On the underground train above ground the whole carriage overheard two rather stoned young dudes speaking about Art, that is, themselves. As we unzipped the treetops people glanced at them, glanced away, smiled. One dude had a wry American accent and the upper hand. The other dude was Persian and explained at some length that […]
Try to work out whether I can afford to get back over to Ghana to see my sweetheart, I asked a friend: how long will this pretty autumn weather last? We know all too soon it’s going to get misty and grey and damp and bitterly cold – but when? Oh well, he said: November […]
Whole streets in Berlin have grown into green tunnels while I was away in Africa. Trees so heavy with bloom they are almost touching sag together across the road. From above, they must resemble giant posies. To resolve my sense of cultural and geographic dislocation I decided to focus on the sky and the trees, […]
I was cycling along the river where the water meets the trees, there is a little grove there which is sacred to me and it seems to be a forest in a parallel universe. It is a dreamy Spring day, grey like the winter but unlike Winter, studded with flowers; and I had just finished […]
I may or may not have been down to the markets today to visit the man who runs a wonderful salami stall; he offers salamii (that’s the plural) of goose, duck, venison, and pig. This man has taught me that the original salami were loaf-shaped, like baby cheeses, and the familiar linked sausage format is […]
Walked into a Turkish convenience store late on Friday night, they sold water pipes as well as a dazzling array of alcohols and sundry sweet snackettes… behind the counter stood a very untall & wizened woman wearing a scarf, her hands on the counter at chest height in front of her, and beside her a […]
Though I live in one of the grimiest areas of Berlin, and that’s pretty grimy, right now and for a few short blessed weeks I can walk – from my house – clear down to the UBahn station – under an alleyway of pink cherry blossom. It’s like a fairytale. All I have to do […]
Today I pulled my ugg boots out of the back of the closet and yanked them on to walk down to the nearest coffee shop. Under the lowered sky the world feels more like a cave than a palace of splendours. It is cold and what withers my heart is that it will now stay […]
The sun is shining over Berlin today and I feel so glad of the blue it lights. All too soon it will be dark all the time, a world half-awake, candles staining fogged daylight windows and all the birds have flown except for ducks, pigeons, sparrows, swans. I wonder how it feels in the heart […]
“The wind was rising, so I went to the wood. It lies south of the city, a mile from my home: a narrow, nameless fragment of beechwood, topping a shallow hill. I walked there, following streets to the city’s fringe, and then field-edge paths through hedgerows of hawthorn and hazel. “Rooks haggled in the air […]
Walking at night through the little woods that runs along the shore. I can hear a muted guitar playing from across the water. The dirty water in the dark looks black and clean as ink. Spring is thickening and the trees reach in from either side, closing the path. You have to be swallowed in […]
So on December 4th I stripped myself out of the hammock tied under a tree that is no longer there, and put on a Santa suit and biker boots, and we went out to the airport in Brisbane and got on a plane. We left summer and got here to Berlin in winter, it never […]
Walking home I saw a man clinging to the upper part of a set of ornate window bars, gazing intently upward. At first I thought he was doing parkour. Then I wondered was he maybe housebreaking, aiming to climb onto the balcony on the first floor. Then I saw four hands reaching from within, scooping […]
So cold outside that I can keep cheeses and yoghurts fresh by stowing them in between the inner and outer window. So warm in my room that I can ripen bananas by just letting them sit on my table. Not that there’s anything at all strange about that, Europe.
So cold and empty at the heart today. I feel all the little threads connecting me to everyday life in the usual world – the usual world of Brisbane, that I grew so painfully and slowly reattached to after some 13 years away – have been cut, or burnt off and I am gliding in […]
Queensland. The Sunshine State. Skin Cancer Capital of the World. Spending as much time in the hammock under the trees as I can possibly afford, trying to absorb enough warmth and light and birdsong to slingshot me over the sudden cliff face of winter. A friend writes from Berlin: it is near zero. And I […]
