Cordyline Australis

Now The Boss is really not into bugs or botany but as we were walking up the bottom of the Mt Iron Track today you couldn't help but notice how this cabbage tree cluster stood out against the sky and The Boss thought so too and whipped out his phone to photograph it as I was checking out the base of the stile across the fence at that point, to see if there was a reply to the pmail that I had left there a couple of days ago. There were several.

With a botanical name like this it would appear that this tree was an import but no, and you can read all about what Mr Wikipedia has to say here. Endemic to New Zealand these trees have great style so the Bosses iphone went silence...silence...silence (he had the sound turned off I think) and here you have it.

I would have preferred a longer time to answer the mail but The Boss was finished with the cabbage tree and was staggering up the hill minus My Friend Peter who was being entertained elsewhere on other matters relating to age.

The Morning after the hill was DIG group coffee which I missed yet again due to overly restrictive practises in coffee shops in New Zealand but the afternoon was a sad occasion which I also missed due to overly restrictive practises in churches and I was not there to attend the funeral of Ron, one of the founding members of The DIG photogroup and a truly creative photographer who had worked in Television Production and thought nothing of creating complete working sets for his monthly images. Ron was only slightly older than The Boss and there is a message here I feel, about smelling daisies, roses and other stuff while you can. The Boss reports that it was a wonderful service but lost the plot when the racing green coffin with his camera on it (he was an MG fan) was piped out of the church. The Boss is not Scottish but there is nothing quite like that wonderful sound beginning in the church and fading into the outside air.
We will all miss you Ron.

Thought for the day...
You know the clock is running when you start to lose friends that you only met 10 years ago.
Sigh

Oh and it's bigger cabbages here