Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Community...

My last post and responses to it ("in this age of isolation, when we don't know our neighbours as well as we could...") reminded me of the following little story...


When I first came to live in Governors Bay I was working full time at the university. I would leave home about 7.00am and return about 4.30/5.00pm. I really didn't know my neighbours at all. Then I resigned and started working part-time from home. At about the same time my friend Gloria (about whom I have written at http://headoftheharbour.blogspot.com/2009/04/gloria.html) asked me to look after Rosie Goat. 



Rosie was tethered in a large, sloping section further down the road. Her on-site owner had died and her new owner lived further round the harbour in Cass Bay. Effectively I inherited Rosie's care. Twice a day I would walk down the road with a plastic bag of 'treats' (a selection of rolled oats, weetbix, biscuits, apple, carrot...) and a leafy branches from the native trees in my garden. 


While I could write at length about my initially rocky relationship with Rosie (!), the point of this story is that the simple act of walking down the road to feed and check on her marked the beginning of my getting to know my neighbours along Merlincote Crescent - and the beginning of an on-going process of coming to 'belong'. 


5 comments:

  1. It is called taking time to smell the flowers .. enjoyable isn't it ? :o)>

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  2. Excellent way to begin and end a day---walking down the road to feed an orphan goat and greet one's neighbbors. Poetry in motion.

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  3. I have to admit this post was also an excuse to put up more photos of Rosie whom I find endearingly comical!!

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  4. Who could not love that face?

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  5. By the looks of that curly coat, she has a bit of angora in her :o)

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