Concrete jungles and nature - a match made in heaven?

I am a proud first time urban
vegetable grower! But slugs and snails
were difficult to keep away...
(Photo added summer 2012)

Starting with a quote again: 

"Has there ever been a time when we in the West have been so out of touch with the natural world? We live in towns or cities flooded by street lighting, blinded to the stars in the night sky, unable to tell a waxing from a waning moon, let alone recognise the constellations. Who wakes with the dawn chorus of birdsong these days, rather than an alarm clock? Most city dwellers can't even hear the dawn chorus any more. [...]

Simple is good - or is it?

Nature's perfect
complexity, seemingly
so simple...

Following on from the P.S. in my previous post on 21 March 2012 ("Interlude: Ode to pen and paper"), below is what I came across when googling "simple is good":

"Why do we assume that simple is good? Because with physical products, we have to feel we can dominate them. As you bring order to complexity, you find a way to make the product defer to you. Simplicity isn’t just a visual style. It’s not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of the complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. For example, to have no screws on something, you can end up having a product that is so convoluted and so complex. The better way is to go deeper with the simplicity, to understand everything about it and how it’s manufactured. You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential." 

Interlude: Ode to pen and paper

I am currently dealing with blog technicalities and finding that I quite like the good old pen and paper. What you see is what you get! Simple is good *.

In fact, I wrote this and my first blog entry at our dining table after 11pm (on a weeknight) and an exhausting day at work in black ink on white, lined paper. There is something very satisfying about the pen gliding across the paper, the faint scratching sound it makes in the process and witnessing the result of it all - your handwriting - scrolled across the pages, whether it is beautiful or not (it changes constantly, like my state of mind/being) **.

"Why?" and "Why!"

Welcome to my blog!

First off, a few answers and definitions:

• Why the title?

impression [ɪmˈprɛʃən] n
1. a strong effect produced on the intellect, feelings, conscience, etc.
2. the first and immediate effect of an experience or perception upon the mind; sensation.
3. the effect produced by an agency or influence.
4. a notion, remembrance, belief, etc., often of a vague or indistinct nature: He had a general impression of lights, voices, and the clinking of silver.
5.a mark, indentation, figure, etc., produced by pressure.
Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/impression (20/03/2012) 

I chose "impressions", because it seems appropriate for what goes on in a blog - I intend to post to my blog only when I have been "impressed" by something. Very often this is the truest of our responses to something, as it is instinctive and happens before any learned or habitual thought kicks in.