Rain

It is possible to walk in the English rain without getting wet.

Compared, of course, to getting caught in the kind of rain that splashes up your legs, cascades through your hair and trickles down the back of your ears. Rain in Thailand saturates everything only to dry it all out again five minutes after it began.

Or, your beautiful Tasmanian rain that falls in tiny cyclones. It flicks its way into your ears, leaks through every buttonhole and flies up your nose. My flimsy little purse-umbrella didn't leave a dry patch on my body when I got caught in the rain in Tassie.

This English spring rain, it falls in neat tiny droplets. Droplets that fall straight down in orderly fashion and sit politely on the toes of your shoes. Little shiny dots that mist a layer on your coat and slide themselves in neat trails down your umbrella.

This English rain, it may go on and on forever, but mostly as long as you have your purse-umbrella your ears will stay dry.

Welcome Back (and Now it is Spring)

Twilight is suddenly not until 8pm,
woollen jumpers make me sweat, need to peel off layers,
walking down the street I am wrapped in swirls of pink and white blossoms falling.

Home

Beauty Point, Tasmania

Steam rising from tea.
Crisp, early mornings
golden hazy light.
Birds squawking, the black cockatoo kind, really more like SCREECHING
tearing seeds from pinecones with noisy efficient crack! sounds.
The sea
which is truly the river but feels like the sea.
Memories of fears
of sharks that will come up from beneath and nibble my toes.
They never did
but they could have.
Silence.
Being able to see the stars, really see them.
Friends.
Family.
Having all those in-between conversations, you know
the ones that come out after all the "so how are you" and "what have you been doing lately", you know
about the things that really matter.
Distances, short:
friends nearby, meeting people I know in the street -
and still,
great distances, dreams and memories of far away.

Storm

It was supposed to be a week of stormy weather. The weather people rang the school last Friday to warn us, you know, suggested that we give them a call if by any chance the school roof blew off.

It didn't.

The only thing that happened was puddles and rain slashing down. Wet trousers. Umbrellas. Raindrops on the bus windows.

We can only be grateful that the school roof stayed firmly put.

I'm going to send the blog into hibernation for a while. I have four weeks left of my current teaching job and have a feeling those weeks will be a bit crazy - stuff involving testing, marking and writing reports. And then the trip to Australia. See you when life is slower :)
Lex.

Day 4: Dark and Quiet Places

Arch leading to Roman Columns; inside a cathedral

I told you I chickened out of travelling to Barcelona alone. It's true. But I did actually spend the last two days there by myself - Lauch went back to London earlier. I did a tour of the old city - the Barri Gotic - and found some cool places. The top photo is of a little alley that I didn't want to go inside. It was at the end of a very narrow street and it was creepy and had flies in it. But I stepped through anyway and found the most silent and almost worshipful room with three or four incredible Roman columns, intact. The other buildings had been deliberately built around them to preserve them.

The photo of the candles was taken inside a cathedral. I was the only person in there and it was all walls of golden pillars supporting different icons of saints. All gold glinting in candlelight and ornate patterns on walls. The Spanish sure know how to make an impressive church.

Day 3: The Rain in Spain

These photos were taken in the same street, a few minutes apart

Just in case you thought it was sunny in Spain in the middle of Winter. It isn't. Despite an official temperature of 15 degrees, we still had to wander round in coats and woolly jumpers and actually shivered every now and then.

The photo below is Lauchlin's new favourite shop: Maoz vegetarian felafel shop. I never quite worked out how to say it - "Mah - otz"? "Ma-woz"? Whatever. They make you felafels inside a toasted pitta bread, and you can add stuff. The spicy yellow chillies are great.

Day 2: Inside Casa Batllo - House Inspired by the Sea

There was a cheesy voiceover on the audio tour, suggesting that now we had walked around inside Casa Batllo, we would never look at things the same way again. "Ha!" Lauch and I laughed. "As if our lives have been changed forever!"
I didn't admit it at the time, but secretly I think my point of view has been changed. Doorways that aren't square, but round? Painting the walls to look like cracked desert? Using cement to create flow and drips and ripples on the walls and ceilings? I honestly have never thought of these things and cannot believe Gaudi thought them more than 100 years ago.

Here are a couple of my photos of Casa Batllo and the Sagrada Familia. And here are a few more - because my photos hardly do it justice.