dogs in space

no pictures for this one, just a few thoughts.
Now the days are longer, I walk to work through the park. One of the odd joys of Kensington Gardens is the happiness that it brings to the dogs of Kensington. Many of them are starting to become familiar - the pair of wolfhounds, the two Irish setters, the pack (three bitser terriers, two aged golden labs, and two elderly ladies),the chows, and the many jack russells. I have never been much of a dog fan, but I do get a lot of entertainment out of the many dogs, racing each other through the trees, enjoying themselves immensely...

badly behind in blogging

I have been very remiss in keeping up with my vow to blog every week. Sometimes life just seems to move at a pace faster than your fingers can type.
I have had a few distractions though...
First, Mirek was here, so I got to be a normal person with a life instead of a grumpy workaholic for a couple of weeks. Having company means, of course, adventures. We weren't wildly imaginative, but we had a wonderful three days of being Easter tourists in Cornwall. We stayed in Penzance

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and roamed the south-west coast. Cornwall is one of those beautiful coastlines you walk along and realise why all your ancestors emigrated to New Zealand. Just like home but much much better...
It's all tiny, beautiful fishing villages, historic houses, hidden valleys, neolithic stone circles,

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friendly locals, 14th century pubs and cider. New Zealand just has fewer stone circles, no cider and farmland that hasn't been bought up by pop stars. Actually, I'm not sure about the cider. I'm not sure about Cornish cider either, but I tried very hard. Oh, and pounamu. Never underestimate the attraction of pounamu...
I tried to take pictures of things that actually looked like they were in England, and not just Margaret River or Dunedin, but it was tricky sometimes. There were other odd resonances. I was trying to explain to my French teacher how we went on a walk to St Michael's Mount. You can imagine:
"Nous sommes allés à Mont St Michel"
"Mont St Michel! En Bretagne!"
"Non, en Bretagne"
"Oui, comme j'ai dit!"
"Non, en Bretagne, en Cornwall..."
"Mais, Mont St Michel est en Bretagne!"
"Oui, comme j'ai dit..."
at this point I gave up and just showed him the pictures, which didn't actually help that much because of the unfortunate close resemblance between St Michael's Mount in Cornwall, and Mont St Michel in Brittany.

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I must admit one of the highlights of our Cornish idyll was the Jubilee Poo.

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I can't explain, you have to see the pictures, but I'm sure David Hockney would have approved.
Next blog, I describe what it is like to have 3 inches of snow in London in April, and explain why a new camera removed my ability to type words for a while...