Must Be Near Christmas Time....

... because the Pohutukawa is in Flower 
Back Blip From Akaora

It was such a lovely morning with lots of clouds around. Just right for gardening, without cooking in the heat. It was still warm with around 26c. By late afternoon the sun broke through the clouds and then it got really warm. I managed to get the lawns mowed. 

The Pohutukawa tree in my garden is a orange one which is a pity as the the reds ones are much nicer! 

 History on the Pohutukawa tree
The pohutukawa tree (Metrosideros excelsa) with its crimson flower has become an established part of the New Zealand Christmas tradition. This iconic Kiwi Christmas tree, which often features on greeting cards and in poems and songs, has become an important symbol for New Zealanders at home and abroad.

In 1833 the missionary Henry Williams described holding service under a ‘wide spreading pohutukawa’. The first known published reference to the pohutukawa as a Christmas tree came in 1857 when ‘flowers of the scarlet Pohutukawa, or “Christmas tree”’ formed part of table decorations at a feast put on by Ngāpuhi leader Eruera Patuone. Several years later Austrian geologist Ferdinand von Hochstetter noted that settlers referred to it as such. The pohutukawa, he observed, ‘about Christmas … are full of charming … blossoms’; ‘the settler decorates his church and dwellings with its lovely branches’. Other 19th-century references described the pohutukawa tree as the ‘Settlers Christmas tree’ and ‘Antipodean holly’.
For More Information on the Pohutukawa tree.