First, thanks to everybody who has contacted me during my long and many absences from RetouchPRO, to ask if I was all right!!!

Fact is ... I live like a "gypsy" ... My husband and I spend 6 months in Europe (Italy-Germany-UK), and 6 months in South Africa.
I consider myself very lucky for this, but, there are many disadvantages as well... the worst are:
- doubled possibility of problems
- half the time to solve them..
- re-thinking and re-organizing my life ... twice a year
- packing and unpacking suitcases
- spending endless hours at airports and on airplanes..
Talking about airplanes... I still remember a long lazy afternoon of a scorching Italian summer, when it was too hot to even decide what to play at .... My brother, my friends and I (I was 5 or 6 years old) were just lying in the grass under the protecting shadow of a big tree when, very high in the sky, I saw a small silver 'dot' moving...
Wishing it with all my heart, I simply said that one day I would fly on a plane!!!
Everybody laughed at me ... none of our families had enough money for us to even take such a possibility into consideration!!
Well, looking back, I couldn't agree more with the saying 'you should be careful with what you wish... it might come true!!'

what a busy life! it does sound exhausting, all that travelling.
why do you do it? is it a work-related thing?
I want to thank you for all your posts that I have found helpful over the last 3 years - I enjoy the way you work.
I am also from south africa (but not italy)
where in south africa do you live when you are here?
karin
Thank you for your kindness!!!
Our Italy/South Africa life is due to part work/occupation (my husband's ... I'm a translator and work for the Italian branch of an International Pharmaceutical Company ... with the Internet, they 'catch' me everywhere I go...
Our South African friends call us "the swallows" ...
In South Africa we are in Somerset West ... Are you somewhere close?