We have just had a great few days at Daylesford – super relaxing and super freezing, especially overnight. On the first day, the mist didn’t lift until midday; other days, it was clear and sunny – until the cold started creeping in again by mid afternoon.

I have always loved the central highlands area. So close to the city but stepping out of its routines, so rich with history yet, for me,  also somehow scoured, simplified. And of course good coffee readily to hand!

Views of and from our week’s miner’s cottage:

Another poem (not from the book):

Daylesford Massage

Stranger’s fingers, knuckles, then palms
knead the oiled skin of my back
finding the old knots,
gnarls of muscle and bone and grip
of scar;
my body like a map,
an archaeological dig through histories
of tension, the long lineage of injury,
the genetics of structure,
of hours spent hunched over a desk –
wilting beneath the firm pressure of these working hands
I am transparent,
my right ovary pulses out this month’s lost cargo,
its own fist of tightness,
and in the soft hum of voicelessness
spine and pelvis become visible,
easing into place –

meanwhile my querulous, monkey mind slides to a place
just below the surface of the water –
its swaying reeds, the cool green underside of waterlily leaves –
resting,
like a fish in dappled shallows.