My Mum
My mum is my best friend, my backbone and my reason d’être. She’s strong despite having lost her first-born, her second husband, her dogs and much more. She’s risen like a phoenix from her ashes and every day I am more proud of her. Every day she shows that life goes on, that there is always light at the end of the tunnel and because of that, I love her so much. When growing up, my mum gave me time and space to spread my wings and to find myself. Because of her, my ten years living in Ireland became a dream-come-true and she supports me every single day. We’ve travelled around Ireland many times and I hope to add many more trips to this and if she’s not in…
An Irishman’s heart is nothing but his imagination
I’ve put up lots of blog posts involving pictures lately. Sometimes a picture says a thousand words, especially when MS fatigue and asthma are a pain in the proverbial bum. Rugby is keeping me company this afternoon, and seeing Ireland play Argentina in Dublin on a Flemish television screen is making me yearn for home again. Home is Dublin, in a tiny suburb village close to the County Dublin and Meath border. It has been for the last 10 years now and it was a seamless integration and assimilation into Irish culture and society, and I’m so proud of the way Irish people have welcomed me into their midst without ever questioning my motives for being there. Please forgive me if I sound rather distasteful, awful or just plain ridiculous.…
Ireland, a love story
“You will be back in 3 months time” my dad said. “Ireland is a third world country.” He was a truck driver in the 1980s, delivering goods to Ireland when the country was in recession and likened the country to one that was in chaos and in serious economic trouble. Understandably he thought that as a Belgian girl, I would miss certain things that come for granted in a rich, industrialized country. The Ireland of 2002 was not a third world country anymore, in fact it never was. In 2002, the country’s economy was booming and tenderly called the ‘Celtic Tiger.’ For a while, it had the lowest unemployment in Europe, but when it fell into recession in 2008, we suddenly became the country with the highest number in unemployed people. From…