Being Linda Walker: January 1

Can we please NOT look at the date of the last blog entry? It really highlights the massive gap between me arriving in New Zealand and me not writing anything at all. To be fair, it's been a time of upheaval, some good times and bad and not all of it I'm ready to share with the world, so for now we will jump right into this, January 1 2015 and attempting a Photo a Day challenge.

No wait... I do want to say one thing. The big thing with moving here was leaving my pets for a short time and waiting till we were settled so they could join us. Benny our beautiful kelpie is here! What a star he was, it's a long way from the Griffith Pound, to Needy Paws Rescue Group where we originally came across him as a (rather mental) young kid. He must have been wondering what the hell happened when we left him behind with our good friends to mind him till he was ready to join us. But nearly six months later a rather dazed and confused kelpie rattled his way into AirNZ cargo hold at Christchurch where he was met with A LOT of tears and excitement from yours truly. Benny did a few happy laps around the cargo hold reception area too once he realised who the bods were falling all over him in delight.

Was a bittersweet moment for me though, on the very same day we had paid the deposit to bring him and Jeff over, (all $3000... and not even first class!!) Jeff, my beautiful, funny, beloved cat was hit by a car and died. Jeff who could take on anything, I guess wasn't destined to take on NZ.

I will never forgive myself for leaving him, and it was a wobbly time for me after that and I was pretty close to going home. Strangely, despite the beauty here, I haven't taken to it like I thought I would. Sure it's beautiful and green, lush and full of amazing views at every turn. But I found myself missing home, the brown paddocks surrounding Albury, I see them as golden, I missed the weir and the Murray River. All these rivers here that are nothing short of spectacular, I couldn't warm to them. "What can you do in them I wondered" They were freezing for a start, they held no appeal for me. I ached for home. When Jeff went, and I got that dreaded phone call that is burnt into my brain, I felt like every bit of breath in me and hope of making it here went too. I felt briefly like this place took him from me. I hated it for a while following it. Like if I hadn't come here he would still be kicking around frightening the daylights out of unsuspecting dogs.

It's not true of course. I mean; Jeff was madness on four paws and had no respect for cars!! We used to joke he would never grow to an old age. He wasn't boring enough for that. But oh I threw some choice words out into universe here.

I've calmed down since then. Benny arrived and cheered me immensely like only animals can. I realised I had never lived without a fur kid in my life before and that six months without one had been harder than I thought. Upheaval of a new place, and without a furry?! Yeah, won't do that again. Mind you, Mr J, he's quite furry too with his beard so that helped... I love seeing new places here now, but there are times where my mind tires of the green, and I get sick of those spectacular Southern Alps and just want to see the flat plains of home, and I miss seeing dust blow up behind the ute as we drive and I want to feel the hot baking sun on me. I don't think that will ever go.

So here we are, January 1. (well January 2 but I was never great with being on time). Inspired by a post I saw on FB called a 'photoaday' challenge I decided to give it a go.

I presume I have as much chance of finishing this as I have of swimming back home (remembering I can't even manage to make the end of a 50 metre pool without puffing) AND considering I've never finished a challenge in my life, well regardless, here goes.

It's run by someone / thing not really sure I just followed the prompts, called Fatmumslim for anyone playing at home, I'd put in a hyperlink here but look, been so long since I did a blog entry not sure I remember how to do that. I just had to reset my freaking password and wasn't that an episode (when your validation code from google is sent to your old Australian number and you can't find your sim card, seriously Linda, get your SHITE together). Anyway, I digress, put up the bloody picture eh?.

Here we go, January 1 2015

SKY.

This was taken at Lake Brunner, Moana. On January 1st 2015. This is about an hour from us and we drove out for the day, with Benny of course. It was a bit breezy when I took this so the lake was choppy, usually when it's still here you can turn the photos upside down and you really can't tell what way the photos should be because of the reflection of the sky in the water. We have a couple of lakes much closer to us in Hoki just down the road, Lake Mahinapua and Lake Kaniere, but we hadn't seen Brunner so thought we would go for a change.

So I've done it. I have done one day of the challenge. GO ME!