by Deborah Valentine | Jan 2, 2014 | Reflecting
I was Miss Sourpuss the other day …..irritated by just about anything and everything …the person I smiled at, who did not smile back; the idiot behind me in the car, who saw my indicator as I approached a spot to parallel park in, and yet stayed put, on my...
by Deborah Valentine | Jun 7, 2011 | Reflecting
Language is a funny thing. For many it is about being correct, for many others about being understood. Somewhere in between these positions, a sea of misunderstanding can unintentionally be created. I have brought my children up bilingually. The speak Dutch and...
by Deborah Valentine | Apr 6, 2011 | Reflecting
There has been a girl boy, pre-teen power struggle going on in my household of late – the battle ground: Justin Bieber, a (in my terminology) teener bopper who has girls worldwide doing what two generations before them did for the Beatles. When the discussions...
by Deborah Valentine | Feb 11, 2011 | Reflecting
Monday is Valentine’s Day anno 2011. In a recent rummage of what I am now referring to as my ‘memory’ box (blogged about earlier), I came across – amazingly enough – a Valentine card I received anno 1975. At the risk of revealing my age...
by Deborah Valentine | Jan 24, 2011 | Encourage, Reflecting
Next week will see the launch of two books, written by two expatriate women of our local international community, in which they share with the reader painful memories of their past, their youth. “Black and (a)broad” by Carolyn Vines and “The Singing...
by Deborah Valentine | Jan 5, 2011 | Reflecting
I am no longer a self conscious, unsure teenager living far from home. I am an adult, a mother, mature – though still living far from home. When I was a teenager writing aerogrammes home (from boarding school in England to my parents in Iran), I did not, sorry...