Visits

I work on the second floor of a very "trendy area". It is a combination of offices, inner city apartments and cafes and restaurants, interspersed with grand federation homes that have been converted to office space or exclusive restaurants. All in all it is a rather nice place to work if it wasn’t for the travel to get into the city.

 

One of the things I do love about this office is a few visitors we get every afternoon. We always hear them first, noisy guests they are. As soon as we hear their approach we all stop and turn and look to where they always make their grand entrance.

 

One wall of the office looks out over the street and is all glass. It has window boxes that line it and in the window boxes are some much neglected plants and lots and lots of weeds. Due to the fact that the rest of the area is so pristine, these weeds, which the wild life love, don’t grow anywhere else. So our visitors come once a day to dance for us, sing to us and star in the window and taunt us while they dine on our exclusive weeds. They are a family of Twenty Eight’s. Twenty Eights are a native parrot see below:

 

As you can see they are quite large and make a hell of a racket. But they add enjoyment to my otherwise very long and boring day. The building manager recently decided to put stainless steel covers over the planter boxes as all they are growing is these yummy weeds. After the handyman had been to install them, we removed them again so that the birds would continue to come.

 

Today after their visit I remembered one of my happier child hood memories. As a child, before my mother and father divorced and dragged our asses all over the country.

 

There was a place at

Jarvis
Bay

called Green Patch and we used to go there for that day as a family outing. It usually involved getting up at dawn and loading the car and driving for what felt like hours. I am sure if I was to go back there now I would remember the entrance to

Booderee
National Park

. It used to cause my sister and me to clap in anticipation. The road wound down to a lush green park land that lead onto the Beach and out to the ocean. We would take down a canoe and paddle to one of the waterfalls in the inlet and eat oysters off the rocks. Another favourite past time was handfeeding the rainbow lorikeets (see below)

 

We used to take down a big bag of sunflower seeds and hand feed the birds. I can remember standing there with seed in each hand, arms outstretched, with 4 to 5 birds fighting to get to the seed in each hand. I can remember the anticipation as you stood there with your palms outstretched with it’s offering of seed, standing very, very still and waiting. Not daring to breathe and the shock as the claws of the first bird dug into your hand.

 

The end of the day would see us climbing sunburnt into the old Cortina Station Wagon, with my sister and I usually falling asleep in the back of the car.

 

Anyway this little trip down memory lane was done at work and has made me a little sad. Plus it is time to leave.

 

Just another little piece of me…..