passing time

Time is flying, another month is almost over, and summer is definitely over. I've had a busy month with painting and a solo exhibition, which I will blog about soon. I was so pleased to get both my entries accepted to Changing Threads - National Contemporary Fibre Awards, with "Coming Home to Roost" getting a Highly Commended. The exhibition is still running in Nelson until 13th April.

We've had a long and dry summer, I think it rained once at the beginning of February. Finally it rained two weeks ago, we got 80mm over three days, which filled our water tanks. We are totally reliant on rain water collected off our roof, while we still had plenty in the tanks it certainly makes you think about how long to stay in the shower! 

So with the breaking of the drought (other parts of the country are still unfortunately much worse than our area and are still in drought) autumn arrived. The days are shorter, and the clocks haven't gone back yet so when I get up in the mornings it's dark. I love seeing the start of each new day, and the best bit is I'm usually the only one awake. I love walking across the lawn to take photos of the sunrises. If a car come I quickly run back inside, my pjs are not for public consumption!

 

The autumn evenings have been lovely too. We often don't get such spectacular sunsets, but the sky can still be dramatic.

Last night the full moon was rising in the east, and with the sun setting in the west, we were treated to a lovely moonrise. When I got up this morning the moon had travelled over the sky to the other mountain range we look out to. The photos were taken between 7 and 7.35am, and in that time some mist had rolled into the wee valley behind our house. Yes we are truly spoilt with views where we live, and after 18 months I still can't believe how lucky we were to find our little bit of paradise on top of a hill.

Thanks for all the lovely comments you've left on my blog over the last few months, it really helps with the motivation to keep on with the blogging lark! If you're on Instagram do pop over and check out my photos. I love the fact I can take photos and upload with ease and few words, it seems to suit me more than blogging at the moment!

It seems everyone is signing up to Bloglovin with the imminent demise of Google Reader, so I've joined in. Although it tells me how many followers I have I can't actually tell who you are, so thanks to the secret seven!!

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last week of term

Term 2 is over, it's winter and it's a bit cold.

"Walk to School Wednesday"

shadows of red hot pokers

flax shadows on old shed on way to school

silvereye in the holly tree (look carefully to see her eye!)

low snow, looking south from our gate

zooming in on the snow on the hills

very frosty mornings

thankfully we are still getting lovely sunrises and clear, crisp days

Daisy finds a warm spot in the sun, she doesn't normally look this fearsome!

Linking up with {tinniegirl}, better late than never!

random snippets

I have a few photos that I want to share which don't have a lot in common! Above are two tui in a silver birch tree, and yes I did fiddle a bit in photo editor to get the sky looking like that, it was actually taken at dusk! If you look very carefully (or click on the photo) you can even see the white tufts under their chins!

The lavender are such troopers still flowering away.

I love these letterbox flags, they come in a number of styles - this one being the kowhai. We live in a rural delivery area which means our postie drives a car and if we have mail to post we put it in our box with stamps on it, and raise our red flag, and he stops and collects our mail, as well as delivering it. They are available from the Mapua Country Trading Store, so I have no excuse not to get one.

I'd been meaning to take a photo of this wee man looking at the arrow all summer. It's not often that you see street art around our district. This one resides at Rabbit Island, and we've been driving past it all summer, so when taking Mister H and his class on an orienteering trip to said island, I finally walked past it. I did however feel like peeling off the "chopp" sticker, and I'm not too sure about the purple tag either. Both were recent additions.

While I'm on a road theme, this is the intersection by the school. I took this photo on a "walk to school Wednesday". We live about a kilometer from the school, but I usually drive the kids as it's a narrow and windy road with quite a few blind corners. We do try and walk on Wednesdays - if it's not raining. Opposite the school is  a winery, which has this very large and impressive metal sculpture beside the road.

Welcome to my new followers. As an introvert I do feel a bit strange, I've been blogging away in my own wee corner of the blogsphere for over a year without making any ripples, and now there are expectations to be met! Actually it's nice to get "to know" you all.

I'm linking up with Cathy of tinniegirl  - check out for more Sunday Snippets

new house feels like home

We have been in the "new house" for 18 days now, wow! I had to count them, as it feels like we've been here a lot longer than that. Straightaway, even before we had finished shifting (which took a mammoth 10 days to do - that's what happens when you DIY!) it felt like home. I am an early riser and every morning I am greeted by the view from the kitchen window - everyday it is different, and I'll never grow sick of it.

both of these photos were taken on the first morning, about half an hour apart

some mornings it's red

and some mornings it's misty

 Another great thing is that not only can we see the sea, but we can be at the sea in 5-6 minutes. We popped down the other night. The kids had fun jumping off the stormwater pipe.

Ready!

Set!

Jump

and jump again and again!

 The boy found a very long stick, as you do.

We all gazed out to sea and felt very happy and glad that we had moved.

A Week of Winter

There's no denying it, it's winter here. The week has been cold, and wet, and snowy. And some sun, and some sun and rain mixed together which does make beautiful rainbows!

Last Friday was the husband's birthday, so I made him have the day off, and once we dropped the kids at school we had a lovely day out and about (it was a sunny day for the record!) In pursuit of thriftiness I swapped one of my paintings for one of my art group buddies ones. When he woke up he found this lovely girl gazing at him.What a surprise, I had her hidden under the bed and as I wake up first was able to hang her without him waking!

Miss Moo-tere

I spent the whole weekend doing a picture framing course. So now I have frames made for the upcoming exhibition, just need to create the paintings to go in the frames. The course was held in a hall that I'd admired so often from the road, but never been in. Sorry didn't get round to taking photos inside, can report there were lovely wooden floorboards, memorials to the men from the district who had fought in the world wars, and other interesting bits and pieces. However I did venture out between rain showers to see what it looked like from the outside.

 

 Tuesday night the brother from the Coast arrived late at night with the very red-headed niece (I have 2 red-headed nieces). So Mister H had the day off school on Thursday to amuse her, and Miss L had Friday off and went home with them. Yay only 1 kid home for the beginning of the the school holidays - I am so cunning! Wednesday was very snowy, it fell on top of the Spooners Range which is 20 mins away, so after school took kiddlets up to the cold and icy stuff. There wasn't much left, but they enjoyed getting cold and wet.

I did say there wasn't much snow!

The snow doesn't get this low very often

Looking towards Tasman Bay, with Richmond & Nelson on the right

 On Thursday it was a lovely view of the Richmond Ranges from our new house, we couldn't see the other mountains they were draped in cloud. The painter is at the house, covering up the hideous cream paint, with wait for it ..... white! It's looking fantastic, hope the tenants appreciate it!

Randomness

 

Just a few photos that I had on the camera. The ones above are from the last night of daylight savings, so we went to the beach. Amazing LONGGGGG shadows.

These were taken during a "lunch" meeting with four fellow artists/friends. We are having a joint exhibition in August, and were supposed to be discussing the title/theme of our exhibition. It was hard to think about such serious things, we had a nice bottle of Pinot Gris, a good old chatter and giggle. I love seeing all the vines draped in the bird netting - it's like monster spiders have spun webs everywhere. The vineyard owner has an amazing sculpture collection, the one above looks like giant matchsticks, it is called "Totems for a Vineyard". These is also an art gallery, a lovely place to stop.