Back Beneath a Mountain
Of Gold and Silver, Trees and Ghosts The woods are cool. The air flows above the tumbling, rushing stream, following the steep valley down to the river below. It is urgent, this flow, both water and air, as though it…
Tag France
Patterns of Time
I find the relatively brief walk to the micro-crèche a welcome break in my day, just getting outside helps and the views of the snow-capped peaks are all kinds of wonderful too (more of which later). Then there are the…
Sparrows, Hope, and Rules
Potentially the last newsletter before the baby arrives… This is a season of storm. The birds know it, they are frantic, feeding as quickly as they can before vanishing from sight as the sky drops into the valley and all…
The Golden Mountain
Of hammocks and new growth. As with the spring and the mountain greening, the fall of autumn begins in patches. It is first noticed one morning, with two or three trees shunning their former verdancy, in exchange for a cloak of…
Islands of Hope
Waters of Warmth Specks of seedlings are strewn across the empty plant pots on the balcony. The flowers or salad they held are now mostly long gone, with the exception of a single nasturtium and a sprawling and exceedingly hardy…
Sunset, On Quite A Year
But the sun also rises. The air grips the lungs from the inside, mountain-cold and surprisingly dry, despite the thick fog weaving tendrils down streets and throwing a blanket over the valley. There are snow-covered peaks in all directions, but…
The Sense of a Storm
Echoes and Foreboding It comes not through taste or sight, sound, or touch, or scent, but through something other, another one of our senses the majority somehow forget we possess. It is a pressing down inside, something foreboding, ancient, deep…
Fermentation, Hither and Thither
There are some mornings when the world is suddenly sharper, the senses heightened and all clear in the mind, every leaf sharply focussed, every scent evocative. I find these perfect days often correspond to the weather; when an autumn morning…
Forthcoming Stories, On Direction
Where my work is going and what new releases you shall see, with additional rambling about mental health and the world burning. I recently threatened to post a blog here and, worryingly, it looks like that threat came true, if…
Habits, Travels, Me, Future
Post Number 91 Over many years of trial and error (actually more a case of trial, error, another error, a bit more trial, error etcetera) I have learnt that I work best in short sprints, with a brief break between,…