High Hopes

High Hopes! Dunedin Botanic Garden, New Zealand. 05 September.

Reach For The Sky

I had this photo from a cafe/bar garden in Clyde, Central Otago and nearly chucked it out as it was so flat (2nd photo). Something stopped me though, I liked the rose stems reaching out to claim space and also the way they relate with the blue sky and cloud behind them. After adjusting for...

On Track

Reporting on our Covid elimination effort, as well as sharing walking track photos from Black Gully Reserve, Tapanui, West Otago, New Zealand. Today was our big chance, for people outside of Auckland/Coromandel, to perhaps have our alert level reduced with the big announcement by our PM Jacinda Ardern scheduled for 3pm. I thought there might...

Wild Highway

A quick 'extra' post. I was prompted to do this when I saw a comment conversation between two blogger friends. They were discussing how plants will grow even in the most unlikely places given half a chance (my paraphrase of what they said). Cracks, straight out of a rock, tree growing on tree, etc. So...

We Can Do This, Again

Community transmission has raised its ugly head and New Zealand no longer enjoys Level 1 freedom. Auckland has gone to Level 3 and the rest of the country is now Level 2 - for the next 12 days anyway. I've seen absolute nonsense written about our situation here. Don't believe trash reports about our fascist...

The tailwind of privilege

I read this excellent article today in The Spinoff by guest writer Mary Breheny. Dr Mary Breheny is an Associate Professor of Health Sciences at Massey University (New Zealand). I obtained permission to share the text of the article here on my blog and sourced the image from Pexels - by Markus Spiske. The tailwind...

A Very Dandy Dandelion

Found this photo on Twitter and I'm amazed at the determination of the dandelion. "Botanical tenacity last week in the gardens! A pilon at the edge of a path ended up on top of a dandelion. Remarkably, the plant produced a 60cm tall stem to get its flower through the opening!" --Kevin Kavanagh, South Coast...

Life is like a CAMERA

Early March I was in Balclutha wandering around killing time, waiting for Nigel who had business in town. And found this. The kind shopkeeper gave me permission to take a photo (gift shop on the corner near Cafe 55). I really like the words.. do you? Life is like a ... CAMERA Cropped image Here's...

Holding On

Life gets ya down and you don't always have the strength to bounce back. You know that feeling? We're both in recovery from a bad flu we got a couple of weeks ago. As I began to get well I'd look at photos but there was no spark, no strength for thinking and writing. Blogger's...