A ROOSTER AGAIN, AN ELEPHANT AND AN ODE TO AUTUMN

It is my last day here in NZ so I'm finishing off some projects. I don't look forward to the goodbyes but I'm looking forward to the hellos on the other side of the Tasman Sea. I am very lucky to have had this time here with the family but home calls very strongly. Sometimes I think of the early days when Australia...and of course other countries...were first settled. Families left home and never saw their loved ones again. Letters were few and far between and so desperately longed for. My great grandmother was born just off Lands End as her parents left England to live in Australia, a three month voyage. I just cannot understand how my great great grandmother set out, fully pregnant as she boarded the ship. Now we are in touch with distant family all the time, phone, email, Skype, not that I use it much, and,easy visits between countries. We are pretty lucky for all sorts of reasons to live in the times we do! And of course I realise that we are the minority in the luck stakes...wars, famine, poverty, refugees, apart from those suffering ill health and on and on the list could go.
Yes!! I'm pretty lucky!
So next post HOME. Unless I have a dizzy bout and write another this afternoon.
By the way, the elephant has a wonky leg....not a wonky donkey but a wonky ele leg! Hopefully I can fix it when I go home, I don't think today I want to do it today.