PS Cottier

How Canberra 

Parking at the AIS, pink imps called to me, or rather, grey imps wearing pink floppy hats.  Gang-gangs opening gates in the sky. Walked to the pool, touching the bronze Guy Boyd woman poised on a plinth, the magic saint of all bad swimmers. Crawled through my twenty laps, more snail-stroke than free-style. Back to the car past groups of kids, past a well-known former athlete, past the memory of Covid marked by a discarded mask. Coffee at Tilley’s and more cockatoos, swinging below powerlines like avian punchlines, yellow fringes tickling the clouds.

PS Cottier

So a little translation for those who don’t live in Canberra; the AIS is the Australian Institute of Sport. Tilley’s is a venerable cafe in Lyneham, a suburb in the inner north of Canberra. And gang-gangs are a type of cockatoo. They are the faunal emblem of the Australian Capital Territory. An absolutely beautiful bird which can be seen quite frequently in Canberra, but which are overall becoming quite rare. Unlike the cocky in the photo.