Makes me happy Monday

My friend, Bev, at Kainga Happenings does a weekly Make Me Happy Monday post that I look forward to every week.  She always manages to give me a welcome smile. 

I don’t intend to commit to joining Bev in her Happy Monday thoughts but I felt so good to be alive today, I felt the urge to join her just this once.  I had already noticed that today was a beautiful day.  So much so that I nearly ran off the road and narrowly missed sideswiping a roadside marker post when I caught a glimpse of the harbour on my way home.  I didn’t turn around and go back for a photo, didn’t want to risk that post stepping out in front of me twice in one day.  

But I did stop a couple of times when I was off the highway.  I live on the other side of the mountain with the tower in the middle of the first photo, passing through the little village of Maungakaramea ahead.  

 From the same spot, looking to the right, the Uppity Downity Mountains always make me smile.  Today I thought they looked particularly cheerful, basking in the sunshine.

 But, wait, there’s more.  An even more joyous sight awaited me down our road.   I caught sight of the flashing warning light on the top of a digger on the road ahead.  I have to go around that bend to the left, then curve right but I can see from here that the council work gang is making progress on the worst section of our road.  

The slip beside the temporary orange fencing has been there since early February and the potholes that developed meant we had to practically stop and weave our way very slowly through them (and there isn’t much room for weaving, it’s impossible to dodge them all).  There’s a creek below the road, so to widen the road the digger has to clear away some of that bank.  This was their third day on the job and today I could see they are making progress.  The scar left behind is raw and ugly but will soon grow over. 

The digger stopped work to allow me to proceed but I stopped and fired a quick shot out the window.  Thought he might be a bit peeved but he just gave me a friendly wave as I went through and the guy on traffic watch said, “No problem” when I apologised for holding them up.  

I finished off a great Monday by going for a “nature walk” with Georgia.  We were looking for footprints to see if we could identify them….horse, cow, big dog, little dog, bird prints…. and Bingo….huge bird prints.  Georgia was quite convinced we had discovered the print of some monster bird.  That’s her little seven year old hand, but still, an impressive print.  A healthy pukeko we thought.

(I took the colour out of the above photo.  Some might feel a bit squeamish at the greenish hue in that mud.  Georgia wiped her hands on the back of her pants and washed them when we got home.)

So that was a nice Monday.  UNTIL I tried to post this and Blogger spat the dummy and flatly refused to upload it.