Here I am ...

I've been busy with putting together advertising texts and images.  Busy with family matters.  And with other complicated things too.

Basically I've been messing with my life/work balance ... that's to say I haven't really had any balance as my life is a blend of 'both' and 'everything'.

Then today ... I began pulling out all the equipment and cables I travel with.  Charging camera batteries, adding my USB modem to my camera bag and finding sunhoods for lense.  And that cable that hangs from the window in Genova, enabling me to receive an internet connection that has to fight its way through the massive stone wall built centuries ago, the one that was inspired by a Genovese desire to keep the Holy Roman Emperor Barbarossa out in the 1100s.

As it turns out, that city wall is still an effective barrier today.

Miss 10 changed schools a few months ago and the route is no longer 2 trams and an hour each way.  These days, when I take her, we ride through the park and arrive after 10 minutes of cycling.  This morning I came home raving about the air out there. 

It's Spring and it rained all night.  That beautiful juicy, sweet-smelling rain that inspires me to open windows while I work at my desk.  This morning we woke to moist warm air that smelt of flowers, wet beech trees, and oaks, and the earth too. 

Nature was in the ascendent and it was divine.

Steel-grey clouds have filled the sky for now, and as I write this, a massive torrential downpour is happening.  The rhubarb will be loving it.  And I am too.

Cousins ...

One of the things we Kiwis miss, here in Belgium, is extended family.  On Friday we had the chance to catch up with my niece and her family.  We were so grateful to Beckie, Malcolm, James and Alex for stopping in during their fabulous tour of Europe.

Miss 10 was bemused by the idea that she was finally spending time with 'family'.  She knows very few of her New Zealand people.  And they loved each other.  It was truly lovely 3 days spent in the company of good people.

A Meeting in the Park ...

I was out in the park and recognised the woman's dog.  She lives near me.  She stopped, waiting, as I photographed the path. I confessed that we were neighbours and we chatted a while.I love that kind of meeting.  And then, when …

I was out in the park and recognised the woman's dog.  She lives near me.  She stopped, waiting, as I photographed the path. 

I confessed that we were neighbours and we chatted a while.

I love that kind of meeting.  And then, when I asked, she gave me permission to photograph them as they wandered on.