The Changing Seasons, May 2019

This may be a lousy representation of my month as a whole, but I think it’s a fairly good visual metaphor for my flu-addled state right now.

I’m not likely to get a proper Changing Seasons post up for a few more days, but for all the fit folks who have their monthly round-up ready, go ahead and ping-back to this post and when I get a full post up I’ll copy the blog roll to that too.

About The Changing Seasons

The Changing Seasons is a monthly challenge where bloggers around the world share what’s been happening in their month.

If you would like to join in, here are the guidelines:

The Changing Seasons Version One (photographic):

• Each month, post 5-20 photos in a gallery that you feel represent your month
• Don’t use photos from your archive. Only new shots.
• Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons so that others can find them

The Changing Seasons Version Two (you choose the format):

• Each month, post a photo, recipe, painting, drawing, video, whatever that you feel says something about your month
• Don’t use archive stuff. Only new material!
• Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons so others can find them.

If you do a ping-back to this post, I can update it with links to all of yours.

Please check out the Changing Seasons — May for these awesome bloggers:

Tracy at Reflections of an Untidy Mind

Little Pieces of Me — and here

Marilyn at Serendipity — seeking intelligent life on Earth

Jude at Life at the Edge

A Wonderful Sheep

Sarah at Art Expedition

Tish at Writer on the Edge

Joanne at My Life Lived Full

Deb at the Widow Badass

Yvette at Priorhouse Blog

Mick at Mick’s Cogs

Ju-Lyn at All things bright and beautiful

Pauline at Living in Paradise

 

 

 

 

Small moments

Image: Su Leslie 2019

By the time I got home from taking the Big T to the airport yesterday, my cough and runny nose were getting worse, and the aches and chills were beginning.

Today I’m on the couch with a box of tissues and a honey-lemon drink. My to-do list is on hold and I think I’ll be looking for joy in the small things for the next few days.

Monday Macro

Flying high

Paraglider with backing group of gannets; Muriwai Beach, NZ. Image: Su Leslie 2018

Paraglider, Kariotahi Beach, Waiuku, NZ. Image: Su Leslie 2018

Gannet in flight. Image courtesy of the Big T

Gannet in flight. Image courtesy of the Big T

Old-school hang-gliding, Kariotahi Beach, Waiuku, NZ. Image: Su Leslie 2018

Gannets, Muriwai Gannet Colony, Auckland, NZ. Image: Su Leslie 2018

I’m not great with heights (or danger), so while part of me would love to experience the world the way that flying birds do, I don’t think I’ll be signing up for any of the adventure sports that involve hurling myself off a cliff with some ropes and a big hankie to keep me safe.

Posted to One Word Sunday | aerial

In the pink

The boy-child; healthy, happy and rocking the pink onesie. Image; Su Leslie 1998

Don’t you love looking at old photos of your kids?

I remember taking this shot, and more particularly remember my mother’s reaction to me dressing her grandson in pink (and lavender, lime green, red …)

That was over 20 years ago, and I had thought such outdated notions of gender-based clothing (not to mention toys, games, behaviors, etc) was steadily being consigned to the dustbin of history. Then last week I had a conversation with my sister in law about how her mother complains that my four year old niece is always dressed “like a boy” — in blue!

Sigh.

Posted to the Ragtag Daily Prompt | pink

A better kind of blue day

Boats moored on the Weiti River, Auckland. Image: Su Leslie 2019

Six Word Saturday; hosted by Debbie at Travel with Intent

Remembering the blue days

Music is a powerful trigger for memories; a way to reflect on what has changed and what stays the same.

Posted to the Ragtag Daily Prompt | memory

Zimmerbitch

“And I tell myself it’s just a blue day. And it’s hard to see it any other way …” Blue Day, Colin Bayley & Murray Burns (1983). Image: Su Leslie, 2015.

It’s 1984 and I’m in a state of metamorphosis. The life I’ve fallen into since leaving my parents’ home has become as constraining and ill-fitting as that which I originally fled.

I cut my hair very short and bleach it very blonde. I acquire a wardrobe of vintage clothes; oversize men’s shirts, pencil skirts and beaded cardigans.

I catch glimpses of an unfamiliar woman in the mirror and wonder why she doesn’t look happy. Some days the world beyond my bed is a void I’m afraid that I will fall into and become lost forever.

I listen to a lot of music. Sometimes it makes me feel better.

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Colour therapy

These may be autumn’s dying day, but it’s a joyous, colourful exit.

Friday flowers

Seen in the formal gardens at the Auckland Domain.

#fridayflowers

What really takes my breath away …

Muriwai beach, Auckland. Walk far enough and you can almost ignore the tour bus parties destroying the rock pool eco-systems with their sunscreen, body lotions and general stupidity. Image; Su Leslie 2019

I live in a country that earns quite a sizeable portion of its living out of being breathtakingly beautiful.

It is true that these days human impacts on land and water are beginning to show, and we’re increasingly like a hung-over media celeb, relying on Photoshop to pixel over the cracks. But it’s still relatively easy to turn a corner or crest a hill and find a vista so beautiful you can be forgiven if you forget to breathe.

I wouldn’t say I’ve become inured to such beauty, but if I’m honest, what really takes my breath away these days is the appalling ease with which my fellow New Zealanders (and some of the paid guests we’re taking in to help pay the bills) feel it’s ok to desecrate our environment. Apart from the terrible damage inflicted on landscapes, waterways, eco-systems and wildlife, it’s biting the hand that feeds.

This is death by a thousand cuts; dumping litter, over-fishing, clearing forests to create dairy farms, freedom campers who (literally) leave their shit behind, people who turn every available patch of grass on a beach reserve into a de facto car park because someone else did it first, a national mindset that says dairy farming and tourism are GOOD FOR GROWTH and let’s not look too closely at the negative impacts … the list goes on.

As always, the prescribed treatment for my chronic environmental grump is to get out the door and connect with the little miracles of nature that also take my breath away.

Pohutukawa flowers. Image: Su Leslie 2018

Bee and blossom. Image: Su Leslie 2017

Redwoods Tree Walk, Rotorua. Image; Su Leslie 2019

Exposing the inner workings. Eroded sea-shell. Image: Su Leslie 2018

Punga (silver fern) fronds. Image: Su Leslie 2019

Posted to the Ragtag Dail Prompt | breathtaking

Mud and stardust

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I’m a bit short of sensible words at the moment, except to suggest you listen to A Girl Named Mo, with the band Fly My Pretties, sing Mud and Stardust. Music, poetry and, if you close your eyes, it may conjure up some exquisite mental pictures too.

Lucky is the moon that comes and goes
Many are the reckless who sell their souls
Faultless is the wind, heartless is the cold
Merciless, merciless give me something I can hold
When plenty are the doubts that cloud my mind
Countless are the chalices of lilac wide
Cruel is the taste so bitter to the tongue
Merciless, merciless, time is wasted on the young

Thanks to Debbie at Travel with Intent for this week’s quotation.