Tag: Nature

Posted on in Pet-sitting the crocodile next door

Pet-sitting the crocodile next door

When I was 14 years old and looking for a summer job, I came across an ad seeking a local pet-sitter. It read:

Pet-sitter wanted. $30 an hour. P.S. Ask for Bacon and Eggs. — Lesley

Wanting to sound all grown-up for the role, I got my older sister to phone the number on the ad. When she hung up, I could hardly believe my luck. I had gotten the job!

The very next day, I took a bus to the countryside where my new employer, Lesley, lived.

She was a striking woman. At 6 foot, she towered above me, dark ringlets falling across her shoulders. I thought she looked like a giantess. She must’ve been taken aback by my size too, because the very first thing she said to me was, “You’re a lot smaller than I expected.”

Lesley led me up the driveway to her house where two giant crocodile statues perched on either side of the gates. Their jaws were hanging wide open, as if drinking in the sun’s rays. But there were no signs of any pets around the house.

When I asked Lesley where they were, she told me that they were “sunbathing.”

Sunbathing? I pictured two dogs wearing sunglasses lying underneath the sun.

“They get cold quite easily,” she explained.

Looking back, I should’ve put two and two together.

“You swim indoors?” I pointed at the pool in the middle of the living room.

Lesley chuckled. “That’s not for me.” But she didn’t explain any further.

We talked for a good 30 minutes. Then, just after 4pm, when the sun had begun to set, Lesley remembered why I was here.

“I’ll go fetch Bacon and Eggs.”

Thinking she was heading towards the kitchen, I jumped at the chance to impress her with my cooking skills.

“I can make us some bacon and eggs if you’d like.”

Lesley frowned for a second, then laughed out loud in that hoarse, throaty way of hers.

Without explaining what was so funny, she put two fingers between her lips and whistled an ear-splitting sound.

The hairs on my neck stood upright.

Something about the growl, it didn’t sound right — deep and guttural — with one too many vibrations.

Then I saw two of them, bodies bumping into each other and I just about collapsed onto the ground.

“But-but-but-” I managed to hold my composure. “They’re not pets, they’re crocodiles!”

“Nonsense.” Lesley’s demeanor shifted. “They’re just babies,” she cooed. “They’re harmless.”

The ‘babies’ were about as long as a two-seater couch. One of them, the bigger of the two, swiveled its head left and right at an alarming pace and locked eyes with me.

I tried to make a dash for it through the kitchen door.

“Don’t run. Crocodiles love it when you run, they think you’re food.”

I swear there was a hint of amusement in her voice.

Read more

You can read the rest of this post on my Medium account @almondeyedwanderer.

—Part 2 will be coming soon—

I’ve been wanting to write about this for a very long time, but I didn’t have the time or energy after work to focus on writing. Now that I’ve resigned from my job as an Interactive Designer and gone back to study, I’m using my free time to write.

Hopefully I will have completed this article series by the time I get back into the real world.

Posted on in Blog

The Simmer dim

One weekend, during the height of summer, my friends and I went on a roadtrip to Paihia. This was months before the nationwide lockdown. The days were long, and the nights were still very warm.

It was 9pm. I was sitting in the back of the car, and had just begun winding down from a long week at work. The sky outside was coloured with hues of purple and blue, the landscape had merged into a blur of pine trees, and the kabump of the car tyres on the winding roads fell into a steady rhythm.

It was around this time of the night, that I felt a familiar hum – that tingling feeling I got whenever I passed through a place or a moment that held the beginnings of a story. The hum was telling me to pay attention.

So I shifted my attention away from the window and back to the conversation in the car. My friend was telling us about something called the Simmer Dim. I asked him what it was. He said it was the name given to a day in the year when night never reaches complete darkness.

I recalled having this conversation because despite it being 9pm, it was still bright outside.

Simmer Dim, Simmer Dim, the words hummed in my ear. I pictured a glittering pool of water with animals congregating around it. There was something unusual and mysterious about that word. Like “the witching hour” in Roald Dahl’s book. It all contributed to the air of mystery around a certain time of the night.

That evening, I learnt that night-time had three shades; twilight, night and dark, like the shades of blue in a paint swatch.

It was dark by the time we arrived at our accommodation. I woke from my deep slumber and looked up at the house. A row of solar lights lit up the front porch, throwing hues of greens and blacks against the wall. My friend said something that made us all laugh. “Is this your parent’s house, or is this a hotel?” It was magnificent. Even in the darkness.

We grabbed our bags and clambered up the porch steps, tired but eager to see the house. Barely able to stand upright, we stumbled into the living room and dumped our bags on the floor.

Someone switched on the light and magically, one by one, our tired eyes lit up. In front of us was an island, with a walk-in pantry shelved with food. We drifted from room to room, admiring the paintings, the neatly-folded bedsheets, the warmly-lit bathroom and the dusky scent emanating from a nearby candle.

My sister and I chose to sleep in the bedroom with the cute window wall. It framed the backyard behind the house, like a painting. This wasn’t just any backyard. It was a forest, as dense as any forest here in NZ. You could walk from here all the way to another town. That was how deep it was.

My friend told us that one evening, when he was sitting by the front porch, he sensed that something was staring at him. When he looked up, he saw two eyes staring at him from inside the forest. A boar. He was sure of it. It was also what had eaten the meat his grandmother had left outside.

That evening, I drifted into a peaceful slumber, sinking my head into the soft pillow, a deep smile on my face, knowing that tomorrow was going to be a big day. This is the pleasure I derive from being in nature. This is the magic of nature.

Posted on in Blog

The day I realised I was average

I remember watching a David Attenborough documentary. There was a scene where a gazelle was running away from a cheetah.

I remember watching with bated breath thinking, ‘for sure the cheetah will catch the gazelle. She is the fastest animal on earth.’

But as the gazelle ran round in circles and zigzagged left and right, the cheetah slowly became tired.

And a thought popped up in my head.

Strong animals have weaknesses and weak animals have strength.

The cheetah’s strength was its speed, and it’s weakness was turning corners.

The gazelle’s weakness was that it couldn’t run as fast as the cheetah, but it could turn sharp corners with incredible speed.

I watched in awe as the cheetah slowly became tired, and turn by turn, the gazelle made its way to safety.

So I began to tell myself.

If strong animals have weaknesses and weak animals have strength, then go find yours.

Posted on in Blog

Weekend getaway to a writer’s home

I’ve always wondered what a writer’s home looked like. Rooms full of libraries, books that span across shelves, a reading corner, a warm fireplace, something a little reminiscent of the Beast’s library.

Last weekend, I got a chance to see such a home with my very own eyes, to live and breathe the space where a writer once worked.

Let me describe to you every breathtaking detail from the drive up the long winded driveway, to the little speck of dust on the kitchen counter.

It was as if we had stepped into a house that was waiting for us to enjoy its simple pleasures.

The ferns waved at us from either end as we rounded into the driveway, the door swung open with an easy click that opened into a homely kitchen and lounge, and there were cats, all six of them, roaming freely, so that you never got to see them all together at the same time.

After we had settled our bags down and pinched ourselves in disbelief, we gave ourselves a mini tour.

A little note was stuck to the kitchen counter. “There’s pizza in the fridge. Help yourselves.”

We did more than just that.

We cooked in the kitchen. Roast chicken and salad, while my friend prepared dinner for the cats. There was a pantry full of all the spices one could ever need, and drawers and drawers of utensils.

As I recall, my friend got mixed up between the cat utensils and the human utensils. You can tell that the owners were very fond of their cats.

After dinner, we melted cheese on bread and sat outside on the deck that overwatched the sea, and later that evening, we spread ourselves across the warm rug in front of the TV, while the cats joined us, purring contently.

Even though it seemed like an hour, we sat this way for five hours. The house seemed to have its own time.

It was midnight, when we reluctantly peeled ourselves away from the warm rug and entered the cool night, leaving this oasis behind us.

On the drive home, I struggled to keep my eyes open. The next day was a work week, what was I doing out so late? Still, it was the best decision ever.

Yawning loudly, we drove towards a purple-blue horizon lit up by a single streetlight. Lights multiplied by the dozens as we drove on – out of the countryside and back into the city, with just a touch of remorse tainting this lovely Sunday evening.

Posted on in Blog

Call of the wild

A few months ago, I had the most epic apocalyptic dream:

I was vacationing on an island, with my mum, dad, and sister, when a huge tsunami swept everyone away, leaving only my sister and I clinging onto the balcony of our hotel.

When we looked around, we saw a giant crocodile statue wrapped around the entire hotel building.

Except that it wasn’t a statue, it was a real crocodile.

And it wasn’t just any crocodile, it was a giant, prehistoric crocodile.

So my sister and I made our way slowly down the building, trying not to disturb the beast, when we noticed something interesting.

Tucked away underneath the foot of the crocodile was an old box. We opened it and found an old casette player and a tape inside, so we played it.

A man’s voice crackled:

“Mayday! Mayday! This is M.C. Mcdonell. I’m on an island, and there’s been a huge tsunami. I’m the only known survivor and there’s a giant crocodile wrapped around the hotel-”

The tape stopped playing.

We all stared at each other.

“You mean to say,” my sister said, “that this has happened before?”

“I’m afraid it’s happening again.”

And that was the end of my dream. I really wanted to know what happened next, but I woke up and never got to finish dreaming.

So I went on a dig down at the library to satisfy my longing for that dream-like apocalyptic feeling.

And there, right in front of me was an old classic, rewrapped and rebound in new. I’d never read the book before, but there was an image of a prehistoric beast rearing its head on the front cover.

It reminded me of those old adventure movies I used to watch, like Indiana Jones, and The Mummy, and it had the faint whiff of my dream, so I stood there in the middle of the library, reading the first few pages:

For it is only when a man goes out into the world, with the thought that there are heroisms all round him… that he breaks away from the life he knows…and ventures forth into the twilight mystic land where lie the great adventures and rewards.

Which is why, in following the author’s advice, I ventured out, or rather, up, onto a mountain, 50 metres above ground, with Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World in my mind.

So next time if you have a dream, answer the call of your dream. It might lead you to discover one more awesome book and if you’re willing to follow it, it might lead you to the next part of your adventure.