Salvatore

 Add this to the anything to keep you amused in a pandemic file. 

Jay and I went on our normal weekend walk along the Yarra yesterday. Nothing unusual about that. It was a nice day. We got out for our walk before the rains came. We do this most weekends, weather permitting. 

As we got around the big bend in the river we saw a few people standing around having a look into the river with an rapturous look on their faces. 

What was it? 

A bloody seal. 

In the Yarra River - which is renown for being a muddy brown stretch of water which nobody and nothing would want to end up in.

But there, happily fishing for his lunch (yes there are some bloody big carp in the Yarra is appears) was Salvatore, who frollicked up and down a stretch of the river near IKEA for a while. 

We watched him for about 20 minutes as he swam around, bashed the crap out if his lunch and entertained the walkers along the river. 

From what I've been reading, Salvatore was rescued from nets in the Werribee River a few years ago. He was in a bad way, so they took him in, patched him up and let him back into the bay. Now, every so often, he can be seen in the local waterways, including the Yarra, where he makes it as far as Dight's Falls. 

He's also a big, smelly bugger. What they don't tell you about seals is that they STINK. Walking along the tow path, you could smell him before you saw him. Seals really don't smell very good at all  - all rotting fish and something else which hangs in the air for ages. 

Smell aside, it was the highlight of the weekend. Despite his overexuberant bashing of the fish he found, I would have watched him for a lot longer. 

It's the little things in the pandemic which get you through. 

Today's song: