I'm a water-baby at heart .....

Sometimes the artwork in my sky is just so beautiful ....

I love walking at Dingle Dell ALMOST as much as I love my Bay of the Tree ... not quite as much, but almost as much. I can forget for a brief moment in time that we live in the heart of a busy metropolis ... that we’re surrounded by the paraphernalia of a modern society.  Dingle Dell is a wooded fairyland ... if

you listen carefully, you’ll hear those fairies whispering ... I’m sure that’s what the hounds can hear when we ramble there.


Rambling with the hound ... and with Julia and Indy ..... adds a semblance of balance to my life and restores my sanity ... not that there’s much of that left. I’m delighted to have found someone to ramble with who enjoys it as much as I do ... and who has a hound who’s so delightful and so FULL of character. He winds Chocolat up by pinching her logs or her ball ... there’s no malice in it ..... he just wants her to chase him .... typical male!

The gorgeous collies we met this mornig

I’m trying hard today NOT to be judgmental ... not to dislike those few individuals who’re making life on the beaches unpleasant for those of us with hounds.  Carol’s and my run in with the Dog Warden yesterday has stirred up emotions ... from those with hounds and those without.  I’m wondering if my very

visible collecting of signatures for our petition has anything to do with it ... particularly from the likes of GOM and GOB.  It shouldn’t be like this though .... we should ALL be able to use and enjoy ALL YEAR ROUND the abundance of wonderful beaches and public areas that are available to us in this country.  

Our run-in left Carol spitting mad but she wasn’t the only one ....  Julia said she’d felt the same after reading my blog yesterday ..... how can a few isolated individuals be allowed to determine when and where we walk our hounds! If anything, it makes me even more determined to get

signatures for this petition and ensure our restrictions are lifted earlier in the year. I get a huge lift when people come up to ask for petition forms .... they really care .... and they’re prepared to add to our numbers.  These are the people I have to think about when I’m exposed to the rude and unpleasant behaviour of the few GOM’s and GOB’s out there.  

Ha .... I’ve just had a thought .... the GOB really DID have a gob on her yesterday and she used it unpleasantly!  Would that a pigeon would poop on her head!


One of the things I’ve loved about NZ and where we live since I’ve been here is it’s proximity to the beach. 

Walking on the sand ... swimming in the waves ... it’s not something I was able to do on a daily basis in South Africa.  It’s bought back so many memories of the years before we had children.  We lived in Umhlanga Rocks, right on the beach .... every evening after work we’d head down to the beach for a swim and a walk.  I don’t think we realised at the time how very

lucky we were with the lifestyle we had as a young married couple .... we didn’t have much money but we lived in an awesome spot and had the ocean on our doorstep. 


Many years and several children later I’m beginning to understand at last how the ocean calls

me ... I’m a water-baby at heart ... I need to feel the sand between my toes and the waves washing over my feet. For some reason I’m in the right spot in the world at this moment in time ... walking in the waves is my therapy .... getting wet is a pre-requisite - and not just my feet ..... I have a hound that feels the same.

And to end ... a quote from TUT which is just SO applicable to my life at the moment:


“When something difficult or painful happens, always look to see what it makes possible that wouldn’t have otherwise been possible ..... like a new adventure, a closer friendship .... or icing on your chocolate cake!!”