Last night my boss and I were in Canberra for an overnight stay. "In Canberra" actually wound up meaning "in a town forty minutes past the outer limits" because Parliament is sitting and Floriade - the annual flower display across the city which attracts lots of tourists - has just begun so there were no beds at the inn.
I had forgotten just how much I love being driven down country roads at night. There are no streetlights to get in the way, and the trees come right up to the edge of the road. The eucalypts get caught momentarily in the headlights, leaping out like pale ghosts only to fall back to the shadows just a second later and be replaced by another startled pose. Off in the distance you can see the dark hills lapping at the heels of the orange glow of the city. Out there you're alone and the trees are your guard of honour as you travel.
I've been noticing that I'm really enjoying living in an area with more greenery. It's especially nice because it means more birdsong, and not just the strutting pigeons (who are so self deluded you can't not love them, really). Someone finally identified the cooing noise as doves the other day; I've been getting sighted people to look for the birds outside my window but they seem to hide in the bushes every time. You can hear them all around this suburb and it makes walking around a lovely experience.
For some reason I can't quite define I have this desire for proper 'outside' experiences right now. I've always been very much an indoors person so this is strange. Maybe it's that my Dad dying has sparked something; he was quite outdoorsy and it's possible that I either want to be closer to him through doing the things he'd have done or that his death has given me some kind of permission to do the stuff that I might have wanted to previously but would have found threatening because it was too much like him. The latter seems a lot more likely. This desire was hanging around before he died, but I don't discount the idea that some part of me might have known this was coming.
So what to do about it? Walking around the streets is a good start. I think I'm going to have to think about access issues if I want to go into a park or a walking trail. Maybe the public gardens in Carlton and Fitzroy are a good place to go - I think they have actual well-maintained walking paths. At any rate, I think I can convince my old and dear friend Mr Crocodile (so named because he's spent some time in parts of Australia where they'd become familiar) to walk with me through Sydney Botanic Gardens when I meet up with him in a couple of weeks. Prior to that I won't have time to do anything anyway - I'll be chained to a desk or interstate at meetings.
I had forgotten just how much I love being driven down country roads at night. There are no streetlights to get in the way, and the trees come right up to the edge of the road. The eucalypts get caught momentarily in the headlights, leaping out like pale ghosts only to fall back to the shadows just a second later and be replaced by another startled pose. Off in the distance you can see the dark hills lapping at the heels of the orange glow of the city. Out there you're alone and the trees are your guard of honour as you travel.
I've been noticing that I'm really enjoying living in an area with more greenery. It's especially nice because it means more birdsong, and not just the strutting pigeons (who are so self deluded you can't not love them, really). Someone finally identified the cooing noise as doves the other day; I've been getting sighted people to look for the birds outside my window but they seem to hide in the bushes every time. You can hear them all around this suburb and it makes walking around a lovely experience.
For some reason I can't quite define I have this desire for proper 'outside' experiences right now. I've always been very much an indoors person so this is strange. Maybe it's that my Dad dying has sparked something; he was quite outdoorsy and it's possible that I either want to be closer to him through doing the things he'd have done or that his death has given me some kind of permission to do the stuff that I might have wanted to previously but would have found threatening because it was too much like him. The latter seems a lot more likely. This desire was hanging around before he died, but I don't discount the idea that some part of me might have known this was coming.
So what to do about it? Walking around the streets is a good start. I think I'm going to have to think about access issues if I want to go into a park or a walking trail. Maybe the public gardens in Carlton and Fitzroy are a good place to go - I think they have actual well-maintained walking paths. At any rate, I think I can convince my old and dear friend Mr Crocodile (so named because he's spent some time in parts of Australia where they'd become familiar) to walk with me through Sydney Botanic Gardens when I meet up with him in a couple of weeks. Prior to that I won't have time to do anything anyway - I'll be chained to a desk or interstate at meetings.
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