Today, I walked during my lunchbreak, four kilometers along Gardiners Creek which winds itself through the Malvern Valley. I walked in the sunlight under a web of branches throwing their shadows, listening to the birds, twittering, singing and trilling their joy of life. The walk takes me alongside the creek where the sunlight dances on the water, touching the surface and sending out sparks of bright light. Trees lean drunkenly from the bank and shimmering sunlight dances amongst their shadows and entangled undergrowth. In my imaginings, fallen logs become the faces of heavily jowled squatting trolls, flickering knats faeries and one broken tree stump, cloaked in draping ivy, the Sorcerer, Merlin.


The creek

Blackbirds, minors, sparrows and finches flutter nervously from bush to bush, chattering to each other in harsh warning notes as I pass. Magpies sit in the lower branches, perfectly motionless, then they lift their heads corralling, serenading me on my way. Crows flap their wings and lift into the air, fly toward me and at the very last moment they veer, their wings beating like a whisper of wind as they pass by gaining height. Almost, simultaneously their wings still and they drift upwards on a current of air, dip again and glide out of sight. Very occasionally my eye catches the red and blue flash of a kingfisher, though this is a rare sight. Only once have I seen one dive, straight as an arrow, into the water, to emerge with a sprinkling of diamonds flowing behind. The grass always seems to bend and duck in the breeze and listening to its rustle it is almost as if it is waving and talking to me, telling me the whispered secrets of life.

On my return journey, the tree-lined streets are always silent - so few people walk and are out and about nowadays. I occasionally see the odd jogger, a dog or two, a person working in their garden but apart from that nobody other than the doves who waddle nonchalantly in the middle of roads . My path always leads me back to the looming bulk of my office – a citadel of intrigue! A home for toads and vipers, comatose pythons, disgruntled alligators and forlorn tortoises and such other furtive and intrepid creatures who plot with reptilian stealth - definitely a zoo indeed!