Monday afternoon walking through the City. First thing – the girls are so pretty!

Mixed feelings at Panfilov Park. The Cathedral shone down on me – look at this.

Great to have caught the reflection from the Cross just at the right moment.

The Park also contains the War Memorial to Kazak men and women who died during the Second World war. I thought of the famous poem by Laurence Binyon ‘For the Fallen’, immortal lines said every Remembrance parade. Yet here in Kazakhstan a different verse came to me;

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

But it is a Park for joy, for memory, for lovers, for inspiration.

As I walked through the beautiful sunshine the words of Robert Frost came to me. Here am I in Kazakhstan, a traveller, a writer, a poet. I could have stayed in England…