Life as a Hobbit

     I looked back at my bingo card in September and thought I would give an update.  And then I had a blistering gallop of visiting friends, family, and general touristing for the next two months and suddenly it is November.  Oops.  So now I am finally going to reassess my goals, though I am in the last stretch of 2024 at this point. ☑ Hobbiton Botanical drawing ☑ Ref roller derby ☑  Aurora Australis ☑ Knit NZ wool hat ☑ Host a dinner ☑ Have a friend visit me in NZ (hi Rose!!!) ☑ Learn some te reo Maori Feed an eel ☑ Get to New Zealand ☑ Climb on a glacier ☑ ID 10 Kiwi birds + 10 Kiwi plants ☑ Birthday! ☑ Dip in both S. Pacific Ocean + Tasman Sea Swim 100 K (62 miles) Blog weekly ☑ Befriend a Kiwi ☑ Take the train ☑ Solo hike ☑ North Island Monthly tarot ☑ Have a NZ pet friend 12 creative projects ☑ Get a bike ☑ Co-living (hi Windrose!)      I have...

  My most-seen photograph on Google Maps was taken less than 48 hours after I arrived in New Zealand, a picture I took of this wildflower garden in Hagley Park  A botanical bounty, a myriad of queen anne's lace, bachelor's buttons, viper's bugloss, and a sole red poppy. And here are the same grounds in late winter on a foggy day misting with rain: Everything started turning leaf-gold about 8 weeks ago, and the greening pace caught me off guard.  As I saw an increase in pictures of carved pumpkins and bare treelimbs shared by friends in the Northern Hemisphere I saw new flowers budding.      Winter here wasn't ever really winter.  Wet, sure, a bit chilly, on the rare occasion even frosty, but there were pink blossoms in the trees in what should have been the Southern hemisphere equivalent of January so I never felt the tug of seasonal depression that I associate with winter.  What, no need to hibernate? Putangitangi shelduckling A few weeks later t...