Joy in the little things

I went on a lovely walk one morning last week, when the temperature wasn’t too hot and wasn’t too cold, and I wasn’t in a hurry, and there was only a light breeze, and everything felt just right. I was enchanted, as usual, by the pohutukawa flowers which are still vibrant on many trees, but not for much longer, as the feathery stalks of the falling blooms were carnage on the footpaths and in gutters.

I was equally enthralled by the beauty of the weeds, the way they swayed in the uncharacteristically gentle wind, their size and very existence creating a pleasing, relaxed, everyone’s-on-holiday degree of overgrown unkemptness. (Yes, I’m inventing words).

Appreciating what we have, even the weeds, I snapped a few photos with my phone.

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The ten best things about a summer Christmas

1. Long, light, evenings
2. Strawberries and raspberries, and summer desserts like trifle or pavlova (to go with the strawberries and raspberries)
3. Walks in gardens and parks or on trails to (begin to) work off all the pavlova and trifle!
4. We can escape outside if we start to feel too cooped up
5. Lazy afternoons in the sun/hiding from the sun under a tree with a gentle breeze and a good book
6. Boxing Day on a yacht in the water
7. Swimming – if you’re brave enough to enter the NZ ocean! (Note: I wasn’t, so walked around the coast!)
8. Left-overs and salad make meal preparations easy
9. Ice-creams in lieu of lunch
10. It’s really the start of our summer – or at least, our summer holidays – so there is no anti-climax when it is over.

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Summery tree

We’ve just returned home from a road trip (I’ll write about it and post some pics next week), and I was thrilled to see my first summer-of-2020 pohutukawa in flower on the Tāwharanui Peninsula. This is a classic northern scene – beaches and little coves lined with pohutukawa. Some years ago we drove north for a holiday in early December to see them all in flower – wouldn’t you know, they flowered late that year! So I had never expected to see any in early November. What a treat it was. Even if the day itself was not very summery.

And a closer view of those flowers …

Another in the Thursday Tree Love series – find all the other bloggers doing it here.

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