End of the year!

Hello my dear readers!

Life tried once again to lock me in the hold and dance on deck, but I managed to get free! This means I’ve managed to write this last post before the end of the year!

What happened was that my files went messed up on my google drives and were deleted in good part. The positive side was my books and short stories were safe, but the rest was gone.

Honestly, I created the problem in first place as I have two drives and I didn’t remember where the original file were; I tried to tidy them up and then I made a mess! Then I created a copy of my blog draft and couldn’t find the more updated version!

But now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and my first worry was to write a few words. In the next few days my partner should manage to tidy up my drives so my writing could speed up.

Because of this inconvenience I didn’t even manage to wish you happy holidays and I’m doing now: Belated Happy Christmas!

Since the first festivity is gone, let me tell you something else!

2020 hasn’t been an easy year for loads of us and many things happened, the latest being the impossibility of going back home for the Christmas period. Since I move to Ireland, I had spent these days with my family and this was the first year I was forced not to do so.

I was and, actually, I still am very sad I couldn’t go, mostly because I didn’t want to risk to pass on the virus to my mum and my family.

However, the Christmas Eve and day and the 26^th were very pleasant. A dear family friend came over and spent the Eve and the 26^th with us. We ate a lot and then played some card games. It was just the four of us and we didn’t do anything weird, just a calm, Italian style festivity day but it felt like home.

Also, I’d love to thank her publicly as she managed last minute to bake one of my ever favourite Christmas sweets, which is ‘pandoro’ (you can see it right in the middle of the photo collage up here!). For some reason, it was impossible to find it in Dublin this year but she managed to make my holiday sweeter.

Since I still have a couple of days, I’ll wish you happy new year in advance, so my ability to mess up the holiday wishes will stay intact!

Here we are then, happy 2020 ending and happy 2021 beginning!

How did you spend your holidays?

Were you stuck anywhere in the world?

Let me know in the comments below!

Karate - 空手

 

Last Saturday, I faced karate grading with Maya and we both passed!

Now we’re yellow belt!

But let’s start from the beginning, as I’m aware that talking about karate out of the blue can be a tad confusing.
This is probably the post I was looking forward to writing the most since I got back to my pages.
I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever told you anything about my karate history. Possibly I mentioned it in the past but never explained the whole thing.

So, to quote the mad hatter, I’ll start from the beginning and, once I’m at the end, I’ll stop. Now that I think about that, it might take more than one post! Well, along with pirates, ships and writing, karate will be one of the recurring topics from now on, so I hope you’ll like it!

Last year, mid September I joined a dojo here in Ireland with my daughter and we’re still going on, as you could read in the very first sentence!
But let’s step twenty five years back!

When I was in middle high school I joined a Karate dojo for three years. They’d been the best years of my life! I loved the sport itself, so much I’m still obsessed with it, I loved the friends I enjoyed the time with and I admired and respected my old sensei as well, so much we’re still in touch.
During those years I went up to the brown belt and I also won several competitions and had my self confidence at its highest.
Then, when I started high school I took the worst decision ever: I sacrificed the hours dedicated to karate and spent at the dojo to my studies. I know that from an outsider this might sound like a reasonable decision but, believe me, it wasn’t.
There is only one reply I give to those who ask me “if you could go back on time what would you change?”. I always say that I’d go back to the time I was 14 and would strongly advise to stay in the dojo and stay strong.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned more than enough times what happened next, the problems I had in school with teachers, bullies and low marks. Consequence of this was the loss of self confidence and life long problems I’m still trying to sort out.
Considering the amount of hours I’d spent crying because I missed the dojo too much and I skipped my karate session, I could have attended the lessons. That for sure would have made me good!
Anyhow, life and university and moving to another city to go to University got in the way and I never resumed my karateka’s life.

This was until my daughter was a suitable age!

To be continued…