And just as I had, more or less, returned to the normal, seeing world, and started deciphering my 'non-sighted' manuscripts and teaching again, all of this mess with the COVID-19 happened and we got trapped at home and with ourselves again. On the funny side of things, after my aneurysm event and being almost sightless for over 10 months, I'd gotten used to being trapped at home and in my own mind, and I found it to be not a bad place at all, although i cherished each and every meeting with friends and colleagues, and rejoiced at getting back in shape to teach learners and train teachers again. This 'mess' is actually a huge change for us all, new challenges, new worlds, new techniques, new us. Reinventing life as we know it, if we are to keep it. So this is something brand new I started doing - my YouTube channel now contains 2 separate lists of short activities, videos, readings for children and grown-up children in Croatian (Čarolarije) and English (Anita's Haven).

It has been quite a long time since I dropped in here, but then again - I do have a valid excuse. This last year, much to my shock and the horror of those around me, I was temporarily thrown out of the life game by a very wicked, stealth enemy - an aneurysm burst in my brain, leaving me sightless for over 10 months, until some surgery and good doctors helped.

So here I am, slowly getting back into action. with several manuscripts, lectures and teaching workshops written while I was almost completely blind. I am now in the gruesome process of deciphering them - you can see a sample here. Sometimes I wrote in English, sometimes in Croatian, sometimes both in the same chapter, and in the beginning, lines over lines, pages over pages, or pages and pages with a pen which had long dried out, so no ink is now visible. Some day I will write more about it.

For now let me just say - I was lucky to have survived, grateful to have had wonderful, caring, loving people around me. I know I must have stuff to do yet since I have remained here. There is still so much good I can do and I look forward to it. I look forward to watching my kids grow, to growing old and batty alongside my husband, to teaching many people and telling plenty of stories. See you soon. And I mean it;)

A group of diligent volunteers from my little town in Croatia set up another little bookhouse, a tiny public library for everyone. It was an honour to have been invited to give a brief author-like speech there, a pleasure to share a few words, and give away some of my books to booklovers who came to attend the event despite the relentless cold and snow which spiced up the arrival of spring in Croatia.

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March 2018