MLK

... "Architecture is the arrangement of light" - Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926)



Before his tragic death on June 10 1926, Gaudí spent 43 years of his life working on La Sagrada Familia; a singular obsession which over time has come to bear extraordinary fruits as one of the masterpieces of architecture.



Throughout

Waking up to Paris in the snow felt like a rare, wonderful gift. So at dawn, we walked up to Montmartre with Serafina watching the world from my pocket.



We watched the sun rise over the blanketed white city. Mesmerised, I kept thinking about the poem "Neige sur Paris" by the poet Léopold Sédar Senghor

On a wintry day, we arrived in Noke at 3pm with the sun still high in the sky. Extraordinarly, a group of starlings had already started a small murmuration on a nearby field. Puzzled, we watched them for a little while before walking towards the main hides.



Once arrived, we waited in the cold... The

Sometimes in the middle of winter, we get one of those cold, sunny days where the heart sings. Still, there was a strong wind blowing - and yet from Serafina's film you would hardly know...



As Serafina took to the skies I thought of Rainer Maria Rilke's words from his 1922 letter to Lisa Heise:

"Tending

On our way to Otmoor Bird Reserve, we invariably almost always pass by the village of Woodeaton, where on the 4th of October 1784 James Sadler inscribed himself in history by landing the first English hot air balloon, after having launched over 10km away in Christ Church Meadow, Oxford.



I often think

"April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain"

- T.S. Eliot



Travelling north, Serafina and I have come to love the wildness of inner-city Manchester. I have been reading T.S. Eliot's somber masterpiece to her and come

As we were standing there in the setting sun with waves upon waves of thousands of whirling, swirling dervishes washing over us, enveloped in the sounds of their wings and the low murmurs from the reeds, I felt a familiar rumble of joy, a deep connection to all living things.



Then we too started dancing

"There are many roads which lead to God. I have chosen the one of dance and music"

- Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273)



After the rain and the storm came a day of great beauty. From dawn to dusk, Serafina and I followed the sun with the many birds; we whirled and danced with the geese and the starlings, opening

"A smile is the shortest distance between two people" - Victor Borge



This morning we had the wettest University Parks ParkRun ever... But after getting soaking wet over the 5 km run, the smiles just kept coming...



Later, Serafina and I walked down to the great river, the origin of Oxenford where the oxen

They say it never rains in Southern California but travelling up the coast to visit a dear friend, the sun suddenly disappeared completely from view and we felt a light drizzle.



Dawn brought scant relief with more low-hanging grey skies from the persistent high-pressure marine layer of low clouds and