Winter tomorrow

Last day of autumn here in New Zealand. Winter officially starts on the first of June which is, coincidentally, the day we have a day off work to celebrate the Queen's Birthday. You might like to have a squiz at some autumn shots taken this autumn. Perhaps let me know what you think ;-)

Do you like my bird house? Great fun watching the birds making their nests in spring. Now's a good time for you to start building your bird boxes in preparation for spring. It's a great project to do with your children and it's not hard. Plans are easy to find on the web - perhaps you should have a go?

Henderson's Model X

Up Auckland's Northwestern motorway, off at Lincoln Road and down to Henderson's Sports and Aquatic Centre for the 2009 Model X Expo. Lots of cool toys for children and, judging by the visitors, age is no barrier to the enjoyment of Lego, model railways, slot cars, doll's houses, ships, helicopters- well you name it it's there!

One of my favourites was the Meccano stand where the exhibitors have created some wonderful things. Clocks, trucks, planes or cars. Of the cars, I think the Morgan three wheeler was my favourite. After the First World War my grandfather had one of these! I'm not sure how safe it was, but it certainly looks good fun!


Lots of model railways on display. Some of the modern layouts are very lifelike with sound and smoke. Some of the old tin plate layouts require a bit more imagination. In many ways I think I liked these more! I'd heard of Hornby, but not Lionel! There was a Lionel layout there and it was wonderful! There's a photo of a Lionel train cornering hard under a cute operating signal alongside. Quite a good trip all told ... especially as the weather is rather wet and miserable just now.

Autumn light in the garden

I'm not a huge fan of begonias but these little flowers caught the autumn light in a special way.

It's autumn heading into winter here in NZ and sun is a little lower in the sky. As such, the colours can be quite special and these small flowers looked like jewels.

Perhaps begonias aren't so bad after all?

First posting

Why have a blog? Some strange sense of self importance?

I think I'll go with a desire for a web presence. Somewhere that I can jot down thoughts and ideas on which you can comment and muse.

Oh, and I also like using my camera, so I'd imagine there'd be a few photographs on here too.