Kitopatra

Just to prove I'm not lying when I told everyone how gorgeous my kitty is... Here's a nice shot of his Cleopatra style eyeliner.  Good thing too.  I wouldn't clean up cat poo for anyone less.

Birthday Boy

Ross with his birthday present

Enjoying a relaxing family birthday for Ross' coming of age (33 is coming of age in hobbit years).  

New arrival...

A rare moment caught in the lens

What a week!

Saturday: rushed to pick Ross up from work and get us to the cat rescue centre before it closed.  Was chosen by Angelo - a 10 month-old playful chappie who was the only kit to survive from his family when they were found outside a bed factory.

Sunday: after a cooling off period (not to mention a quick run to the Warehouse to get food and litter) we went back and signed an adoption contract for Angelo.  

Monday: although he was initially fairly calm, Angelo had by now realised he wasn't just on a daytrip.  He decided that under the sofa was the best place to hide.

Tuesday: Angelo was even more scared than ever, and still hiding under the sofa.  Flatmates and myself getting impatient.  Only eats when we're not here and we're worried about where he's peeing.

Wednesday: at 6am I come into the lounge to find pee on the sofa (a sign of stressed cats) and no cat.  The kitchen window was open.  Flatmates and I hunted the house - no sign.  Tearful and ashamed, I visit the neighbours and call the rescue centre.  Kindly, the owner tells me to think positive, call the local vets and flyer the neighbourhood.  Which I do.  Coming home, I find Angelo.  He had never left.  If I wasn't so relieved I might be annoyed.

Thursday: Angelo has turned the corner, and agrees to cuddles, at first cautiously, but soon more enthusiastically.  His repertoire of perches expands to the windowsill (still hidden behind the curtain) and the dining room chairs.

Friday: the start of Ross' birthday weekend!  We head up to his parents after work.

Leaving a lover

Leaving Italy is like leaving a lover.  For a long time after, you think about how things might have been, wishing you were together.  You long for the sight of him, for his touch and the sound of his laughter.  Simple things remind you of him, bringing a smile, and then perhaps a frown.  Uprooted, supplanted, for the longest time you think about the way he would have done things.  You have no interest in anyone else.
You have to stop yourself reminiscing for fear of boring people.  You hear people telling you, "Sue, it's time to move on," but you can't help wishing it didn't have to be so.  No one else seems to understand what you need like he did.  You feel only half-alive without the joy he once brought to your soul.
With luck, with time, he will become a happy memory.

Bugnara castle and village in the Valle Peligna

Brisbane in the springtime

Barely a moment to blog these days - I've been buzzing across the Tasman Sea for work.  I'd like to see more of Sydney, meanwhile I enjoyed a few days in Brisbane with Owen and Elaine.

Owen & Elaine putting on a brave face despite the wind against the Brisbane skyline

Story Bridge at night, Brisbane

One of BrisVegas's prettiest buildings is a casino...

Early morning in Sydney

Having been away so much, I got a nice surprise coming back to the garden.  Everything is sprouting and shooting upward.  I can't help being excited about all the growth.

Chooks & books

Ross at Tawharanui

My birthday was almost two weeks ago now and I still haven't shared the lovely time we had in Tawharanui -  a peninsula not far from Ross' parents.  Actually it wasn't lovely.  My birthday is preceded by two of Ross' brothers' birthdays, and I'm the kind of girl who doesn't like to share the limelight on her birthday.  Bad planning on somebody's part...  Apart from that it was rather nice.  Tawharanui (ta-fa-ra-nooey) is a native bush and marine regional park (you can see it at the top right of the map to the left).  It has big spiral fences keeping mammals out, and posters explaining why even cunning cats can't get past 'em.  It has electric gates that make you feel like you're entering Jurassic Park.  It has lovely beaches where the most cunning mammal of all goes surfing.

But the best part of my weekend was getting back to the veggie garden, which is starting to sprout.  I had some beetroot seedlings to "companion plant" beside my onions - which are showing a few green spikes above the clay-ey soil.  I planted out some strawberry plants (10 for $10 - bargain!) and am waiting to see which tastes better out of "Elsanta" and "Camarosa".  Camarosa is what I've put in the hanging baskets in Auckland, so here's hoping they're good.  I put them in my raised bed, which despite the name has sunk considerably, so I topped up part of it with bought compost.  None of the compost bins Hugh put in at the start of winter are finished yet.  I'm going to get him some compost activator to speed things up.  When buying the strawberries and compost, I also spotted some raspberry plants in the clearance area, which pleased me no end.  I have planted them against the fence in Auckland, and I'm hoping they hold their own against the palms and kiwi vine on the other side.

Enterprising chook

Also delightful are the chickens ("chooks"!? as they call them here) now installed at Ross' parents.  Very tame and friendly, and I can't wait to try the eggs.  The two ewes and two lambs are slightly less exciting, but do keep the grass under control in the olive grove.  Only one of them - a little black-faced lamb - has a bit of personality about him and has won the hearts of the carnivores around me.  I hear he'll probably live to a ripe old age...
But the moment of my birthday which will be hardest to forget, mainly because I haven't recovered yet, was a quintessentially kiwi experience.  I'd heard quite a lot about the annoyance of sandflies.  Foolishly, I assumed (a) that they couldn't be as bad as the evil mosquitoes who'd already sucked me dry, and (b) that I could avoid them by avoiding sand.  Of course, Ross had already set my boundaries for complaining by opining, once again, that people who suffer only have themselves to blame because they don't itch unless you scratch them.  Why anyone would scratch something that didn't itch I'm not sure.  Anyways, I didn't.  Yet I got the full-on rash and swelling experience.  In no time at all, they'd got me five times on the arms and three on one leg (which might seem slack on their parts, but give them credit, I was wearing trousers).  I now own repellent, anti-histamines, hydrocortisone cream...
In the absence of nephews, cats or other achievements, I share with you my pride and joy - my seedlings:

I'm off to Oz twice this month.  To Brisneyland (where I plan to visit cousin Owen) and then back to Melbourne at the end of the month.  I'll see the place in a whole new light now that I've read "The True History of the Kelly Gang" (a much-vaunted biography of Ned Kelly).  To be honest, I didn't get as much out of this book immediately as an Australian probably does.  I think it'll stick with me though, and bits will take on meaning as I learn more about the place.  Gradually I'll instill in myself an interest in this antipodean culture.  But just now I miss Italy.

Tawharanui estuary

Fantastic Whangarei

A weekend in Whangarei with the girls was my first excursion into Northland - the uppermost region of New Zealand.  At 2-3 hours from Auckland, it's a nice spot to relax for the weekend, and relax we did.  There were country walks, shopping, cafes, arty films, bubbly in the jacuzzi... all in all a great girly weekend.  

Best of many laughs which filled the weekend was had at my expense.  It turns out that even moving somewhere like New Zealand can lead to linguistic bloomers (I should be used to it after getting mixed up between tetti (roofs) and tette (tits) in Italy!).  In Maori language, wh is usually pronounced f.  So fantastic Whangarei is alliterative.  One of the most interesting monuments of Whangarei is a stone waka (canoe) and wave.  Instead I called it a whaka.  Try saying it out loud.  The laughter was heard as far as Auckland.

Here are the snaps.

View from the deck

Boathouses

Stone waka figurehead

Wildflowers

Identigulls

Deck

Scary-looking shag: "Behind you!!"

Peekaboo

A (not so) well-earned rest

Big smiles!

Big wave!

More smiles!

Whangarei is a little bit twee

Fern

Sub-tropical canopy

Mangrove... where's the ladygrove?

Wearable art

Spring light on camelia

Pretty lilies

That well-known garden predator - the tree fish