I'm Pooped!

As at 8am 26 Sep 2007
Weight - 71 kgs = 11 stone 2lbs = 156.6 pounds
Total steps yesterday - 6740

Today I was looking after granddaughters Lauren & Becky for the day as it's the school holidays here. It was a beautiful day without any threat of rain for a change so we walked around to our local Manawa Wetlands. While I sat in the sun to soak it all up they did the normal kid thing and ran around feeding the ducks and generally enjoying themselves.

This is one of our native birds, the Pukeko, a cousin of the bird you might know as the Swamphen.

A cute family of ducks, I was interested to see there were four very light brown babies compared to the rest of them.

The girls feeding the ducks.

The is a Lesser Black-Backed Gull in it's first year plumage. Becky was sneaking up on it trying to get a pat but no luck!

Two silly dillies!

After we left the wetlands we went to the greengrocers and saw this lovely pelargonium spilling out of the fence of the garden centre.

And so at home once more, this is the group of town-houses we live in, the one with the car parked in the drive is ours.

Another lot of healthy stuff! I was thrilled to see the new seasons Asparagus, it means summer is on it's way. The apples are still the cold-storage ones from last year unfortunately. Grapes from California and I shouted myself to a Californian plum but it doesn't look that delicious really, probably still hard & green! The red fruit next to the yellow kiwifruit is a Tamarillo, used to be known as the Tree Tomato - because it looks like a tomato and grows on a tree.

On our way back to drop the girls home I saw this rather incongruous sight - a Los Angeles Police SWAT van - what on earth is it doing parked in a suburban street in NZ!

So as to step up my stepping so to speak Dennis dropped me off before we reached their place. They live in the bush of Titirangi and it's a haven for birds, I always love to walk along their street, the same street I took the photos of the Wood Pigeons & Tui a few weeks ago. Today I was lucky enough to get a few shots of another Tui before it flew off. One of these days I hope to get one in the right light!

Then this Monarch butterfly flew past and very kindly settled on the grass long enough for me to get a good shot or two.

Then I came across one of our beautiful native Kowhai trees just starting to bloom.

And finally my favourite shot of the day before we came home.

So now I'm pooped and off to bed with my sore feet! Just to top the lovely day off I'm definitely going to make my 10,000 steps today - I can tell from the aching muscles.....