Doggon the skyline

I worked in G's garden all morning, which started with an hour of chatting not gardening. 

We are clowns: we get onto a hot topic and wave our arms around and watch each other's body language. It makes cutting back and pruning impossible without stabbing ourselves in the eye with secateurs. 

And this morning's topics ranged from bringing up confident and thoughtful children, to the US election, with a big dollop of birthday treats thrown in, for it is G's big day.

So I then gardened (without stabbing myself) while G headed off on a magical mystery tour organised by her children and husband. I look forward to hearing about it next week.

Bean and I had a magical unmystery tour to Bortons Pond this afternoon, because my aching back was going to benefit much more from a long walk than from the temptation of doing more gardening Chez Mima.

We met one man and his very handsome black labrador when we waded across the ford. I sat on the side and dried my frozen bare feet before resocking and reshoeing them. 

Bean and Mate played happily while the humans chatted. The other human was amused with the eccentric woman.

It was overcast but as lovely as ever at the Pond. There were heaps of swans (all black of course), mallard, NZ scaup, brown teal, pukekos, herons, pied stilts, shags, marsh harriers, and plenty of little brown jobs too.

A good day.