things I like:

, originally uploaded by camillaskye.

Night falls, and the air changes colour. Long exposures blur the people out, and I am alone with my experience and what I see.

where my feet lead

Oak Road, originally uploaded by camillaskye.

There’s a footpath that starts not far from our place here. It starts in a park, where in the late mornings young mothers push prams along the paths and older women who give the impression of wearing tweed walk matching pairs of small dogs, and runs out across the gently rolling fields and through the low hedgerows: hawthorn, dry grass, and blackberries. Some days I see a cotton-tailed rabbit vanishing, softly, into the brambles.

The path connects to a chain of paths, a network, a quilted tangle of lines that held this country together before bitumen and cars. It amazes me that I could walk across fields, over stiles, through pastures and woods and meadows, all the way across this country.

Last night I dreamt

, originally uploaded by camillaskye.

that I was back in Shimosuwa, and awoke surprised to find myself in Cambridge in the autumn. I always live in a mixture of past and future, so this came as no surprise, but I was shocked to find I miss Japan already: I've been gone a little over a week.

It will be nice to start putting down some shallow roots in Oxford soon. It looks like I need grounding in Britain.

This time last week

, originally uploaded by camillaskye.

I was flying over northern Siberia. Flying from Japan to the UK the day lasts for ever and I snuck glimpses out the window letting in flashes of light and the scenery below. I had expected flat lands, tundra, steppes, but found myself looking down on the spidery patterns of snow-capped mountain ranges, rivers, russet coloured valleys full of autumn trees.
I'm in the other half of Oxbridge, staying with my sister, exploring the colleges, taking pictures of autumn vegetables at her allotment garden, and eating superior dairy products. They may not have figured out good weather in this country yet, but the cheese and cream? Amazing.
It's kind of nice to be back in the Occident.

my cousin

, originally uploaded by camillaskye.

in Shikoku knows absolutely the best places. She took us to eat amazing sanuki udon noodles, and then, full, we wandered along the beach with our trousers rolled up and our feet in the water.
Above the beach is a cafe where they make charcoal from bamboo and you can drink coffee or juice on a balcony overlooking the inland sea and listening to the waves below.

I also like

, originally uploaded by camillaskye.

the way feathers look up close.

I very much dislike packing boxes and moving between countries. I should be an expert by now, but I think instead I'm developing an allergy from over-exposure. Moving vans remain the thing of dreams.

My grandfather

, originally uploaded by camillaskye.

was a forester who stacked wood with precision along the hay fields by the house.

Autumn is always a time for preparation. I am building stories like cord wood, stacking words together in rows and patterns, firmly.