2020 has been a rollercoaster, it has been our first entire year in the Canaries and a full year and a half here. It has been a year of lots of learning but just the beginning of this learning curve. For many it has been an awful year, with people sick and dying left and right, with friends and family struggling mentally and financially either one causing the other or both hitting hard. Now this year Christmas and new year will not be an exception and I think is time for reflecting on who we are and what we want.

For me this has been the greatest year ever. Firstly because luckily we are all healthy, just with some aches here and there but just because of all the hard work we’ve been doing. Next, as lots of folks are,we are poorer than ever (on the financial side) but we have gained so much more in happiness. Before we were running after money (today’s the same but not the same) to pay our bills, taxes, taxes and more taxes and pay for our amazing life in London. Now it is different, we just need to bring some food to our plates and pay electrics. Oh! Yes! And the Expensive taxes here in canaries (51€ a year!!).
Why I think I’m in such a great spirit and well is because I discovered that to live simpler with less, makes you more happy, I just need to see my boy smile or make his funny faces and that brightens my day and week, or to see my wife’s joy doing her dollies and then send them overseas to friends and family or just seeing our veg growing healthy and happy in our little allotment.

I also have learned so many new things, like how to fix an old battered car, build a wall and also an entire new room that we have in our farmhouse, I learned how and when to trim trees and vines. I learned how to make a shooting field and how to dismantle and clean my guns and rifles, also how to file sharp my axes for our axe throwing field. I learned electric installation and plumbing, plastering and tiling. And finally made contacts to start learning sailing which I want to be my future job.

Looking retrospectively at this year I think I’m a visionary or I’m just lucky? Or both? When the pandemic started I immediately thought how clever/lucky we were to be where we are with my wife and son. But that did have a cost/exchange! We lost being close to our friends and UK family, I had to close my beloved Latin Angel studio, we lost our lifestyle in London. But in exchange to live in the Canarian mountains and I got my wife and son Leon to be safe in the most beautiful place we could possibly be in a pandemic, and got Leon’s Chilean grandparents to be with him. But all that also give us time to enjoy our life in a different way more close to the land, the soil, the dirt, new smells, insects and many other beautiful things we had taken for granted or barely even paid attention to.

The tattooing part of my life has also been a rollercoaster as I’ve not been able to travel as often I used to tattoo my amazing clients and friends in London. At the beginning of the year I had some doubts of my self as a working artist because of some uninformed feedback and also the way that Spanish clients can be towards tattoo artists. But now after talking with my close artist friend I’ve realised that not all feedback is entirely correct or comes from knowledgable people and as the expression says “take it with a pinch of salt” and now I think I will always tattoo but not anymore commercially. I will do it because I love with all my soul my job and I will do it that way.

I think this has been a great year but only because me and my wife worked hard for everything that life brought us and we did it all with love, respect and passion, listening only to our hearts and nothing else.
I’m looking forward to 2021 to bring us more new adventures and learning and I’ll remember that spreading love and passion to others makes us all better humans…

Miguel Angel
Dec. 2020