blog" (blog...the noun for blog content, that is,
don't take it too blooming seriously). So, if it offends you, please don't
let it, it's not meant to, unless you are an idiot in a car who kills people
with your driving, in which case, please be offended or stop driving like a
complete twat.