Sunday

10am. We leave home.

The donations outside The Salvos are strewn all over the foot path. I contemplate having a look, but don’t want to be a part of that mess. I’m

10.45am. We’re crossing the bridge across the Yarra. There are plenty of people out today, we’ll, the sun is shining and the sky is crystal clear, that always gets the punters out the door in greater numbers; girl couples with cattle dogs, mum and dad and the two little sprogs, young couples with Labradors, older couples walking their dogs together, blokes with big dogs and ball throwers, girls with small fluffy dogs they carry for at least half the time, men in tiny shorts with great legs, jogging, girls covered head to toe in active wear, jogging, impatient bike riders demanding their right of way on the bridge, like bike riders do.

The sun is shining, the sky is cloudless blue.

There are quite a few people walking the track with their dogs.

We’re walking off down the path and we meet a cream Lab coming the other way. As soon as the Lab has past, Bruno looks at me with his I’m-not-coming-with you kind of look, and then he runs off in the other direction, don’t know why. We had to chase him back past the bride before we could get the lead on him.

He must have seen someone playing ball with their dog, that is usually behind such behaviour, otherwise I don’t know what got into him.

We meet up with a lady and her German Shorthair Pointer and a second dog that looked kind of part wolf hound. She asked, “Is he friendly?” I still had Bruno on the lead and it must have looked like I was disciplining him.

I laughed. “Yes, he is.” And I let him off his lead and Bruno headed straight off fallowing her dogs towards where the wide open off-lead park turns into the narrow path way where, officially, the off-lead section finishes, but no one puts their dogs on leads there.

Bruno came back and she bent down to pat him, coo’ng at him saying he was a gorgeous guy, and Bruno in his inimitable style ignored her completely, leaving her standing there with her hand out reaching for thin air. He is such a rat like that. He doesn’t care.

The sun shone, the sky was blue, fresh air blew. The bush seemed particularly vivid green today. There was the odd puddle of water so it had got some rain fairly recently, even though I didn’t remember it raining anytime lately.

We walked down to the usual turn around spot before the path raises up and the drop off down to the river becomes steep and I, somewhat ashamedly, have vertigo problems, they are just painful. We turned around, right when we met up with two Asian girls coming towards us who eyed off Bruno with trepidation, and who eyed off Bruno even more so once we were following them. But, you know, Bruno soon finds something to sniff and the two girls leave us behind.

We meet Bruce the Jack Russell, he and Bruno have a piss-a-thon on a fallen log. The two of them must have lifted their legs four times each before I call Bruno’s name and the other dog owner calls Bruce. The other owner and I laughed as our two dogs did their continued circles to the fallen log.

As we approached the bridge again, Sam said, “Should we put him on the lead, or should we let him run around some more?”

“Oh, let him run around some more,” I said.

And Bruno ran off ahead, right at that moment, chasing after two German Shorthaired Pointers whose owner was throwing a ball for them. 

As you have guessed, Bruno managed to grab their ball and in usual Bruno fashion, he wouldn’t give it back. We managed to put a lead on him, but he still won’t give the ball back. It took some time to get it from him. 

The German Shorthair Pointer’s owner is good natured about it. He is somewhat handsome, a bit chubby perhaps, but with a sweet smile and a good nature. The German Shorthair Pointers were keen to get their ball back bouncing around us while the extraction proceeded.

The stubborn Bulldog was not giving up the ball easily. It too sometime of coaxing, and cajoling, and attempts to rip it from his teeth. Eventually we got it from him.

We headed back across the bridge, a caramel coloured poodle/terrier, a cram Lab, a Puggle, a Rottweiler and it’s Jack Russell house buddy and a medium sized cream Groodle came the other way.

A guy with his pants halfway down his arse was rifling through the Salvos donations as we got back to the car. He’d got himself a box and he was filling it with the stuff he was taking, not a care.

11.20am. We’re back at the car.

11.33am. Bruno and I are waiting outside The Hive while Sam shops.

The sky is blue, the sun is shining. It is a gorgeous day. Bruno lies out with his face between his paws. Many people commented how adorable he was, and he does look adorable like that. I sat on the tiles with my back against the window writing my journal, well, this really.

11.53am. Sam reappears.

He points out the guy with the German Shorthaired Pointers was standing over on the footpath. I saw that he had a beard.

I smile. 

He smiled. “It’s okay, the ball is secure,” he said.

Sam went over to Minh Phat supermarket. I stayed seated on the cool tiles.

Sam reappeared at midday back from Minh Phat.

12.09pm. We’re home again.

We eat rice noodles with beef and vegitables for lunch.

Then it was screens for the afternoon until dinner. A couch each. I pissed around with old blog posts. Bruno moved from one of us to the other. That was Sunday.