Lallie jumped into bed very impatient for her lalliebye collection - mama had added a new one just two days ago and lallie was trying to remember the words. it was in german so she had a bit of trouble trying to get her little head around the strange pronunciation and although she knew the story, the words didn't make much sense - this one was abou

My darlings well...this is it. my final morning. i am not yet gone and brain of spain wants to strip the bed. lots to do before semana santa. kind of the last straw. i asked for their book and wrote in french all that i have 'sur le coeur' since perhaps they will understand it better in a latin language. i wrote three pages. with bullet points. and

For 16 centuries, tradition has it that saint nicholas crosses the globe tonight, leaving presents for all those who have done good deeds throughout the year. children (young and old, big and small!) polish their boots on the evening of december 5th, so that he will stop by and drop his gifts inside them. over 811,000 romanians mark their name day

Mama got to the end of lallie’s bedtime story and closed the book having first marked the page with a home-made bookmark. “it’s a wrap,” said mama, “i’m bushed!” lallie was already half asleep. “cuddle!” she ordered, dozily and mama bent over her daughter to execute the wish, just as she always did. she kissed lallie’s forehead,

My darlings forgive me for being so inefficient and not writing you an update until now. i'm so sorry. i will start with saturday's visit to ronda in the malaga province, a little under 3h by bus from seville. instead of settling on andalucia's plains, where they would have been sitting ducks for bandits, some andalucians chose to live in the forti

[gheorghe leahu: popa nan, source ] in 1459, 557 years ago today, bucharest first appeared in a written document. 557 years.... bucharest became romania's capital in 1862. this, from wikipedia: "its eclectic architecture is a mix of historical (neo-classical), interbellum (bauhaus and art deco), communist-era and modern. in the period between the t

Darling loves, sorry i didn't write this last night - i hope i can remember everything...and liz is coming round at any moment to leave some of her stuff here til wednesday as she's moving into a hostel tonight and doesn't want to take too much. anyway, back to gibraltar, i got the bus yesterday morning as planned after having been further irritate

Semana santa in seville it's time to look forward to semana santa (holy week), an elaborate commemoration of the last week of christ's life. though i'm not a particularly religious soul, easter for me, as you know, is the most important festival (religiously speaking) of the year. i had hoped that easter 2010 would be spent with you, but i guess th

Lallie rushed to bed that night as she knew that the sooner she was asleep, the sooner father christmas and his elves with reindeers in tow could get to work. mama told lallie that poor father christmas had a great deal of work to do – visit all the children of the world in only one night... what a work load... and so the sooner she was asleep th

Lallie listened carefully to the end of the story and as mama closed the book, marking the page for tomorrow night’s chapter, she gazed at her hard. “what are you looking at me like that for?” asked mama. “i was just thinking how you are the most beautiful mama in all the world – and…you’re mine!” shouted lallie, clapping her hands.