Sunday Afternoon

The storm had left platoons of leaves and not a few sticks for Henry to clean up. For the third day in a row he was out there raking with his wheel barrow and leaf rake. Not that he minded, in fact he enjoyed the warm, still days and after all the ground was flat, and to him that was a real bonus.

He has a large mesh frame where he deposits the leaves – he uses them for mulch, worm food and compost.

While he rakes, he has a radio with him and generally listens to talk-back and on occasions it fires him up enough to send off a text – not that it makes any difference. On Sunday he was listening to the sports show because the Blackcaps had beaten the Aussies in a nail-biter the evening before. Most of New Zealand was still fizzing by the sound of it! But Henry could only take so much of that, so switched, as normal for a Sunday, to Puketapu Radio. This is a local volunteer radio station that plays music for its local, rural audience – probably for the older variety of local, rural people.

On Sunday afternoons, this old geezer with a slow drawl plays old country and western music, some too old for even Henry to remember! But a fair amount of them he knows and this Sunday he sang along to He holds the lantern, while his mother chops the wood. And he remembered the words! Cowboys and cowgirls seem to be a sad lot though and sing sad, even mournful songs sometimes.

As it was a Sunday and pleasant with no wind and warm with cloud-filtered sun, Henry knocked off at around three o’clock, made a brew of liquorice tea and sat in his favourite spot overlooking the river.

His attention was drawn to a pair of wood pigeons, a New Zealand indigenous species and the largest pigeon breed in the world. Pairs mate for their lifetime. Henry recalled reading somewhere that ordinary, run-of-the-mill pigeons have the capability of facial recognition of humans and he wondered if it was so with these birds.

Certainly they were not afraid of him as they fed on the tree lucerne trees that he had planted for that very purpose. But Henry was curious with this pair because the spent a lot of time actually sitting on the ground, he had never seen this activity before, so he was watching them as he supped.

The sound of happy kids took his attention away from the birds and he looked in the direction of the sound towards the river.

There were four people; striding it out in front was Dad, followed closely be a boy. Daddy don’t you walk so fast, Henry hummed. A little further back was Mum with (he thought) a little girl who was holding Mum up by fossicking in the shrubs and grass.

A white dog was out in front and maybe that was the reason Dad was in a hurry to keep up. There are a lot of rabbits down there and Henry though the dog could take off at any time. Not that it was a worry, there is plenty of room down there.

Perhaps the reason they were there, was to take the dog for a run, but whatever the motivation, the parents were spending time with their kids. It is the best gift they can give them.

The dog did not run off, and they spent some time tossing sticks in the river for him to chase, he never retrieved them! Then there was a session of bouncing flat stones over the water.

The kids’ questions were audible but the parents answers were not, and Henry did not want to know, he had enough pleasure seeing a family out together happily doing their thing.

He enjoyed his Sunday afternoon.