The morning walk has become a habit. It won’t last long as I start back to work tomorrow. It was lovely and crisp this morning, with the mountains in the distance covered in snow, and not a cloud in the sky. I walked the usual route with nothing unusual in the way of abandoned garbage in the early going. The BlogTrain station was quite busy with, it seemed, a lot of people back to work this morning. I passed by to the other side of the train tracks and trod along the path. I stopped at the children’s playground about half way along and spent some time doing some clean-up. I feel more comfortable picking up litter when there is no one about. I’m wondering what that is all about. There’s a sense of embarrassment when there are folks standing around. I feel I’m drawing unnecessary attention to myself. Anyway the playground yielded up a pair of white socks, a single red mitten and numerous extinguished fireworks, no doubt let off at midnight on New Year’s Eve.
I deposited the garbage in the trash can and carried on along the path. It looked good today, no new garbage. I reached the bridge and turned for home. Six women, obviously in some kind of walking group, approached. I recognized one of them. It was Valerie, a woman I worked with for about decade. She retired a couple of years ago. She sent the others on ahead and we chatted for a couple of minutes. It turned out her group walked this route every Monday. Normally I would be at work, so it was great to bump into her. We agreed to meet for lunch soon to catch up.
I walked on down the path to the seat under the tree. Hey, the clothes from the last few days were gone. No sign of the pink purse, the blue coat or any of the other clothes under the bush. Of course now I wondered who had taken them, maybe there is some underground market for dumped clothing. For some reason I was now the centre of attention for about a dozen seagulls who were flying all around me. I briefly considered a connection between them and the now missing clothing. Headline : Seagulls winging it in coat scam! Latest! But maybe that was stretching it a bit. I resumed my travels down the path.
Back home, I could see Gregoire was living vicariously through me. He was keen to know if I’d seen any drug dealers or caught sight of any unusual treasure on my walk.
Fast forward a couple of hours and the two of us went out to feed the ducks. We lead an exciting life you see. Actually it’s so enjoyable just to do the simple things. Life has been so hectic, and so full of parties, music, alcohol and far too much food. It's good to do very little for a few days.
Down at the lake, a seagull had met its demise. Its grisly remains lay by the water. A small child was inspecting it, closely watched by her mother. I thought a coyote might have killed the seagull. Gregoire thought it might have been a raccoon. In any case, it was an ex seagull.
The lake was semi frozen. We threw some seed cake and olive bread to the ducks. As usual the seagulls came in and stole much of the food. I’ve come to the conclusion that seagulls would not make good hockey players. They constantly lost their balance and skidded on the ice in their frantic attempts to grab the morsels. It provided us with much amusement. I must admit we deliberately threw cake on the ice just to watch them dash for it and all fall in a heap.
With the food gone, we turned for home again. We crossed a busy street at the pedestrian crossing. A car came speeding at us, and narrowly missed hitting Gregoire. The woman driver slammed on her brakes, and just stared at us, with what looked like her young daughter sitting in the passenger seat beside her. I yelled at the driver angrily. She made no gesture of apology and drove on. We were a bit shaken up. I think the woman was blinded by the sun. Still, she should pay more attention to what’s going on around her. Gregoire made a good point which was that she was probably as shaken up as we were so maybe she will be more careful for the next while.
Well having dodged that bullet, we walked slowly back to enjoy another quiet day around the house. Tomorrow, we rejoin the commuter throng. All in all, I’d rather pick up litter.
No comments:
Post a Comment