A Magical Moment after Metamorphosis

I've been at the Croquet Club all day because we had a national coach here to give us some, well, as you might expect, coaching.  After it was all over I was standing by a Swan Plant which is the food plant of the caterpillar of the Monarch Butterfly.  As I stood looking at the swelling larvae on the plant I realised that there was a recently pupated butterfly at my feet warming itself in the sun to dry out its wings.  Despite the sun the wind today has been very cold and so I allowed the butterfly to crawl onto my hand with a view to moving it into a more sheltered sunny spot and, of course, with a view to photographing it.  The main problem I then had was that it adopted me and I could not get it to stop clinging on (which feels strangely odd, I have to say) so that I could put it down in its new sunning spot.

Floods in Napier

I'm up early this morning thanks to a Blackbird and the beautiful clear skies even though it's not yet 6am but I'm alarmed to find that Napier has had a really bad time since I left.  Jayne sent me these pictures of the croquet lawns:

The Croquet Club Christmas

Yesterday the Croquet Club had its Christmas lunch and afternoon tea.  There were no unusual croquet games as there usually are- just ordinary ones, a buffet lunch (of considerable portions) and afternoon tea comprising the President's Christmas Cake, strawberries and New Zealand sparkling wine.  By the time I started taking photos the bulk of the participants had left leaving the die-hards who had played in the afternoon to partake of afternoon tea:

 Frank, the President, advancing to cut the President's Christmas Cake

 First things first - get into the bubbly

The serious part of the day

 The even more serious part of the day

Helen is still a formidable golfer and croquet player and maker of President's Christmas Cakes.  And former Headmistress (it's amazing how many teachers play croquet!).

Sisters - and teachers - Chris and Karen!

The Club President (Frank) tops up the Club Captain's glasses (the Club Captain, Jayne,  doesn't have to drive to the Club!).

Actually there is an argument for the provision of the bubbly before play commences at 10.30 am.  After imbibing a reasonable number of glasses Jayne and Karen challenged Frank and I to a game of Golf Croquet (Jayne refuses to enter the Dark Side and play Association).  Granted Karen had not been imbibing, nor had I.  However after Frank and I had been slaughtered we sought a re-match only to be further defeated even more comprehensively.  Ah well.  It's only a game.  Yeah right.

The Soil Store: Completed

One of the projects at the croquet club this year has been making a soil store. Over the last few days Frank - the store's designer, construction engineer and general factotum - has, with members' assistance, been constructing bars over which the tarpaulin can be stretched without gathering pools of water. So now we have a soil store built to outlast all but our very youngest member (and, at 15 years old, probably even her!).