‘Green Asterisk’
Anderson’s Bay At Low Tide
‘Anderson’s Bay At Low Tide’
Freight Train Passing
‘Freight Train Passing’
Looking down to Judge’s Bay from the tranquility of the rose garden , I am met with the clattering noise of a freight train .It’s on the main trunk line, laden with shipping containers, bound for god knows where.
If the peace is momentarily shattered, I am actually comforted by the rumble from the tracks beneath me and the brute ugliness of the containers and rusty carriages.
For it signifies “business as usual”.
For all the strictures of lockdown and pandemic-fueled economic recession, the passing train and its cargo tell me that normal activity is actually happening out there.
Good shit headed for people who will do good shit with it…
Wasp And Yellow Rose
‘Wasp And Yellow Rose’
Eaves And Windows
‘Eaves And Windows’
Guiding Light
‘Guiding Light’
When it all gets a bit tangled and gloomy, we all need a guiding light, someone or something, to see us through.
Song for the day, to match, from Television’s classic 1977 debut album, ‘Marquee Moon’:
 “Guiding light, guiding light
         guiding through these nights”
Framework For Lush
‘Framework For Lush’
Forbidden Garden
‘Forbidden Garden’
I know, with a headline like that, you might expect something exotic and mysterious.
The answer, in the case of the walled garden and fountain at Auckland’s Parnell Rose Gardens, is not like that at all. The garden is simply locked during lockdown, and I had to make do with a shot though a gap in the iron gates on the weekend.
There is nothing, however, like not being able to do or have something to make you f**king want it all the more.
Frustrating!
Adam and Eve, back in the day, didn’t put up with a little frustration in the Garden of Eden. They can take all the blame…
Shadows On The Diagonal
‘Shadows On The Diagonal’
… shaded and slanted…
Listen To The Lion
‘ Listen To The Lion’
Lions, of course, are symbols of courage and bravery.
Courage features in the second part of The Serenity Prayer:
“Courage to change the things I can”
I think about that which I can change at the start of the day. Whether I act depends largely on whether I have the guts to do so.
Some leonine musical inspiration comes from Irish singer-songwriter in one of his more extended songs:
” I shall search my very soul
 for the lion
 inside of me”
(Mr. Morrison really rips loose with the vocal chords on this number; the repetition too, as he hits full trance and utters the phrase “listen to the lion” over and over again at one point in the song. It makes for one of his more challenging listens, but that’s possibly the point. I still marvel that Van, well into his musical work by then, was still only 26 or so when this track was recorded – it sounds like someone with way more time and miles under the belt).
Good Things Come In Threes
  Three Orchid Rows, SingaporeÂ
I love the saying “good things come in threes”.
They so often seem to.
Even if they don’t ,there’s always: “third time lucky”…
And, if you don’t get lucky third time around,
…. then perhaps pray to the Holy Trinity…!
(a re-post, to round out this series of triple oriented shots – stay lucky people!)
Three Birds On A Wire
‘Three Birds On A Wire’
…continuing on from the previous post Three Windows, and my belief in the thesis of good things coming in threes…
Three Windows
“Three Windows”
Spiked Crown
‘Spiked Crown’
The symmetical beauty of a nikau palm gets a grey makeover, just for the hell of it. For another view, and words, relating to the world’s southernmost palm, see Nikau Palm .
Reflection
‘Reflection’
Peak autumn on the Tamaki River at low tide; the clear blue sky is reflected in the water lying atop the mudflats at low tide. Plenty of time right now for me to likewise do a bit of reflection in the suspended state that is lockdown, whilst out walking.
The perfect mini soundtrack to this all comes from American new age/neo-classical pianist George Winston:
Enjoy !
Healing
‘Healing’
” Healing doesn’t have to look magical or pretty. Real healing is hard, exhausting and draining. Let yourself go through it. Don’t try to paint it as anything other than what it is. Be there for yourself with no judgment.” – Audrey Kitching
  Â
Suspended
‘Suspended’
Moored
‘Moored’
This is the last in a sequence of seven posts featuring boats and boatyards, all taken on a wet and dreary afternoon on Auckland’s Tamaki River a couple of days ago.
Not that I am any sort of boatie or seafarer. Far from it, but I do like the look of small vessels and the idea of travel across water in them.
There is just something in the idea of the intrepid voyage that captivates and inspires me.
However, in the photo, the yachts are at their moorings. In the other pictures there are boats up on the hard, on cradles for storage or maintenance, or tied by ropes to a wharf.
In hiatus.
Going nowhere fast.
Frustrating, right?
Boats are for sailing, but they can’t do that without repair, repainting and a general overhaul from time to time.
It is necessary, as much part of sailing or boating as getting out on the water.
When the vessels are at rest, it is also time for their owners and skippers to chart new courses and dream of great excursions.
And, thus prepared, adventures await…
Empty Cradle
‘Empty Cradle’
‘Otira’ At The Boatyard
‘Otira’ At The Boatyard
ebb then flood 