The boat made of wooden spoons
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Release Date: 01/06/2026
The Wind Shape
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Explore all episodes and download from the full library: Once Pablo had turned on the bench, he could feel his body almost swaying gently with the wind. And in his dream, he remembered more of the story. The story was about: How the wind slowly turning along with the shape of the land began to move it. It began to slowly move the land, millions of little particles at a time from one place to another. He remembered the story of how mountains were made, how rocks were turned, and how smooth edges would appear on cliff faces. How the wind moved the ocean across the rocks to make slow,...
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Transcript: The Grass That Listens
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Explore all episodes and download from the full library: As Pablo slept, a small snake slithered behind his chair and back into the long grass, slowly making its way through the field up the hill towards the lighthouse. It was almost as if it were listening to the wind. Pablo was fast asleep and could not hear the snake in the grass, but he could almost hear the wind in his dream as it moved slowly and softly. He turned over on the bench with his back facing the ocean and felt the wind gently sweep over him, swirl as it hit the top of the bench, and then move out across the grass and up the...
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The Story of the 5th Season
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When Pablo was dreaming, he dreamt of a house. He'd been to this house before. It was a very beautiful house, and it had felt like a place that he knew was home, once, long ago. When he walked through the house, he was thinking, as he looked out the window, to try and see the open field below. But then suddenly he appeared in the kitchen, and he was sitting at the table, drinking a warm cup of hot chocolate. And while he was looking around in the dream, he suddenly thought something. He remembered a simple story somebody had once told him about two winds: A wind that moved slowly around the...
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The Wind That Turns
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Pablo lay stretched out along the bench. His body relaxed. His legs extended. He closed his eyes. And once again… He drifted into sleep. In his dream, he could sense something moving. A strange wind. It moved across the land. Over the hills. Through the desert. Across the tops of a rainforest. Then down through a river gorge. Flowing toward the place where the river met the sea. And then… Out across the ocean. As it travelled over the water, it began to change. The air shifted. The wind turned slowly. Softly. As if it were alive. Circles began to form above the moving air. A second current...
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The Bench and the Dream
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Pablo walked slowly along a quiet path. He had taken off his shoes and socks earlier, leaving them behind near the rocks, choosing instead to walk barefoot. The path beneath his feet felt smooth. As if many people had walked it before him, shaping it gently over time. With each step, he could feel it softly pressing into the bottom of his heels, almost like a quiet massage. The surface was warm from the sun. He felt his toes against it. Grounded. Present. He felt free. Connected to the earth. Alive. A gentle breeze moved around him. He could smell small flowers he had never noticed...
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The Valley below
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When Pablo stood up again, he looked down to the valley below. The sand on his shoulders and arms blew off in the light breeze. The valley stretched quietly out below a wide basin of colour and sharrow. From where he stood he could see the deep reds, soft yellows and hints of blue and green. As if somehow someone had sprinkled wildflowers magically across the valley floor. As if the earth had somehow helped to paint its own little secret. The wind travelled up from the ocean, not harsh and not strong, just enough to move the air as the grass swayed back the other way in a long gentle hush....
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The Long Grass
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The long grass moves slowly across the hill in wide rolling waves from the bottom up through the middle towards the top corner as if the land was almost breathing itself sweeping up towards the top of the hill and towards the lighthouse. Pablo stood for a moment struck by the sheer beauty of it. The hillside was alive. Thousands and thousands of blades of grass moving and rising together. It was almost as if someone was somehow guiding the movement like a conductor with invisible hands brushing across the surface of the hillside. He walked towards the edge of the old lookout platform and sat...
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The Ancient lighthouse
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It was ancient looking, so ancient from where he stood. He couldn't make out the shapes that were carved into the sides. Though he imagined they could have been of creatures that may have clung there over time. Mollusks, large seashells from sea snails that had been worn by years of sea and wind over the time. You could just see at the very top a kind of strange spike up into the air that looked like it had some sort of lump inside it of some description. It wasn't quite straight as if it had been handmade somehow. It was difficult to see from here. He wondered what it was used...
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The Forgotten lighthouse
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When he looked up the hill, he could see a windy old road that climbed up slowly into the distance, meandering its way up towards what looked like a large cluster of trees, almost a forest in a way. He wondered why there wasn't a lighthouse here. The sea was blowing rough enough, and he knew this as the Shipwreck Coast. He had heard the stories. Surely there would have been a place for one up here somewhere. And then he turned towards the right, and there it was, a lighthouse perched high on top of the hill. It wasn't like anything he had seen before. It was older somehow, abandoned as...
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The Climb
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Pablo climbed carefully up the steps, his feet searching for the worn holes in the rocks. The stone was cold beneath his skin, his feet almost wrapped around each rock as he slowly made his way to the top, every now and then brushing against a sharp shell. He moved slowly, feeling each step, grabbing the next rock as he finally reached the top. And there at the top, the ghost of an old platform. The wood was faded by the sun, it had been made of old railway sleepers that had been bound together very carefully, somehow the whole structure hanging there. On the right hand side a large...
info_outlineAfter his swim, Pablo decided that he was going to sit down and do some writing.
And when he sat down, he suddenly remembered that he had a dream the other night about a boat, and the boat was made from wooden spoons.
Why would a boat be made of wooden spoons?
That was an interesting idea. They must have been all glued together because the boat was bobbing along quite well in the water, and there was a small crew of sailors sitting in the boat having a lively chat.
What were they talking about? He wondered.
He hadn't remembered that part of the dream.
Was the discussion about coming to land or whether they had just left a big sailing boat and were heading out somewhere, or whether they were heading for land.
Not heading for the Li Galli Islands, he hoped—where enchanting songs lure passing sailors.
No, perhaps they were going to the land of the Wooden Spoons,
where they grew trees for the Wooden Spoons.
He wondered where the wooden spoon first came from.
He only had a few wooden spoons, two or three, and each one of them he loved dearly.
One of his wooden spoons had been given to him by a friend when she returned from somewhere far away, a small country he had never heard of.
Another one was given to him by the woman who lived upstairs—the old woman who sometimes reads the cards. That spoon had a great big wide head and was made from a very beautiful dark timber.
And the other one, he couldn't quite remember where that one came from.
That one he thought he picked up at a store that was closing down that was selling pots and all kinds of things, and they had lots of beautiful Chinese woks and other things.
He could afford just one wooden spoon on his way home, and that one was very long and thin and made of very light white timber.
Learn English with Cullen is an Australian podcast that has been recognised at the Australian Podcast Awards and listened to around the world for many years.
The episodes use short, calm listening exercises and original stories — including the ongoing Pablo series — to help learners develop natural English thinking.
With over 175 episodes available on Apple Podcasts and other major platforms, this work continues quietly, one small piece at a time.