And here is the stone ship in the rain

It rained all day Saturday, but I dragged the boys out anyway

to watch the stone ship sailing quietly

through all the flowers.

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Colours

I wish I could pick them all up and put them in my pocket.

The white and the green.

The yellow and the red.

The patchwork and the orange.

The grey and the rainbow-blue.

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Why you should all go to Austria

Update: This post is frequently in my top posts and has received more traffic than anything else I’ve written (a bit embarrassing for a bunch of holiday snaps), because a certain spammer keeps trying to leave links to his Austrian holiday apartment. Note to spammer: I have deleted your comment each time you have left [...]

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Progress

Yesterday, after my supervision meeting, the tulips in the courtyard were nearly as happy as me.

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Daffodil Hunting

Daffodil with students
I had the nicest dream this morning, just before I woke up. I dreamed that someone wanted to publish my novel. In fact – they had already published it, and I held it in my hands. I have actually dreamed this before, more than once. But never before was the dream accompanied by [...]

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Spring?

You’ve been wooing me for days,
invisibly, with the most delicate of whispers.
With a fragrant smell despite the clouds,
with sunlight on my bathroom floor,
with snowdrops crowding the tombstones
of the old church.
I’m pretending not to notice,
knowing (rightly) that winter will crush me again,
hammer me with black weight,
and I am so tired.

How can I trust what weighs less [...]

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Our newest toy

The very clever lovie has found these beauties. They pump up in five minutes, and then you’re away! They’re called dive-yaks, and are made so that you can paddle out to a spot and then go diving, something we won’t be trying. But they work just fine for paddling around.
This lake is a popular bathing [...]

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Roses and Stars

Tonight there were wild roses tangled in the long grass on the fortress. Every time I go there something has changed. Flowers have bloomed, or died, the grass is longer, the leaves thicker. Tonight the light was milky – a thin sheen of cloud covered the sun. Below the fortress, the river gleamed and [...]

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Happy Mother’s Day Roby

Happy Mother’s Day! Here are the only nice things in our garden. Anyone who doesn’t know how great my Mum is can click here.

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