Month: April 2016

How can I help you?

Let’s connect!   First of all, thank you. For visiting my site and giving me the opportunity to inspire you somehow, in the midst of so much information on social media. I try to bring you something new, real and imperfect, as all that is human made. I thank you for the positive reinforcements that I’ve been receiving either on likes, comments, shares, subscriptions or simply for reading my blog. It allows me to continue to share what inspires me in this crazy, brilliant life. So, how can I help you? Are you planning your next holiday and need personalized tips? Do you have a business and need help promoting it in social media? Are looking to be featured on this blog? Do you need my services as a copywriter for your business, shop, restaurant, tours, hotel? ⇒ Please contact me anasofianv@ gmail.com and check out my social media channels. You can find my professional path on Linkedin, photos on Instagram, conversations on Facebook and interests on Pinterest. ⇒ If you find my content helpful, please make …

Virtue lies in the middle ground?

Virtue lies in the middle ground? I never knew how to be a woman of middle ground. I never knew how to ask for bread with little butter, cakes with little sugar or light spouts. I don’t understand indefinite sex, poorly finished relationships, sun covered with a sieve and many other concepts of underutilization. If it’s meant to be then so be it, “with nothing or a lot” is my motto when it comes to feelings or matters of taste. I can’t like it “more or less”, although I really want to achieve the virtuous balance. I will then be a self-professed unbalanced person, by nature or conviction. This brings me so many disappointments, to me and to those around me and only I know what it costs me. It’s just that as soon as I’m reaching the balance supposedly necessary to live in harmony, I don’t hesitate to pull the rug out and fall on all fours. I sit there for a while, wondering why I have this self-inflicted mania. Soon (or not), slowly …

Curiosities about Madeira, in 1853

I loved reading recently a book that portrays the visit of a British tourist with her husband to Madeira in 1853. José Henrique de Franca, her husband, 51years old, was born in Covent Garden, London and was a descendant of a Madeiran emigrant. Isabella de Franca, the writer, 58 years old, came to Madeira to visit the land of her father in-law, throughout a honeymoon of adventures that made her share by written and trough her own paintings such inspiration. Their stay in Madeira lasted about one year and the journey that was made by boat, the Eclipse, departured from London and lasted about 15 days. They were staying in a hotel in Rua da Carreira, at the time one of the main streets of Funchal, where there used to be several hotels, including this one, in front of the English Church, run by Jacinto de Freitas. She talks about trips to: Quinta do Palheiro Ferreiro Quinta Calaca (Clube Naval do Funchal) English Church Quinta do Monte Quinta da Achada in Camacha Caniço “Quinta da …

Madeira Embroidery

The Secrets of Madeira Embroidery – Workshop

The Secrets of Madeira embroidery – Workshop The Madeira embroidery has always been part of my life. It accompanied me through the curiosity of my childhood, in search of hidden treasures in the house cabinets of my parents, in the bed sheets offered as a wedding gift, in the baptism suits of my children and in the table cloths of my home, whenever we celebrate special days. I never set out to understand the value that is hidden in a piece of Madeira embroidery. Not that I did not like manual labour, but only because Madeira embroidery was considered difficult, time consuming and inaccessible to my inexperienced hands. And so I decided it was time to learn by participating in a workshop of Madeira embroidery. Bordal organizes workshops of Madeira embroidery every week and in one of these thursdays, I joined a group of ladies with the same purpose: to learn to Madeira embroider. Bordal was founded in 1962. There is, in store, a historic route that leads us through the manufacturing process side by …