Every time I see your face, it reminds me of the places we used to go but all I've got is a photograph...

A bumper edition of photos for you all in this post. It's been back to work with a vengeance this week - not much time for any downtime apart from rewatching the last series of 24 with Jacky and reading my current book - 'John Paul George Ringo and Me' by Tony Barrow (The Beatles PR man in the sixties). A gift from my Executive Officer at school, it's okay but he's pretty pompous with overblown prose throughout. Apart from that our mower has been away for repair so I've only had the weekly harrowing of paddocks to keep me amused on the weekend.

Thank you to Dad for getting in touch to clear up the blighty thing for me -

Blighty is an English slang term for Britain, deriving from the Hindustani word vilāyatī (विलायती) (pronounced bilāti in many Indian dialects and languages) meaning "foreign", and is itself derived from the Arabic/Urdu word wilayat, meaning a kingdom or ministry.

Joan (remember she and Deirdre recently turned 50) also got in touch to mention that her lovely son sat her down to talk about her birthday and tried to console her that turning 40 shouldn't be such a problem. Bless!

And so - to the photos - a few more from Japan for a start:




The rest are from Jade's three day camp at Vertical Horizons last week - you'll remember I went out for a night and took these photos of her and friends (Jade is on the shoulders in the water, on the beam across the water, and in the 'yellow' photo she's somewhere! This is MacAllister - one of our four Houses and these are the Y13 leaders).






Nature watch - we're back to two horses - Jack has returned to his owner, and the temperature continues to slide downwards - we're experiencing autumnal weather conditions at the moment. I haven't been sleeping very well for a few weeks - I seem to wake at about 3.30am - 4.30am each morning. This morning at about this time there was an eery mist and strange filtered moonlight through the murk. I didn't go back to bed - just made cups of tea, watched the day slowly dawning and the mist lift off the paddocks and trees. Good thinking time!Henry David Thoreau in his diary for 18 Feb 1841 - Sometimes I find that I have frequented a higher society during sleep, and my thoughts and actions proceed on a higher level in the morning.

Currently grooving to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' album - Raising Sand. It kinda gets under yer skin (like sand!). I've played it every day for the last week and haven't got sick of it yet (especially good on misty mornings). Also dusted off Ryan Adams' 'Heartbreaker'. I read an interesting interview with him in Mojo which inspired me to listen again.

Annette sent me an email about a great site that I can also recommend (it's on my 'fun places to visit' bit on the left - just scroll down). Her words sum it up though so - over to you Annette:

Just found this site http://www.6billionothers.org/index_en.php which is part of a film project -- I watched a few of the people talking, and will dip in and out of it occasionally. Keep clicking and you will get to a screen where you can click on people and hear their comments (translated into English).

I found it humbling and moving to realise yet again how similar we are as human beings in our loves, fears and desires. I need to be reminded of this in light of world news and views of people as one-dimensional stereotypes with our attitudes and fears projected onto them.

I clicked on a few people talking about the dreams they had for life when they were children. My favourite was the guy who had a dream about going to Europe. Just look at his smile!!!


Love and peace - W