Gaia Visual

It’s been a long while since I posted properly on social media.

This King of the Castle (and dirty rascal) is most of the reason why.

We’ve spent a LOT of the last year tootling and rootling around by the River Lea and the woods and marshes near where we live in Clapton.

Climbing magic oaks and gnarly willows,
Digging holes and building dens,
Paddling in the river and skidding around on the ice,
Making up names for special places: ‘Knotweed Beach, Octonauts Log, Dead Bird Tree, Wavy W**d Bridge...’

A poem by Mary Standing Otter, which has done the meme rounds for sure, popped into my head today, and the line: 'millions of children are assuming that everything is amazing and will always be that way’, brought this photograph to mind and a simultaneous sense of hope and heartsink.

I know these days of innocence are numbered, and I treasure every one of them.

And I feel the weight of the challenges we have bequeathed his generation.

The poem lights me up in times when those challenges seem too heavy. I'll post it separately in a minute (cant fit the word limit).

This time with Nico has also inspired exciting new ideas and projects, which I’ll be sharing more about this week.

Another image from deserted Pompeii, taken just before Italy went into nationwide lockdown.

The last time I shot Pompeii it was for the Sunday Times Travel Mag one July, and it was absolutely heaving.

Wishing Italy and all other peoples the best for the coming months as we reconnect and rebuild. x