Winter walking

there's always a new alley to discover

It’s been a couple of weeks of gathering with friends in all their incarnations—the ones I see often, the ones I wish I saw more often, and others who unexpectedly came to town over the holidays; moments that made me smile—repeatedly—at a time of year when I can sometimes get a little sentimental. It was very appreciated.

We’re settling into 2024 now, and after a bit of time at home, recovering in a horizontal fashion from all the fun and socializing, it’s been time to start getting out there again.

Yes, I’m talking about walking; it’s the perfect weather for it—or rather it is, if, like me, you choose to rotate between the shady and sunny side of the road when you start to break a sweat—or get too cold again.

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Twice recently I’ve found myself wandering down small lanes and turning up alleys, heading, roughly, in a certain direction, but getting turned around again as I did so. The most recent time time, I discovered a grouping of small parks I’d never seen before, filled with children and dogs, all enjoying the winter sun.

Further ahead, trying to decide whether to go left or straight, I asked directions from some women sitting in the sun with a mortar and pestle and a pile of oil-slicked chilies.

Was there a way through to the main road? There was, they assured me, smiling, and I went on in full confidence, even though it sure looked like a dead end.

And at the very end of the lane, indistinguishable from the wall until you were literally on top of it, one of those narrow footpaths I’ve written about before that run between property walls in some parts of town. I headed along it to find an other seeming dead end, and at the end of that, once again, another tiny alley that took me to a sort-of-main road. Not the one I expected, but that was okay. I got to my destination in the end, a little hot and pondering that it was perhaps not ideal of me to have picked up a few kilos of compost and coco peat at a plant nursery so early in my walk. I keep thinking, too, of that mortar and pestle and wondering what the women were making… I think I’ll have to walk by again and ask—if I can find it!