So here I am, sitting on the park bench by the river down the end of my street. There are two benches along this path. I will call this one Northern Bench, and the other, which is further from my house, Southern Bench. It is a beautiful sunny morning. The grass is green, the sky is blue and the brown water in the river flows swiftly past me. The recent spring rain has filled the river, but it won’t be long before the water level drops again and the stone causeway will be passable once more. I have a tennis ball on the bench beside me. My son and I were throwing it on the way down to the river.
There’s a Duck that lives on this river. He looks like he’s escaped from someone’s backyard because he’s definitely not a native Duck. He’s big, with orange feet, a green head and white stripe around his neck. Today, he came eagerly towards my son and I. He waddled along the path for a while, before he took to the water and swam strongly into the current. Not long after, a young family come to the bank on the other side. They pulled bread from their pockets and threw large chunks to the Duck. My son got upset. He said to me, “Don’t they know that bread is actually bad for Ducks?”
— Catherine