Nadine still needs a lot of sleep and resting time. But she is also working on her level of fitness – which mostly means going for walks and doing yoga. In the picture above you can see her on a bench she’s always passing by on her regular trail. It has an advice written on it that sums up the situation perfectly: mix activity with idleness.

Another piece of activity we did last Sunday was travelling with Stutttgart’s ancient cable railway. It’s just a ride of four minutes from the south of the city uphill in the direction of Degerloch, but it’s a pretty nice thing to do.

We had a little vistor who loves to go to the playground yesterday – so that’s exactly what we did. We found a new one in walking distance from our home which is pretty nice.

We were playing with the pipline installation there and showed Nick how to dig a proper riverbed in order to channel the stream of water towards where his thirsty toy horses were already waiting. No need to say that he mastered the task in brilliant fashion.

And while he focussed and forgot the world around him Nadine found the time to talk to her sister.  What a great evening!

Two weeks ago I suggested that you start to express your thoughts and feelings and I write them down for you because you did not feel fit enough to write poems on your own. Sipping some coffee we started talking about your art therapy and I took notes as fast as I could. What you told me turned into a report of feelings that had come up while painting the picture above.

There was Frederik, a character introduced by the art teacher to help experiment with different shades of grey. At the same time it reminded you of a book with a mouse called Frederik you had seen as a child. I understood how these feelings haunted you, so I sat down at home and composed them into a poem called “Frederik the mouse”:

Frederik does everything in a different way
mice collect things all of them do
they look for nuts look for grains
yet he tries to catch colors
and rays of the sun
they all do it the easy way
and get started right away
but me, I’m stopped in my tracks
do not find anything
not even a starter
no bit of courage
no strategy
it can’t be so much trouble
Frederik and his different ways
he goes happily about it
well, I will tackle it anew
I don’t have quite the right mix
but I have the colors
I have words
have the sunshine