Watching an adolescent duck flying upstream and surfing down, flying up and surfing down, over and over on the fast-moving river. Finally he hauls himself out on a low-hanging branch and sits there, drying in the sun, quacking with satisfaction.

Under the trees I saw two people riding side by side, holding hands between the bicycles. Not far away a duck plunged earnestly beak-first into the water, its tufted tail and downy bum held upright by the twin prongs of its feet on the scummy surface.

By the river new wildflowers are now growing, the seasons progress with colour and line. Some of them are upright prongs of dark pink clovers and some, I suspect from the shape, might be buttercups. Buttercups are famous! I’ve read about them since I was a little girl, in English novels. But I think I’ve […]

It’s 11pm. Went for a bedtime walk around the road with my friend and host. Most of the houses are dark and in one or two windows are lights. Don’t other people’s houses entice when it is late and one longs for one’s bed. A tree along the highway has burst into bloom. “I like […]

My arms are full of scratches from traveling among the trees along the river. It’s interesting how so much of what we see is due to attention. A woman passed behind me as I was crouched in a mossy hollow this morning, poking the water with a stick, and until she was almost on top […]

Chic girl in the sunny gardens by the duck pond, at an outdoor cafe where we had lunch, cutting her toenails at the table while her companions ate their bowls of sardines.

River is freezing over and the swans and ducks have a narrow, darker path that they can swim through. Feathered ice-breakers. The ice is flimsy and resembles the scuzzy glass of an uncleaned shower cabinet but there are pure, sheer white patches where the overnight snow lies untouched and I can see two yellow leaves […]