Henderson House, Alexandra, Central Otago

This photo is a bit more than a year old. These taps stuck

out of the house that I was living in at that time.

Invercargill 2

Another photo from my time in Invercargill.

Even though I lived near this swan it took me a

couple of months to really notice it.

It is about three stories up, perhaps two.

Invercargill

This afternoon I have had an opportunity to fossick around

in my computer.

My main computer is now a Mac but I have only recently, well

within the last two years anyway, changed over from PC. The PC

files have been transfused into the Mac and that is where I have been

today. In the transfused files I mean.

There are some photos in there that I cannot just put in the rubbish tin,

the Geiger counter is clicking. I have something to learn from them.

Tonight I was going back over Invercargill files, two years ago.

It was one of the richest times of my life.

This cat was in the street window of a store. It is of course, fake.

Nikau

I have just visited a subtropical garden in Kerikeri, in the far north

of New Zealand. I saw a lot of interesting plants but was

particularly struck by these berries on a Nikau palm.

What made it particularly appealing was that, because 0f a balcony that I was standing on they were almost at eye level.

The Hokianga

A couple of days ago I was visiting the Far North. At one stage

driven from Kerikeri, past Waimate North, through Okaihau where I once taught, with low flat brown Lake Omapere on the left and down a long, winding and largely unsealed road to Horeke, right to the banks of the Hokianga. Horeke was a sizable part of my childhood because my parents had the hotel at Takeke, about 30 minutes inland from there.

Clapham's Clock Museum.

If visiting Whangarei at any time do call into this museum which is down

at The Basin, where there are boats and places to eat and also a giant sundial which told

me with great accuracy that the time was 3.25 pm.

There are hundreds of clocks on exhibit and the collection

is growing further as more clocks are donated. There are now

about 1000 clocks above the examples that the original Clapham

collection contained. Unfortunately there is now not enough room

for them all to be displayed so they have to be rotated.

My overall impression of the collection is that there is a high

degree of comicality about many of these clocks and I consequently

spent much of my time chuckling to myself.

The eyes on the Monkey clock kept moving from left to right

or perhaps it was the other way around. Remember that clicking on

these images will bring them up in a larger dimension. Not another dimension

alas, just a larger one.

Devonport, Auckland

I visited a garden in Devonport and I was struck by this flower.

I lived on the Devonport peninsula for something like 11 years, however I moved to Ponsonby in 1987. It was the year of an economic crash, I remember that.