Mussels

My parents are retired.

They used to be school teachers, the both of them. Which says a lot for the way I turned out, actually, but that's another story! Heh!

Anyways, once Dad retired, he went full blown into his whole out-door lifestyle thingie. He's scaled Mount Kinabalu twice, done river rafting, like a veritable Indiana Jones for the geriatric set. And every Sat he goes out kayaking with buddies.

Oftentimes they'd kayak around the fish farms where they gather these mussels. Fresh from the sea. They get'em free because these mussels cling and grow on the ropes and barrels that anchor the fish farms and the owners get a service. Scraped barrels and un-weighted lines which, if not cleared, would release their carefully bred fish into the open waters.

It's amazing. Dad apparently cleans off the mussels on board his kayak. So I never got to see him do it. Until to-day. I heard the knock knock knock of the knife, scraping off the barnacles. I didn't quite know what the noise was so went over to investigate.


There was Dad, with a whole basket of the mussels. I don't think you could get them any fresher!


Dad passed me a baby mussel. Bloody tiny. You won't see them unless you gather them yourself. Otherwise they're thrown out by the time you see them in the market. Quite cool.


Sometimes I think the desire to traverse the road less travelled is handed down by my dad.