Wildlife
'Our' hedgehogs have all three disappeared. We are hoping that this means that they have moved on and not that they have come to grief. I can imagine that they might well have decided that there are better places than our garden since here there is very little cover and not far away there are lots of places that would give them a much better sense of safety, but we shall miss them. however, they had been becoming more and more nocturnal so we were seeing less and less of them anyway.
One of the things you get used to living in the country is the constantly changing wildlife. Today we had rain for the first time in ages and uddenly there are lots of snails. Where did they come from? The hot weather is coming back next week apparently. then they will probably all disappear again.
Writing
I am slowly working through my manuscript of Dogen for the umpteenth time. It is rather different going through it thinking about how it may appear to a reader rather than, as formerly, going through it wondering what it was that Dogen really meant. This earlier process was a bit like a detective task, tracking down clues. Thinking from the point of view of a potential readership, however, one has to try and make the presentation as clear and fluid as possible, identify and eliminate boring passages, sharpen the argument in places and add illustrations sometimes. Also, what is necessary for the reader who is new to the material is different from what is going to be interesting to the person who is already steeped in the subject. Slow but rewarding work.
Replies