Following the flock

After the very cold temperatures and excessive rain of the past few days/week or so it sure did feel good to see some blue sky today, to feel some warm sunshine and to get back to enjoying being out and about in this amazing country.

Today included:
 -  trip to see my solar system man in Ashburton - a very brief meeting which was all positive :)  He's agreed to pay to fix the damage that was caused when one of the old brackets was removed and is happy for me to get it done back at home after I return.  He'll even re-imburse me what it cost for me to have the resultant leaks fixed.  What a great guy to deal with - superb customer service :)

 - two new wiper blades for Gerty.  I think all the rain recently wore them out!

 -  new super-warm, super-waterproof jacket just in case the crap weather returns!

 -  back-road trip near Peel Forest where this true Canterbury road block literally stopped me in my tracks (check out that sunshine!!)

 - an evening at the lovely Peel Forest DoC campsite......so neat and tidy and sooooooo beautifully quiet.  Looking forward to the morning chorus tomorrow. 

In COVID news, there were a a massive 981 new community cases reported; 39 people are in hospital and 0 in ICU.  Omicron certainly seems to be living up to it's reputation as a milder but significantly more contagious variant.  This has resulted in the government moving the whole country to 'Stage 2' of Omicron response.  I haven't looked into exactly what thsi means but I'm pretty sure it will be made very clear over the next few days.  The Wellington protests continue to disrupt the city - not even the rain over the past few days has driven them home.  Such a shambles - in lots of ways many of them are acting just like the large group in my pic today.  Baaaaaaaa!