Sunny walk on Sumner beach

The weather here has been absolutely wonderful recently:  lots of sun, not too hot, and not too much wind.  There have also been great waves, which presumably means that out at sea the weather there was rough, so we benefit doubly.

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Taking my camera from Richmond Hill Bed and Breakfast one day I had fun just recording what was happening on the beach.

 The seagull flew in, and landed.  Look carefully in his mouth:  he has a shellfish in it.   The birds fly straight up, flapping their wings furiously, drop the shell from high up, on to the beach, and then dive down very fast to the shell, before any other bird can grab it.  Sometimes the poor bird has to do it two or three times, which must take an awful lot of energy before it can break through the shell to get at the food inside.

Shag Rock at one end of Sumner beach, has lost quite a few rocks from it in the past months, but it looks if anything, more dramatic, especially at high tide.  This is 3/4 high tide.

So many people have dogs around here, and the joy they express when rushing in and out of the water or galloping up and down the beach, lifts my own heart.   Of course, retrieving a stick is great for them too.... though sometimes one wonders if the dogs aren't actually humouring their human owners!

Flowers

Here are a few of the beautiful flowers that have been growing in my minute garden at Richmond Hill Bed and Breakfast this summer.  Part of the summer has been wonderful and hot and perfect,but like everywhere else in the world it seems, we have had weird weather as well.   

The first rose is Gertrude Jekyll, and it flowered better than it has every done.  In fact all the roses did, and the humble pansy looks positively exotic here, and it has been more prolific also.

A drive along the coast

We decided to go for a picnic to Godley Head, which is about a 25 minute drive from Richmond Hill Bed and Breakfast.  

It was a spectacular day, and here are just a few of the photos I took along the winding coast drive, where there were more sheep than cars on the road.
Godley Head is an Historical site:  it was manned during  World War II, and guards the entrance to Lyttelton Harbour.     If you have seen the film The Guns of Navarone' it is a bit like a miniature version of that.   The hills are very high and very steep, and sheer.  The last photo gives you some idea of the scale, as the little white streak is a speed boat down in the bay.

It was good fun.

Tonight's beautiful sunset.

I was inside at Richmond Hill Bed and Breakfast and was concentrating on something, when I looked up and noticed this glorious soft dusky pink glow in the room.  I looked outside and the whole sky was lit up in rose, and peach and soft blues and greys and oranges, changing every second.  Even the beach far below looked rose.  Here are the photos

Aren't the colours wonderful?   The skies here seem so enormous somehow.   We really do get the most spectacular sunsets.   I realised that tomorrow is the longest day.  These photos were taken at around 9.15p.m tonight.   I just had to share them.  

Godley Head Reserve

I haven't had time to write here for a while because so much has been happening, but I wanted to mention our short trip from Richmond Hill Bed and Breakfast to the tip of Godley Head Reserve, which is the mouth of the huge bay and harbour for Lyttelton.

It was a brilliant sunny day and only takes 20 minutes max from here.  We kept on stopping as their are so many wonderful views.  At the very tip is an old military post from the WWII - to guard the harbour from the Japanese.  There were about 500 personnel there at the height of the war, but no guns were ever fired in anger, thank heavens.

Now it is an interesting place to go to, particularly if you are militarily minded, but I found the remains sad.  Obviously there is lots of concrete.  Having just seen the film 'The Guns of Navarone' again recently, the whole place reminded me of a miniature version of that.  Stunning views from there.

You can walk along paths which take you to the observation post, and behind that on the cliffs was long spring grass just waiting for us to sit and have a picnic lunch and look at this wonderful sight:  a yacht with three beautiful burgundy sails gently going by in a gentle breeze.   Gulls were wheeling, but not calling.   A special place.

computers again

Welllll!   It is now almost two weeks since my hard drive gave up the ghost.  my computer experts have been working very hard at it, but computers seem to have their own personalities.  They DEFINITELY sulk; they practise Go Slows; they are mischievous in their actions because you   t h i n k  they are mended and then something totally different and completely unexpected comes up and you cant work the gadget at all.  

I now realise that a computer is actually quite important in life at the moment!   but also am aware that it can dominate, so have to be careful not to let it!

I have put this lovely photo in just to restore the balance in life between machines and nature.  This is in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, and I go there a great deal from Richmond Hill Bed and Breakfast.

Computer crashing.

My computer crashed a week ago, here at Richmond Hill Bed and Breakfast, which was not helpful.  I have been thinking during this time how essential or inessential a computer is.  Am I dominated by a machine?   The answer seems to be that in actual fact other than the emails, where I went to a dear kind neighbour, I did not miss it much.   I have to admit though that I had just finished all the most important projects I had been doing, or otherwise I think it would have mattered a great deal more.

I read an article recently which said that people are dominated by the web and their computers.  I do know one particular person who seems to zero in on the computer as often as possible, and relentlessly, to the detriment of human communication.   This has to be harmful to the human spirit eventually, because we are human and no matter how wonderful and helpful a computer is, we cannot allow ourselves to be dominated by them!