My kind of sanctuary.

“A yawn is a silent scream for coffee”

~ anon

Our local baker has it in one.

Not only does he create the most decadent of treats but the coffee’s very MOREish too.

I yawn frequently.

He listens.

A suitably rejuvenating beverage arrives.

He’s going to MISS me on Tuesdays and Fridays.

It feels like it’s been forever that I’ve been filling in shifts at the shop for one or other of my colleagues.  

Whilst the bank account’s benefited, my sanity hasn’t.

Between the shop and markets, and my visit to SA, it’s been full on craziness.

Yay for the shop being back to its FULL staff complement this week.

Yay for having Tuesday and Friday back!

Lulu the little West Highland Terrier we met at Orakei

I’m smiling.

Or should that be grinning.

Ear to ear grinning like that famed Cheshire cat!

Onward and upward, OUT of the fog. 

Reflections can be ANYwhere!

The hound’s grinning too.

Longer rambles with no time constraints.

Longer forays through the mudflats.

MORE pointing the lens in any direction but mine.

To celebrate our newly regained freedom we’ve rambled farther this week.

Churchill Park and Orakei Basin have been our ports of call.

The Basin, unbeknown to me and many others who ramble there, 

is one of the volcanoes that make up the Auckland Volcanic Field. 

Yes, that comes courtesy of Google, the arbiter of all things intellectual and inane.

After the volcano erupted many years ago it became a fresh water lake.  

As sea levels rose, the lake was breached and its been a tidal lagoon ever since.  

And there I was thinking it was JUST a tidal lagoon.

Assumptions.

How wrong they can be!

Churchill Park and Orakei Basin have a magic of their own.

Each, in it’s own way, is a sanctuary of sorts.

Soul food is provided in abundance.

From ducks and reflections at Churchill Park

to Shags and reflections at Orakei Basin.

There's something caught in this Pied Shag's chest but I can't work out what it is.

It could be a fishing lure ...

Where there’s water there’s BOUND to be reflections, 

a hound and an abundance of birds!

As always, life is in constant flux

but to be able to revel in each moment, 

knowing it can’t be replicated, is liberating.

As it should be.

In the words of an ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus

“You can never step in the same river twice.”

Just love these raised walkways around the basin.

All we have is the PRESENT moment.

Live it.

Getting an eyeful of us.

A panaramic view of Orakei Basin

Railway line running next to one of the boardwalk and my adopted city in the background.
Love this little spot in the world.

Couldn't resist the red boat's reflection alongside theirs.