Walk with us

We love taking walks in the neighbourhood. Sometimes we go for quick lunch at a favorite cafe, others we enjoy a drink of some kind and then there are the more practical walks that take us to the library or the local shops.

If we decide to go grab a drink, we would pick some cat tails on the way from our special area and swing them around until they brake. The Dod gets his own handed to him, riding on my back, and then he is expected to try to tickle the bouncing girls around me.

I love this wall.
The color, the texture, all of it.

Little B skips ahead often, as she is my non-stop child; my perpetuo mobile; the child that climbs just about any vertical object she faces; and yet, all this activity and training has not made her less likely to be a party of injury events around here. Quite the opposite, she can get a scrape just by breathing, I am sure of it. But, as I have always said, you are not a child unless you have bruised legs and a band-aid somewhere on your body. She is definitely a child.

She skips, and skips, and skips until the street, which we cross together and then she is off again, unless she finds something interesting and then she is behind calling for us to wait.

Miss Fab, my dogologist child (I dont think I have made you privy to her new obsession with dogs), is usually closer, exploring and chatting and melting with love for her brother. We usually have to guess how many dogs we will see on our outing and we know we will see at least two; for we have the chao-chao we love to stop by and say hi to.

He is quiet and we could have missed him, had he not stuck his black nose under the fence that one time, back when, before he was our dog. It even took our resident professional dogologist a bit of time to figure out the breed, there is so little of him showing.

Last time he made these sad noises, behind the beautiful white fence, and we decided that he is lonely all day, while the owners work. We bought his story until a noisy little fella jumped about around him, as though to prove his existence or worth as a friend, for they are two, behind the fence. Nosy and Noisy. Our dogs.

Spring does make our walks more colorful and there is so much to see and touch and pick.

Flowers are dissected and examined, and paper bark trees are relieved of a bit of their coats in the name of exploration too. We love seed pods, cause there seem to be an unlimited variety of ways plants have figured out to spread their genes into the world – seeds with wings, spiky seeds, millions tiny ones, pods, singing choir looking pods et cetera, et cetera.

No matter how many times we do our walk, it never gets boring and we always find something new and interesting.

Still, its nice when we arrive at our current favorite watering place. Its even better if our preferred inside sitting spot is free – it has enough chairs, the chairs are puffy and comfortable and there is enough table in front to cause trouble and spill stuff.

And as much as I want to tell you we leisurely enjoy our warm drinks, barely upright in the big puffy chairs and feet sprawled on the table in front, I cant. Because this one may look mellow and all classy, well-mannered young gentleman in his cardigan, but its all a lie.

At first the apple juice may sit there, amongst the pencils, undisturbed.

Miss Fab may be able to play some word games, while letting her yo-yo rest and waiting for the cinos.

Which come wonderfully frothy with sprinkling of brown chocolate goodness.

My drink of choice is a long black.

No sugar, no milk.

For those of you that wonder what in the world that is, its like a long espresso; watery strong espresso.

I love to drink it while catching up on the newspapers.

But this one unleashes, shakes off the drowsy feeling he may have developed riding on my back and sets off.

He wants everything; to try it all, himself. So armed with my unused teaspoon he walks around and dips it in everything, drips stuff all over that big ole table, mixes things that should not be mixed.

Miss Fab attempts to restrain him, gently, by offering her babycino as a sacrifice to the common good. And this works for about half a second, and then he is off again.

This day was a bit extra crazy, as he was sleepy too, so life just had to bend over for him or else he was going to make it. We, ourselves armed with napkins, kept wiping behind him, but the end of the road for him was when he started pouring to and fro various cups and spilled a lake on that table, which didnt look as nice anymore. That marked the end of his freedom and he was swiftly strapped to my back, tightly, where he spent the rest of the time – blinking and resting his tired head on my shoulders.

We did manage to catch up on the news and election developments and that coffee made its way to the depths of my being.

On the way back we take a different route, just to be wild, or at least not to repeat ourselves. And here I will present to you our jumping game. Yours truly came up with it one day, when we were Dod-free, and you may be tempted to just call it long jumping, its not, so dont utter it.

Its our extra-special-fun-bike-lane-wild-game.

See – wild!

Its risky too, cause you never know when the extreme bikers may wizz by and put your life in danger.

Starting position:

Trembling knees, mental preparation, deep breathing…

Whooosh!

Every jumper is marked and we try to beat each other. I am way out of the kiddies league. I fly, baby! Fly like the wind; jump straight back home. Not surprisingly, Little B manages to outjump Miss Fab from time to time. And Mr.Blab? Last time he joined us on a walk, he used the excuse that he is sick and never embarrassed himself with an actual result. But I am pretty sure we all know where he will fit, I just wonder if he will make it past the white line…

Then the girls decided to be archeologists.

And dug the sides of the path.

So we can come back home with a pile of rocks.

A pile of rocks that is still in front of the back door and we trip on them to this day.