On the Coast – Families Issue 100 I June/July 2019 | Page 26

reunited
with nature
BY PETER SHEPHERD
T
he wasp hovers before our eyes,
checking us out. She’s huge,
really. If wasps were cars she’d
be a yellow bus with black stripes, but
curved and pointy like some funky space
version. And she’s hovering in the air.
Which is a very cool thing for a bus to do.
My 7 year old daughter is deciding
whether to step behind me or go with
her other instinct and lean forward,
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ON T H E C OA S T – FAM ILIES
going a little cross-eyed, meeting our
inquisitive neighbour eye to eye.
Curiosity wins, and for a moment
compound eyes and little-girl eyes regard
each other
We’ve only taken a few steps from
the back door. Where were we headed?
We’ve forgotten, this mystery has caught
us. Stepping past our humbuzzing visitor
– she’s curving up and away over the
roof of the house – we crouch down by
the windowsill to see her handiwork:
a multi-coloured mud container, built
underneath a brick window ledge. She’s
using the ledge as rain cover, but it’s
the clay tube we start oohing over. You
can see the new sections she’s added –
the mud is fresher, darker – extending
her sculpture along. Out from the end,
though, is where our ooh is directed: a