Today Saturday

6 Oct 2007
Weight - 69.7 kgs = 11 stone = 153.7 pounds
Steps yesterday - 7027

Woohoo still going down, Twiggy eat your heart out! No photowalking yesterday but I did take my camera to the swings so today you get Harry!

The new Fruitvale Rd railway station after the upgrading of the double tracking.

Okay I'll sit for a second Nana but only a second!


Where's MY mummy.......snotty nose & all!

And finally this little gnome I found in the garage last night.

Yesterday

5 Oct 2007
Weight - 69.9 kgs = 11 stone - 154.1 pounds
Steps yesterday - 7976

After having Harry all day yesterday I was rather pooped last night! We did go for a walk to the park to play on the swings so I'll post a few photos later. In the meantime this is a layout I did of my walk on Thursday.

Another beautiful day continued

After being hailed on during my walk yesterday I went for an extra long one today. I was going to go for even longer but was waylaid in the park by a couple of cute little birds that were giving me a right telling off! I sat down in the (new) pagoda for a few minutes to take a few photos of the ducks & pukekos and these two birds were flying around me and chattering non-stop and then they'd sit on a pole a little way away and start chattering at me again. Then I noticed why, they had built a nest inside the pagoda on an almost vertical wall! I've noticed these birds a lot in the wetlands park since moving here 8 years ago but have never been able to take a photo because they didn't seem to ever stop flying and settle. I could tell from their tails that they were Swallows and have narrowed them down to the Welcome Swallow, Hirundo neoxena, a native of Australia and now NZ. I spent a lovely hour trying to get some good photos but darn it I didn't have my zoom lens with me so they aren't that close. They were constantly flying in and out of the pagoda, while I sat just a few feet away, and now I realise they were actually building the nest which is mainly made of mud. I thought they were going to swoop down on me a couple of times but they didn't, I'm guessing it will be a different story when the babies arrive. Here's a photo I found on the Internet of a nest full of baby swallows, it made me laugh!
So today's photos are all about birds, one of my favourite subjects if you haven't already guessed.
This one is looking straight at me as if to say 'buzz off lady'.

Wow, I couldn't believe my luck when I saw this one, quite accidental!

This is the nest, with the roof above the bird and me looking straight up, how that nest stays there beats me!

This must be where they're getting the mud for their nest from.

Juvenile ducks with very full crops, I think they'd need a drink after all that bread!

A family of Mallard Ducks.

A couple of Mynah birds nearby, not a loveable bird here, they're very noisy, they mimic other birds' calls and have been known to dive bomb kids on their way home from school.

I have lots more photos from today so will post some tomorrow as I don't think I'll have time for a walk tomorrow, babysitting 2 year old DGS Harry.

My First Video

Ta-da .... and now for your edification & amusement - my first video! I'm practising to become a movie mogul :).

Well I did tell you I was practising!

Another beautiful day

Weight - 70 kgs = 11 stone = 154.4 pounds
Steps yesterday - 4522

Well, again I'm pleasantly surprised to see my weight is down once again, it seems such a drop from yesterday. Perhaps I misread the scales without my glasses yesterday or maybe it was the apple pie I had for dinner the previous night!
Here's a layout of a winter's walk in one of our local parks back in July. The lake was full of these huge eels and this was the first time I'd seen an Australian Coot (the grey one with a white beak) and a baby Black Swan, which funnily enough was a light grey! The eels are a native and are protected so they grow very large and very tame, you can feed them by hand. I've been for a long walk this morning so will post photos later.

Hah!

Well, so much for an extra long walk today, 5 mins into it and I was caught in a hail storm of all things! There was no shelter nearby so I just cringed up against someone's wooden fence and was soaked! At the same time I was trying to stop my umbrella from being blown inside out (didn't succeed, yet another one broken), brother were those hail stones freezing cold when they hit my hands. I managed to get a few photos before I had to stuff the camera down my coat again. And so back home I came, like a bedraggled cat. Now the sun is out again.....

Monkey Ball pods

3 Oct 2007
Weight - 70.6 kgs = 11.1 stone = 155.7 pounds
Steps yesterday - 5918

Oh no disaster, I've gone back up! An extra long walk is called for today, will have to dodge the rain showers though.

Thanks to an anonymous commenter I now know that one of the trees I photographed yesterday is not an Oak. Of course it's not an Oak tree, the leaves are nothing like an Oak, what was I thinking! A senior moment I'm afraid. They told me it was an American Sweetgum and I've now found out that it is known as Liquidambar (Liquidambar styraciflua) here. I've always admired the name of the tree and heard mention of them but haven't seen one up close, a really pretty tree, it's fruit pods are called 'monkey balls'. So thank you 'anonymous', you've made my day. Here's a photo I took yesterday.

Day Nine

2 Oct 2007
Weight - 70.2 kgs = 11.1 stone = 154.8 pounds
Steps yesterday - none to speak of

I'm back in the land of the living. Had a lazy miserable weekend and yesterday I was grand-daughter sitting on a day of thunderstorms so no walking done. Was pleasantly surprised to see this morning that my weight is still going down if somewhat slowly.
Today was windy and threatening to rain but I had to go out to give blood so went for a short walk. I still have my sore throat so they didn't want my blood after all, it seems the bugs that come with sore throats are not good! It was actually quite a nice day out even if I did get blown along most of the way, the wind wasn't cold and it didn't rain until after I arrived home. I took a few photos but nothing spectacular.
I loved the colours of these polyanthus on one of the local traffic roundabouts. They were all red and yellow except for one lone blue one!

This sign always makes me smile, don't know why!

I thought these might have been conkers but my English DH says no, he knows them well from growing up in London. Seed pods (monkey balls) from the Liquidambar tree.

I liked the different shapes and colours of the pods on this tree, definately an Australian Banksia of some sort.

More blossoms, don't know this bush at all although it looked like a NZ native.

I think this is a Japanese Maple. The photo was a bit over exposed so I put it through a 'fall colours' filter.

This beautiful rose was spilling out all over someone's fence, just gorgeous.

This is a tiled sign at the beginning of street of dozens of Italian style town-houses.

And so back home once more, just in time to catch the rubbish bin man emptying the recycleable bins. Just what you've always wanted to see a photo of!