Skylark

I recently came across a bird wandering across the croquet lawns.  That's not unusual but this was a bird I'd not seen on the lawns before and I was not sure what it was.  It looked like a Skylark but the facial markings were not the same as in my book of NZ birds.  It wasn't an NZ Pippit either so what?  However when I looked at the photos and compared them with photos of a Skylark I took from The Cottage a few days ago and which I could identify from it's song and soaring behaviour,  I could confirm that the bird was a Skylark.

By the way it is the Skylark which has made me realise that birds may have different accents too.  A Skylark in the paddock here has the same song as in the croft at Eagleton but the accent is different.  Yes.  Truly.

Soaring above the paddock in front of The Cottage I was astounded at the clarity of this picture given that the Skylark was high in the sky and taken on manual settings on the spur of the moment with little time for correct exposure.

The Cottage

Lisa (aka Shabby Girl) wondered in a comment on my post Settling In at the beginning of the month after I arrived back in New Zealand what The Cottage looked like.  I hadn't shown you this year so I'm now rectifying that and doing a bit of comparison.  

The Cottage arrived on site in October 2007.  Is it really that recent?  I seem to have lived here for years.  

The the landscaping started in November:  The Landscaping Begins.

By 2008 the transformation was amazing and I posted The Homestead.

Last year I posted  I've Arrived: What Now?

This year the lavender in front of The Cottage has grown and been cut back but some bushes have been lost and even though I replaced them last year they have refused to grow in that spot.  I'll have to think about that one.

Thankful Thursday

It was never my intention to make this a weekly blog posting but during this week I have learned of several people who have had news that they will be less than thankful to have received.   Two involve news that I can well understand having had similar news given to me.  So the first thing I am grateful for today is the twelve years and a few weeks I have had since I was first given that news.  I sincerely hope that those people will be writing a similar post in twelve years.  In fact in one case I have already agreed the place for lunch this time twelve years hence.

During that 12 years so many things have happened: some good, some not so good, some mindblowingly wonderful and some heartwrenchinly bad.   They have given me the outlook on life that I have and have taught me to live life for the moment.  So that is the second thing for which I am grateful today.

And I'm thankful that I was persuaded to visit New Zealand and circumstances have allowed me the privilege of seeing Milford Sound (West Coast, South Island, New Zealand) and on a fine day and with a good friend, Steve.

Publish Post

Alpacas

Reading Adrian's Images recently he mentioned Llamas and compared them with Alpacas.  I was certain that I had blogged about the Alpacas in the paddock next door to The Cottage last year but, no, I hadn't - well not according to the blog search or my own labels. The most recent was in 2007: Neighbours.  How odd.  They are such amusingly aloof animals.

This is not an Alpaca!  However it is in the paddock next door.

An Afternoon Lying on the Grass

This afternoon a number of us Croqueteers spent the afternoon resetting the hoops on the croquet lawns.  This involves lots of measuring and then drilling new holes for the hoops in their new positions.  Then the old holes have to be reamed out and turf plugs inserted.  There are 36 hoops so that's a minimum of 72 holes with another 7 for the pegs and some to repair 'rabbit runs' (the indentations in the lawn in a hoop caused by balls continually passing through the hoops).  All in all it's a lot of work.  One of my jobs for the afternoon was ensuring that the hoops were aligned correctly and hammered in vertically.  This involved lying on my stomach for several hours.  Which, I have to say, was a lot more tiring for the neck than I might have imagined had I not done it before.  In fact, despite the apparent easiness of the task I ended up doing it because no-one else wanted too.  At the end of a couple of hours I had had enough of 'doing nothing' too:

Totally Irrelevant

I haven't forgotten Blogland.  Honestly.  I have visitors at the moment (Mike's playing in a Tournament at our club for the Country's top Association Players.  Sandra is having a really quite day today.) and also have croquet commitments.  However I was looking for something this morning and suddenly came across some photos I took in 2005 of red squirrels.  Now I know that these have absolutely nothing to do with New Zealand nor, really, with the subjects of this Blog (whatever that is).   In the absence of anything else springing immediately to mind I thought that I would post a few red squirrel photos because they have been the subject of some discussion on one or two blogs recently - in particular Adrian's Images. 

Thankful Thursday

Last Thursday Jaz of Treacy Travels wrote a blog post entitled Thankful Thursday.  I though 'What a wonderful post'.  I spent a while contemplating the things for which I am thankful and for which I feel thankful every day that I wake.  Then when I was awake in the middle of the night one night I wrote some of the things down starting with being thankful that I don't suffer from insomnia.

The interesting coincidence was that one of the books I read when I was on the journey across the world was Alexander McCall Smith's The Lost Art of Gratitude.  'She had not expected him to thank her: indeed she rarely expected anybody to thank her for anything.  Gratitude was a lost art, she felt.  People accepted things, took them as their right, and had forgotten how to give proper thanks..........he had at least said thank you and she, in turn, was thankful for that."  

So today I am especially thankful for:

walks with my brother

days on the mountains

my son Gaz

Of Dishwashers and Asparagus Soup

I knew that I shouldn't have come to bed to write this post.  I have been programmed for so many years of living on my own that bed = sleep that I can't break the habit.  I used to stay up 'till 1 and 2 am with no problem but get me into bed at midnight and I just fall asleep.  Well I do these days.  And it's nothing to do with advancing years.  Mind you all the fresh air on the croquet lawns might be a contributory factor.  Oh and the title?  The dishwasher broke down this evening and I made a pan of asparagus soup for my visitors arriving on Friday.  The good news is that Martin mended the dishwasher whilst I made the soup.  

The Goldfinches have been feasting outside The Cottage

 We had some sun today!  Here's the proof.  I also marvelled at all the different greens.

As always I'm in search of the perfect picture of an Australasian Harrier in flight - a long way to go but this one's been circling round overhead since I returned.

I'm adding this because I liked it!

Notes To Myself

Weather and washing: Never trust a lightening sky! Even in New Zealand. Of course I'd never trust any sky in Scotland. Everyone except hillwalkers who wear high heels knows that the weather in Scotland changes faster than the time it takes to open the picnic basket. But in Hawkes Bay one expects a lighter sky to herald sun. Well not this morning. It's been raining a lot of the time since I arrived back. This morning the forecast was for showers clearing by lunchtime. I was over-optimistic. Well, I usually am in most walks of life. I hung the washing out and made myself a coffee. I'd completed two clues in the cross-word when I heard an ominous drumming on the roof of the deck. Monsoon rain! Ah well. I don't need anything that's on the line this week anyway.

So that's where that is! Never assume things are where you think they are. The number of times I've looked for things when I was in Eagleton and not been able to find them is uncountable. Since I arrived back here I've found a syringe that I 'knew' was in a particular cupboard in Eagleton, two books I was certain I'd taken back to the UK, a tape measure I'd spent ages looking for one day and I've realised that the phone charger I had here couldn't possible have been because I didn't buy the phone until I was back in Scotland last April when Gaz collected me from Glasgow Airport. Ho hum.

Too cryptic: Never write cryptic notes to oneself. When I woke in the middle of the night a few nights ago and wrote three A4 pages of notes to myself many of them were cryptic. One, however, read 'Woke snored - welding a large pole to keep things - thoughts - ugly things away from me.' Assuming that I was awake when I wrote those words I must either have been in an exceptionally inventive frame of mind or I must have been thinking gibberish as well as writing it.

Settling In

It's Monday morning and I've just about turned The Cottage back into My Cottage.  Everything is out of The Cupboard and back where it belongs whilst I am in residence.  Perhaps I should get a little flag made to signify when I am in residence: the Geeb Standard.  After all if HRH can do it....

I am re-united with my clock (which has a tick loud enough to be heard anywhere in The Cottage!) and my reminders of friends - my NZ 'Family' and A Friend in Vermont.

My first night here was rather strange.  I was in bed at 2030 and fast asleep as my head hit the pillow.  Apart from a terrible attack of cramp in both legs (reminder to buy some Crampeze today) I slept until 0235.  Oh no.  Then I realised I'd had my statutory 6 hours!  I was so wide awake that I was writing emails and blog postings in my head so I got an A4 pad and went back to bead and filled three pages.  Then I fell back into a solid sleep and woke just before 0800.  Yippee.  There I was bright as a button (and a pretty bright one at that) ready for the day.   The fact that it was still raining seemed irrelevant.

We all went out to The Gin Trap in Ahuriri for brunch to celebrate David's 14th birthday.  I can't believe it!  Fourteen!!

Catriona and David had Bacon Buns 

The rest of the day was spent sorting The Cottage until Wendy and then Martin wandered down after dinner for a wee glass of the red stuff.

Life in New Zealand - nothing changes.