Tonito Returns… Albeit briefly!

It has been a very long time since I last blogged. Too long in fact, but over the last year changing circumstances in my life has made blogging very, very hard (I’m not sure one can stack very, but oh well, one can try). The changes have occurred in all the arenas of our lives, personal and professional.

The first major change was our move in Johannesburg from a small one bedroom apartment into a three bedroom house, complete with added benefits (and burden) of a garden and pool. This move took over a lot of time as furnishing for a three bedroom house is no small ordeal. It is time consuming especially if you are looking for bargains on good furniture, which is what we did. This meant that our relaxing weekends exploring Johannesburg, turned into tiring weekends of furniture hunting, taking away time for blogging.

If moving into a new house isn’t enough to keep you busy, then you might as well add starting a Master’s degree into the mix. Due to a change in career direction a couple of years ago, I decided to pursue a Master’s degree to add theoretical knowledge to experience I had gained over the last couple of years. Just when furniture hunting when winding down, studying started to dominate my time, initially on week days but this started spilling over into weekends as well.

It seemed like all the stars were aligned to keep me busy, as my job started becoming more intense and work hours started creeping up from eight hours to more than I care for. It is the nature of the work that this happens occasionally, but unfortunately it was becoming the norm and not the exception. Not only was this the case for me, but Raquel was suffering the same curse.

There’s always a cherry on the cake, and here is ours… On 4 December 2015, Raquel and I welcomed the arrival of our daughter into this crazy world. Yes! A baby! For those who do not have children, you will not imagine how much time these little babies can consume and how much sleep they can steal! For those with children, I feel no need to explain myself further.

With all of this going on in our lives, it was virtually impossible to blog and hence this prolonged absence. However, as I am a man that loves a challenge, I decided that there was not enough to prevent me from blogging so I decided to move again. Yes. We have moved… abroad… to Qatar.

That’s where I leave you for now, but keep your eyes and ears open as I intend to relaunch Travelling Tonito pretty soon, as there is nothing better than a new country to reignite blogging fever.