music to my ears

two trees entwined

moss hat

sweet meadow

one of the 490 varieties of hypericum

beautiful Austria

campanulas

on the way from Scotland to France i spent almost exactly 90 hours immersed in my first language and emerged somewhat astonished at how very much being surrounded by the sounds of my childhood/adolescence/family life affected me (in a good way).

don't get me wrong. i was born in Australia and love it dearly but when push comes to shove there is no denying that all of my DNA (including the dash of Kazakh that gave me my brown skin) is northern in origin.

so when the steward on the Lufthansa flight to Paris asked me whether i was German or American (darf ich fragen, sind Sie Deutsche oder Amerikanerin) it was with a wee chuckle that i replied "weder, noch" (neither)

i rather like being a citizen of the whirled and being able to meld into various cultures as required (even if only as a walking replica of the local compost heap). whether my rusty French will allow me to do so for the next week or so is a matter for speculation.

guess i'll report in due course.