Interesting but not at all pottery related

although the pot it's in is like a large Specials Department running glaze piece.

Our pohutukawa plant on the front porch has started to flower!

It more than likely a Metrosideros Kemadecensis Tony -
or it's Hawaiian cousin if it's the dwarf variety.
Metrosideros Excelsa won't be in flower for about three months yet.
Our Pohutukawa is turning into a hybrid over here with all of the other's being introduced ...
interbreeding naughty bees and trees!

I did see the awesome spring sight of many Kowhai in flower today
Not a tui in sight though!

Oh no! Don't say that Ev. The nursery had it labelled as "New Zealand Christmas Tree". I was told that Pohutukawa were flowering earlier now because of new plants. I prefer what a friend told me that in Maori tradition a September flowering means 42 degrees at Christmas time.

Oh look at how much it has opened already
You can believe whatever you want Tony....
One of my favourite native trees.....
I have grown hundreds from seed and they are all over Auckland.
One day my ashes will be spread around a certain pohutukawa tree
and my plans are that I will turn into a pohutukawa flower

The friend that told me about the "tradition belief" is a Scot who works as a concrete dispatcher in South Auckland so it's a pretty reliable source.

My grandmother used to have a big house on the foreshore at Takapuna and there was a huge pohutukawa there that we used to play under and on. When I came back to NZ after two years in London my brother drove me around Northland and the Coromandel in the new year and we saw amazing displays of native trees at their best.

today from the front porch pseudokawa:

Awww thanks
That's lovely......
I wonder if I can tell you what you have when it has opened?

bursting out:

I have a photo of one of my native babies.....

I'm sure the flowers are a darker red?

I turned this pic into a Xmas card

That's magnificent Ev. I think our flowers are slightly more orange than I remember Pohutukawa being.

And this looks the whole of this bunch:

And this, I think, is this bunch at its fullest:

They are soooo pretty

It looks to me like the Hawaiian species .....

Our flowers 'balls' have many more of the red bits.
I will post a pic in December for you to compare

More often recently I've taken to thinking about life as an exile. I moved here because my wife is a Sydneysider who'd moved to Wellington as I really enjoyed the job I had at the time we met. Three years later I'd been made redundant and was working somewhere I had no attachment to.

My wife's grandmother and great-aunt were getting increasingly frail and she wanted to be nearer them. She also wanted a summer - something she'd missed in her time in Wellington. She'd served her three years so I signed on for mine over here.

It was a really good decision and now I wouldn't live anywhere else. Been about 11 years now.

Sometimes though my thoughts turn to Wellington and the other places in NZ where I've spent any lengthy amount of time.

Early in the morning I'll go to the clifftops at the south of Coogee beach and watch the sunrise. I think it's the closest place to NZ on this part of the coast. Also my first Australian job, and my last grown-up employment, involved shift work at nearby Randwick and Coogee was one of the places we'd take clients.

New Zealand looks like this from Coogee:


and Coogee looks like this from New Zealand:

Your post makes me homesick for my other home Tony....
the sunsets ..... well we have many many photos of them - you can't beat the hot aussie sunsets ! You must have an aussie twang .... it is contagious.... I did..... but I always said daence and not dense..... and swuum not sweem So your bones or ashes will belong to Oz?

This morning when I walked down to the Collectables Fair I was sidetracked by a bird in a tree - it was a very Sydney experience

This morning I noticed a dark shadow on the ceiling where one should not be. The middle white section is about 12cms wide. As is the Huntsman - they suspend long strands of web from their waiting points. When their prey gets stuck in them they bungee jump down on top. I was too big and fast which could also be said about Huntsmen.


Yesterday I took a snap of my neighbour's house - built in 1894 from local stone.

We have a family of rosellas around us so that is as aussie bird as we get, its really nice.

You can have your aussie spiders though.

I love the house next door...what tales that could tell...you must let us know what it sells for and when its on the net give the web address so I can take a good look...

We had Rosella's out in West Auckland too .....
only ever had a white dove come into the lounge and leave a calling card one day here in Sth Aucks....
Only in Straya can you see those wonderful sights orite!
Huntsman reminds me of our pet Shelob.... who chose to sleep above my side of the bed one night when Mike was working nights.... I couldn't handle it and used half a can of fly spray... I have felt guilty ever since ..... Alas poor Shelob

Our pohutukawa are showing their red bits now......
I must take a photo before and after.
Unfortunately I don't feel like rushing anywhere at the moment..
Fortunately though I'm still alive and noticed the colour change

My best photo to date with Mike's new camera
I just hope that Tony comes by and sees it!

I think it deserves a bigger shot......

That looks lovely Ev...makes me feel like summer is here!!

That's the real thing then.

I found the label for mine today - it's a M. Thomasii.

I stole this from an Oz gardening site: "The Metrosideros genus also occurs on the islands of Hawaii and some of these plants have been available here for the last 15 years or so and are variously known as Metrosideros collina var. villosa or ‘Springfire’ but probably should be known as Metrosideros collina ‘Thomasii’. If you have this in your garden you can distinguish it from the Pohutukawa because of the wavy edge to the leaves and the fact that its orangey-red flowers appear in spring."

Quite the impostor then.

Summer has arrived December 2009!!!!!!

My view from the kitchen window....


using the zoom function....