Category Archives: Animals “There is a pleasure in being mad which none but madmen know.” – John Dryden, The Spanish Friar (1681) “There is a pleasure in being mad which none but madmen know.” That is the Dryden quote that opens Gerald Durrell’s first book: My Family and Other Animals. And an apposite quote it is! When I first read the book as a young adult, I remember […]  “Take me to the Light!” It is Christmas Day here in Australia: – A good time to reconnect with family and loved ones, even though some might be far away, or missing completely. An ideal time to reflect on the possibilities of love and peace – although the world at the moment seems to be providing few examples. […]  I am a stranger to my own neighbourhood. Since “repatriating” to Australia from Asia almost three years ago, my husband and I seem to have spent very little time in the country. And, as our family and friends live a long way from our home, much of the time we do spend in the country is spent in […]  Never have I felt more like David Attenborough. You know: in that classic, ground-breaking twelfth episode of Life on Earth (1979), investigating primates and their “Life in the Trees”, where the broadcaster and naturalist finds himself face to face with an adult female mountain gorilla in Rwanda, and turns to talk softly to the cameras. We were in Asia, […] It’s not a long drive along Highway 4a from the (relatively) populous east coast of British Columbia’s Vancouver Island to the more remote and storm-battered west coast. From the small city of Parksville in the east to the district of Tofino on the west takes only about 2.75 hours (174 Kms), so there is really no reason to […] |
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