Play on

For the moment - but just for the moment - the dog joyfully leaping to the sound of the bow drawn across the strings is suspended in air. It's an image of sheer exuberance; the musician smiles sweetly as she plays, and a man to the right lifts one leg daintily, in a mannered, practiced pose. But even if their poses are still visible, seven centuries later, on the pages of the Maastricht Hours, we understand too that the melody will fade in due course. After all, the vellum upon which the figures are painted was once animal skin - skin now cut and sanded so fine that the image on the opposing face is faintly visible, a ghostly presence.

Last Thursday, on a beautiful spring day, I took Cleo to Patterson Park. And she, in turn, took to the large castle that forms the center of the playground. Back and forth; over and under; hiding and shrieking. As you can see in the video above, she's quick: blink and she's gone. Even faster is her rapid glance towards us: a turn of the head, to make sure that we're watching. And we are, of course. For even as she disappears, the music of the playground persists, preserved in pixels, if not on vellum.