There’s a Whole World Out There! … or … The Joy of Walking

Guest Author Uncategorized

Jaycee sent me this piece this afternoon, when I admitted to feeling more than a little blue about life in general. He told me, “This was written a few years ago when I was living in a different place…a different space…but the principles are still the same….” Thank you, Jaycee, for your sane reflection in an increasingly insane country – very much what I needed. I hope other denizens of The Pub will feel likewise.

(Image Credit: Shoot)

I now have no car.

That statement in itself may require an explanation in these self-commuting times, but I think I’ll leave that reason at a loose end …

And speaking of another thing that has ended … I feel I can state quite categorically (as an observant walker) and declare it official that the daisy bush has replaced the geranium as the stalwart mainstay of verdant flowering flora in the domestic front garden!

The long-lashed cheeky button flower of the daisy has edged the precocious petals of the geranium off centre-stage. I suppose in this age of “go-get-’em” attitude and “in-your-face” aggressiveness the battling geranium could hardly match the many blossomed. Fast growing daisy-bush ….. might, is now right!

I notice these small things on my walks into the town where I live. Hybrid roses too have muscled-in on a place next to the footpath, all bright and starry-eyed like the young starlets they are, their many-hued blooms huge and alluring to the passer-by ….. although I myself, religiously adhering to the adage: “Always take time to smell the roses”, find little delight in discovering so scant a scent in such wonderful blossoms. … and I feel a little cheated, like false advertising that encourages false expectations, for surely, if there is any flower that looks delicious enough to kiss. it is the rose …. and like any kiss, a fellah needs to take away with him an exotic, lingering scent of delight to caress and steel him against all the crassness of the outside world and…but I think I have made my disappointment plain..; the hybrid rose, without its scent, is as a romance without mystery!

(Image Credit: LA Times)

It is Summer where I live and the fruit trees are bearing bountifully. None more so than the cherry-plums along the railway track that I cut across on my way into town. For some reason these delicious trees are shunned by the public and much of the fruit is left to fall and rot on the ground. Bearing no such animosity to such bountiful harvest, I make feast on their berries!… These, and plums galore, accompany the walker on his journey and I make note the fruit of the nectarine tree leaning precariously over the corrugated iron fence of “Such and Such Ltd …. Motor Repairs” is deepening its crimson blush and fattening itself up for the picking!… .. not long now.

(Image Credit: Allotments and Gardens)

A Serbian I once worked with told me of his struggle against hunger in his youth after the war, and how he made it his business to note when every fruit tree, every vine in every backyard or lot in his village was ready to be raided … such are the necessities of survival. In Australia, where we take such things for granted, it is one more joy to be embraced on my walks.

Another thing I have noticed, although it has fallen out of fashion with the onset of “estate housing”, is the front fence. The front fence is one of the last and lasting expressions of individuality in a world of shrinking imaginations. In Australia – indeed, the world – the front fence, like certain hobbies, was open slather to any fetish of taste or tastelessness. I have seen them constructed of everything from shells to bits of ironmongery ….. “TAKE THAT!” was the creed for some of the monstrosities separating the incumbent from the innocents in the outside world. From bits of off-cut wood to animal bones and limestone rocks.

(Image Credit: Toothbrush Nomads)

And what was the flower that inevitably graced these icons and filled the gaps in the masonry? The geranium! Alas, it is gone now, as is that generation of front fence makers who, although predictable in all other mannerisms pertaining to urban life. could be counted upon to equal or maliciously outdo the neighbour in design or complexity, the Bastille like structure of the front fence. And gone, also, is the geranium … alas, alas!

(Image Credit: The Garden of Eden)

Windmills, simple in structure, were a regular feature of front gardens, but these too have been replaced by more complex “paddling duck” or “rowing men” and even by mass-produced “cupid” bird-baths. Some of the more bombastic citizens plant spread-winged eagles gargoyled on top of gate-pillars which gaze threateningly down on the walker as he moves past. I remember seeing a young woman innocently walk past a live wedge-tailed eagle perched on a fence at eye level next to the footpath. I was watching from a stopped train. As the woman drew abreast of the bird, she turned her head toward it (there is an impish spirit that provokes these actions!). I presume she didn’t expect to see such a large creature a foot or so from her face. The sudden leap to the centre of the road was Olympian to say the least! and when her knees buckled under her I thought she was going down for prayers on the bitumen! But no, she swiftly regained her composure and with only a few deft adjustments to her hair, promptly moved on. Against such nerves of steel, the male of the species has no chance …. though to this day I don’t know if it was the bird that screeched or the woman.

(Image Credit: Ozleworth Park)

I keep a small box at home in which I place all the “treasures” gleaned from the roads when I walk. There are shiny( they have to be shiny!) bolts and hose-clamps, a squash-ball, a portable phone, spanners and other miscellaneous objects, some unidentifiable but interesting …. what few coins I find I spend. The gutters and the shrubs are receptacles for all the detritus of mankind. Bits and pieces that fall off cars end up scarred and scraped into the kerbside gutters. Drink containers and waste paper end up stuffed, like bodies up chimneys, into any nook or kicked under bushes. At nesting time any excess chicks forced or pushed out of nests end up little mounds of fluff on the footpath or flattened on the roads. I can’t help but feel pity for these helpless chicks. who don’t even get a start in life before it is brutally taken from them. But then. what animal in the wild (even domestic) does not meet with a violent end? Though once, when a flock of starlings flew over me, I saw one fall, for no apparent reason, out of the flock. to my feet (almost) dead as a doornail ….. heart attack.? Old age? Who knows. But it was only once that I saw that.

(Image Credit: Etsy)

Walking can be very educational, peaceful and fulfilling. One’s thoughts fall into the rhythm of the step and rare is the worry or problem that cannot be resolved in the space of a good long walk. The relaxing contrasts of sunlight and shade, water sprinkler and breeze, the chlorophyll odour of fresh-cut lawn near the lake, the idle paddling of the ducks mixed with the joyful cries of children at play, lend a certain visceral ambience to the atmosphere of the clinging world around us that we call life…

Oh the joy of walking!

779 thoughts on “There’s a Whole World Out There! … or … The Joy of Walking”

  11. Leone,
    Will Ms Goward have the, erm, backing of the Grand Old Man of the Liberal Party?

  13. CTar1

    Have any Lib Premiers bit the dust while I haven’t been looking?

    Nah!…but Pyne has been doing his usual and “biting the pillow!”

  14. This is a strange setup with the abbotts. Reports say that PM abbott is meeting up with the royals at Admiralty House this afternoon – no mention of margie. And why isn’t there a shindig for the royals at Kirribilli House?

  15. Strange happenings going on in WA with packages being left at the Premier’s and Ministers offices. Security have evacuated the buildings……

  16. Some people do like Pru:

    “This gave me a great insight into just how busy this wonderful woman is. Work certainly doesn’t stop when she gets home,” she said.

    The portrait pictures Ms Goward with one of her muchloved backyard chooks, and the artist said they showed an important side of her personality.

    “I was introduced to her extraordinary chooks and when I realised how much she loved them, I just had to include one in the painting,” Mrs Power Thomson said.

    “She is also a farm girl at heart.

    http://www.goulburnpost.com.au/story/970740/farm-girl-pru-in-archie-portrait/

  18. foreverjanice
    Protocol.

    The royals are here to check up on their colonial assets and while in Sydney will stay at Admiralty House with the GG. That’s the usual thing. Abbott is just some bloke we chose (well, some of us) to run the country. It’s not his place to hold a shindig in Sydney. Abbott will, however, be hosting a reception at Parliament House when the royals are in Canberra. This is also the usual thing. Julia Gillard went through the same procedure when the Queen and Prince Phillip visited.

  19. NSW Education Minister Pru Goward rules out running for deputy premier

    Breaking News headline on ABC online. Always accurate our ABC. (sarcasm)
    Isn’t Adrian Piccoli the Minister for Education or did he go down with Barry ?

  20. I once had the misfortune of sharing a railway carriage from Sydney to Goulburn with Ms Goward and her pompous old windbag of a husband, David Barnett. Talk about up themselves!

  23. “Euur, that’s a shame about Pruue she would’ve been a graysh premier. Last Juurne she came up to our party near Nuusaah in QLD and gave us this delaaghtful kashmina thruu for the caarch. And then there was this function in Suubiahhcuu in WA. Remember that, Truude, we had stacks of jojoova left uurver from Octuurber”

    (that was excruciating, I am sorry)

  25. Barry J,

    Did you get your printer sorted out ?

    OH’s note from my desk reads: “USB cable was not connected.”

    V embarrassed …

  26. Hi Pubsters
    Today is a happy day 😉 This morning Gravel took me to a dog shelter Animal Aid & I am now the proud Mother…. which actually makes me a bitch, but that’s for another conversation….Yes well, the proud mother of a Chihuahua x. His name is Hunter, yep “Hunter the Chihuahua x” don’t ya just love it ?
    I know Kira would have liked Hunter & will be happy that we have found each other & I’m sure she will be keeping an eagle eye on what young Hunter gets up to, just in case she needs to do some educational haunting,
    Hunter is black & white 2yrs old & an absolute “Cracker” He isn’t actually here yet he is at the Vets & about to become 2 stone lighter, if yas know what I mean. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink say no more & we pick him up later this afternoon.
    I know it isn’t Friday night but I was wondering, provided the bar is open, I know it’s early afternoon & I don’t want any-one nodding off while they are at the key board but would it be possible for me to buy drinks all round to toast the arrival of Hunter into the Clan, known as The Pub & more importantly Gravel for all she has done to help me through my grieving & helping me to find Hunter.
    Gravel no-one could be happier than I am for having you in my life. Thank-you 🙂

    Cheers Every-one …..oops I hope…. the bar is open 😉

  28. Razz,
    Congratulations! Hunter is a lucky dog.

    Of course the bar is open – we never clothe close … 😉

  32. Hunter pics?
    Welcome, Hunter, to the PUB clan. Even two stone lighter he is more of a man than rabbott,

  34. Random bookcase selection,flicking pages, Napoelion got done over because they didn’t take care of the horses.

    I think a Russian dude already got this.

  36. “Napoelion got done over because they didn’t take care of the horses.”
    CTar1..was reading of Caesar’s problems in Spain in the civil wars….ten thousand horse and all that forage to find!….that’s an awful lot of hayburning!

  38. All this ; “St Pat’s, St Joe’s, St Alli’s and St John’s”…it’s a bit like that old riddle..” While making my way to St Ive’s…”

  39. JC

    The horse that will walk alongside and give you an occasional shider swipe is a gift.

  43. Still desperately hoping for a unicorn.
    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-underwater-search-for-mh370-has-a-week-says-tony-abbott-20140417-zqvul.html

    Razz, welcome to Hunter. Fiona, done that one, too.

    I’m still hopeless at the technology (remember how Slav helped me out once?) but I have learned the hard way always to check the cable connections. The problems are more than 90% likely to be there.

  44. Fiona

    [I would have corrected it, but wasn’t quite sure what you meant.]

    There’s no reason you should or would have.

    Thinking off a set from childhood – A big Roan mare with an orange Kelpie dog in trail (on in front)

    Father with a Greener 12G crooked on the left arm.

    Long grass and heading up- river.

  45. Keep hearing that stupid numpty Quienten Dempster telling us all that there is now a backlash against ICAC.
    The fool conveniently doesn’t mention where the backlash is coming from, I’m guessing its coming from his mates in the liberal party and his discredited journo mates (liberal party boosters) rather from the NSW public!

  46. Gorgeous Dunny,
    I did check the cables, and everything seemed alright. Oh well, moi is not always infallible.

  47. I have been out shopping. Have any more libs resigned or are they too busy checking thankyou notes?

  48. Mike Baird has been elected Liberal leader unopposed, apparently.

    So yeah, that’s that then. At least even if he turns out to be a fanatical nutjob that opens the floodgates of Abbott’s lunacy onto NSW he can at least be booted out as Premier in March if he goes too far.

  49. What happened to “as long as it takes”?

    Tony Abbott says the most promising leads in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean will be exhausted in a week.

    On Monday it was announced the search would be conducted by a remote controlled submersible called Bluefin-21 that would scour the ocean floor with sonar to attempt to locate signs of the plane.

    But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal the prime minister said: “We believe that search will be completed within a week or so.

    “If we don’t find wreckage, we stop, we regroup, we reconsider.”

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/17/mh-370-search-running-out-of-time-says-tony-abbott

  50. A fall guy falls:

    The chief of the Australian navy has sacked a senior commanding officer involved in one of the incursions into Indonesian waters.

    Vice Admiral Ray Griggs announced on Thursday that one commanding officer would be removed from command and another would be administratively sanctioned in relation to a series of incursions into Indonesian waters that occurred in December and January.

    “Each of the commanding officers conducted these activities with the best of intent; however, I expect nothing but the highest standards of those in command,” Griggs said.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/17/navy-chief-sacks-commanding-officer-involved-in-indonesian-incursions

    Now, let’s get Campbell, Morrison and Abbott for lying.

Comments are closed.