You have to laugh!

It was less than a great escape.
Two prisoners who fled a courthouse handcuffed together foiled their own getaway when they ran around opposite sides of a light pole, slammed into each other and fell to the ground.

Jailers nabbed them as they struggled to their feet.

Their escapade on Wednesday was captured by a CCTV camera at Hastings District Court.
The footage shows the two men trying to make a break for it - but apparently forgetting they were joined at the wrist.

"As they were being led from the Hastings police cells ... they made a bolt for freedom," Mr Greig said.
"They fell over and were sprayed with pepper spray. But they got up and ran out of the court on to the street, across the road to a carpark. That's where they met the pole - it was all over, Rover".

Extract from NZ Herald. 30.01.09

Polly the Possum

Isn't she cute. Polly was hand reared and resides at Longridge Park near Rotorua.

However I have been known to say that the only good possum is a dead one. They are responsible for chewing their way through our native plants at an alarming rate.



Possums were introduced from Australia last century for the fur trade and with no natural predators in New Zealand they quickly multiplied and became a pest. They are protected in Australia but here they are hunted and destroyed.

So sorry Polly - you may be cute but your relatives have wreaked havoc on our native wildlife and we wish we could send you all back to Australia.

A Tag

Tismee has tagged me - she is good at that!
Here are the rules

1.Go to your documents
2. Go to your 6th file.
3.Go to your 6th picture.
4. Blog about it.
5. Tag 6 friends to do the same.

Hmm I am sometimes a reluctant participant in tags but this one seems easy enough.

Now to offer an explanation. I try to make my blog as informative as possible about New Zealand BUT my 6th photo on the 6th file happens to be a photo of the Sydney (Australia) skyline - and a crooked photo at that! Oh well. Such is life. I should have deleted it months ago.

Those of you familiar with Sydney will see their harbour bridge way in the distance. It is a beautiful harbour I have to admit. But it does look much better when it is level!

We were there last May to attend our oldest sons graduation.
















Now I am required to tag 6 others. Not so sure that I have six people who would appreciate being tagged. So I will leave it up to any of my readers to participate if they wish. Lurkers are especially invited to come out of the woodwork and show their face!

Sea Sun Sand

Yep, I'm back home again, only for a day or two then off to stay with family.

Our holiday at the beach - well the title says most of it! Add to that - walks on the beach, bush walks, reading and generally lazing around.

It has been a very hot summer so far with temperatures in the late 20's and sometimes over 30 (degrees celsius). We were careful to stay inside out of the sun on the hottest days - that hole in the ozone layer hovering above us makes our sun fierce.

It is good to be home again, our three cats were very pleased to see us.

This weekend the first of our sun deprived sons from the UK arrives for his annual visit. The second son arrives later in the month. Their vision of camping and lazing on the beach has seen them through the first part of the London winter!

Over and Out

Christmas is over,the family have gone home, the house is empty and already I am missing the sounds of the little voices. We ended up with six adults and three children so it was quite a houseful. Especially with only one bathroom!

But - summer is here and its time to adjourn to the beach. Barbeques, afternoon siestas, sitting around and catching up with friends and relatives, long lazy walks fossicking for shells along the beach in the evenings, making endless sandcastles for the little ones to knock over, towing kids on body boards through the shallows, and bush walks on those very hot days when it is too hot at the beach. (the term 'bush' is used in New Zealand to mean native forest)

Thank you for following my blog this year - and especially those of you who have left comments. I have valued your comments and views, and hope that you will return next year. All the very best for the New Year 2009!

I will be back on or around the 10th of January - probably with lots more photos of our wee space in the world.

I leave you with some garden photos - the hydrangea flowers seem to be bluer than ever before this year.

Angels singing Christmas Carols

I love this clip of Romanian children singing a Christmas carol. I have no idea whatsover of the meaning of the words!

Christmas Reds

It is the time of the year when we are surrounded by magnificent Christmas reds......

a Santa red,






there are strawberries in abundance,








my little red car,










bougain-
villea red,














and the best red of all................

our own New Zealand Pohutukawa known as the Christmas tree

Flax(harakeke)

These are some photos of flax on the Chatham Islands. It is in full flower around New Zealand at the moment - some varieties with golden flowers, some with red. I always associate the flowering flax with Christmas - and of course also the Pohutukawa tree - some photos of that later.

Flax - which is actually a lily - is a magnificent plant and had many traditional uses to the Maori in pre European times.

Most Maori settlements had their own flax plantation. They grew different varieties - some for their strength, softness, colour and fibre content. No plant was more important to them than the flax, or harakeke as it was known.
It was used for clothing, footwear, mats, plates, baskets, ropes, bird snares, fishing lines, lashings and nets.

Other parts of the flax were used also - the tall dry flower stalks were used for floats and rafts. Nectar was used for sweetening.

Flax also had many medicinal uses. The sticky sap or gum that flax produces was applied to boils and wounds and used for toothache. Flax leaves were used in binding broken bones and matted leaves were used as dressings. Flax root juice was routinely applied to wounds as a disinfectant.

Today, flax is used in soaps, hand crèmes, shampoos and a range of other cosmetics. Flax seed oil can also be found for sale. There have even been experiments to make flax into wine!

It is still widely used by the Maori to weave into traditional kete (baskets), cloaks and pois.

The Hollyhock story

These plants are not just hollyhocks. They have a story.

I had a very dear elderly friend who was a keen gardener. She grew the most amazing hollyhocks, all self seeded and all in glorious shades of red.
I envied her plants and several times I took the seed home with me, scattered it around the garden but they either never germinated or if they did none ever grew to maturity.

She died two years ago, aged 103. The first spring after she died, all these hollyhocks appeared in my garden, even though it had been a few years since I had planted the seeds.

Now, for the second year I have these beautiful red hollyhocks growing as prolifically in my garden as hers did.

Different garden, but they are my friend's flowers. I have accepted her mantle with pride.

Shhh - the Kiwifruit are hatching