I'm COMPLETELY normal ....

I LOVE my coffee .... and I love life. 

Despite the turmoil and the uncertainty we face at the moment, I can’t help but love life. It’s the little things that count ... the daily interaction with those who hold a little piece of your heart in their hands ... the gestures, the touches, the thoughts, the smiles.

We laugh a lot in our house. We laugh at each other  and we laugh at ourselves. The oldest lemming says it’s because we’re all a tad insane but I’m not so sure about that .... after all, I’m completely normal. 

It’s just the people I live with and associate with that aren’t. 

Take the girls at the Village Co-op. They ALWAYS make me SMILE!

Anyone looking at our coffee-to-go when we leave the Co-op would think it was for the hounds. 

It’s THEIR names that are on the lids!

It’s the girls way of differentiating between the two Carol’s as we drink our coffee differently. Carol likes hers with trim milk, usually a single shot, but when her bounce lacks bite she’s been known to boost it with a double shot. I like a single shot, with raw sugar ... I bounce enough already WITHOUT the additional caffeine boost.

The girls at the Co-op know what the regulars drink and don’t need to be told ... unless Carol wants a double shot. When we’re in a crowd they usually write the initial of who the coffee’s for on the lid of the cup .... with us they put our HOUNDS names on! 

It ALWAYS makes me chuckle!

Laughter is SO contagious. Sam, the “wannabee” chocolate hound took his desire to be chocolate to new levels this morning. We’d finished our ramble and were on our way back to the car when he nosed his ball into the mud along the path. Not wanting to put a muddy hound in the boot of Carol’s car I kicked the ball into the water just beyond the mud.

BIG mistake. 

The water I kicked it into is above the filtration plant and RATHER dirty 

.... make that VERY dirty. 

One VERY muddy, VERY happy hound emerged from the reeds .... you could almost see him grinning .... ear to ear. 

LOOK .... I’m a chocolate hound now!!

That kind of happiness .... it just comes from within!

He didn’t get to remain a chocolate hound for very long though. Carol gave him a bath when they got home as she couldn’t get all the mud off him just by rinsing. She used a copious amount of shampoo .... eco friendly of course .... but isn’t sure she rinsed it all off.

The ball hasn't even hit the water and already he's leaping after it!

Time will tell. If we have bubbles rising from the water tomorrow when Sam jumps in, we’ll know exactly what it is!

Wouldn’t that make for an interesting picture!  

Bubbling water as the monster rises from the deep!!

Making mischief of one kind or another!

Happy Birthday Sam!!

It’s his first birthday today and we celebrated in style with a wet and muddy ramble at Waiatarua followed by breakfast at Nosh. 

Decadent breakfast!! 

French toast with roasted banana, berry compote and mascarpone cheese .... with piles of bacon.

I’m not a big fan of bacon with my french toast and fruit but that wasn’t a problem. I had two hounds alongside who assured me they didn’t mind helping. They’d polish off the bacon quicker than you could blink .... and they did .... with lip-smacking relish.

I love going to Waiatarua with Carol and Sam when it’s been raining. Sam looks so gorgeous and clean till we get there .... and then the fun begins!

It’s so easy to turn the wannabee chocolate hound brown. You just kick his ball into the mud time and time again and with enormous enthusiasm he ploughs through the mud, splashing it up in all directions, to retrieve the ball. The look of satisfaction on his face as he races back to us, ball in mouth, mud all over .... is priceless .... and so is the look on Carol’s face!

She’s given up trying to keep him clean when we ramble in Waiatarua. I guess I don’t help by kicking the ball into the mud .... it’s SO much fun making mischief!

There are plenty of humans with hounds at Waiatarua that need training .... the humans that is, not the hounds. I’ve lost count of the number of times another hound will take one of the rugby balls and race off with it and their human will be unable to get them to drop it. Today’s culprit was totally indifferent to her hound running of with the ball. She continued on her merry way WITH her hound WITH the ball. They make my blood boil, these untrained humans, so the less said about them the better.

We did get the ball back .... though I had to go and fetch it.

Onto something more pleasant ..... caffeine! My favourite tipple .... as Jess has discovered. Pete, the friendly sports-mad owner of the Village Co-op has SOLD the Co-op .... well .... the coffee side of it that is. They need to devote more time to the growth of Joshua’s Ice Cream so him and Josh are focusing on the ice-cream and Neil, the new Co-op owner, will run the coffee side. 

He’s bought into a great little business ..... they make marvelous coffee and the girls are always so pleasant and friendly .... hand-picked by Pete of course .... but they add so much to the coffee experience. The Co-op is a great asset to our little community so it’s nice to know the new owner is a resident in the village too.

Personally I think Pete just wants more time to loiter  .... he’s good at loitering ..... AND he wants more time to offer his rather BIASED opinion on all the sports we enjoy .... rugby and cricket specifically. I’m glad he’s not going anywhere .... our morning rambles wouldn’t be quite the same without Pete’s banter.

Such a magnificently vivid rainbow yesterday!

Double rainbow

Yesterday's rainbow reflected in the puddle .... too beautiful!

A different visitor to the beach yesterday ... a duck.

Life's a party for Labradors ...

I know .. I know ... it’s wrong to expect our coffee haunt to be open 365 days of the year ... they are entitled to a few days off I guess .... but a ramble without our fix from the Village Co-op just isn’t the same!

Waiatarua Reserve

Julia and I felt like traitors yesterday, getting our ‘coffee-to-go’ from The Coffee Connection instead, but no morning’s complete without satisfying our caffeine addiction. We didn’t even walk on the beach, it just didn’t feel right, so we went back to Waiatarua Reserve instead.

Indy wasn't too comfortable with this one's attentions!

It WAS an awesome ramble .... not only was the weather amazing but there were so many humans with hounds at the reserve too. The hounds love Waiaitarua Reserve ... no leash to restrict them and so many 4-legged friends. There’s been lots of tail-wagging, bum-sniffing and nose-kissing action!  Not all of the nose-kissing action was welcomed by Indy though.

My hound had her rugby ball pinched by ANOTHER Chocolate Lab ... a rather rotund chocolate lab ... who refused to give it back. Her humans seemed unwilling, or possibly unable, to get the ball off her. It took the efforts of both of them, husband and wife, to PRISE the ball out of her mouth ... but only after they’d managed to corner her in the reeds!!  To say I WASN’T amused is putting it mildly. It was my WELSH ball so there was no way I was leaving it behind!

We saw a whole gamut of hounds yesterday .... German Shepherds, Schnauzers, Boxers, Border Collies, Great Danes ... lots of little fur balls .... and so many Labradors ... which prompted me to find the collective noun for a whole heap of Labradors. Googling it bought up an answer - a PARTY of Labradors!  Not only is “Life a party” for Labradors but some of them, like the rather rotund one we saw this morning, are ‘kegs’ on legs ... and you can’t have a party without a couple of kegs!!  I love it ... google triumphs again with completely insane information!


This weekend has been full of SUNSHINE so far .... and I LOVE it ... but the clouds this evening are making me think it might rain tomorrow ..... I so hope not!

The Mallard Ducks and Pukeko in the wetlands at Waiatarua

Cayl’s and Dave suggested heading to the Auckland Domain for a picnic lunch yesterday ... so we did! I haven’t been to the Domain since Callum finished school last year and it was a timely reminder of how absolutely magnificent a spot it is. This is what I LOVE about this city ... the multitude of public parks and reserves ... they are the ‘LUNGS’ of our city and they’re vital! 

One of the Great Danes we saw .. he was HUGE!!

As with most of the parks and reserves in the Auckland area though, the Domain has been developed around the cone of an extinct volcano. Yep, I know that freaks some of you out ... but you soon become quite blasé about the GLUT of  EXTINCT volcanoes when you live here!

A Gaggle of Geese at the Domain

Spending time together at the Domain yesterday made me so aware of how precious these ‘family’ moments are ... they’re fewer and farther between ... and likely to be more so over the next few months as our oldest two lemmings make plans to move out. The ‘busyness’ that I so often make mention of will be gone. I’ll be able to open the fridge or pantry door and find the chocolate I bought ... the biscuits I bought. No longer will a mouse with two legs have had access to them first.

Wintergarden Cafe

I love my kids to bits but I’m the first one to admit that this is a necessary thing for them to do ... they need to spread their wings. Callum is NOT overjoyed about going back to being an ‘only child’ ... he had a taste of it in SA when the older two were away at boarding school. Despite the occasional bickering they all get on incredibly well so I know he’ll miss their everyday presence.

One of the roads through the domain ... Wintergarden Cafe down to the left and the Greenhouses above to the right

The only unpleasant distraction in my weekend so far has been the Sharks losing to the Hurricanes ... and I was so convinced the Sharks would walk away with this one!! They’d better pull their socks up for their outing against the Blues next week ... I’ll be there IN PERSON to CHEER them on!!!