The gastropod that didn’t get away

I have often described my neighborhood as a rabbit warren because it is a collection of small streets, alleys and narrow lanes but there is another aspect of it that also fits the description of a rabbit warren and that is the existence of basement shops. There are many of these in my neighborhood and many more throughout Tbilisi.

This is a picture of the entrance to a basement baker. Baker shops are always very hot places because of the traditional clay oven called “Tonne” that is used to bake the bread. The tall person said that this shop will be even hotter because it is underground.

Two ladies who sell things have set up their lemon shop outside the baker shop, perhaps because it is a warm place to sit or maybe they think that people think of lemons when they buy bread.

It is nice to see these two ladies who sell things sitting together. I imagine that they pass the time by creating exciting recipes for lemons and bread whilst waiting for customers.

This is a picture of an underground fruit and vegetable shop. I pass this when I go to my petshop for food for me and Mr. ‘Crazy’ Parrot. The meandering trail on the sidewalk and road makes me suspect that a giant snail has tried to rob the fruit and vegetable shop. The tall person told me that snails are not renowned for making a quick getaway so I expect its raid was unsuccessful.

In my neighborhood and throughout Tbilisi it is possible to buy everything you need from basement shops. The tall person said that if they were ever connected to each other they would be the largest shopping mall in the world and we could go shopping on rainy days like today and never get wet.

Hmm, you told me that you like walking in the rain tall person.

Walking to the sound of drums

It was raining again when I woke up this morning and cooler than yesterday. The tall person looked out of the window and went to get his leather flying jacket and baseball cap. It’s a pity the sun was not shining because he would have also put on his aviator sunglasses, which would have completed the look of a WW2 fighter pilot. However, when we got out onto the street there was no P51 Mustang fighter plane to fly us round the neighborhood so we set off as usual, on our paws and feet. 

It was raining quite hard and the streets were shiny and edged with small rivers of rainwater, which I splashed through on our way up the levels of our neighborhood. 

After a while we found ourselves in a small park that has swings and a slide for the local children to play on.

The tall person told me that our friend Lovely Lynlee had posted pictures on Facebook yesterday of her and her grandson Hunter on a visit to their park. He said it would be nice if we showed pictures of our little park. Here I am having a refreshing drink from a puddle beneath one of the swings. If you look carefully you can see my pink tongue!

The play equipment looks quite old. You can see from this picture of the slide that lots of little bottoms have slid down it over the years and made it very shiny!

Over the last few years a lot of new little parks have been built for the children of Tbilisi but our neighborhood still has one of the older ones. The tall person likes our park. He says it reminds him of the ones he played in when he was a boy. Wow! Our park must be very old!

It rained hard on our walk back home and we had to dodge lots of water pouring from drain pipes into the narrow alleys.

As we neared home we heard a strange drumming noise. We both looked at each other. Who would be drumming in the rain? Hmm, perhaps it is some of Eugene’s heavy metal friends practising.

We decided to investigate.

We turned the corner and discovered two metal buckets sitting beneath a pipe that was dripping rainwater onto them. Clever rainwater. It had found two perfect percussion instruments.

I liked the rhythmic sound it made.

The tall person told me that we have rhythm within us and all around us. He said we first heard it as a heartbeat in the womb.

He added that rhythm in nature and music and speech and language are some of the things that unite individuals but it is the rhythm of the cosmos that unites us all.

Hmm, you really are a starman aren’t you tall person.