It was an interesting sight to see my neighbour slowly walking towards me holding a lead in one hand with a creaky old dog on the end of it, and a battered old beer carton in the other hand.

I’ve lived in this neighbourhood for almost eight years, and have a friendly acquaintanceship with a couple of neighbours who’ve lived here for even longer. We don’t socialise, but sometimes pause for a quick “how are you?” and chat when we encounter each other. I’ve babysat this particular neighbour’s dog a couple of times when she went away, and when he was slightly less creaky than he is now, so he recognises me and is happy to score a pat or two.

Funny story about the last of those babysitting gigs – the dog was getting deaf, and sometimes wouldn’t hear me open the front door and come inside the house if he was asleep on the couch in the lounge. As soon as I opened the fridge door, though, his deafness underwent a miracle cure – lol!

Now, although my neighbour and I aren’t tight with each other, I’m pretty confident that she doesn’t buy cartons of beer, especially not the sort that holds a couple of dozen cans. I could be wrong, of course – I won’t discount the possibility that she does plenty of things I don’t know about, and are no business of mine, but judging from the state of the beer carton she had in her hand on this day, it looked like something she’d picked up off the ground as she was walking her dog.

At the time I spotted her slowly ambling towards me along the footpath, I was trimming the edge of the grass verge outside my place. I’d tried for a while to not trim the edge after I’d mowed it, because it’s just extra work, but eventually I acknowledged that I was too anal for that, and succumbed to the pleasure I get out of seeing an edge-trimmed grass verge. What can I say? I also get pleasure out of seeing wild and unkempt places, but just not when they’re mine 😊 This particular day was sunny and warm, and neither of us was in a hurry, so a brief chat was inevitable.

Naturally, I quizzed her about the box. And, yes, she’d picked it up off the ground along the way during her walk, and had put other rubbish in it she’d also picked up off the ground. I was suitably impressed at her community-minded spirit, and kind of chagrined that it wasn’t something I’d ever considered doing. I confess, though, I still haven’t fully committed to changing my wicked ways about that quite yet. However, she explained further that she felt she needed to be doing something as she ambled along with an old dog who could only now go at a snail’s pace.

I was still impressed. It didn’t matter that her good deed came from finding a way to alleviate the boredom of enforced slow walks. Who cares what the motivation was? The deed remains done, and we’re better off for it.

I haven’t entirely eschewed the idea of also being a ‘good citizen’ in this manner, but, as said above, I haven’t entirely embraced it, either. The jury’s still out on that. In the last few years I’ve had the joy of rediscovering the fighting spirit in me, which I’m using at the moment to go into battle on a contentious matter I don’t write about here, but there’s a lot to be said for having balance in one’s life, so perhaps some room could be made for picking up rubbish in my community. It’s either that, or pickleball – or maybe even both. Why not go wild, eh?