Category: Life stuff

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Chinese visitors

About once a week we get tourists wondering onto our property. They take photos – of the view, of the house, of us in the house, selfies with or without us. It’s kind of weird. Except for a very few, they are Chinese tourists. They rarely speak English. I wonder if we have got onto someone’s Facebook or Instagram page. 

There’s no reason to mind. They are definitely not scoping the joint for a future burglary (I’m pretty sure). They just like the view – and who’s to say the view belongs to us? And they are curious about the “locals” and how they live. Me too!

I have thought, though, of jumping around like a monkey. Or raising my shirt. Or even coming out to greet them with no clothes on. As if it were normal. We’ve also wondered if we should put a sign up at the entrance asking for €5 a photo.

But who knows, if they keep coming, maybe one day we’ll be famous on Chinese TikTok (Douyin)!

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My blog looks just like Annie Mueller’s. That’s because it is. I’ve had several blogs since my first blog on blogspot in August 2004 (http://btrayner.blogspot.com/). Then stopped blogging regularly. Always miss it.

Reading Annie’s “It’s just a blog” post shot me back. That’s why I do it. Plus her simple layout spoke to me. It’s a wonderful Anders Norén design. Works like a dream.

Hello and Reading are two headings that I would have. I spent hours thinking of an alternative to Hello. There’s Viva – it’s what I say in Portugal and sounds so full of life, but pretentious when the blog is in English. And there was Jambo – Hello in Swahili and definitely pretentious if you don’t know it was part of my vocabulary growing up in Mombasa. So I stuck with Hello, which sounds to my ears like the short response my grandson gives  to an effusive “HELLOOOO my DARling, how AAARE you”. Neutral.

And Reading is Reading. Just what I want to write about. 

So there you have it. Copied. Look me up, if you come to Portugal, Annie. I owe you dinner. 

Meantime, I looked up my first blog and found these resolutions moving into 2006. It reminded me how wonderful it is to blog. And to be able to look back on your unremembered self – Resolutions 2006.