Every evening as the sun sets in a riot of colours upon the mighty Hudson, and I saunter along the river, I find myself revelling in the wonder of nature. Adi comes with once in a while. Together we spot so many pinpricks of yellow and orange in the twilight hour. The park is swarming with fireflies and it is difficult not to feel as gleeful as a child. The chubby squirrels of winter have procreated in the last few months it seems. Their tiny summer offsprings have the run of the park, their thin tailed bodies priming up for the harsher months with nature’s nutty offerings.
Meanwhile I have not fallen off the face of the blogging world quite yet. I shall hold on as long as I can — like a tenacious camel. Why camel though, you might ask here. I have no idea. Maybe because I am a child of the desert.
The season is speeding away even as we find ourselves tiding over some hot and humid days. The in-laws are visiting us and there is not enough hours in a day to slip in updates here. But they are in Washington DC for a few days, and we shall head there for the weekend, so here I am wondering if there are any recommendations you have for Adi and I.
Below are some shots from Central Park from one of our wanderings through it on a sweltering day when a sea lion we saw, slumped over a rock in a desultory fashion. I think we would have perched ourselves just so in a pool, if we had one. During our gander in the park, we watched tiny turtles swim in the mossy green waters of a pond, which is what remains of the 19th century Croton Aqueduct. As it happens, I am in the midst of a tome on the history of New York City during the Civil War. It talks of the great stretch of green today in Central Park adjoining the Turtle Pond, once a part of the aqueduct that transformed life for the multitudes of miserable residents of the city in the 1800s. You see, they had to rely on brackish water for their daily needs or pay vendors two cents a pail for ‘tea water’ (which was basically water drawn from wells up the island). Naturally New Yorkers considered it wiser to consume distilled and fermented liquor day and night than live off the filthy water that the city dispensed for the public.
Now, before I take off on the joys of discovering the city through this book, which is always a hazard when I start writing, I shall leave you with a cheery hello and a fond note on the benches of Central Park with their various plaques. If I could, I would spend a day just photographing the words they feature, because I simply adore them.