Happiness is ...

I picked up my camera recently. Intense again, like I used to be when I wandered the caruggi in Genova. I spent days, simply following a friend & his dog; walking the river’s edge, and Manapouri’s lake-edge bush tracks, with them.

I am still working my way through the results but I feel like my soul was involved. It has been a while since I lost myself in photography, day after day after day.

My music of choice lately (read, on repeat), is Snow Patrol: Live & Stripped Back at Porchester Hall. I was late to Snow Patrol party however I am surely making up for time lost now.

My Queenstown life is a beautiful life. One day I wandered into town, with a friend. We had tickets to hear that incredible New Zealand writer, Witi Ihaemara. And he was so much more than I could have imagined. Another evening, I wandered along to a members-only screening of Liam Neeson’s latest movie - over at the exquisite Dorothy Brown cinema, (20nzd per year membership) in Arrowtown. The bookshop in there almost destroys me, in these days of limited income however, I enjoy the pleasure of browsing. It is one of the most beautifully curated bookshops I know, any place in the world.

Life has a sweetness to it these days. I simply want to savour it …

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.

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.

Missing My Storied Life ...

Dancing In The Street ...

I loved photographing these guys.

So happy after their marriage …

I gifted them a cd full of the photographs I took of them.

Days like these ...

7.30am, and I roared up to the supermarket. Dad had run out of tomatoes, and he absolutely requires them, on toast, as part of his morning routine.

Mmmm, the supermarket doesn't open until 8am.

I wandered along to the main street cafe I used, pre-coffee machine and sat there a while, reading.

I was the 3rd one in those supermarket doors this morning ... 

I’m listening to Jack's latest song, and really liking it..

The foto: I was talking to Dad, in the lounge, after a rainsoaked Sunday and noticed the sun glistening outside on the flowers. I had to, at least, attempt capturing something of the beauty …