home land, home sky

It was nice to be back in the Philippines! From the moment the fields and flats of Negros Island emerged from the storm clouds...

to the moment I murmured a teary goodbye to the lights of Manila...

tropical birthday treat

Who doesn't love flowers for their birthday? This year wonder | wander | women celebrated my 43rd year by visiting one of my favourite urban gardens, the Barbican Conservatory. This isn't the first time I've spent my birthday here; maybe it can become a tradition.  

The Conservatory is a contradiction: concrete balconies, glass and steel, and tropical rainforest richness everywhere. It squeezed my heart to see the shiny, broad leaves of truly monstrous monstera or the colourful spines of bird-of-paradise blooming in profusion in the middle of this mid-century cement complex...like the parks and markets of old Manila.

tiny kingdoms

The days are damp and darkening and I've been feeling a little damp and darkening myself lately, so I went out in the garden with a hot cup of coffee first thing in the morning. 

birthday review - thinking back and looking forward

Birthdays are always a Big Deal here at wonder | wander | women, and this year's came at an unprecedented time. How do I quantify the 40th year of my life, and how I spent it? How can we know what comes next, and how to learn the most from it?

Do I measure my progress in work, in moving the ribbon bookmark page by page in my journals and sketchbooks, or counting the pages of my comics?

a gloomy november - an illustrated post

Here in the Northern Hemisphere the weather is...bad.

home sweet boondocks

American soldiers, fed up with struggling through hostile jungle in the Philippine highlands, coined the term boondocks in the dawn of the 20th century to denote a backward rural area with 'connotations of bewilderment and confusion', according to Wikipedia. The English word comes from the Tagalog word bundok, or mountain - a word with very different meanings to the wonder | wander | women.

garden walks

The wonder | wander | women are hardly ever in the same time zone, much less in the same place. So we spend as much time as we can in each other's company. Our favourite thing to do together (besides eating!) is take walks around our neighbourhood. (Often after eating!)

history & heritage, habitat & home

Mount Kanla-on

The blistering cold of western winters are keeping #wonderwanderwomen indoors. Safe and snug inside, our thoughts are drawn within and back home.