OT Life is a beach


"How many legs did you break?"

I figured the ? mark was superfluous. The speaker hardly drew breath
before continuing, "I broke both legs and it was only because I was so
fit that they didn't amputate them."

Say nothing I thought. He'll go away. Sure enough he did leaving me
to enjoy taking the dogs to the beach. This particular beach has
rough gravel and no sand. A family was gathered at the river mouth
surf casting. They looked as though they could live there all day,
every day. They belonged and were happy to belong.

The brief acquaintance of a moment ago was now holding forth with a
new victim. "Its the global climate change, the winds have changed
from North West to North East and the bay has silted up so the
crayfish,(clawless lobsters) have all gone. In the old days we would
get over a hundred. Now nothing." His victim struggled to escape and
eventually did so. I thought over fishing might have something to do
with it but decided not to feed the fount of all knowledge. He was
happy. The dogs were happy. There is something about beaches even in
mid-Winter that given some brilliant sunshine brings out a feeling of
happiness in people and dogs for that matter.

The dogs soon discovered that they could do most what ever they liked
so long as they didn't wander over the river bank. They were totally
there ... and I got to wondering just how there I was. It took a
while to stop worrying about the dogs wandering off. It took a while
to hear the seabird calling as it flew overhead. It took a while to
stop thinking about the recipe I was working on. It took a while to
stop thinking about composing this post in my head.

In the tall trees I came to notice the swallows. Swallows blew over
from Australia in recorded history. They love the river mouth with
its rich insect life. They were there by the score flitting about. My
black Labrador bitch was fully there. She had taken to rolling on her
back in finer shingle giving herself a massage. How she was loving it.
The border collie was busy exploring skeletons of fish heads. Not a
second was being wasted in mentally being somewhere else.

As I came to leave I watched an adventurer driving his four wheel off
roader up a shingle bank. I think he had watched too many TV
commercials. His wheels spun and the vehicle lurched from side to
side as his wife clung on desperately in the back seat.

A beach is whatever we make of it ... so is life,

Best wishes,


--
Quentin Grady ^ ^ /
New Zealand, >#,#< [
/ \ /\
"... and the blind dog was leading."

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/quentin
.

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