Amongst the prickles

Two weeks after leaving our home of four years, I find we are on an emotional see-saw.

At one extreme, and mostly, we are missing home, finding it unbelievable that we go to the park and know NO ONE . Unbelievable that our old life and playcenter is carrying on WITHOUT US back in the bay of beauty. Feeling a little guilty I am still for all intents and purposes 'on holiday' and get to live in this other beautiful place.

And at the other extreme I am learning how to fly fish. Living at the river mouth where a world class trout fishing river feeds into a world class trout fishing lake, it only seems appropriate. Added to that my sons can spend hours throwing stones into that river. If we need to survive on trout and blackberries we could.

And then there are the blackberries. As I was wandering down the pumice littered beach this evening for my pre dinner dip in the luke warm lake, with my gin in hand, I just couldn't resist a few black beauties. Seems we have found ourselves in the prickles frequently lately. We have been scratched. We have had tummy aches from eating too many red ones. We've picked a few half ripe ones and been sorely disappointed with the after taste.

But we still can't resist risking finding the sweetest one possible, we can't resist risking reaching so far out of our comfort zone that sometimes we will fall headfirst into the prickles.

Wiping the juice from off our faces we can't blame it on the plants. With the most luscious blackberry come the prickliest prick.