It’s amazing how people keep on going away! Since I’ve been living in Ireland, each single month I have to say bye-bye to someone who leaves to explore the planet or to go back home. How sad, all these people living. The end of this year is specially bye-bye-ish as we lose a girl who has been taking care of my daughter for a while, a colleague of my husband and good friend of ours and my super duper colleague who shares my office.

It seems it is the fate of expatriate people. We meet loads of fascinating people, but sooner or later it is time to say bye-bye. I now have some experience and I have to say it helps to take time for a proper bye-bye, say how sad you are, even go for one tear or two. It allows to get rid of a good part of inner sadness and to be back on track reasonably quickly.

But let’s keep positive because Christmas gets closer and Santa Claus does not like sad people (I have been told he even hates them and give them French industrial pâté to punish them). So let’s be happy: the good thing with these constant moves is that you get to know more and more people living all over the world. So you can save a good amount on hotel money when visiting their country. Apart from that, I am a genuinely generous and sincere kind of friend. By the way, if you’re from Mexico or Singapore, feel free to move to Dublin next to where I live, I will provide you with mince pies for afternoon tea.