A good day

The kowhai tree was filled with little birds this morning, probably wax eyes/silvereyes (tauhou).  They were flitting about poking their beaks into the kowhai flowers to drink the nectar.  They’re lovely to watch but, oh my, do they cause a mess by knocking flowers onto the deck outside our dining room.

We set off after breakfast to walk to Arthur’s Antiques to purchase a wardrobe and a chest of drawers we saw a couple of days ago.  However, we decided to call into The Waitaki Trading Post, just in case, and they had a wardrobe we liked that won’t require work done to it.  Then we spotted an interesting dressing table-type piece of furniture that we will have to refurbish, but it will go well with the wardrobe as both have lead light glass, which most of the doors in the house have.  So, we didn’t make it as far as Arthur’s Antiques, but we will have two pieces that are a bit more characterful.  We walked home and had lunch, having covered 6.34 kms.

After lunch we walked down to BlackHawk Saddlery to return the fabric samples we took home yesterday.  We had a further discussion about the squabs, made a couple of decisions and will get an updated quote tomorrow.  We walked there and back through the Oamaru Public Gardens, which are beautiful and very well maintained.  That’s another 4.3 kms, so a total of 10.64 kms for the day.  I think we made up for our short walk yesterday.

The main blip shows two of the little birds on the kowhai tree and the mess they’ve caused on the deck.  The extra shows a most interesting and probably unusual sight - meat carcasses being moved from the delivery truck into the butcher’s shop by way of a hanging rail between the truck and the shop.  We’d not seen it done in quite the same way before so a photo had to be taken.