There are few things in life that will make me sit still and relax. Doing a single task just seems so inefficient when there are not enough hours in the day as is. I'll knit and watch TV, I'll paint my nails and do a crossword. I'll bake chilli choc brownies while catching up with emails, mopping the floor and making the shopping list for the next day. Multitasking is the order of the day, all day, every day.
Except tonight.
Tonight I sat on the lino in the kitchen and watched my little crablet as he sat in the mouth of a large shell, chowing down on a sizable chunk of octopus tentacle.
I looked on, completely mesmerised, when he carefully extended a single pointy toe, planted its end in a lonesome piece of scallop meat and dragged the whole thing into his spiral den in one smooth practised movement.
I swallowed a little snort as he shoved as much of the octopus as he could manage underneath his little body, to the point that he looked remarkably like a very leggy chicken roosting on an ostrich egg.
I smiled like a kid at Christmas when both McShrimpy and the baby damsel motored over to the seemingly unattended piece of scallop, moved as if to liberate it, saw the crablet attached to the other end and then quickly decided that they needed to be somewhere else.
I smiled again when the shrimp found a stray chunk of dinner and reverse parked into a rocky nook to get his fill. I watched on as his stomach filled and swooshed like he had a head full of quicksilver.
After all of that, I pulled the corner off a small slice of scallop, popped my hand into the tank and offered it to my beautiful little sea star. She panicked at first and clung to the rock. Then, after I gave her a little tickle and she realised it was food, she reached out a little stubby arm and carefully took the piece of meat from my fingers.
There are some things that need your full and undivided attention, no matter how many other jobs there are to do. Feeding the inhabitants of the rock pool tank is definitely one of them.
