It's a spring thing

Cool but sunny morning - perfect for a ride with J who took me around the Mt Heslington 'circuit'........absolutely beautiful.  It was a 40-km round trip, interrupted on the way home by a must-do stop at 'the' Brightwater cafe, and home in time for lunch.  Great ride, though various parts of my anatomy are feeling it now!

Afternoon pottering around the garden, admiring the increasing number of spring flowers that serve to brighten everything up.  If you look closely at this one you'll see plenty of pollen which descends across the region at this time every year.  It's pine pollen from the forestry plots around the hills - it causes some people a huge amount of hay-fever misery each year though for others, it's simply a pain to find everything coated in the stuff......the car, the washing, the windows, the deck, the flowers.......everything gets coated.  It becomes very noticeable after a bit of rain as it all floats into pale yellow pools which park themselves in hollows or dips, up against walls or anywhere else that water collects.

So here we are again - Level 2 restrictions are in place once again and whilst that's not really a big deal here, Auckland is suffering at the hands of a Level 3 lockdown.  The fallout from last night's sudden and unexpected announcement continues.....