Scavenging again

For photos that is. Most of them are from the archives, some are new. We haven't been out and about much in the last few weeks what with my GKB being a bit under the weather and then the snow followed by floods. I hope you enjoy them anyway even if you have seen some of them before. 

1:  Crane

We had been to Nunobiki Herb Garden at the top of the Ropeway (cable car, gondola) overlooking the beautiful city of Kobe in Japan. Travelling back down and naturally taking photos of the view we spotted this building being constructed. The crane was in the centre of the building on a gantry and as the building pushed skyward the crane was also heading skyward. Three photos I'm afraid.

2:  Ring

A cinnamon roll (ring?) I had for lunch one day whilst out with my GKB. Technically not a ring but with a smidgen of imagination it could be - it's circular, sort of :)

3:  Set

My DIL was baking and when I went out to the kitchen this is what I saw. I have never seen a cake cooling like this before but apparently it stops the weight of the cake from flattening itself. Who would have thought? Not me. Anyway I thought this cake was well enough 'set' to put in this post. I hope you all agree :)

4:  Light

Light reflecting off the top of the display case containing antique pocket watches. We took this photo in the jewellers/watchmakers shop in Shantytown earlier in the year.

5:  Bow

The bow used to be the pointy bit of the boat and landlubbers like myself could tell one end from the other. But looking at these two ships I'm not sure which end is the bow and which is the stern but I believe the ship on the left is bow toward us. If not we can see both ends of the ship on the right so one end must be the bow. Mission accomplished! Phew.

6:  Spring

Out visiting the local vet one 'spring' day and this was 

what I saw over the fence. 'Spring' lambs and one

 of them is 'springing'. 

7:  Open

Only 'twasn't. In fact it had been shut for a couple of weeks and was due to reopen the following day. We took this while strolling around one of the city suburbs one lunchtime and thought number  one son and DIL might be interested in visiting Kamome for a meal sometime. 

8:  Grand

We certainly felt grand sitting in these throne like chairs when out for dinner one evening with friends while on holiday. If we had realised how grand the setting was going to be we might have taken some grander (cringe) gear to wear. Still everyone enjoyed the dinner and the company and that's what it was really all about.

9:  Park

A sign pointing to a car park in a national park. Jacksons is a small place in Arthur's Pass National Park in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. If you blink  passing through you could well miss it, literally. There's a pub and not much more. That is the car park on the left, the sign on the right and it is surrounded by beautiful national park. 

10:  My own choice

A Thrush singing his lungs out one grey day.

 Just enjoying being alive

Joining Hawthorn and friends over at 

  I live, I love, I craft, I am me  

Weather watch

 I wondered what I was going to share this week as it has been a quiet time around here. But the last  24 hours gave me something, be it ever so little. A few of you might have seen the odd post where I've shown our benign Silverstream. Well it's benign in the summer but today that has changed.

summer on the floodbank

We had some of this weather below today which rapidly changed

 to extremely strong winds and very heavy rain.

autumn on the floodbank

Resulting in a not so benign Silverstream.

today

A lot of sandbagging was happening in the Silverstream area during the day.  This is at the bottom of our street but our house is built quite high off the ground, luckily. The rain is still coming down, it hasn't let up since it began this morning.

So now we wait to see whether it breaches the floodbank.

Well that's snow and rain out of the way, I wonder what's next?

Diana

Oh dear, there's just been a snowy forecast for tomorrow :)

Randomosity

I'm feeling a bit tired this week so I have just picked 

some random photos to post and will share them with 

Five on Friday and Friday Foto Friends.

My GKB playing at Shantytown on the West Coast. 

I will one day do a post on Shantytown as  promised

 but just now my head is not in the right space.

Some cute coffee mugs I was given during the past year that have been sitting in their gift wrapping. I finally decided they could go on a shelf in the kitchen along with one or two others I have.

New Zealand won the America'sCup yacht race this year and yesterday there was a parade in the city to show it off to the proud locals. It has been paraded through several of the bigger cities during the past week and ours was the final one. DIL was  in town and took this picture, the young captain is just obscured by the trophy. Unfortunately my GKB has been a bit under the weather so we didn't venture in this time.

Talking about the weather, we have just had an arctic blast travel the length of the country and  so we had a bit of a snowfall. Not much here but it has been heavy throughout the rest of the country and because most of our city is built on hills it was covered. Once again we haven't been out taking photos, decided it was best to stay home and keep warm. My GKB just took this nonsense one of our picnic table in the yard.

Because it has been so cold I have been doing jigsaws, a good winter pursuit. I just finished this one and today put it away and started on another one. When I finished I had two pieces left over, it wasn't until after I took this photo that  saw the hole in the middle. 

I fixed that but still had another piece left over from a totally different puzzle. Weird.

My GKB seems to be besotted with starlings, he finds the markings on them quite fascinating. This one was spotted (in more ways than one) on a neighbour's chimney pot, feathers ruffled to ward off the cold. Isn't he a beauty?

And seeing as starlings are critters I think I would also like to join Eileen for Saturday's Critters.

Feeling blessed

The phone rang about mid morning. I had won a hamper at the local pharmacy in a raffle for the Cancer Society. I'd totally forgotten I'd bought a ticket so it was a lovely surprise. I really was only thinking of it as a donation. I will have to share it, there is so much there but I'm sure between all the girls in the family we will soon sort it out :)

Later in the day my daughter called in. She had been given sausages, cream cheese, fresh milk and a tray of  quail eggs - all off a farm. There's too much here for me Mum, do you want some?  So of course I said yes. Later my son arrived home and he had been given samples of honey and barbecue sauce to bring home. Yum :)

We had the sausages for tea and DIL has been making cheese cake to beat the band. It is all so delicious.

To finish the day off there was a beautiful double rainbow 

over the town. I'm afraid I didn't get a very good picture 

of it as it was a very cold day and starting to rain again.

It's hard to see the second bow but I promise if you look hard enough you will see it.

*******************

A little bit of an update on what is happening with my wee Mum.

She is still awaiting surgery but her local referring surgeon is so disgusted with the treatment she has had (or lack of it) up 'til now  that he has referred her to another hospital which has also started doing the procedure she needs. We have already heard from them and are now awaiting a date once more but it should come in the next few weeks. Mum has been getting so frustrated at times with not knowing what is going on but now is feeling a lot more positive and her general health seems to be better. Thank you to all who have prayed for her and asked about her. We appreciate you all :)

Diana