Things Seen on Walks

• The kid walking his dog while reading an honest-to-god book. A library book. A truly analog sight in this age where we’re all looking down at our devices.

• Whales. They’re back.

• Lots and lotsa tourists at The Gap. Think they’re from the cruise ships that are still arriving daily in the harbour.

• People standing in the middle of the footpath taking that particular shot of Sydney on the spot just before the Gap & impeding my gait because they won’t move out of the way.

• The English dude who’s just moved to Sydney from England who stopped to chat while I yammered on about the reason why right whales are called as such. (Because the beasts move slowly and they don’t sink after they’re slaughtered.)

• The soccer training in Queens Park at dusk now that winter is here.

• The guys in the ute who were driving the wrong way up Bayview Road who stopped to give me lip because I said something to the driver. I couldn’t hear anything they said because I had my headphones on but I know it wasn’t complimentary.

• The man who thought he could out pace me on Military Road. If there’s one thing that’s going to get me hot & sweaty it’s being unexpectedly overtaken by a gym fanatic.

• The feeling I get every time I walk along Chris Bang Crescent at Diamond Bay and remember the heinous and cruel death of Lilie James. This was the site that her murderer killed himself.

• The realisation that beauty and terror are all around us.