Tui acrobatics

In the summer families of tuis visit our dozen or so flax bushes to drink nectar. In the winter, food isn't as plentiful, but this wee lad has discovered one of our ornamental cherries.

Shadow kitten

Miss Ginger Postmistress has been playing shadow games this evening. Hubby's study lamp was behind her and she has had lots of fun watching her shadow on the wall. The shadow behind her is the sewing machine, but looks like some kind of gangster. Good job she didn't notice! In the end, she requested to be posted in a small box. Destination unknown.

Rosellas in the hekeheke

Parrots eating seeds from the flax bushes. They bob around a lot and I took these pictures from about 30m away.....so please forgive the blurring.

The excuse for cake

Do we really need one? I need a "friend visiting" excuse to bake, because I have tried to STOP baking as it was a serious health hazard. Today friends from the Middle East are dropping in enroute to the capital. This is what we will be eating with strong coffee

She just likes to help!

My husband and I trade stamps on behalf of a national charity. Saturday morning is often "parcel them up and send them out" time. Ms Ginger is the self appointed post kitten and "sitter on" of stamps. We have yet to train her to lick the stamps, but when she was a kitten she could occasionally be seen running around the house with a stamp on her nose.

Hairy but not scary

The young 'uns in the paddock have developed real personalities and have their own distinctive calls. I think with a bit of work, we could have them singing four part harmony. Not sure they would fit in the barbershop category, on account of their hairstyles.

Vignette from the Post Office

Our local post office is actually a dairy (corner shop / super baba, whatever you may call the general grocery kind of shop). It sits on our main highway north, and has a small area to pull off to collect the mail, or go and buy a suddenly needed item.

Sharon, our post lady also sells a huge selection of sweets and ice-creams. As you will have realised, our area is currently enjoying early morning frosts. Not exactly the weather for ice cream. However, this morning I was stood in a queue behind an elderly gent in shorts, and a cut off tee-shirt about to purchase a double decker ice cream, perched precariously on a cone. My internal core temperature dropped just looking at him.

I suppose he could have been from Minnesota....