A weekend sighting plus some pondering

I'm a sucker for a wildlife sighting. Living in the suburbs means you can't get too fussy. You take what you can get. This afternoon I walked to the supermarket to do some grocery shopping. I needed the walk. Needed to get out and get moving. It was late arvo and the streets of Camberwell weren't vacant by a long shot but were still fairly quiet. I cut through a one-way alleyway near the supermarket and as I was walking past a garden bed full of hardy green council appointed plants I heard a noise in the undergrowth. I feel like a part of me is always listening out for the sounds of something interesting on the side of whatever path I'm walking along. Usually if I do see whatever made the noise it's just a bird, most likely an Indian Myna, fossicking around for food. However sometimes it pays off. I once saw an echidna after hearing a slight noise off to my left while cycling. That's pretty much the mother-lode when it comes to animal sightings for me. Don't expect anything like that in this story. 

The noise I heard this afternoon was definitely not a bird. Birds aren't that noisy. It sounded like something small but not insignificant was crashing through the undergrowth. More concerned about quick concealment than keeping quiet. I couldn't see anything though so carried on walking. 

I bought lots of groceries, paid for my shopping and walked back the way I had come, a carry-bag full of food in each hand. It was only when I heard the noise again at exactly the same spot did I recall I'd heard it earlier. An initial noise like an animal ducking for cover, followed by a subsequent noise as it pushed further into the plants as it saw me looking for it. On the footpath in front of me, was... I don't know. It might have been the remains of a melted ice cream. Or a dog's vomit? I want to think it was ice cream. I figured this was what had tempted this animal out from the safety of it's home.

My curiosity peaked, I decided to see what it was. I walked about 5 metres past the site of the noise and then stopped and turned. I got out my phone and turned it on, pretending I was checking for messages because clearly whatever it was would understand that humans get very pre-occupied when they check their phones. Ok, so getting out the phone was probably more so that any people driving through the supermarket carpark wouldn't think that I'm a crazy person staring at the ground for an overly long time. Checking a phone is more acceptable than looking for the source of strange noises.

Around thirty seconds passed and my gaze wandered for a moment and then moved back to the sticky-looking spot on the footpath and there it was. A mouse! Or maybe a rat. It was either a large mouse or a small rat. I suspect just a mouse. It was cute! Mice are cute. Just as long as they aren't in your house, they are cute. I'm pretty sure that's a scientific fact. He was very busily eating away at the ground, trying to get as much of whatever it was into his little gob before the next person walked past and interrupted him. I didn't want to interrupt him. I was happy for him to eat his fill so I watched him eat for about a minute then I turned and was on my way.

So no, it wasn't something cool like a crazed pet turtle or a blue tongued lizard or an echidna. It was just a mouse. Yet I still really enjoyed seeing it. A sighting of a wild animal that very much didn't want to be seen and yet a little persistence paid off and I got a small glimpse of a life pretty different to mine yet doing just what I do regularly - eating. (No, not eating ice cream off the ground! Just eating.)

I had been feeling a tad flat earlier but oddly, a mouse sighting buoyed me. As I walked back up the Burke Rd hill, I thought about my weekend, the parts of it I enjoyed, those parts that annoyed me, the bits that left me nonplussed, and I decided that on balance, it had been a pretty good weekend. It was ending on a high too. In the space of a Sunday I had:

• Cycled 24kms
• Had brunch with friends where I ate great food, drank nice coffee and talked to great people
• Sat in the backyard with my shirt off soaking up a little vitamin D (got to enjoy it while the waning autumn sun can manage it!) while reading a good chunk of a novel.
• Eaten healthily (this is a work in progress but I'm enjoying giving it a shot)
• Seen a mouse eating it's dinner

I'd say this well and truly cancels out a whole Saturday spent at a database conference, my team's football loss and me missing the wonderful Ruth while she does wonderful things over in Nepal. Anyway, life is all about perception. You can choose to focus on the negative or you can focus on things that might be little (like a mouse) but that still bring joy.

Life is good. Quite often! Of course, it's better experienced when one is not too tired so I'm going to end this post here and go to bed.

Music And Memories

I've been listening to a lot of music on my mp3 player recently that reminds me of my time overseas. Now that I've been back a while, my thoughts seem to turn to it more often. Rose tinted glasses have slipped down over my mind's eye and I find myself growing more fond of London now than I ever was while I was there. I keep thinking back on all the fun experiences, the beautiful scenery and the thoughts and feelings that went along with it all.

Yesterday I put on the album "Outer South" by Conor Oberst And The Mystic Valley. It came out earlier this year. I wasn't sure about it at first but it really grew on me. A nice mix of alt-folk tunes, rockers etc. Listening to it yesterday transported me back to South Woodford, the suburb I lived in for most of my time in London. I pictured the walk between the train station and my home. A 15 minute walk that took me past the shops on the High Street, busy, wide tree-lined roads, a choice of expensive supermarkets, pharmacy, restaurants and then onto suburban streets with small adjoining two storey houses lined up neatly, one next to the other like young boys ready for a school photo. I pictured the bakery I would walk past and the taste of the "too flat, not quite a coffee scroll but it's gonna have to do" Belgian Scroll I would sometimes buy at Greggs Bakery. The church I would walk past with the old tombstones out front emerging at odd angles from the ground surrounded by frost covered grass. If you walked past at night and were lucky you could catch a glimpse of a shy fox out for it's nightly scavenge.

Last week I was listening to the debut album by Yeasayer called All Hour Cymbals. Another album that came out this year and was a very slow grower. Very hypnotic music that swirls around all over the place, sometimes sung, sometimes chanted. Putting this album on flew me in the blink of an eye to the gardens of Richmond Park. On a sunny spring day that could never be accused of being warm, i took easily an hours worth of trains, a bus and a missed stop plus a little walking to get there. I saw a playground near the entrance, lots of green grass broken up by old trees and a couple of paths radiating out into the distance.  I don't recall being in the best of moods so wasn't really up for exploring, I just found a nice dryish spot in the grass and lay down to read a novel. I think it was Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. My favourite memory of that day was when I happened to glance above my book to see two baby rabbits standing just next to their rabbit hole, only about a couple of metres away, seemingly oblivious to my presence. I watched them nibble grass for a short time, then looked away for a moment and when I'd looked back they had gone. I didn't really explore the park that day. Just wandered a little, read my book and enjoyed being outdoors with that feeling that summer was finally (!!!) on the way.

This morning on the train, a search through the mp3 player had me choosing the Fleet Foxes EP "Sun Giant". Now this EP sounds so much like their excellent folky self-titled album that came out when I first arrived in London that the EP and the album intertwine in my memory. Fleet Foxes took me back to Sidcup, the outer London suburb where Luke and T were living. It called to mind the hurried walks from their home to the Sidcup train station on wet, cold mornings in March. My sock soaking up the water being let in by the small hole in my shoe that I hadn't gotten around to fixing. The bright red double decker buses flying along the narrow,  shiny wet roads. I remembered the living room in Luke and T's house, me seated at the table, battling their horrendously frustrating laptop while trying to get an internet signal in order to find a job, occasionally looking out the window as cars waited for the lights 50 metres ahead to turn green.
Fleet Foxes also brought to mind a very different memory too. It was of their gig at London University that Luke and I went to. They were awesome. Beautiful voices soaring over the room. Moving songs that evoke images of the countryside. My memory this morning then went on to recall leaving that gig and finding that it had been snowing outside. A faint snow was floating down and it was freezing cold. Cars were covered with white. It had a magical feel to it. It's only while thinking about this now that I've realised that it didn't snow during the Fleet Foxes gig. It snowed during a gig by The Walkmen at the same venue. My brain merged the two memories this morning. In my head this morning it seemed so real. Memory is all so fluid I guess.

I could write a whole 'nother piece on albums that evoke images of my time travelling outside of London too. Morocco, Belgium, New York... they've all got albums attached to them in my mind. Sometimes I won't even realise it until I press play on a particular song. I love that the mind works this way! That it creates these odd links between sounds one hears and the particular place one heard them. Such a link seems to strengthen the memory. It adds more colour, more detail. It protects it from fading. Most of these memories don't have an accompanying photo so perhaps keeping that link with the music alive is my best chance of holding onto them.