Off to Beijing

Once again we are readying for flight. La Professoressa has decided the only way she can cope with turning 60 is for us to spend sometime in Beijing. I know today is the day we leave because Cello is not following me nose to heel with that anxious look in his eye. Last night we took a green bag filled with his bowl, his torn-eared woolly mammoth, enough food for six months just in case and his bed over to Spottswood by the bay, to the the wonderful home of Jane and Ann, whose skippergees, Dot and Isabella, Cello grew up with. We will just be away for 12 days but always when I call on my body to make one more voyage, I feel as if all could happen. This will be my first time in China and again, the sense that just for a moment, at 72 almost, I will be standing at future's portal, in a land where struggles abound, another history with a feather's touch upon my own. All because of La Professoressa who never tires of her travels and who makes me say yes even when so much seems hard. To all who from time to time look upon these words and to my old dear friends, I say good-bye until, once again, the morning sun rises over Melbourne.