Beware the Ides of June

This is usually a beach.

The river is higher right now than I’ve ever seen it.  (See my last post where we were wading through it).  Today’s ride took us through Riverside park, across the bridge to the North shore.  We rode out around McArthur Island and back.  It was about 15 km in total so I’m still going further every ride!

While we were riding along the Rivers Trail I spotted a small child – he looked about 3 years old… maybe 4 at the most.  When I saw him he was standing at the top of a pool ladder and hanging on to the railing while he tried to get his sneaker in the pool water.  Yeah.  Bad.

I stopped and called out to Joel and we went back to the fence.  The little boy was still on the platform thank God.  Joel and I spoke to him through the fence.  It was about six feet + high and we couldn’t get over it.  We asked if his mom or dad was around.  Joel talked to him about staying away from the pool etc.  There wasn’t an adult to be found anywhere.  It was a huge back yard but we were there for a long time calling out to this kid and no one showed up.

He finally climbed back down the ladder and started chasing a bird.  We left, reluctantly and then decided to cycle around to the front of the house to let someone know what he was doing.  It took us a while to figure out which house it was but we did.  When Joel rang the door bell an older lady answered the door – he pointed out that the little boy was playing near the pool and her response was “oh we’re watching him.”

Really?  WHILE two strangers were talking to him you were watching him?  WHILE he was nearly falling into  the pool you were watching him?  I don’t think so.  She closed the door quickly and my hope is that she was embarrassed about it.  At least that way she might actually go out and WATCH the little kid.

People really should have to have a license to have anything to do with children.

We enjoyed the rest of our bike ride in spite of that encounter.  I’m glad we did what we could. People are strange.