Down by the river

Years ago, when Jude & I hadn't been together all that long, & we were both doing shift work, me in the Fire Service & her in the Comms section at the International Airport, on the rare days we had off together, we used to take time out. We would stop at the local bottle shop, get a nice bottle of wine & head for Western Springs. As the name implies, there is a natural spring there that used to be the water supply for Auckland. These days, its a rather lovely reserve that backs on to the zoo with a proliferation of bird life, mainly water fowl.

We would stop at The Saigon Bakery across the road & get lunch, generally pork & egg turnovers & the most beautiful filled rolls made with the beautiful crisp French style bread that only the Vietnamese seem to be able to make. By the entrance, there was always a rack, with brown paper bags full to overflowing with stale (By their standards) bread. Lunch, wine & duckfood safely in hand we would wander off round through the meandering paths around the lake. Not for us the clamoring yammering ducks geese & swans that would trample over their little ones in an effort to gorge themselves & to hell with their babies.

We found this tranquil little clearing way round the back of the lake, where if you sat quietly on the grass & ate your lunch, you were rewarded with a family of very shy & cautious Pukekos that would tentatively poke their heads out of the reeds around the clearing. If you were patient, they would come right up to you & take the bread very carefully from your fingers, a rare privilege to experience. But would they bolt it down & clamour for more ? Not on your life. They would walk back to the reeds, very carefully remove the morsel from their beaks with one of their spiny red feet & gently feed their little ones with it, who had obviously been told very firmly by Mum to "Stay exactly where you have been left or else !" Only when they had sated the little ones hunger would they proceed to eat their own fill.

We swapped our trusty small wheeled wheelchair for a conventional one last week. Jude's general condition & the weather meant that we didn't get a chance to road test it until the week end, so we headed of for the reserve at the riverside well within leisurely strolling distance, with a bag of stale bread & the little dog plodding dutifully beside. The new chair is much easier to manage & we arrived there, to the delight of the ducks, in fine shape. There is a little picnic table there in the shade of a tree, so I parked her wheelchair so that I could sit beside her with my arm around her & feed the ducks. I happened to look across at her to see tears streaming down her face. My face was wet as well. I said to her, "Are you remembering our days at The Springs as well ?" She nodded. We both sat there & cried for days gone. Whispa broke the spell by making one of her rare sallies after the the ducks from her lair under the table. By that time all the bread was gone, so reluctantly, we set course for home.