Living water

We stayed in Canberra overnight after the family birthday party for our daughter there yesterday, and this morning chose to attend a Resurrection Day service at the church nearest our accommodation.

It was a Baptist church, and the service was traditional but by no means dull: the music team was talented (keyboard, violin, flute, drum and vocalists); a small drama was presented in which one of the Roman soldiers who had been guarding Jesus's tomb turned the ridicule of a couple of comrades into an acknowledgement that, well, something miraculous could have happened; and the pastor followed up with a sermon that convincingly argued the Resurrection as the truth.

We had a spot of shopping at the Canberra Centre to attend to before our drive back to Batemans Bay, and decided to have a light lunch there. Our table looked out on the pedestrian precinct of City Walk and a feature I knew well - The Canberra Times Fountain, by Bob Woodward, which he fashioned with tubes and rods of fabricated stainless steel.

The fountain was commissioned by Federal Capital Press in 1976 and installed as a gift to the people of Canberra in 1979, not long before I joined the Times "for a year" on my way to Sydney, a year that lasted until my retirement. It demanded blipping and, although I went out into City Walk to take a few shots, it was the view from the restaurant window, offering a better context, that worked for me.