hawthorne had it right...

...it was one of those perfect afternoons that was simply too good to be wasted - especially in light of the miserable summer that the UK has endured. low 20s, hardly a cloud in the sky, and the faintest of breezes.

so i put aside the 200 e-mails i should have answered, the 100 countries i should be writing, the surveys, articles, trips, messages, analyses and the rest. i grabbed a blanket, a glass full of ice and a can of coke, my mp3 player and a good book (one that I wanted to read!) and headed outside.

i finally nestled myself not onto the ground, but onto what passes for a dock on the edge of the lily pond. it's a pretty big pond, about 30 metres in diameter, with a small island in the middle and a host of water lilies all around.

and there i lay, just soaking up the sun for a couple of hours, alternating between reading and dozing off. the stress slid off of me as if i were made of teflon.

just to add to the simple joy and comfort of actually relaxing (what a concept!), a huge, iridescent dragonfly who had been hovering around decided that it would pay me a visit and first alighted near my feet, then flew up to land on my hand, where it stayed for some time. i've always loved dragonflies and this was the closest and longest look i've ever had at one. they're a marvel of engineering, really, and quite beautiful, considering they're just massive bugs.

nathaniel hawthorne wrote: "Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."

on saturday my happiness was not a butterly, but a dragonfly.