...city forest... on a curved path around the lawn of a mansion... dusk, early in the new year, and looking through branches, bare of leaves, at this neo-classical building of the late eighteenth century...

...two brown ducks, and one white one, fly together in formation over the lawn and disappear into the forest... most of the few people here today are running... the sky is light grey, the wind is cold, but this seat is in still air, protected from wind by rhododendron bushes... three tall pines to my left, all the other trees are deciduous, and bare...

...looking at this scene as 'part of thinking nature', and inhabiting the conception of a landscape architect of 200 years ago: yes, to sit here is more interesting today than is the surrounding forest, where i was sitting before...

...the mansion (in its European or worldwide neo-classic style) is a strange occurrence in the story of the universe... and that it should have appeared here at all, on what we believe to be a remote planet, is to me astounding... more incredible than is any of the histories, since the invention of writing, of the civilisations, so called, which gave rise to all this... (the Greek, the Roman, the Jewish, the Christian, the Islamic (and no doubt others)... and now the modern, already thought by some to be over)...

...and now, as i immediately enjoy and feel at home here (on this page and in this location) still writing in the manner of previous entries to the digital diary, i realise that my intention to do otherwise in 2008 may be a mistake... perhaps it is unwise, or impossible, for me to do other than this... to contnue the diary...

...looking now at the lawn i see the five white geese whom i saw yesterday are now eating grass (or is it worms?) near to the mansion... and a woman with a Collie on a lead stops near me to wait while the dog sits down on the path in sudden rebellion... she gets it moving... but a few metres further on it sits again and she waits, perhaps embarrassed, as i wonder who is in control, dog or human, nature or artifact... or are they a unity?...

...i'm enjoying writing this... after several days of failed attempts at writing something other in 2008...

...sitting now at bus stop after walking a chance-selected route northwards, i suddenly felt at home again, on the planet, and in accord with all that is... ceasing to prescribe or to struggle...