- Shoes. Well, actually lack thereof. Living in Christchurch (and maybe everywhere in New Zealand?) means that shoes are optional. The teenager who delivers our circulars walks the neighbourhood in barefeet, as do lots of students on campus. I like the lack of commitment to footwear but can't help thinking about how stepping on the unexpected stone might hurt. ouch. I guess I'm just too soft. :)
- Birds. Interesting to see birds just walking around. They fly too, of course, but I suppose that since there aren't too many land-bound animals around to prey on them, there's not as much need to fly. Makes sense to me. There's also a bird that sings outside our bedroom early in the morning. I practice imitating his/her call as I lay in bed trying to wake up: two notes, about an octave apart, don't have the key yet. I need more practice.
- Apologies. I think it's interesting that the first item on a lot of meeting agendas is "Apologies/Welcome." How nice for the meeting facilitator to apologize for making us come to a meeting! I now realize it's not that at all, but instead an announcement about who isn't able to make the meeting. I still think it's cool to begin a meeting with apologies.
- Dogs. While it's not uncommon to see people walking their dogs on leashes, it's just as common in our neighbourhood to see dogs walking along the sidewalk alone. They're not stray dogs. They're just out for a walk -- by themselves. Yesterday, I noticed a couple of dogs wrestling on the lawn in front of a house down the block. One of the dogs lives at the house. The other one, Jon told me, lives on the other side of the reserve (park), a couple of blocks away, and just wanders over to play. Silly, but I have this image of Tatum barking outside the door: "Can Sammy come out and play?" Yeah, OK, what Tatum would really be saying is: "Is dinner ready?"
- Bus Drivers. What can I say. I love the bus drivers here. In the morning, I head out the gate behind our house and the bus is waiting for me. It's the end/beginning of the route so it's where the buses hang out when it's break time for the drivers. It's usually just me boarding at this point so I wait around and chat with the driver until it's time to take off. Last week I was heading into the office on Easter weekend and didn't realize that they were on Saturday schedule. This meant that I'd arrived 15 minutes early. Rather than sitting in the bus and waiting, I decided to get some exercise and start walking down the hill. I told the driver that I'd keep track of his schedule and wait when I got to a bus stop around the appropriate time. No need, said the bus driver, I'll just slow down and follow you until you get to a place where I can stop. And he did. :)
Coming home from work, I sometimes take the #3 since it comes twice as frequently as the #21 even though the #21 takes me to my backdoor.; the #3 drops me off at the bottom of the hill going up to our place and it's a long, steep hill. The first time I walked up the hill, it took me 45 minutes. Two days later, I was feeling many muscles that I hadn't felt in many, many years. Although I haven't walked up the hill too many times, I have it down to about 38 minutes and my legs, etc. are feeling much stronger. My record is tonight though. I made it up in a miraculous 18 minutes, thanks to my dear bus driver who spotted me about 60% up the hill and stopped to pick me up. How could I refuse? :)
That's it for now.
Cheers and love,
Beth
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