#307: The Trolley and the Chickens
Noticing the extraordinary in the ordinary
One object. Two animals. Today’s blog post is about noticing the unusual. It’s about walking to the supermarket and finding an expected object (a trolley) next to the unexpected (two chickens).
I’m currently reading Car Park Life by Gareth E. Rees. It’s a book about, well, car parks. It’s about walking through them, not driving, noticing things that the usual car park user might not. It’s about observing these strange centres of modern life as an outsider. I have mixed feelings about the book, but one thing did resonate with me: the strangeness of being a pedestrian in an area built for vehicles.
I walk a lot. I have walked to and through supermarket car parks. I have navigated the retail parks outside of towns on foot. I have gone wrong at roundabouts (while walking) and had to go a very long way round. I have discovered, quite quickly, that big out-of-town supermarkets are really not designed for people on foot.
It is frustrating that at a time when we should be trying to do what we can to reduce our reliance on cars, that pedestrian access often seems to be an afterthought. Though I recently wrote about the pleasures of walking, I didn’t touch on its inconveniences.
But, like Rees, I’ve found that being the odd one out in these environments can give you a unique perspective. You are slower than the cars around you. It takes time to cross the car park, and you’re not concentrating on finding a space. You notice things.
If I hadn’t been on foot, I almost certainly wouldn’t have noticed these two chickens on my way to the shops.
There was no one else on the pavement. A car or two passed by, but the chickens were partially hidden by the trolley. I felt like I had found a secret. A moment shared only by the clucking birds and I. Walking had given me access to a new experience of the supermarket tarmac.
And I thought instantly how this moment captured the essence of this blog. Katie and I write about objects from the mundane to the obscure. Well, here was a mundane object made obscure by context. Here was an everyday occurrence (a supermarket trip) made a little bit extraordinary.
And all because I had the time to really look.
