Home

One has left a version of oneself at the place of departure and it waits for us at the point of return - but she is not me when I get there.

Kirsty Gunn. My Katherine Mansfield Project.

I went out wandering with Mari Lena, a new friend, an Italian staying here too.  And we found these beautiful flowers growing on the side of the road.  It's so lush here in Rarotonga.

The notion of home is coming at me from all over, in my reading ... in my everyday life too, as I head home after 6 years away, after 8 years away before that.

I'm about to buy an e-book.  This extract came from it ...

It's an idea that has always preoccupied me - that notion of creative process as a making, a willed brick-by-brick, word-by-word building of a place on the page that might let a story inhabit it - to create a home of words, where I, the writer, may also live.

Kirsty Gunn, from My Katherine Mansfield Project.

Kindle Stand, Rarotongan-Style.

My brand new, recently-fell-from-a-tree-nearby, Kindle stand.

Where The Magic Happens ...

The magic happens, sometimes, in that space where you break all the rules ... or accidentally bump the Mode setting onto another, entirely inappropriate, setting.

I love this photograph, taken with my Canon 5D MkII.  It seems like a water colour and is, perhaps, the only way my daughter would allow me to publish a photograph of her.

She's crouching, photographing her exquisite Romanian rescue dog.  Sahara and Sander are there too.  As is the snow.  

I'm up in Scotland today.  -6 celsius this morning, and frozen feet.

In huge news, for me, I managed to light the fire but while applauding my own cleverness, the vent knob fell off.  I went from feeling like Pioneer Woman to Ms Bean - Mr Bean's twin sister, in a heartbeat.

I opted to leave my slippers out of my packing and so,  feet masquerading as blocks of ice, are my new normal here in the north of Scotland.  I'm also missing my external harddrive, my hiking boots ... and my flatmates loved the Italian Christmas cake I left behind. 

I have never forgotten having to throw away quite a bit of my stuff, at the airport, for the flight between the UK and Italy.

Photographically, I am loving Scotland.  But in other ways struggling with the cold.  It seems I have softened in Italy.  That long hot Spring, Summer and Autumn in no way prepared me for this but but but ... it is so good to see family, to catch up on their news, to eat English food :-)

All of that.

The House Protects the Dreamer ...

 ... if I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace. 

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

One Small Italian Cat, in Liguria

I loved this cat but it seemed so confused ... wanting affection, and yet hissing when we tried to stroke it.

This was our last view of it.  Sitting there, at the top of the stairs, watching us watching it.

A Small Roadtrip, in the Italian Riveria

Joey the Wondercar, Leah's valiant little Cinquecento, (Fiat 500) took us on a delicious road-trip yesterday.  We wandered, really meandered, from Genova to Portofino and back again, with many stops along the way ... lunch, coffee, aperitivo.  

That would be Leah, the Canadian blogger writing over at, Help I Live With My Italian Mother In Law.

The one who laughingly told me, that my camera gear was the only thing that saved me from a soaking yesterday.

This water came that close, as seen below ...

The Ligurian coastline is completely underrated, almost a secret, but I kind of like the peace of that.

And as you can see, if you know New Zealand ... it reminds me of home.

Everything was beautiful out there.  Divine even, without exaggeration. 

There was this confused feral cat, who stretched and smooched nearby but hissed if we reached out to stroke her.  She was a beautiful creature.

And we met up with Leah's little dog soul-mate, and I whispered to him as I clicked the shutter.

And then?

Well, we found these hammocks, up in the olive grove, above Leah's house.  

I have wanted a hammock my whole entire life.  I had spent a few hours in one as a child and loved it.  I thought I had died and gone heaven yesterday, up there on the top of the hill at Portofino, in the hammock hanging between two olive trees, as the sun started its slide into sunset.

And on the way home, walking back through the city, people called out and greeted me.  And that's gold when you live in a country not your own.  

It was a good day ... 

Grazie mille, Leah.