Home Sweet Home... Again

Soon I will be moving once again... to a new city here in Brasil. This is a plan that I have had for over a year now and I am finally getting there!

I have seen a few houses and have finally found the perfect one; quite a new and modern house, 4 bedrooms, one en-suite, large 2-level living room, big kitchen, a games room in the basement - which will be an ideal room for Bridget and Lucy, as Minnie always stays with me and lives in my bedroom (these are my dogs for who doesn't know me) There are balconies on every bedroom and one leading out onto the large garden from the kitchen. All rooms are full of light from wonderful big windows and the rooms are full of brazilian wooden beams, staircases leading up to each level and beautiful marble floors. The garden is perfect for the girls to run around in as it is all surrounded by walls and it's very private and secure too... there aren't any neighbours nearby, only way up the road, which is excellent! The view from the windows and bedrooms is fantastic! a complete view of nature: mountains, forests and deep blue skies. The garden is also full of fruit trees: limes, tangerines and papaya.

I won't be moving until a couple of months from now but at least the house-hunting part is over, the next part will be the worst: packing up everything and moving, I hate all of that! But once it is all done with it will be great and so much better than the house I am living in now...

This house that I have lived in for the past 3 years is full of problems, the garden is the best thing about it, however inside the house is a nightmare as in the Winter and cold weather it is full of damp problems, particularly the downstairs living room which thanks to the damp mould that appears on the walls is unliveable, so the room was never set up to be used and I have lived out of boxes for 3 years (and being a Taurus this is hell for me!) My living room furniture has stayed unused and stored away in the basement at the bottom of the house for the past 3 years and, apart from the kitchen, I mostly live in the upstairs of the house especially my bedroom which has become the sleeping area and living room combined, chock full with my television, home theatre, bed, desk, e.t.c...

So as you can imagine I have never been happy here... adding to this the fact that this house doesn't have a "good soul"- something that I have come to recognise in every house that I have ever lived in or visited. Maybe it's a spiritual thing or maybe it's just because I am a very sensitive person but I can always sense these things and can also sense when a spirit is near me too. This house here is a very unhappy house, maybe something bad happened here in the past or maybe it has just never seen any joy of life... needless to say that in the last 3 years that I have lived here this sense of depression has attached itself to me and I can't wait to escape the darkness of this place, I always sense some very bad spirits and bad karma here.

The 3 times that I have been to the new house in the new city I have felt nothing but joy, lightness, happiness and goodness in it's "soul" it felt like home already and when I entered the house for the first time I felt like I was home: happy and safe.... something that I felt when my Mum took me along to our family home in London the first time that we viewed it when I was 11 years old... She always trusted my instinct and would always ask me if I felt o.k. there when we looked at a new house and if I felt it had a good soul, if it felt like a happy place. That house became our family home and my Dad lives there until today and we have had a lot of good memories there. It is the only place that I can honestly call "home" and maybe because of my Mum and my family it always will be... but hopefully in a couple of months I will feel at home once again in the wonderful new happy house with the good soul and the kind heart.

The Fantastic Julie Walters as "Rhona"

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"Friends say to me: You're mad, Rhona. Rhona, you're mad! And I say: You're wrong. You're so, SO wrong!" - The hilarious comedic genius of Julie Walters!

This video is from the late 80's from the "Victoria Wood as seen on T.V." television comedy programme - sheer quality!
It's so great to see this really funny sketch again and be reminded what fantastic talent we have in the U.K!
In my opinion Julie Walters and Victoria Wood were always the best, along with French and Saunders! and it's on days like this that I feel so proud to be British!!
Now who hasn't met a woman like Rhona?!! haha

"World Peace Has Got The Blues" - Original Poetry By Me

Spinning, twisting, turning,
The questions in my head,
Where is the world we dreamed of?
It seems world peace is dead.

People helping each other,
Saying hello as we pass on the street,
Love in place of anger,
The world was once so sweet...

Where have you gone white dove of peace?
Did you fly away for good?
Where are the words of John Lennon?
We'd resurrect you if we could...

Let's try to make things better,
It can all start with a smile,
A handshake for your neighbour,
Hugging your friend for just a while.

There's a world of bloody violence,
And I've stopped reading the news,
Headlines full of bloodshed,
Seems world peace has got the blues...

© 07/2008

"My Ever-Glowing Light" - Original Poetry By Me

I'm dancing in the moonlight,

I'm singing in the sun,

Walking through places in my heart,

And knowing you're the one.

You're my first kiss of the morning,

And my final one at night,

You're my everything all in between,

You're my ever-glowing light.

There's days when we're together,

And days we are apart,

But you give my life it's meaning,

And you simply own my heart.

© 07/2008

Occupation Frustration

Lately I am "stuck" in my working life and don't know which road to take... let me explain:

I come from a big family of newspaper workers (printers, photographers and journalists) my Father is a newspaper photographer and my Mother was a journalist and since the age of 18 I worked for newspapers, and some magazines too, for many years (all my working life in the U.K.) which I enjoyed so much.
So when I came to Brasil of course all that had to change for me as the language here is Portuguese and not English, so I started working in English schools as a native English teacher.

The year I arrived here the (then) government was giving away working and living visas to anyone who had gone over their 3 months to stay in the country, it was an "Amnesty for Foreigners"
So of course I applied and got my permanent visa (which is a kind of i.d card) along with full legal status to live and work in Brasil as long as I like, of which I was so lucky to get as the current President would never do anything like this for foreigners in Brasil, if it was now I would have had to leave Brasil years ago.

So off I went to the English schools, working visa in hand, and started having interviews all over the place...
To my amazement my permanent visa "scared" most of the Director's in the schools as they are so used to foreigners coming to Brasil and working illegally, of which they prefer (cheaper for them), so my visa was worthless in my new-found occupation.
I did get lots of work as all schools love to hire native-speaking teachers who bring much more business for them as most people prefer to have a British or American teacher.
Anyway I had all my interviews, chose the school who paid the most money and stuck with them... for a while.

Over the years I have had uncountable bad experiences within the English schools... I have changed schools like most people change their socks, I have been cheated out of money, been given the worst lessons (late nights and early mornings), had to travel to dangerous places (most of my lessons were outside of the schools, working in companies all over the city) and have never had the same rights as Brazilian workers have: health insurance paid by the companies, paid sick-leave and holiday pay, travelling expenses to and from the lessons, Christmas bonus, e.t.c...
So basically if I was ever sick and couldn't work, or had a couple of weeks holiday when my family visited me then I never got paid.

A while ago I was cheated once more and got so frustrated with being so exploited over the years that I ended up giving up working in English schools altogether and just gave private lessons instead.
Now I am so fed up of teaching English... I'm in a rut and I don't have the same inspiration as before... in truth it's making me very depressed.

I know what you are thinking: You have your permanent visa - why not do something else?
but the problem is unless you are in an industry (like oil) here in Brasil then it is so difficult for a foreigner to do anything else here but teach English, so I am stuck on a straight road where I really need to turn left and do something different but I have no means or chance to do so.
I feel like I am not working to my full potential and when I remember how happy I was in my work in England it makes me sad.

Don't get me wrong; I don't think I am such a special person that I should be doing something "more important" - I would clean toilets if I had to, and if it made me happy, and I'm not the kind of person who thinks that some jobs are lower than others, I see everyone as equal and always have.

I am so happy in every other part of my life here in Brasil and I love Brasil so very, very much, I just wish that I had the choice, or chance, to change my profession to something I would once again enjoy and be happy with... I feel as if I am not a complete person anymore :(

My Beautiful Babies!

As I have spoken quite a bit here about my babies, who are a huge part of my life, I decided to post a couple of photos of them!

The first photo is Lucy and Bridget playing with stones in my garden.

Lucy is a black terrier crossbreed who "found me" on the street one evening as I was walking home... she was no bigger than my hand at that time and only around 4-5 weeks old. She ran up to me and acted as if she already knew me and asked to be picked up, needless to say I did pick her up in one second, fell in love with her completely and brought her home, she is a real character who has, what I believe, an old reencarnated soul. I would never have left her there on that dark and busy road that night.

Bridget is a yellow Labrador with a pure British pedigree, she is so loyal and loving and follows me absolutely everywhere. She waits for me on the bathroom rug as I have a shower and whenever I stand still around the house she lays down on my feet!

When she was a puppy she almost died (she caught a serious and deadly infection) and the vet said that she had no hope of surviving and I was so upset. She had very strong antibiotics and wouldn't eat anything, however I wouldn't give up on her and so I stayed awake with her completely for 48 hours without sleep, getting her to eat little by little and feeding her by hand.

I was trying to get her to eat anything, which she slowly did, and after a week of her almost dying I had nursed her back to health and proved the vet wrong, Thank God :)

2 years later she is very healthy and would eat non-stop if I allowed her to!

She is so connected with me, I think even more so because of all we went through together.

And this little Beauty is my Baby Minnie, she is a black and tan Miniature Micro-Pinscher but one of her grandfathers was a Chihuahua and so she has facial features more similar to a Chihuahua.
She is so tiny that even my vet commented that he has never seen a dog so small in all his years of work!! (she is a little bit bigger than my hand)
She is a wonderful little companion and so very loving and spends all her waking and sleeping hours with me (she stays with me in the top part of the house whilst Bridget and Lucy live downstairs)
In the cold weather she loves to wear her little doggy clothes and "asks" me to put them on her, she has a complete Summer and Winter collection! She is very spoilt (and completely deserves to be) and more than anything she knows that she is Beautiful! haha :)

Have I mentioned how much I Love my Babies?!