T'was Brillig...

When you grow up hearing two or more languages in your home, they tend to form in your ears like different melodies. Certain sounds belong to certain languages and certain sound combinations are probable in one but not so much in the other.

As a result, you might become quite skilled at making up your own words by combining likely sounds and creating an onomatopoetic match with what they are supposed to express.

We often have a good laugh, when Jules, who is particularly prolific with word creations, weaves his poetic nonesense into a tale of what happened at school.

It's hilarious and we never fail to follow him when he tells us that “a bunky kid at school shliddled him over the head with his lunch thingy ding dong.”

Spring Dallying

On my walks through the garden I speak to every plant, every little bud that pushes forward with such excruciating effort and ever flower that greets me on my way. At the moment every day there are newcomers among them. Tulips, daphodils, and Eurythimums have made a bold reappearance. Others are more tentative. Of the shrubs, all have done very well since last year, only my poor purple Hebe has suffered in the cold and so I will have to come up with a eulogy this weekend when I will dig up the droopy remains. The roses, all thirteen of them, are doing well. Red petals are developing which I will shower with a mild tonic on Saturday. After choosing each and every one of them and finding the right spot for it I feel a personal attachment and any misfortune, like that of my poor Hebe, sours my otherwise blissful stroll. But every new day brings new surprises.
Spring is a real treat...

Hope less

We can always hope for the best outcome but it would be naive to expect the best to come out in humans trying to hold on to power. Please join the effort to support the civil uprise against the Syrian regime. Do more and check out Avaaz.com !

And so it goes...

Now this is true (forget anything else I have said before...):

At 42 your brain is very actively binning info. It’s streamlining so it won’t get all blubbery over the next sixty years of your life. Understandable, if you think about it.

So as I am ploughing through another fascinating tale of British queens and kings, underlining, cross-referencing and aha-ing, I already know that soon I won’t remember the dates of the important treaty between royals and subjects that so captured my attention.

Then, soon thereafter, I will forget the exact title of the treaty. The next thing to go will be what exactly it was about and then eventually all that will remain is that some important treaties were signed a long time ago in...uh, England. And that moment will be soon.

Uh.

Now.

Digestible Realities

Apparently, the world we see through our eyes is influenced by the story our brain tells us about it. This is tantamount to the old adage that all is realtive, but now research seems to confirm that, in fact, we live in a world that is constantly being edited into a coherent format. For our own benefit, so to speak, the linguistic switch board in the left side of our brain has taken on the role of squeezing reality into a shape that is more digestible for the individual recipient. That puts a new spin on the biblical recommendation: Cast out first the beam out of thy own eye....