Last of the Summer flowers

These are Japanese Anenomes in three different shades, white, pale pink and a semi double in a darker pink.

They have a beautiful simplicity.

Farewell to Summer

I have been away again at our beach.

Summer has slipped away and left in its place this moody, foggy, misty, rainy landscape. Its not really cold yet but we have certainly moved into a different weather pattern.

No children swimming or paddling, no one on wave skis, just a few surfers in wet suits looking like cold seals in the waves. And the occasional fisherman with his surf rod cast out into the sea. And an empty bucket! No fish biting.

Our Indian summer is over.

Letters from my Father - written 1940-45

These are some extracts from some of my Father's letters home when he was stationed in the Middle East during the Second World War.

"The first few weeks were the worst. I know a good many times I felt like giving way to tears, I used to go and sit by myself a lot and think that was the worst thing I could do."

“The chaps who came over with me are holding a reunion in Cairo on Wednesday – two years in Egypt. I always thought reunions were happy events but I fail to see what we have to be happy about but I guess we are ‘sand happy’ by now so it won’t matter that much. Really a chap should dress up in black and go there crying because we have lost something dear to us – about 10 years of our lives – but still I suppose worry won’t win the war will it.”

“I must thank you for all the lovely parcels you have sent me I will never forget them as long as I live I can tell you. Things at home worry me a lot now. Since I have had malaria I can’t sleep like I used to and you remember how I could do that don’t you. In all ways my health isn’t as good as it was. The treatment they gave me is severe and it upset my stomach and really it hasn’t been the same since but I hope it gets better soon. So not being able to sleep too good I often lay awake and its then my thoughts turn to troubles at home. "

A Tribute to the ANZAC Kiwis

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning
we will remember them.

ANZAC Day - 25th April

On 25 April each year Australians and New Zealanders commemorate their war dead.

ANZAC Day honours the men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who died during the almost-suicidal landings at Gallipoli in the Dardanelles.

The part that New Zealand and Australian servicemen and women have played in other conflicts on distant shores is also remembered on ANZAC Day.

Gallipoli was the World War I campaign which forged Australian and New Zealand troops into ANZACs. The Gallipoli Peninsula assault was intended to give the British Navy command of the Turkish-held Dardanelles.

The New Zealand Expeditionary Force which left New Zealand in October 1914 combined with their Australian counterparts to form the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC). Along with some British units they mounted the amphibious expedition.

The Gallipoli assault through Anzac Cove began on 25 April 1915, ended some eight months later as a saga of errors and horrors - the planners making the errors and the men enduring the horrors.

NZ Embassy.

Kiwifruit harvest

Some photos of the fruit in bins on the hard stand area at the orchard, being stacked and loaded onto the truck, processing at the packhouse, and in the green boxes ready to be shipped to Europe next week.
Hopefully on the shelves at the supermarkets in a months time!

Kiwifruit - rejects

Bet you have never seen a kiwifruit this shape on the shelves of your supermarket?

More kiwifruit picking photos tomorrow.

Norfolk Pine

These trees are Norfolk Pines. They are a native tree from Norfolk Island, a small Pacific island off the coast of Australia and New Zealand.




I love their symmetry - they are quite spectacular along the foreshore of many beaches in New Zealand. In one of my photos you can see them along the front of the park, interspaced with Pohutukawa trees. No matter how hard the wind blows they always retain their simple symmetrical shape.

There are other interesting facts about Norfolk Pines that are not widely known. In the mid 1800's when the missionaries were sailing from England to New Zealand they usually stopped in Australia for supplies of sugar, flour etc. They also picked up seedlings of local plants and by then the Norfolk Pine had made its way to the Australian mainland so they were then transported to New Zealand.

They were planted around many of the mission stations that were sited near the coast. There were several reasons for this - the tree is quite unlike any native tree that grows here, it is fast growing, and when sited on the coast it quickly grows and stands out on the skyline, marking the sites of the stations for travelers arriving by sailing ship into the harbour. In Tauranga, at The Elms, the huge Norfolk Pines planted in 1835 by Archdeacon Brown became known as 'The Sentinels'.

Another reason - on a young tree the top branches form a cross.

Rangiwewehi

This one is for Chrissy!

Cabbage Tree - Ti Rakau

This is one of my favourite native trees - the Cabbage tree (Cordyline australis), often found on roadsides and in swampy places through out New Zealand.

It can grow up to 15 m tall, first as a single stem then branches out to have many crowns.
It has attractive bunches of creamy white flowers in the spring.

Cabbage trees were a valuable food source for the Maori people and sometimes the early settlers, and the new shoots bear a resemblance in taste to cabbbage hence the name!