Hi Everyone,
Yet another trip away! Well, I have got to see the whole country you know! We are now well into the Autumn (probably more like winter if the truth be known). The mountains have their white hats on already
and look beautiful, especially from this distance. We have also had some hard frosts; the photo of the rose I took while down South - it was frozen.Those of you in the Northern hemisphere will, hopefully, be enjoying some Spring weather by now and putting all the cold and wet behind you. Talking of rain - my trip took me West, then South and East and North back to Christchurch. A real round trip. Luckily we missed the deluge of rain on the first day - they had 1 metre in 48 hours!! Roads were closed and we did not get to see the glaciers unfortunately. Parts of the west coast are blessed(?!) with 10 metres of rain a year. I can't really imagine it. Christchurch is rather like East Anglia and is content with half a metre.
One of the sights that you see plenty of because of weather like that is waterfalls and I have included a photo of one. During the trip on Milford Sound we were shown a video of a waterfall being blown upwards by the fierce winds but, luckily, didn't get to experience that.
The school holidays have been and gone since I last wrote. We had some nice, sunny weather and managed to fit in 2 picnics. Despite the range of ages the children all get on well. We had a barbecue at Sarah's to celebrate her birthday and next week it is Ben's 3rd birthday. Mustn't forget Katherine's either at the end of this week!
I was hoping to tell you that the winter veggies were going great guns BUT I came home to find the carrots had disappeared!! I know that they were not very big when I left but there must be a creature lurking that I haven't spotted yet that has eaten all the tops. Quite a space in the bed now! The rest of the garden looks a little happier for having received some rain and the 2 Robinia trees have been removed - they were too big and sending out suckers under the deck. The pond is not leaking now but I think that the pump is, so that is turned off for the present. A job for the Spring I think.
The last photo is of the dawn on the day I left for my trip. Red sky in the morning etc. But beautiful. Today is dull and wet and my weekly walk was cancelled (fair weather walkers only!) I have a bit of a cold so will stay nice and warm inside. I hope that you are all keeping well and enjoying the longer days. All my love Carol xx
