Every Goose a Swan
Jan. 28th, 2005 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radegundOne of the swans on the canal, the ones who hang around down by Sally's Bridge, is a goose. I noticed it the other day when I was bringing Oisín to the crèche.
I don't know whether it's an undercover goose, or a consultant goose, or a goose on secondment bringing goose skills to enhance certain aspects of the swans' way, or a goose on a cross-community training placement, or what. But there it does be, happily paddling around in a cluster of swans, head held high, unabashedly gooselike.
(There are a lot more swans on our stretch of canal now that Luas Line A has opened: they used to stay up around Inchicore for most of the winter.)
Dick Murphy, the elderly man who lives down the road from us, has noticed the goose too. He and I walked back from Sally's Bridge together on Tuesday morning, when I'd brought Oisín to the crèche and was coming home to have conjunctivitis in peace. He feeds the swans on the canal every day, moving slowly along the footpath and down the slope to get close to the water. He can't use the steps since he had his knee done. We chatted about feeding swans, and knee replacements, and the weather, and he bent with great care to pick up a tangerine peel from the cycle path, because he knew a man who slipped on one of those once and broke his ankle. When we got to where I had to cross the road he said goodbye and turned back towards the bridge, and I realised that he'd been escorting me, because I am a lady.
I don't know whether it's an undercover goose, or a consultant goose, or a goose on secondment bringing goose skills to enhance certain aspects of the swans' way, or a goose on a cross-community training placement, or what. But there it does be, happily paddling around in a cluster of swans, head held high, unabashedly gooselike.
(There are a lot more swans on our stretch of canal now that Luas Line A has opened: they used to stay up around Inchicore for most of the winter.)
Dick Murphy, the elderly man who lives down the road from us, has noticed the goose too. He and I walked back from Sally's Bridge together on Tuesday morning, when I'd brought Oisín to the crèche and was coming home to have conjunctivitis in peace. He feeds the swans on the canal every day, moving slowly along the footpath and down the slope to get close to the water. He can't use the steps since he had his knee done. We chatted about feeding swans, and knee replacements, and the weather, and he bent with great care to pick up a tangerine peel from the cycle path, because he knew a man who slipped on one of those once and broke his ankle. When we got to where I had to cross the road he said goodbye and turned back towards the bridge, and I realised that he'd been escorting me, because I am a lady.