Whales and worlds

Today the light was soft. Sunlight hazed through billowy clouds, gilding the edges of the harvested fields, getting caught in the golden trees that have already started losing their hair. English weather really. Most mornings, frost glitters on everything, and once the mist clears, the sky is blue as ice.
Quite a lot has happened in [...]

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But did they take the weather into account?

Australia, apparently, is the second best country in the world to live in. But guess which country is the best?

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Of Love and Faraway Places

I’ve been back exactly a week and I’m still catching up on posts from when I was in England. There’s something I want to write about the medieval congress too, but that will have to wait till the weekend. Because nearly three weeks ago, before my graduation and before the congress, my cousin got married.

Richard [...]

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Lakes

I cycled to the lake this evening and the water was very still. The pine trees, gilded by the late sun, mirrored themselves perfectly. Then a fish jumped and flopped and splashed and the ripples circled out, a perfect bulls eye, eventually hitting the bank and folding in on themselves. It reminded me of this [...]

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Many wonderful things

I am in Austria. Very close to Switzerland. If you climb a mountain – or, with much less effort, take a chairlift – you can see into a lake that touches Austria, Germany, Switzerland. I am surrounded by improbable lushness: meadows peppered with dandelions, mountains swathed in patterned cloaks of dark and bright green, the [...]

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Two days left

I’m ready to go back but not ready to leave, if that makes sense.

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How to fit twelve months of socialising into three weeks

Monday: 12pm, lunch with grandparents, great aunt and cousin. 1.30 pm, outing with Grandma. Cherry cake in the French cafe. Order new glasses. 7pm, dinner out with Mum, Dad and brother.
Tuesday: 11am, make strawberry pancakes for brunch with Mum. 12pm, phone calls to friends. 1pm, walk in the park and coffee at the corner cafe [...]

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Adelaide

I always find blogging more difficult from here. I guess it’s because many of the people who read the blog are just around the corner. But it’s been good. I’ve been hanging out with my grandparents, and my brother, and my old friends. And it’s good good good. There’s something about old friends which is [...]

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Serendipity

The funniest thing happened today. After lunch with my Grandparents and my Mum and my two aunts and my cousin and my cousin’s cousin I wandered not very far down the street to Mostly Books. As it’s around the corner from my Grandma’s house, which is pretty much the hub of Adelaide life so far [...]

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Progress report

Photos by Michael.
Well, I can declare the two quiet weeks at my desk a success. While none of the chapters I was working on is quite done, Murray is 95% done, Webb is 50% done, and theory chapter is 75% done. And I have clear plans for the remaining sections. By the end of today, [...]

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