Rainy view

The rainy season is coming but after such a long, dry summer I still feel happy every time it rains.  Soon there will be mud everywhere - the circle of the seasons.

Linking to My Corner of the World

A Sunday visitor

Last Sunday as I was sitting on the deck enjoying the morning sunshine and eating my breakfast I heard the distinctive swoosh of the wings of a kereru (bush pigeon) in flight and this beauty dropped down for a quick drink and I was lucky to have my phone at hand for a quick pic.

This morning, the same thing happened but no phone was handy.  I presume it was the same one, they all look alike (sorry, couldn't resist that!).  We have a lot of them in the big old Moreton Bay Fig at the back of the house but they are up so high I can never get a photo of them.

The other side of the mountain

Oh Yay!!  I have news.  Yesterday I went to the other side of the mountain.  And, believe me, it felt so good.  That tight feeling I was getting in the pit of my stomach, that terrible locked in feeling I get from time to time, that need for big spaces around me has gone.  Probably only for the time being.  But gone all the same.  

I thought I'd been longing for a good cup of coffee but when it came down to it what I wanted most, what I missed most during our Lockdown, was a drive in the countryside.  Cups of coffee have been available for the past week or so but I was determined to not be an old age rebel and to stay home like our leaders had instructed.   But when my daughter offered to take me to town and to be the one to venture out of the car for a coffee for me, I jumped at the chance and asked to go to Dargaville.  She thought I was nuts to choose to go to Dargaville but it was Mother's Day so I had my way.

Once we were on the road, the call of the back roads was too much and I asked her to take me the long way round so I could see more of the countryside.  The day seemed brighter to me than it really was, I was quite surprised to see the clouds in this photo, all I saw was my hills of home and sunshine.

Dargaville was like a ghost-town, the only places open were the service stations, the supermarkets and the one cafe I like to frequent.  Their large windows opening to the street allowed them to operate in a safe, non-contact way.  I just had to take a photo of the waiter's huge smile as I talked to him from the car.

It seems most of the takeaway meals they have been serving have been taken away by customers to eat at home as they were very short on take aways utensils.  Which we didn't know about when I ordered soup and my daughter requested a salad.  We ate our meals along the bank of the river with small wooden spoons.  And the hills of home in the background.  Nothing could have been better.

 The Dargaville seagulls have been doing it hard with no people around.