Uneventful Walks - 4

How many more uneventful walks are there going to be? asked Pliny the Elder.

Just one more, I replied. The evening walk.

Good, said Pliny. Because there is only so much interest to be found in reading about another person's uneventful walk.

I know, I said. And I am sorry for that, but I'm doing it because I'm interested in trying to describe the walks in terms of directions, orientations, and landmarks, rather than giving a literary description, and it is very difficult, but I feel I am getting somewhere. I want my uneventful walks to be like maps.

They are like maps, said Pliny, and I am glad there is only going to be one more of them. Have you not thought that it would be easier to simply draw maps?

It would not be easier for me to draw maps, I said. I can tell you that right now. Please let me get on with the fourth and final uneventful walk, and then we can get on to a topic you prefer.

Alright, said Pliny. But you don't have time now. And so you will have to finish it tomorrow. You should think about changing the title of this post.

First Day of Winter

It's really the second day of winter, but it's more like the first.

We set out to walk to Norwood as soon as the rain stopped. We aren't used to rain. We didn't think it would rain again while we were out.

Odd yellow leaves and stems had been added to the pavement. Yesterday's heaps were flattened into wet soggy maps.

Plane tree leaves stuck fast and dark mirror puddles reflected an upside down world of bare branches. The sky was the colour of whales.

The colour of ocean and the colour of spume.

We bought apples and tomato paste... we looked for cuticle oil.

And just as we were about to step out of the mall near the fish shop it started to rain.

We couldn't walk home. We don't like being thwarted. We made our way up The Parade shop by shop.

It didn't stop all the way home, but it became lighter and we got used to it.

Outside our house, the birdshit on the pavement was nearly all washed away.

Here Be Dragons

I didn't think you would have called yourself an Italian, Pliny. Don't you think of yourself as a Roman? You lived in the days of the Roman Empire. The rest of Italy was just a collection of Roman provinces at that time wasn't it?

Nit picker! Then, I was a Roman; now, I am an Italian; tomorrow I shall be a pile of bones.

Sorry, Pliny, let's change the subject. I'm reading an interesting book at the moment called The Island of Lost Maps. It's all about ancient maps, and how people steal them from libraries.

Am I to understand you are planning a robbery?

No Pliny, but it's inspired me to start planning a map.

You amaze me! What will be the purpose of your map?

You might laugh.

I might.

Well, my map will be a useful one. It will show with great exactitude the position of a very dangerous nail that sticks up in the footpath just near the kerb at the place where I cross Fullarton Road every Friday on my way into town. Because every time I see that nail I think, somebody could trip over it. It is just at the point where a person who has come down Chapel Street and crossed Fullarton Road might be expected to step up on to the opposite pavement. And this is no small nail. I would estimate the diameter of the head to be about 2 centimetres, and the shank about one and a half. It's an old, rusty, slightly bent iron nail, and it sticks up at least 3 centimetres from the footpath. Heaven knows what it's doing there.

Why don't you write a letter to the council asking them to remove the nail?

Then what would be the point of my map?

I see. It does sound like an admirable project. Perhaps you could include on your map other dangers that might be encountered on the way.

Oh yes! The Bonnetts horse!