Dear All~
On the weekend, quite early in the day I went for a walk along the riverbank. My back was good and I managed to make it from the car-park to the bridge, turned around and went back.
Sounds very bald, maybe you are thinking I'm pleased at having accomplished that, however that isn't what pleased me.
I started with stale bread to feed the ducks, however I guess the local baker must have off-loaded yesterday's bread. They looked at my offerings and (metaphorically) turned up their noses. I saw lots of slices with just the soft centers pecked out.
A far cry from every other time when they would rush across the water wings flapping, run up the bank from all directions and clamor for a feed, necks craning, jostling each other away.
Wood ducks, Muscovy ducks, mallards, geese, native hens and one rooster, all trying to to cheat each other.
That's just the start, then walking along the path, with manicured grass either side, past a small swamp owned by a crane that sat on a stump mid-water, then past the cranky native hen who tried to shoo us off his territory wiht mock charges and raucous shrieks.
The river now in full view past the scrub. Dotted with expanding rings, maybe insects, maybe fish, and this once a platypus motoring along mid-stream, just nostrils and eyebrows above the water like a wind-up toy., leaving a V shaped wake.
It was still but quite cold, a bracing reminder of what the world has to offer, something I too often forget.
Croix
