“Every day,” sayeth The Sage, “is an adventure.”
I guess he should know … just telling The Spouse that I’ve burned our toast is not only an adventure, it can be alikened to a Kamikaze mission. Getting out of our huge waterbed can be a noisy adventure, and the snap-crackle-pop-squeak sound effects don’t all come from the bed.
ADVENTURE
is where we find it. Accomplishment is good, reaching a goal is more good, overcoming an extreme challenge is even more double-plus better. As in (say) coming across the physical manifestations of philosophical questions—
—as happened yesterday in the park. What was once an avenue of beautiful mature trees has been savaged, doubtlessly “opened up” pro bono publico. Yeah, right. But I love manifestations of human nature, as in “Why would anyone elegantly stack those wee loglets?” given that they are collected by truck (you know, tossed onto the ever-growing load in the back).
Perhaps the urge to build pyramids didn’t die out with the ancient folks then living in Egypt (and/or China and/or South America)(they got around a bit). Maybe some demented drunk in the wee small hours short-cutting his stagger home, or perhaps some ambitious schoolkids hoping to understand the principles of construction so that one day they may become better bomber pilots—who knows?
AND THEN I SAW IT
another blasted tui in a tree. As always being one for a challenge I shot off countless hastily aimed (snapshots? Naaaa …) photos and let rip. Of the bunch this was the prettiest—
—although I cropped out a lot of those blossoms quite heavily as redundant repetition; I wish the blasted tuis would crop their song likewise. Noisy buggers. They must be some form of bellbird, their notes ring for ages.
I PROWLED ON
until I met a dead end. At this point I wondered if I should report it to the Parks Management Team as something their Southland mania for order and discipline had somehow missed—
—then deep within something colourful caught my eye. By a process of much wriggling, squiggling, and multipurpose recycled curses I managed to check it out—
—and was humbled to think that not too far back some enterprising infant (or blasts of wind) had likewise penetrated. What the heck, it was colour. Now all I had to do was get back out again …
AND BINGO~!
Unbelievably yet another blasted tui flitting from tree—
—and after a brief hunting flurry of my own, chasing and snapping I (at last! Ta daaaaaahhhhhh …) finally managed to catch the classic all-time definitive tui-pose for myself.
Until the next time I’ll never shoot another tui, this is IT~!
AND NOW
to wait with bated breath for the next WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge. Bring ’em on, I say, cry harpic and let loose the dogs … just see if I care~! I shot a tui, at last, at last—dammit, I’ve been trying ever since I was given a Brownie 127 for Christmas those many years ago (never had much luck then either) …
KISMET
.
RAGNAROK or BUST 
All comes to those who wait, even the elusive tui. Congrats! –Curt
Yay! Thank you … after the tui, photographing the Loch Ness monster (or a quark) will be a cinch … 🙂
I don’t know. I once spent several hours at Loch Ness waiting for Nessie to poke her head up. LOL
Excellent shots Argie, quite magical. Mazel Tov for shooting the Tui finally, shame it wasn’t fatal ay, given the nature of its over-zealous melodic bird-breath. Nice blossoms, and that sky is quite blue, and quite wonderful. It’ll be a while before I see a sky like that again around these parts. In fact around any parts.
Blue sky, courtesy of (a) the gods and/or (b) the polarising filter I’m beginning to (a) come to grips with, and (b) remember I have the darn thing mounted full-time on the end of the lens.
Final two sentences read a bit fatalistic? Brrrr …
What I meant was that Lady Summer has folded up her skirts and sitting in her carriage, waiting for the cab driver to finish smoking his pipe and chinwagging with the urchin claiming to be a long lost descendant of Atila The Hun, all dressed in his many furs and fingerless gloves. Blue skies around these parts are a rare phenomenon, as the sky is oft bedecked with a thin film of haze, or worse still, thick silvery fog that has rolled in from the channel and sitting nonchalantly with elbows propped on the shore. My experiences of blue skies this year were in Spain, and Italy the summer before. So naturally I associate such a wonderful thing with heat and pleasure. There is little pleasure in these climes for me, so perhaps the air of fatalism that you caught whiff of in my last two statements were a bleed through from my underlying sentiments, equally related and unrelated. Change is once again afoot, although I would prefer it to be a hand. Hands are a lot more helpful than feet when it comes to getting a leg up to the ever progressing, elevating stages of life. I’m about to embark upon a very foolish adventure, except it may just be the best thing I ever did. Something things just have to give, even the blue sky.