What have I been up to this week? First of all I have been working on editing a little book about the time we spent in Marrakesh. Here below is a map I made of the places I most frequently visited.

There are several wonderful map makers out there like Jennifer Thermes and Adrienne Ottenberg who put my feeble efforts to shame – but it was fun experimenting.

Next we visited the grandchildren whose flower arrangements are a delight. Nature study in the backyard is a wonderful exercise in observation.

I have also been playing around with my phone’s tintype app which produces wonderfully mysterious effects – almost the openings of short stories.

Here some children on their way to school.

Here the flower pickers in dappled sunlight

and teaching the smaller one checkers.

Here a mysterious old house on Long Island – though what looks like snow is in fact grass.

I’m reading The Brothers Karamazov for book club and finding it rather hard work. A friend says that it doesn’t really get going until page 300…umm…I have ditched the Penguin edition for the kindle one since that has bigger writing and is easier to hold. Maybe too much of a spring challenge.