Who pissed off Mother Nature?

Oh wow .... who pissed off Mother Nature?

The Sacred Kingfisher on the beach on Sunday last week

Geonet tells us there have been 1300 earthquakes in the Cook Strait since Friday.  That’s a whole HEAP of seismic activity and no clear indicator of why it’s happening. Scary kind of stuff ... particularly for those living in the regions most affected by these current quakes.

Sam has a new Chiefs rugby ball ... only it's never HIS when he get to the beach.  It becomes the HOUND's

Makes me kinda glad to be living up here in Aux.

We just have unexplained fog that lasts for hours on end and makes photography impossible.  Even the hound was perturbed.  She likes to SEE where she’s swimming and that just wasn’t happening on Monday. 

Shadow joined us on the beach on Friday.

Today, that’s Wednesday, has been a funny old day. 

 It feels like the world ... well, my part of it anyway ... is holding it’s breath

.... as if it’s waiting for something to happen.

And no, I don’t mean an earthquake.  We fortunately don’t get many of those in Aux and certainly NOT big ones.

.... and Sam got RATHER dirty!

Maybe it’s just the weather.  It’s indecisive, unsure of itself 

and that  pretty much describes how I’m feeling at the moment. 

 I don’t like grey cloudy dismal days.  

There’s a heaviness to them that’s oppressive.  

She has the NEW ball ....

If it’s going to rain, I’d rather it just rain.  Rain I can handle!

.... and Sam has the OLD one.

Kea, waiting for a treat

Too many things on my mind and too much to do is the cause of my indecisiveness. There just aren’t enough hours in my day and yet, here I am ‘penning’ a blog when my time could best be spent editing photos and selecting ones to be mounted. I have journals to make, page clips to cut, cards to print and markets to apply to. 

 It’s all doing my head in ... and then I saw this on FB.  

Yes, I was wasting precious minutes on FB. 

Niko's girlfriend, who was having a sleepover at Niko's house

“Don’t take your thoughts too seriously ... they are just news flashes!” 

It made me smile.  

I am the Number One culprit of OVER-THINKING things.

Thank you Marlene Neumann.

Anything that makes you smile should NEVER be seen as a waste of time. 

Posts like that on FB make me smile and writing my blog makes me smile.

Sam found himself a shovel, to help dig all those trenches.

There are always SMILES aplenty when we’re on the beach in the morning, despite the earliness of the hour OR the greyness of the skies. Even the mist on Monday morning made me smile.  I could see NOTHING when I stood on the viewing platform looking towards Rangitoto, but I could HEAR the foghorns of vessels leaving the harbour.

She just found herself a log.

It’s an eerie sensation standing in the middle of nothingness ... alone, but for the hound

 ... with the melancholy wailing of a foghorn echoing out through the mist. 

 It’s an aloneness of a different kind.

In the midst of all the chaos that’s my life at the moment I chance upon the most pertinent of quotations. This one’s just SO relevant and once again, it’s from my favourite philosopher, Rumi.

2 of the 3 Kingfishers that were on the beach.

“Don’t worry that your life is turning upside down. 

How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come.”

Yep ... Rumi definitely rocks!

Rainbows that only I can see.

“Don’t grieve.  Anything you lose comes round in another form.” ~ Rumi

My stall at Matakana today

Some days are good and some days are bad and when I have a bad day I need to remind myself that it’s not going to last forever.  Yesterday was a BAD day but today has been gorgeous .... a sunshiny kind of day when what’s wrong with my world seems repairable and when I feel invincible.

My world is full of rainbows .... but only I can see them.

I’ve been experimenting with Chocolatandco and lugging stock to markets further afield.  Whilst it’s fun and exciting exploring new areas and meeting new people it means earlier starts on my weekend mornings!

Yes, yes I know ... people like my friend John get up when the sun’s still sleeping EVERY morning ... but I don’t have to.  I CHOOSE to get up early to ramble with the hound on weekdays.  Hmmm .... I say it’s a CHOICE but since the teeniest of fur-balls arrived it’s like having an EXTRA alarm clock.

She has her very OWN internal clock and woe betide ANYONE who DOESN’T respond to her early morning cuddles. 

They start off gently enough .... albeit noisily.  You HEAR the purring before you FEEL the body.  She’s normally warmly ensconced between us but as her internal alarm clock goes off she stretches and stands on tippy toes ... and stretches again.  You feel the vibration of the purr as she moves up the bed and the purring intensifies as she lies on my neck.  I can not only HEAR the purring LOUDLY in my ear but my whole head is VIBRATING with the intensity of it too!

It’s designed to get me to move and, if I ignore her for long enough, she’ll head over to Gav and try her luck there.  She is one CLEVER fur-ball.

Returning it all to the studio

But back to the early mornings .... and my desire to sleep a tad longer on weekends.  It just doesn’t happen.  If we aren’t rambling, we’re at markets .... and both require an early start.  You can guess which one of those activities the hound DOESN’T like! 

Rumi’s quote comes to mind but I don’t think he meant it from a loss of sleep perspective.

Talking of Rumi, here’s another of his quotes I like ... and this one REALLY appeals!

“Forget safety. Live where you fear to live.  Destroy your reputation.  Be notorious.”

Be NOTORIOUS .... 

Tonight's moon .... before the sun set ...

.... and after the sun set.

Hercules

Oyster Catchers in flight

Bessie and Chocolat

Yay for Public Holidays!

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river of joy within you.” 

~ Rumi

My city, bathed in the early morning sun.

Today has been one of those mornings when I FEEL that river of joy.

 I’ve had my share of soul food.

It’s been a magical cloudless morning, a nip in the air, low tide and the early morning radiance reflecting of each and every surface. It just COULDN’T be better!  Even Mr. Heron played ball and gave me some magical shots of him and his reflection.  

He did make me work for those shots .... up and down the beach after him.  Why can’t he be like the gulls?  They come waddling up to have their photos taken.  That’s probably because they remember I used to feed them dog pellets. I had to stop because the hound got wind of it and wanted her share too.  It’s ok for gulls to waddle but the hound DOESN’T need to waddle any more than what she already does.

I think I’ve said it before but I LOVE reflections!  I see them EVERYWHERE. 

Mornings like this one have an overwhelming abundance of them!

He looks like a pterodactyl as he heads back down the beach.

Despite the beauty of the morning there were fewer people out and about when we ventured up to the view site.  Usually there are a gazillion lycra-clad pedal-pushers wending their noisy way down Cliff Road. It was quiet today though.  They were all still in bed snoring ... enjoying the lie-in that a public holiday brings.

Just as an aside .... maybe the early morning fishermen should be walking past the pedal-pushers houses, talking at the top of their voices as they head off to fill their quota for the day. I wonder if those lycra-clad looneys have any idea of how noisy they are as they navigate the hi-ways and by-ways of our little village. Grrrrr ..... grumble over. 

Oyster Catcher reflections.

Waiting for coffee from The Cafe in the Bay.

Public holidays bring all sorts of other changes to my day too.  For a start there’s NO caffeine

addiction fix from the Co-op!!  

They don’t open till 8 on a public holiday and I had to be home by 8 to shower and change for work.  We had to support the opposition - they open at 7.  

Thank goodness as coffee is a MANDATORY part of my day. I don’t FUNCTION without it!

Gav DOESN’T work on public holidays so he gets to join in our rambles and my kicking leg gets a break!  There’s only so much rugby ball kicking a girl can do before her legs get a tad weary, especially after the work-out they had during our SUP lesson last weekend.

The other nice part of Gav rambling with me is that HE washes down the hound and dries her when we get home.  That’s usually my chore.

YAY for public holidays!

“When life rearranges itself UNEXPECTEDLY in front of you, when familiarity and understanding VANISH from beneath you, when logic and reason are no longer able to explain away the events unfolding around you, hold onto the STRENGTH, HOPE and LOVE inside you.” 

~ anon.

Tonight's sunset .... not a cloud in the sky, just a crazy hound on the beach!