A bald man with hooded eyes sits down close by. His shirt has botanical watercolours on a white background, sleeves rolled to the elbow and a high collar raised but open. His iced coffee arrives and he leans over the table, mouth on straw, black biro in hand, studying the crossword.

A woman with a headscarf ambles past the cafe. She wears a black dress patterned with big, dusty-hued flowers, and pushes a shopping trolley containing a bright blue pool noodle.

A girl stands alone in the people stream, head lowered, tapping a phone with her thumbs and absolutely unmoved by the current. When she finally looks up she seems surprised, as if the downstairs food hall at Warringah Mall is the very last place on earth she’d ever have imagined being. She smiles. Her shoulders lift in a theatrical sigh. She drifts away.

A dark-haired young woman, the very picture of elegance in a long white gown and zippered cream, high-heeled boots, glides through the food hall trailing a plastic bag that is shaped like a sausage and filled with paper recycling.

My first post in the March Photoblogging Challenge is at last secure

Something hollow and noisy approaches. A tiny, blonde-headed boy appears, pushing a walking frame in multi-coloured plastic. He wears a white pullover with red sleeves, baggy denim shorts that bunch at the knees, and sandals. An old woman leans down to him and says “Hello-o-o!” and he freezes. Spinning round, walker in the air, he bolts back down the ramp at double volume.

Outside the Collaroy Hotel, a man spreads his arms in a hallelujah moment, a grubby white feather extending his reach on one side. He has sunglasses, greasy black hair, beige shorts, a brown t-shirt (Seattle Stags), and the grin of a man just recently unburdened. He staggers inside.

The water is low in Dee why Lagoon, and the mud flats are broad and dreary.

Writ large on the wall of a Newtown cafe: Trust me. Love me. Salt me.

A woman walks past with the hint of a stoop. She wears a long white dress and a frown of perplexity, and each hand clutches a shopping bag so that her arms are pulled slightly to the sides. Her hair is short, dyed black, and from behind extends in a ridge that might conceal a devil’s horn, perhaps.

Upstairs at the Mall two women stroll, chatting comfortably, while an attendant male struggles under the weight of a shopping bag so big that it has to be a joke. It’s almost as tall as himself and has big, cheerful polkadots.

A woman walks past Jamaica Blue with pram, phone, ear stalks and a shake of the head. A girl frowns over a laptop, the sun shining on her forehead through the skylight. A white haired man blathers with authority, legs crossed and one arm draped on the back of his chair.

In the plastic greenery above, the sparrows twitter.

A line of people sits in the B1 shelter at Wynyard, as two pigeons fossick on the road in front of them. Suddenly a seagull lands on the gutter; it’s the cleanest, whitest, brightest, sharpest-looking seagull I’ve ever seen. It stands there, clear-eyed, upright, regal, a seagull of substance, surveying the humans like an officer inspecting the troops.

But the mood changes. Something intangible shifts in the power balance, and the seagull steps down awkwardly to join the pigeons on the road. It’s as if one of them has whispered: “Not now! You’re not on yet!” And realising its mistake, the seagull is mortified.

A young man with a walking stick climbs the stairs at Spit Junction. His jersey is black and white with a skeleton design, and the back of his collar is divided down the middle, black on one side and white on the other.

Was the front of his collar also divided like this? For the life of me, I can’t remember.

A woman in a long blue dress walks beside Pittwater Road, cradling a small black poodle in her arms. The dog is on its back, head resting on her forearm and turned to see where the woman is looking.

Bare hands pushing hard in rhythm, a woman urges her wheelchair along the pedestrian way in Dee Why. She wears a blue t-shirt, knee-length black pants and dark sunglasses. Her hair is white, and tied behind with elastic.

She looks back with a grin at the fluffy little dog galloping after her, a sheltie wearing a grey face mask. The dog overtakes her on the up ramp and waits with wagging tail in the Music House doorway, but falls in line again as the woman wheels past. Then they vanish, both of them, round a sudden, hidden turn.

Minutes later they reappear, passing the Music House together and starting down the ramp. The little dog drops back so as not to get run over, but presses forward so its mask is almost touching the chair. At the bottom, as soon as they clear the ramp, the sheltie breaks out and races alongside its human.

Pure joy.

A young man in a blue apron, hands in pockets, stands at the highway’s edge.