Afternoon Stroll
May. 12th, 2005 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapeofthingsThis morning did not dawn, as so much slowly drag itself out of the abyss about an hour and a half after the sun supposedly rose. It was cold, gusty, drab and rather wet. Although the rain is always welcome, a more dreary appearance would be hard to imagine and I shivered and sniffled through the day. By the time I got home from work, however, the rain had stopped and the sky had lightened a great deal, so I eagerly decided to stretch my legs - the world always looks so new and green after a good rain, and besides, I hadn't fired the shutter in nearly two weeks and I was missing it. So I braved the chilly conditions and ventured out...
Behind the cut lie a dozen more images of my immediate neighbourhood.
Tess, the neighbour's dog, knew just what the weather called for, snuggled up under the verandah. She's old and mostly blind, spending much of her day snoozing, but rousing occasionally to bark at ghosts and terrorise unsuspecting passers-by with stealthy ferocity. She didn't raise a eyelid as I crouched by her gate today, so I let sleeping dogs lie and headed down Dart Street.
Peeking over fences and around corners I re-explored the familiar, navigating the backyard secrets of my neighbours. Such hidden treasures! Everything accentuated by the gloss of recent rain, taking on a new richness and exotic hue before my lens. It's sub-tropical here, but you could be mistaken for placing the suburb north of the line this afternoon.
It's a renovators fanstasy in these parts - old timber houses draped in memories of faded granduer nestled against restored workers cottages in a style so lavish their ghosts no longer feel welcome, shuffling wistfully under gnarled mango trees and in fern thickets. The populace blends between well-to-do young families, with their landscaped blocks, ramshackle weatherboards with the tough love of tenants and the hankerchief gardens and flaking paint of the residents here before it all got so trendy. Somehow, I fit right in, between the ghosts and the weekend dreamers.
There's always someone who'll stop to say hello, a friendly greeting or a curious word. After 4 years I'm becoming a familiar shadow among the hills, nestled under the mountain. Rose gardens blend with urban forest, new BMWs with beaten up kombis and the sighs of a neighbourhood well lived in - worn in to comfort by the laughter of children, the care of wrinkled hands and cupped hopes for the future.
Following the roads that never lead where you expect, up alleys, down hills, ignoring the voice in the back of my mind that knows I stepped out with brief intentions, leaving the front door free to the breeze. Catching glimpses into the lives of others through doors and windows, windchimes and thing-a-me-jigs. What's the story?
A growing patch of blue slowly spread through the grey and the sun peeked through, catching bouganvillea flowers in translucent pink perfection. The neighbourhood busybodies stuck heads out doors and over fences, intent on investigating my business in the pleasantest of manners. Tongues will be chattering about my passing from this russet pair!
Wildlife, urban and urbane, abounds in the leafy corners of Auchenflower, including the odd feral shopping trolley. Satisfied with my wanderings I turned once more uphill, the sun now truly beaming in afternoon delight. Despite the sun the air still trembles with the chill of winter - time for households to tuck themselves under the eaves until summer stirs the cicadas into chorus again. Woodsmoke thinly drifts on evening's breeze and I'm home.
Behind the cut lie a dozen more images of my immediate neighbourhood.
Tess, the neighbour's dog, knew just what the weather called for, snuggled up under the verandah. She's old and mostly blind, spending much of her day snoozing, but rousing occasionally to bark at ghosts and terrorise unsuspecting passers-by with stealthy ferocity. She didn't raise a eyelid as I crouched by her gate today, so I let sleeping dogs lie and headed down Dart Street.
Peeking over fences and around corners I re-explored the familiar, navigating the backyard secrets of my neighbours. Such hidden treasures! Everything accentuated by the gloss of recent rain, taking on a new richness and exotic hue before my lens. It's sub-tropical here, but you could be mistaken for placing the suburb north of the line this afternoon.
It's a renovators fanstasy in these parts - old timber houses draped in memories of faded granduer nestled against restored workers cottages in a style so lavish their ghosts no longer feel welcome, shuffling wistfully under gnarled mango trees and in fern thickets. The populace blends between well-to-do young families, with their landscaped blocks, ramshackle weatherboards with the tough love of tenants and the hankerchief gardens and flaking paint of the residents here before it all got so trendy. Somehow, I fit right in, between the ghosts and the weekend dreamers.
There's always someone who'll stop to say hello, a friendly greeting or a curious word. After 4 years I'm becoming a familiar shadow among the hills, nestled under the mountain. Rose gardens blend with urban forest, new BMWs with beaten up kombis and the sighs of a neighbourhood well lived in - worn in to comfort by the laughter of children, the care of wrinkled hands and cupped hopes for the future.
Following the roads that never lead where you expect, up alleys, down hills, ignoring the voice in the back of my mind that knows I stepped out with brief intentions, leaving the front door free to the breeze. Catching glimpses into the lives of others through doors and windows, windchimes and thing-a-me-jigs. What's the story?
A growing patch of blue slowly spread through the grey and the sun peeked through, catching bouganvillea flowers in translucent pink perfection. The neighbourhood busybodies stuck heads out doors and over fences, intent on investigating my business in the pleasantest of manners. Tongues will be chattering about my passing from this russet pair!
Wildlife, urban and urbane, abounds in the leafy corners of Auchenflower, including the odd feral shopping trolley. Satisfied with my wanderings I turned once more uphill, the sun now truly beaming in afternoon delight. Despite the sun the air still trembles with the chill of winter - time for households to tuck themselves under the eaves until summer stirs the cicadas into chorus again. Woodsmoke thinly drifts on evening's breeze and I'm home.