Begone, you sniffles

My friend Chris remarked this morning when she asked would I like to come over to her place for lunch and a beach walk, that I always seem to get the sniffles at this time of year.  I hadn’t really noticed it before but it’s true I do.  I usually brush it off like I did this morning with, “I have a bit of the sniffles” and think no more about it.  But, thanks to Chris, I now realize that something in the air at this time of year turns me into a sniffler.   And I’ve now decided it’s something here on the farm.  I was a sniffling mess all morning but decided to join Chris and her niece Lucy for lunch anyway and go for a beach walk. 

It’s amazing what I notice once my attention has been drawn to something.  I gave my nose a good working out before leaving home and had to stop once down the road a bit for another blow out.  To hell with being delicate, these sniffles are the full on runny nose my aunt used to talk about when I was a child.  (My Aunty Jo once told me she didn’t want to name her son Brian because the only Brian in her class at school always had a runny nose.)

The reason for my sniffles must be very local to the farm.  I suspect it’s something up in the forest.  And it’s worse in the mornings.  Once I had travelled about 10 kms from home, the sniffles were gone. 

So I’ve had a wonderful sniffle free afternoon.  The beach was quite crowded.  For this beach, that is.



It was low tide and there were a few fishermen:

and families out gathering tuatuas.   My batteries went flat before I got the actual shot of them leaning over in the unusually small waves and digging with their hands for their idea of a delicay.  Not mine, I’m afraid, nor Chris’, so we didn’t join in.  



I’m sure, if this oyster catcher had a blog, it would post that it was a wonderful Waitangi Day.