All posts,  The Bush

Coat of arms (no, really)

Sometimes, you know, my life is just like yours.

I run a household, I wash endless mountains of clothes, I chase kids, I resent cleaning up my kitchen (and I do it anyway).

Just like so many of you.

And then, sometimes…

Like when I am driving home from a kid’s birthday party (just like I am sure you probably do regularly)

I see the Australian Coat of Arms.

Not so much like this…
coat of arms
As many of you might see it, plastered on the front of a government building (or website or one of those dreaded long-winded government forms)…

Oh no… I look out of the (very dirty) Prado window and spy…

THIS!

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Hello there Ms Roo! Peeping through the dry flannel weeds at me, interupting her afternoon snack.

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And then (not ten minutes later, just a kilometre from home)…

I suddenly ask my long-suffering husband to STOP the car.

For I had spied THIS…

emus_0734 e

A flock of that Great Australian flightless bird (and VERY strange-looking creature all round)…

the EMU.

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Stolling lazily up the road towards us as if we met regularly at this intersection and waited for the lights together.  Possibly while discussing the weather or stockmarket predictions.

I am not sure who was the most curious – these young birds (who would all be taller than me) or us, gawking out the window at them.

Aussie creatures really are surreal-looking, even if (like me) you grew up in the bush.

Six years ago I lived in city suburbia.  Waiting for lights to change.  Staring at crests on buildings.

I really sometimes have to pinch myself.

 My name ISN’T Alice, is it?

10 Comments

  • Kelly

    Wonderful photos and commentary! I can’t imagine seeing stuff like that out the car window. About as exotic as I get is an armadillo or possum!

    There was a time ten years ago, though, when it was all the rage for folks here to try and raise emus. My kids loved driving by those places and seeing them in their pens.

  • Lynn

    I saw an alligator on our walk this morning. We live in a master-planned community in Katy, Texas, west of Houston. I felt like I was in “Wild Kingdom”!

  • debby

    From my vantage point, yes, you do live in an exotic location with strange and curious creatures.

    Then you came to New York City, and I heard Violet’s longing to see squirrels. I guess we’ve got our own strange and curious creatures.

    I reckon that our own rabbit holes seem like ordinary dirt burrows to us. To others, they seem like portals into a whole new world. It’s all in the perspective.

  • Leenie

    Wholly Cow, BB. What cool neighbors you have. If I saw something like that here, not only would I yell, “Stop the Car!” and dive for the camera; I’d check to see if my meds got mixed up with the hub’s.

  • Jane-Kurrajong

    Imagine if you had got them both in the same shot! A real Coat of Arms!! Exhausted from the week-end. Only 6 more years on the P&C!

  • Mrs Catch

    One of our most vivid memories of our girls trip in March was driving along with emus “racing” us, just meters away in the paddock. They’re pretty fit. I’ll give them that!

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