All along the backwater
I've been working from home for the last few days after an irritating combination of medicine side effects left me a little reluctant to go sit in an office. This has it's plusses and minuses; on the minus side, I don't have my neat little headset phone, I don't have ez 2 access laser printing, I don't have the company of the people I work with (which I've come to value), and I have to keep myself organised while parked at my messy little desk here. On the plus side, the view from the window is better, the music kicks a lot more bootay and I have Ezekiel's company - which usually leads to walks.
On wednesday we took a stroll up the back way to Sainsburys by the brook, this is one of our favourites as it's nice and shady and often full of moorhens and other fauna. This one proved to be rather special indeed. First up, as we were wandering down one of the alleyways, we got talkng with a woman who was out working in her front garden, talking about gardening, the weather, how we all failed hard at figuring out peoples ages and even a little bit of town vs gown (yes, we were asked the inevitable 'so do you live here full time ...' question. I'm actually more flattered than anything else these days as if I didn't, I would definitely be a mature student 
.) which was all rather dreadfully Middle Class and civilised. I'm actually hoping we run into her again.
Next up, we reached the stretch of brook alongside the chalk pits and happened upon the little cluster of baby moorhen in the photograph above. They were tiny, fuzzy little things with huuuge feet that they hadn't grown into yet, can't have been that long out of the nest, We watched them duck in and out of the reeds for awhile (eventually counting five) then strolled on a little further, where we met another woman looking happily into the reeds.
Following her gaze, we saw a mother duck, perched on a nest filled with little ducklings! they were the cutest little squirmy creatures, all curled up in the warm, just popping a head out occasionally. We stayed and talked with her awhile and took a couple of photos, being very careful not to alarm the mother while we did so. We're always on the look (and the listen) for wildlife when we walk past the chalk pits, but it's rare to see this much.
Further along the path lives one of our familliar strangers; the trampoline dog. we aren't aquainted with him personally, but whenever we pass the bottom of his garden, he runs for the fence and leaps up hear high enough to look me in the eye with a tremendous burst of barking. He gets such a good height on against the fence for a dog of his size that we're sure he must have a little trampoline back there ... hence the name. He startled the life out of me the first time we met him, since then he's started to feel almost like a friend ... or at least a landmark.
While we were stopped in Sainsburys, a rather disgusted comment from Ezekiel about the latest 'too fat / too thin' catch 22 on the front of Heat magazine lead to a fun little chat with the person in front of us in the checkout queue about nonsense health advice, scaremongering and the 6,500 different things the press have so far warned us will give us cancer ... I love it when this happens, sometimes it feels like the greatest social sin possible in this country is to start a conversation with a stranger apropos of nothing, but when something happens to bridge that gap and let the reserve down it's always fun.
Walking back quietly together in the sunshine made me that bit happier with the world and our place in it. There's something about the way we fit together when we go out like this, whatever the excuse, that makes it feel good to be alive. When we walk together, we talk more, we make more sense to each other and the days go more easily.
Our walks aren't usually something I write about, but reading bfp and Jess with their (re)thinking walking series recently has been more than a little inspiring, you should go over and have a look at it ... and at the responses from other people too.
this is such a beautiful walk! I *loved* seeing the mama duck!!!! do you mind if I link to this from my blog? no pressure--I know that some people don't want the link, so I always ask first!
bfps last blog post..Because it’s really really REALLY not about rich westerners going to Jamaica to have a great vacation…
Thank you
. You are so totally welcome to link it from your blog, I doubt i'd have ever written it without reading your posts there.
[...] Weasel takes a walk through the backwater and saw some ducks… While we were stopped in Sainsburys, a rather disgusted comment from Ezekiel about the latest ‘too fat / too thin’ catch 22 on the front of Heat magazine lead to a fun little chat with the person in front of us in the checkout queue about nonsense health advice, scaremongering and the 6,500 different things the press have so far warned us will give us cancer … I love it when this happens, sometimes it feels like the greatest social sin possible in this country is to start a conversation with a stranger apropos of nothing, but when something happens to bridge that gap and let the reserve down it’s always fun. [...]