The other week Martin and I walked another section of the Manukau Coastal Walkway (at this point also called the Waikowhai Walkway) - catching the bus past Blockhouse Bay to the top of Gilletta Rd, walking down to Lynfield Cove and then through bush and suburban streets to Wattle Bay before catching the bus home from Canberra Rd. There were some stunning views!
Today is the first day of Lent for the Western church (the various Orthodox churches - have a different calendar and start a bit later). It's not something Baptists tend to observe, and it's not something I grew up with, but I've come to really value it. It's 40 days (excluding Sundays) in the lead-up to Easter when we are encouraged to 'purify' ourselves. It starts with Ash Wednesday, where you can get an ash cross inscribed on your forehead. In the past I've done this at an Anglican church, where they say something like "Dust you are and to dust you will return" - a reminder of our mortality. Today I went to our local Catholic church (mostly because I'd been hoping to go with a Catholic friend, but in the end I went on my own), and there they said "Turn away from sin and live out the gospel".
The ashes survived the bike ride home pretty well!
In December I wrote about some gardening I'd done in my local area - here's a bit of an update.
This morning I buzzed out to Heron Park on my bike. There's a surprisingly substantial wee orchard there:
I gave a decent dose of blood and bone fertiliser to all the trees that had set fruit - 4-5 apple trees, a pear tree and my key goal - the quince tree :-)
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| the quince is covered in fruit - click on the photo to see it better. |
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| so much fruit! Puts our quince tree to shame. It's not much smaller, but has only set 3 fruit on the entire tree :-( Most of our garden gets no light... |
I then biked on to Rosebank Road, along to Patiki Road and back home along the Northwestern cycle way. It was such a lovely day for a ride and it was such a happy thing to do :-) There was absolutely no debris on the path, which was nice - maybe the storm didn't deposit any there, but more likely someone's done a decent job cleaning it all up :-)
Back home, I took a few more photos. Firstly, the rose I transplanted back in December is doing so well - it's had near-continuous flowers for weeks now :-)
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| it's such a pretty rose! |
At the same time I'd also transplanted (and divided) a clump of what I think is a tufted granite lily - an Australian native. After transplanting, all the flowers died and lots of the leaves went black - but now all the plants are showing fresh green leaves, so hopefully they'll survive :-)
The day before we went to Napier and Hastings, our oven broke. It now doesn't heat at all, and (presumably relatedly), the temperature control can now wind round and round continuously, rather than stopping at the 'max' position. Martin's checked everything he can check without success, so now we need to get an electrician in. We're going away again on Friday, so won't have time to start that happening till after we're back.
I use the oven rather a lot, so was initially a bit thrown. However, I've been pleased with how well we've done without it :-)
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| a fruit cake for friends' 10th wedding anniversary - made in the crockpot |
I wanted to share a New Year's thing I did this morning, then share some photos of things I've been up to over the Christmas/New Year break.
I've really appreciated Advent this year, and have been particularly reflecting on how, at Advent, we think towards the time when Jesus will come to Earth again. We remember those who were waiting for his first coming, and look to the second.
I grew up with my mum talking about how one day Jesus would come again, and there'd be a new heaven and new Earth, and there'd be no more sickness, or crying or pain. She'd have a body that worked properly again, after this one had been damaged by the polio she caught as a kid.
I'm pretty tired, as I haven't managed a good rest since all the busyness of the Devonport Ethical Christmas Market that Just Kai was at 10 days ago. But, I did want to share one neat thing that's happened recently.
There's a vacant section on our street, where one day Kāinga Ora will build new houses. The people who lived there before were great gardeners, and a few weeks back I noticed a really pretty rose flowering in amongst all the weeds. Others on the street have already taken plants from the site (it's been vacant several years), so I was very surprised to see the rose still there.
I looked up how to transplant a rose when it's flowering (I didn't want to leave it - who knows when the land will finally be bulldozed!). Accordingly, I gave it some fertiliser and cut it well back, then made sure it was well-watered until I was ready to transplant it. The heavy showers we've had recently helped with that!
