I Don’t Know Where The Streams Are

One warm Monday evening, I found myself with half an hour to fill as I waited for one of my children to have a music lesson. Across the street was a new greenway, quietly inviting me to spend the time strolling instead of scrolling. The path passed along roads I’d travelled many times in the car, so I didn’t expect to see anything new, just to stretch my legs. I was wrong.

Things look different when you’re walking. You have time to notice the individual wildflowers, and the meadow behind the wall with the horses in it that you just couldn’t see from the driver’s seat of the car. The discovery that surprised me most, though, was the stream running right beside the road. Through the crowded trees and bushes it babbles away constantly as it splashes its way over rocks and under roots and how did I travel this road so many times and never even know this was here?

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How An Attempted Car Theft Taught Me To Love Where I Live Even More

Last Friday evening, I finally got around to cleaning and washing the car, and refilling the windscreen wash. I can’t remember the last time I did any of that, which might tell you something about what it looked like before. The next morning, telling jokes along the way, my children and I walked out to the car to drive to basketball. When we got there I noticed that the driver’s side door frame was bent several inches away from the car. When I opened the door, I understood why: the steering column had been torn apart and the ignition wires were dangling loose.

Someone had tried to steal our car.

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