frühling hat gesprengt (spring has sprung) – we are woken every morning by the drilling of the local woodpecker, night temperatures are above zero, & yesterday andy was out on the balcony with the secateurs & trowel, planting our first lettuce plants for the year. the trees around us have been majorly pruned (i wish the pruners had bothered to remove the plastic bags stuck in the tree branches while they were up there!) and the (mostly) happy sound of playing children rises up from the grounds all weekend and into the evenings. soon, i will have been living in münchen for a whole year. the sound of the woodpecker evokes memories of my first days here, jetlagged & exhausted from packing up & leaving nz … insert your favourite musings here about time flying & all that …

as i settle in münchen, major movement continues around the pacific. as if to tell us to get over christchurch, the quake and subsequent tsunami in japan has taken on apocolyptical proportions & we anxiously await a nuclear meltdown … it’s a terribly tragedy, for those directly affected and also for all of the animals, wildlife and marine life, and the environment – indeed a tragedy for all of us. if we learn nothing else from this, i hope at least it will shut up the proponents of nuclear power in the shaky isles of new zealand.