disjointed and unsettled

I've felt strangely unsettled today - lots of my friends have been or are currently going through rough patches and I feel totally useless. Even my little girl isn't very well with a streaming nose, pasty face and husky voice. In my new maternal role I want to sweep everyone with a broken wing to my bosom and protect them....


This is my boy-cat derek. We also live with his sister sarah who looks just the same but without the white moustache. I like cats a lot...especially ours as they are so affectionate and stupid.

After watching an amazing chinese film early this morning I have been thinking about chinese artistic expression all day. For our honeymoon my husband and I went backpacking around china for a month. It was an awesome and thought-provoking experience. Then I wrote my masters dissertation on ancient chinese and japanese flutes and the way they are imitated in 21st century contemporary flute music....I am fascinated by it. I think part of my preoccupation is concerned with the fact that the far eastern culture is in no way founded in the same way or as an offshoot of european culture; there is no fundamental unity yet their art rings no less true in it's philosophical explorations. What i particularly like about a lot of chinese artistic expression is the intense attention to detail within the context of the vast - giving us a sense of perspective about ourselves (however difficult it is to accept). And I am fascinated by the way extreme delicacy often sits side by side with strong violence and force without contradicting it in any way....


Because my baby wasn't feeling so great we didn't go to the wood as I had hoped but my neighbour made her a daisy chain instead which she loved, and we discovered dandelion clocks and a newly hatched family of spiders.....