Trying happy

Anger may be giving way to disappointment, but the garden joy has gone. The garden is ruined. It has allowed the despair of still renting when all I want is my own home, to rise and suffocate me.

What do I do. We go to the zoo


And I spend time on Facebook where my lovely friend Emma just happened to post this little piece of joy. Enjoy.






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Not happy

I noticed the hedge when we pulled in from work. We'd been waiting for the hedge to be tided but this was half the size. We then noticed that it looked rather more bare behind the gin place / summer temple area. The garden that we have been slowly building for two years. That I had lovingly named the Ruth Parker garden in honour of my wonderful aunt who had sent me some money for my 40th birthday that had started the garden. Yes that garden. Ruined. Wasted. Totally wrecked.  All the solar lights broken or uprooted. most of the plants crushed in some way and several of the plants just plan gone, stripped out. I'm rarely an angry person. My garden is the source of a lot of anger I'll admit, the time, effort and love I put into it. It's personal. It's my escape and the way I unwind from work. So it's important. The gin place / summer temple area was just right. We had made some really effort for our upcoming visitors. Most of our weekends had been spent getting this right. Lizzie and Jan had enjoyed it, so that is great, but my mum is coming next week. Her first visit. Likely her only visit and my beautiful garden, named after her sister, is no more the joyous area of colour and light. Am I angry. Just a tad. Ranting online. This is a new one for me. Forgive me. Forgive my unnecessary overuse of punctuation.  I'll be better soon (though the grammar may not). I know. It will grow. I'm just angry today.

It was a hard area to take photos of. There was a lot of green and the light was challenging, so there aren't many pictures for me to show of. There is a couple where is forms the background. Please see the joy here  - the lovely red flowers in the background - gone.

And here is the pain -

This was a lovely large colourful busy lizzie 

A crushed and broken Lilly (I think) 

This is where the large red flowers were. 

General carnage

Broken flag

Scooter

A public holiday, a birthday, February 6th is all good here. Amazingly I had planned something, pre-booked no less. Up and off we went. Onto the 9am ferry to Waiheke Island were two bright yellow scooters awaited us. That may be a stretch. We joined the queue at the hire place to sign the various forms and then had our trial run to make sure we weren't lunatics about to be let loose on the roads of Waiheke. It was rather exciting. I had one of those grins of wonder. Personally it was the right balance of control and adventure. Neither of us have rode/ridden (oh dear which one is it) scooters so it's about time really.

I must say the car drivers are incredibly courteous and patient. Plus they seem to factor in that the lunatic on the scooter may be completely incapable of actually managing the upcoming corner and will need all the road and maybe a bit of the other side as well thank you. (For the record this only happened once but I did find the corners a challenge at times). 

The other point to note is that Adam didn't realise the scooters would be bright yellow when he decided on his birthday outfit for the day. 

There was lunch at Cable Bay and a glass of wine but it was less about the wine and more about the scooters. That must be a first. 

Ready to roll - ride that is

Palm Beach

Official Birthday Photo

Back home, now safely not in charge of scooter, it is time for a drink 

Late night at the Zoo

Summer time and a Wednesday after work. We crawl through the delights of auckland traffic after leaving work late. Off to the Zoo we go. Armed with an iPhone, chewy pizza and a large coffee we stroll around, unwind and start the birthday times for Adam.













- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

100 happy days

#100happydays, originally uploaded by KTandCoffee.

Today's happy thought was a no brainer. Last week we had ran out of gin - 'how did I let that happen' as a good friend said to me. We made an effort yesterday to vist a good bottle shop to have a good choice of gins. I was after a New Zealand made gin that I had read an article in a magazine ages ago. So Lighthouse Gin it was. Blimey, rather strong. Such a glorious feeling. Siting in the newly damn near as ready gin drinking summer temple, reading (OK, reading work stuff - you can take the workaholic out of England.....), drinking and enjoying the sun.

Yellow

• 

As I wandered about in Blogland last weekend I came across this colour project, initially through this website. Why not give yellow a go I figured. I ran around the house in a mad fit with the camera last week and then a final fling today. I don't think that is how it's supposed to work but never mind. Next week: Pink.