The Restory Retreat Centre

  In the evening  I carry frogs out of the house. I strive  to put distance between them  and the front door, releasing them in the furthest flower beds. The process is repeated  every  night. Or is it every other night? I lose track of time, doing it so regularly. I often wonder if it’s the same one constantly returning. You get to know the expression  on a face, the look in the eyes. M has suggested we mark it with Tippex to test the theory. But I’ve heard from friends and neighbours  having similar experiences. One even dropped their frog about 2 km away from the house, on his way into town. It got me thinking. Are we all  putting the same frog  out every other night? The roaming one, circulating in the neighbourhood, returning to  carefully selected homes? Recently, though, in the space  of 15 minutes, I had to carry two out, with M following  with a third. An adjustment  of my theory  is therefore required. ...

Photo by George Angus The toad beneath the harrow knows exactly where each tooth point goes; The butterfly upon the road preaches contentment to that toad.                                                            Rudyard Kipling I am not exaggerating when I say that every morning, when I mount my bicycle and turn onto the main dirt road that passes our house, I think of Kipling’s poem. Traveling by car you rush past landmarks and speed over bumps and stones. But with cycling it’s a different story. Very early in the morning, with the sun just above the horizon, some of the bigger stones in the road even cast shadows.  The section next to the camp of the cows with their calves is particularly rough. The slope leading down to the dams where Sebastien does bass fishing has about a 100 metres of hard, smooth...