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November 2003, Warrandyte Spring afternoons by the river (where once the Yarra yielded gold, it now offers bush tracks), you see more walkers than joggers, more dogs than humans leash-tangling affable tail-waggers. Spring floods surge shadowed under the bridge: the current tests the ducks. Rare is the dog that trusts itself to the flow. Watch that big lab whatever its master flings, in dives the dog, brings it back, swings wetly up the bank, barks for more. Spring afternoons by the river thirty years (half a lifetime) back, I was the one trusting body to the flow, cautious always, being really no swimmer, but submitting thrilled to the surge to the rapids, slip through the gap in the rocks, dawdle then in the shallow where a sheltered beach had formed and the daylong sun kept the water warmed. Stolid now we pace the bank path: off-leash time for dog and me, cautious always; water beckoning with its old spring glitter. Max Richards, Melbourne 7.30pm Wednesday 26 November 2003