A friend kindly shared this article with me: Paradigm shift and collapse.

Today I'm resting again. I've had to rest so many times over the past 4 months since the injury which could have killed me, so surviving this long healing is Ok.

The trees and plants in our garden have been stretched during summer. Shedding all but their essential leaves, they’d closed themselves down.

The trees and plants in our garden are green and flourishing.

Earth Day 2020, on 22nd May, was especially poignant this year. As we humans navigate a dramatically changed world, where so much that we thought was permanent has become very transient, what remains?

My first introduction to Nuytsia floribunda was not a formal one. “This is a Christmas tree, Wendy,” my kindergarten teacher informed me. But it didn’t look at all like the Christmas tree that we had just decorated at home. I wondered if she was mistaken but didn’t dare to argue. After all, she was a teacher. She must know.

I have read, then slowly re-read this thoughtful piece from the poet Pádraig Ó Tuama. In a world busy with doing and being, this is a delicious invitation to simply be happy with being alone, right now — it is perfectly OK.

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. This excerpt from Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses” has been in my mind for a while now. Only today it became clear to me why.

Reading this lovely article on parenting by Maria Popova reminded me of my commitment when our first child was born — to be the best mother I possibly could for this precious gift. A commitment which I repeated when all our children were born and hold to this day.

This week I am thinking about the anniversary to be celebrated – on 4th March in 1998, I climbed Mt Aspiring in New Zealand with my beloved husband, Rob. It was a huge gift for both of us.

This morning I was thinking about the urge to “catch up” and what I am "behind with", now that I’ve recovered from the extraction of my deeply infected back molar tooth and chronic septicaemia from the poison that it had been pumping into my body.

A few months ago, I watched a tv show about German Jews leaving Israel and returning to Berlin. To live. Most were 3rd generation Israeli citizens. It was a most uplifting story.

Sitting on a bench next to a playground, I am listening to a group of children playing in the fort.

On my walk this morning (much enjoyed after 10 days of illness and unable to enjoy walking), I spied a tiny daisy flower growing in an equally tiny crack in the tarred path. The golden of its exquisitely small petals was pale against the dark tar. And it flourished quite happily in its own little niche, each perfectly suited to the other.

Today I woke in pain. Nothing like the mornings after each of my knee replacements, nor the morning after my tonsils were removed, nor the morning after my appendix was taken out, nor the morning after my baby-making organs were surgically removed. But, where there was a little pain yesterday morning, after the complex tooth removal yesterday, this morning it was definitely sore!

Yesterday was one of the magical synchronicities of life that, the day after reading this most thoughtful writing, I was blessed that an owl perched on my hand. A beautiful white-faced barn owl, named Ivy, and a superb predator.