The swish-swish was accompanied by the
shush-shush of our feet scrapping the pavement and the crunch-crunch of our
steps on the occasional ice pellet. The burble of conversation from those
behind us provided an undercurrent to the free-flowing conversations amongst
those we were walking with. The occasional cry of ‘Car’ reminded us we weren’t
alone and to keep our wits about us. By times the steady rhythm of our pace
changed to a more cautious clump-clump as we navigated patches of slippery ice.
I was conscious of the changing sounds of
my breathing as we sped up and slowed down. I was doing two loops for the first
time in awhile and by the time we came to the last hill I was huff-huffing in a
final burst of speed to get to the gate.
The final notes - the wonderful sounds of
warm, interesting conversation over breakfast broken only by the silence that
always accompanies the delivery of our food.
The tones of our voices ranged from serious through thoughtful to silly
as the discussion moved from child pornography through the depiction of sex in
mainstream movies to what each of us thought was romantic. And perhaps best of
all were the regular gusts of laughter that seem to be a regular part of our
get-togethers.
Spring has to be around the corner and I am
already looking forward to birdsong and the rustle of leaves.
Good luck to everyone doing the Chilly Half
and to Phyllis in Israel – hope you are recovered.
