daughters (again)

ahead of me up the street

sisters

black tights, short skirts, sparkly boots

and a confident swagger

damp

I keep thinking the rain is stopping

but it turns out I am mistaken

... again

no ticks

tock, tock, tock

under the trees large drips of water land on the hood of my waterproof

baby says no

I want to read The Sneetches

but the Babe is adamant,

pushing the book away and closing it when I try

a bit breezy

even as a grown up it is fun

to be able to lean in to the wind

crunch

the empty shells of beech nuts carpet the pavement

and crunch under my feet

I wonder where all the nuts went

tram trip

crowds of Saturday shoppers with their umbrellas

part and close up like a school of fish

around the passing tram

rain and sun

emerging from the shadow of the cloud

the sunshine warms my face and

sparkles on the raindrops in my hair

gothic

under a dark menacing sky

a crow caws raucously from the carved victorian finial

hunter and scavenger

two foxes

the first interrupted in the very act of pouncing

the second stealing garbage from two magpies

who watch disconsolately from across the road

tumbling can

in the breeze an empty can tumbles purposefully down the road towards me

it hops neatly onto the pavement for a few yards then hops back down to the road

it goes on past and becomes lodged in the gutter

when I return to the spot it is gone

flies

beautiful in the morning sunshine

a cluster of glistening blue iridescent flies

gather on the corpse of a dead slug