What I did in my holidays

Remember your first day back at school after the summer holidays? The first assignment you'd always be given was to write about what you did in your holidays. So predictable, just a lazy teacher's way of finding out a little about her/his new pupils lives and whether they could spell, punctuate, etc. I often wondered if I just made something up, such as "in my holidays I was abducted by aliens/woke up as an old lady/found a time machine and went back to a time when teachers didn't ask what I did in my holidays", but I was never brave enough.
Adults seem so dull to children. Every Sunday at Sunday school we had to sing "All things bright and beautiful". Even today I dislike that song, and I think of you, Miss Tooth (kid you not, this was her name) my Sunday school teacher. And at Christmas, it was always "Away in a manger", prompting visions of Baby Jesus hooning round the stable in a souped-up feeding trough on wheels.
Anyway, I had a great holiday. Even the car trouble was sorted, due to the skills of Simon from Little River Garage. Country mechanics are usually excellent, because they have to fix everything from lawn-mowers to sheep-trucks, so they get a lot of varied experience. Plus they have to be more ingenious, there's no parts warehouse just down the road, and if they don't run a good business word soon gets around in a small town.
Revisited some places I haven't been in years. Pics follow, hopefully.

                         Rudbeckias at Okuti Garden

Easterly fog rolling over the top at Otepatotu - looking down to Akaroa Harbour and Onawe

Filmy ferns at Otepatotu Scenic Reserve

The "ramparts" at Otepatotu

Birdlings Flat, looking down Kaitorete Spit

Looking the other way- these eroded volcanic cliffs mark the south-western end of Banks Peninsula

Lovely moody shot with Mt Bradley in the far left distance. Taken from inside a little brick hut built to store explosives at Kaituna Quarry, on the Little River Rail Trail.