15 July 2026

 Lately I've been preoccupied with things in flight.  Not birds, for a change. Much smaller creatures that fly, as well as very large flying things that appear very small at a distance.

Like the tiny white speck in my photo of the sky below -

Which, on zooming in, turns out to be a plane -

A massive chunk of deafening, carbon-spewing aluminium and titanium becomes a diaphanous, silvery-white, silent thing of beauty at a distance.

Not unlike the white butterflies that are everywhere in the garden at the moment, and which actually are diaphanous and silent -

It's pretty difficult to capture a butterfly in flight with a phone camera, but here is a pair exiting the right of the frame in blurry flight -

And here one in focus - by fluke - flying above the pool -

A much rarer sighting in the garden is a dragonfly. But this large, golden-winged beauty appeared suddenly in front of me just as I was telling M about a dream I'd had involving my mother, and some remarkable synchronicities that were emerging related to the dream. 

Dragonflies have emerged selectively in contexts with very specific associations with my mother since her death. 

So here she is, I thought.

After making her presence felt, off she flew on her golden wings -