I was reminded last week of one of the positive things to have come out of last year’s Covid lockdown. I know – it’s hard to imagine anything positive coming out of Covid or its lockdown, but I think if we look hard enough, there will always be something good to come out of any situation.
I’ve had my beautiful dog Izzi for over a year and a half, and was always really thankful to have had her during lockdown, largely because she was the reason I would go out a couple of times every day (once for a walk and once to the park so she could play). What I hadn’t thought more about were the people I used to see every morning at the dog park – people who, over those many months, I felt I’d got to know, just a little. I even realised one day as I was driving home from the park that I knew the names of many of these people, which in itself was really unusual because while many of us get to know the names of each other’s dogs, their owners’ names, not so much!
There were two people in particular I’d got to know during those mornings at the park, people I always hoped might be there when Izzi and I arrived. The first, Angie, was a lovely lady who, from our first meeting, I knew was someone I’d be enjoying many conversations with. Apart from (and more importantly than) the fact that she was a reminder of that beautiful Rolling Stones’ song ‘Angie’, ‘my’ Angie was totally okay with my over-enthusiastic puppy! (It’s hard to believe, but there are a few people in these dog parks who seem ill-prepared for such enthusiasm, or indeed for even being in a dog park, with dogs!) Angie was always there with her kelpie, Wilson, who, like all kelpies, was happy to chase a ball, bring it back, chase it again, bring it back … while Angie would recall stories of her time as a nurse in London back in the ‘Swinging ’60s’!
The other person I used to love seeing was a man by the name of Jim, who, when I first met him, was at the park with his Golden Retriever Gigi. Drawn to Golden Retrievers like they are to muddy puddles (more on that later), I had headed straight for them. That was when Jim told me that Gigi had just had a litter, and that he and his family had kept one of her pups. And although it was a little while before I met him, as he wasn’t yet old enough to be at the park socialising, I fell in love with Sunny, too, as soon as Jim brought him along.
That was our lockdown, which then became summer, and rain. So much rain …
Enough rain that my visits to the park came to a standstill earlier this year when those heavy and constant rains turned our favourite park into an enormous mud pit. The sodden, slushy ground was full of holes the various dogs had dug, and those holes were full of dirty water that turned to thick stinky mud – a magnet to some dogs, mine being one of them. After a few visits when I’d taken a white dog to the park and brought home a wet, smelly brown one, then having to wash her, clean the car, and myself, I decided the park would have to wait until it dried out. This took months.
By the time we returned, my lovely friend Angie had moved from Sydney to the Snowy Mountains with Wilson – a move I had known was coming, but I do miss her. Also, I had started going to the park mid-afternoons (something I avoid in the hotter months as it’s just too hot for the dogs). No surprise then that I wasn’t seeing Jim either (nor any of the others I’d got to know during lockdown). And I missed him and his two beautiful retrievers, too.
But last week, as Izzi and I walked through the gate one afternoon, I noticed a couple of Golden Retrievers on the other side of the park, and then heard the man with them calling out to me, ‘Is that you, Nina?’ Seeing Jim again after all these months (and seeing Sunny, now a fully grown Retriever and bigger than his mum) was fantastic. Jim’s welcome couldn’t have been warmer and our dogs had a great play together while we walked and talked, catching up on much of 2022. And it was Jim who was reflecting on those times when so many of us were meeting at the dog park, our one bit of escapism throughout a very difficult time in what is now part of our recent history.
Those mornings in the dog park with Izzi were, for me, the positive side of Sydney’s Covid lockdown, and I shall remember them – and in particular Angie and Jim and their wonderful dogs – fondly when so many other memories of that time remain so bleak.
But I can’t leave this entry without sharing at least some painting news! Another Open Studio weekend has now been and gone, and it didn’t rain! In fact it was a very welcome, beautifully sunny and warm weekend. My thanks to all those who came along not just to support us but also to purchase our artworks.
One such visitor was the Member for Bradfield, Paul Fletcher (pictured above). Paul had chosen the image of one of my paintings for his Christmas card last year, when he was Minister for the Arts. At the time, I learned he often went kayaking at Bobbin Head, and it was one of my Bobbin Head miniatures he bought when he stopped by on the weekend.
And now showing, if you’re in Lithgow (NSW) or Port Fairy (Vic.) over coming weeks:
Christmas Art Fair at Gang Gang Gallery, 206 Main Street, Lithgow, NSW, from Thursday 24 November to Thursday 29 December.
Biblio Art Prize at Blarney Books & Art, 37 James Street, Port Fairy, Victoria, from Saturday 10 December to the end of February (but closed between Tuesday 20 and Thursday 29 December).
Here’s to a wonderful Christmas.
Until next month/year!
