Following a Fly-Fisherman, Fiordland.

Sometimes, it takes something difficult, to make you appreciate what you have.

In this instance, it was waking to an unresponsive black screen on my beloved laptop. An issue I have since learned is directly related to the Windows 10 update that I didn’t approve.

I channeled the memory of a clever ex-husband, and recalled him plugging in an external screen, so as to bypass a long-ago black laptop screen.

And it worked again.

The appreciation of what I have came when I had to edit a photo, and there it was on my much bigger, external screen. I had been dilly-dallying about colour calibration, unable to calibrate it myself.

Forced into using it, I’m really quite pleased with the screen quality. I will have to get some work printed, to check that it’s right but really, absolutely, loving this screen.

The foto, a fly fishing trip I tagged along on. There was a point where we forced to leave the immediate river bank and wander through this tunnel of trees.

Fiordland.

The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost.

My Dog-Walking Field, Manapouri

I have been truly blessed, in terms of the ‘view’, while dog-walking, down here in Fiordland.

Exquisite, isn’t it?

Native bush, in winter, Fiordland-style.

Being Stalked, Fiordland-Style

Hazel, the labrador belonging to Jazz and George, inspired me to create this slideshow.

She was stalking me, desperately wanting me to kick/throw/or otherwise turn her tennis ball into a projectile that she could chase.

The Intensity of her Stare, as she followed me around the small farm I was house-sitting, made me smile some.

I returned from Dunedin, and one night later, there I was house-sitting … in the most beautiful place.

4 horses, 1 dog, 1 cat, 10 sheep, and 10 more chickens, and tired as I was, I loved it.

There was this really deep bath, and a fireplace to weep real tears over.

Thank you, so much, to Jazz for asking me, and George, who accepted it.

Lockdown, New Zealand ... Fly Fishing

I was taught how to fly fish.

Thank you, Rob.

I was also taught how to gut and cook a Trout.

I am out-of-control proud about that.

Here’s the trout. Caught by Rob (the Australian, we shared our Level 4 Lockdown with), stuffed full of onion and tomato, and cooked on the BBQ, as taught by Rob, the Zen Fly Fishing Guru.

Next step, hiring a rod and heading out to the lake. Not to fly fish but to catch a fish.

To cook it and eat it ;-)

Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul

I love this place ... Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace. It was built by Sultan Abdul Mecit back in 1856. 

Once, long ago while visiting Istanbul, I was wandering with a Turkish friend who ‘knew people’.

He talked with one of the more important employees at Dolmabahçe Palace. We were told to come back after closing time, and voila, we were gifted the most magnificent tour of the empty palace grounds.

It was so surreal, and beautiful. As so often happens, it was like stepping inside a magnificent book.

Dolmabahçe Palace was also the palace that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founding leader of the modern republic of Turkey He used it as a presidential house in summers, the palace where he enacted some of his most important works.

Atatürk spent his last days and died here on 10 November 1938.