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I am quite busy because I’m getting ready to move back to the South Island
for a year.

Here is a recently restored engine on the site of what was the New Plymouth railway
station. The carriages were very full.

In Southland, on islands off Invercargill, it is a big tradition among the Ngai Tahu, no-one else allowed, to pull the chicks of
the Sooty Shearwater which they call Titi, out of their burrows and
eat them, after cooking that is. Thousands of them are taken every year.
Two nights ago I tried them for the first time in my life. They
were delicious and I was surprised.

There are cartons everywhere as I am packing up in preparation for heading north.

I will be in Central Otago, for a couple of days, I’ve a meeting in Arrowtown, then
I have to go to Christchurch until Monday at which point I continue my journey. Hope to
cross over on the Cook Strait ferry about Tuesday. Have another couple of meetings
in Wanganui, and then, at last I’ll be within two hours drive of New Plymouth. I am estimating that I will be back there about Wednesday or Thursday. I’m looking forward to being back at my home for a while. It feels like the end of the year and I’d like to have
a restful time for a while. I’m feeling rather exhausted by the year. It seems to have been a big one, a bit too big for my taste.

It has been a very productive time down here in the South. I think that I have made several
photos that are ‘keepers’. Over the next few weeks I’m going to do some printing. While here
I’ve only made working prints.

It will be quite a moment when, tomorrow, I finally head off. A week on the road on your own is a long trip.

Here is a snap I took of a baby at Billy Apple’s
opening in Dunedin last Friday.

The three brooches on the left are by Warwick Freeman.

Next are Grape Hyacinths. Then a selection of soaps.

Most significantly of all, the fluffy daffodils. Until two weeks ago I scorned these. I only believed in the simple story book ones, King Alfred I remember. But then going to the Farmers Market here in Invercargill, held at Southland Boys High, the school that has produced more All Black captains than any other in the country, I am told. Over two weeks I changed my mind about the daffodils. Suddenly, I’m appreciating the fluffies.

The black bottle on the right is a bottle of Armani Code.

For two or three years I’ve noticed this book. In the library and in bookshops.
However, I didn’t on those occasions go any further, such as borrowing or buying it.

While in Te Anau last week I did buy it and with feet up, found myself intrigued. Inventively put together as if has been written by an autistic boy, Christopher. Christopher works on mathematical puzzles in his head as a way of relaxing. Fixated with the dangers of making assumptions, he recounts this joke:

There are three men on a train. One of them is an economist and one of them is a logician and one of them is a mathematician. And they have just crossed the border into Scotland (I don’t know why they are going to Scotland) and they see a brown cow standing in a field from the window of the train (and the cow is standing parallel to the train).
And the economist says, ‘Look, the cows in Scotland are brown.’
And the logician says, ‘No. There are cows in Scotland of which one, at least one is brown.’
And the mathematician says, ‘No. There is at least one cow in Scotland, of which one side appears to be brown’.

I wasn’t happy with the blue of the water in this photo as it was below, so I ran
it through a Photoshop process. Didn’t expect the buoy to come out brown but this will
do for the meantime.