It’s finally spring, and it seems to have finally warmed up. My sincerest condolences to our northern hemisphere family and friends who are entering the Dark Days of Winter just as we’re chortling about spring. You’ll get your own cackles come June, when we’re shivering and you’re beginning to tan.
We got up to Christchurch’s central park (Hagley) one day last week to oogle the blossoms. Milo stopped to admire this flower bed–“You do want to take a picture, don’t you Mom?” Of course I do. Kudos to the gardener who dreamed up the kaleidoscope combination of red polyanthus, pink bellis, orange poppies, yellow wall flower, and bright blue forget-me-nots.

We zipped through the extensive daffodil plantings under the tall oaks and petted the furry ranunculus blossoms in the alpine garden before Milo announced the inevitable: “Mom, I’m hungry!” Of course you are. Never mind that breakfast was a scant hour ago. The feeding doesn’t seem to parse out into simple meals, but instead morphs into a continuous bonanza of cheese, grapes, peanutbutter-and-jelly, and banana. You’d think they’d get tired of the old stand-bys, but they don’t seem to. After our food we wandered over to this climbable magnolia to put it through its paces.

Aptly named “Kaka beak,” these red flowers are a New Zealand special. I couldn’t drum up much interest in these pendulous beauties among the little people, unfortunately.

A log full of bugs was much more interesting. I get it. I find the quick sunlight exposure and the frantic scuttle for the safety of the dark a pretty good show myself.

Naomi, true to her sweet nurturing nature, was most interested in the “babies.” I’m not sure how exactly she logic-ed the worm-like beetle larvae as cute, but she pointed enthusiastically as they made their escape. “BayBies!”