An evening to remember

Like a fun quiz? Then here’s a question – just as a test of character; there are no wrong answers.
 
It’s a rainy public holiday and you and the cat have spent the whole day indoors. Now, just before five in the afternoon, the drizzle has finally stopped, which means the cat can go outside and won’t be scared out of her wits when you start the vacuuming that you have been putting off for a week or two. But with the rain gone, the clouds are opening up and it is the most glorious autumn afternoon outside. Soon it will be dark. Do you:
 
1) let the cat out and spend half an hour vacuuming, because you won’t have another chance until the weekend,
2) neglect your household duties again and hasten outside for a lakeside walk before the light disappears, or
3) put down your smartphone and start getting ready for your favourite TV-show that will start sometime soon?
 
You even ask? Of course I went for a walk along the lake and it was gloriously magnificent and splendiferous! And because I have so many dear friends with whom I would have liked to share the walk but probably never will, I tried to write it all down for them. Here it is, bare as bones and unedited, in Afrikaans, but because I don’t trust Google Translate, there’s an English version at the end.

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Hierdie aand wil ek neerskryf, voor dit soos ’n droom verdwyn.
 
Vyfuur en die reën wat heeldag kat-en-muis gespeel het met die son gee toe, gee op en sluip weg. Die lug word helder van die son se ondergaan. En ek gaan stap langs die meer.
 
Die water is ’n silwer spieël vol rimpels en kleur. Die lug is skoon en lou en in die wolke bloei die son vir oulaas soos waterverf. Dis ’n landskap wat vra om geskilder te word, maar ek is nie die een nie.
 
Hierdie strook langs die meer is ’n openbare wandelstrook. Grasperke strek van die huise af tussen die bome in tot aan die oewer, maar dit het openbare toegang. Mens kan ver langs die meer stap. Ek koers oos met die sakkende son agter my.
 
Orals is bootjies en kano’s op die oewer uitgesleep en onderstebo geberg, boggel teen die reën. Daar is sitplekke ook – tafels, stoele en bankies van hout of plastiek of gietyster, soms aan ’n boom vasgeketting – vermoedelik daar geplaas deur die bewoners van die huise wat aan die wandelstrook grens.
 
Vanaand is daar nie baie mense op die paadjie nie. ’n Ier met ’n lui poedel wat aan ’n halsband beur, ’n vrou met ’n netjies geknipte spanjoel, ’n man en twee seuns stil op ’n bankie asof in meditasie. “A lovely evening, isn’t it?”
 
Ek loop oor die netjies gesnyde gras, tussen bome deur – casuarinas, melaleucas met skilferende stamme, bloekoms. ’n Wildevy groei hoog in ’n dooie bloekomstomp, lank gelede se saadjie wat daarbo ontkiem het. Daar’s ’n wind in die toppe.
 
Die son sak laer, die lug vergrys, die water word silwerder. Ek draai om.
 
Corellas, ’n soort klein wit kaketoe, kom raserig in die bome slaapplek soek. Reënbooglorikiete gesels en hang hanswors aan boomtakke. Die lig vibreer. Iewers braai iemand vleis. Die lug is lou van skemerte.
 
By die pier staan ’n seun met kaal bolyf en slaan op die blink water met ’n stok. ’n Sterretjie vlieg oor, vlerk en bek in skerp gepunte silhoeët. ’n Fotograaf pak sy driepoot op en stap weg.
 
Die krieke begin tentatief tril soos viole wat stem voor ’n opvoering. ’n Lelkiewiet staan in die vlak water, sy twee kuikens benoud piepend tussen ons. Die kiewiet se maat skel my van verder aan.
 
En die lug word donkerder en ’n boepens halfmaan hang al hoog en die silwer water ril van visse wat spring en ka-ka-ka-ka-karrakarrakarra lag twee kookaburras en die krieke tril harder en dertien bos-eende breek onewe op om my deur te laat en o! die lug en die wolke en die silwer water.
 
A lovely evening, isn’t it?

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I want to write down this evening before it disappears like a dream.
 
Five o’ clock and the rain that has been playing cat-and-mouse with the sun the whole day yields, gives up and slinks away. The sky becomes clear from the sun’s setting. And I go for a walk along the lake.
 
The water is a silver mirror of wrinkles and colour. The air is clear and warm and in the clouds the sun bleeds like watercolour. It is a landscape that begs to be painted, but I am not the one.
 
This strip along the lake is a public pathway. Lawns stretch from the houses through the trees to the shore, but it has public access. You can walk a long way along the lake. I head east with the setting sun at my back.
 
Everywhere there are boats and canoes pulled out onto the shore and humped upside-down against the rain. There are seats as well – tables, chairs and benches of timber or plastic or cast-iron, sometimes chained to a tree – presumably put there by the inhabitants of the houses that border on the pathway.
 
There are not a lot of people on the pathway this evening. An Irishman with a lazy poodle pulling against the leash, a woman with a neatly clipped spaniel, a man and two boys on a bench, quietly as if meditating. “A lovely evening, isn’t it?”

I walk over the neatly mowed lawns, among the trees – casuarinas, melaleucas with flaking bark, blue gums. High up in a dead eucalypt trunk grows a fig tree, taken root long ago from a seed. There is a wind in the tree tops.
 
The sun sinks lower, the sky greys, the water silvers. I turn back.
 
Corellas congregate noisily in the trees to roost. Rainbow lorikeets chat and hang clowning from branches. The light vibrates. Somewhere someone is having a barbeque. The air is warm with dusk.
 
At the jetty a bare-chested boy hits upon the shiny water with a stick. A tern flies past, wing and beak sharp silhouettes. A photographer packs up his tripod and walks away.
 
The crickets start their tentative trill like violins before a performance. A lapwing stands in the shallows, its two anxiously cheeping chicks between us. The lapwing’s partner scolds me from a distance.
 
And the sky gets darker and the potbellied half-moon hangs high and the silver water shudders from jumping fish and ka-ka-ka-ka-karrakarrakarra laugh the kookaburras and the crickets trill louder now and thirteen wood ducks divide unevenly to let me through and oh! the sky and the clouds and the silver water.
 
A lovely evening, isn’t it?