Summer Evening

It was Auckland hot in Wellington today - sunny and still.  By late afternoon the weight of the mercury began to push a few drops of rain from the sky, falling straight down onto our roof.  Sitting in the lounge with every available window open I heard the swollen drops on the tin, but I could also smell the moisture as it filtered into the soil.  

By 8.00 the rain had stopped and the light was calling.  I didn't take my camera with me, reasoning that I didn't want to put anything between me and the evening.  Indeed, as I walked along I noticed a yriad of small things.  A flour outside a neighbour's house I hadn't seen before, a cicada crawling its last inches in the grass.  A glass sculpture in a window.  

Thankfully I took my cellphone, so was at least able to snap a few PXT.  For as I rounded the rise to the top of Tawatawa Ridge the sheer beauty of the evening overwhelmed me.  The harbour was perfectly calm, black against the grey cloud above it.  Yet the dry grass was pure gold, caught by the sun hanging just over the top of the mountains.  The wind turbine was also caught by the sun, a pristine white against the wet darkness.  And yes, we do have horizons in this city.  There was one in front of me, with two
ferries beneath it. 




At the top of the ridge I was greated by a man who looked a little like Billy Connolly but spoke more like an elf.  He and I exchanged a few pleasantries and then he called his dog to him and disappeared off down the Southern Walkway.  I sat under the stone man for a while watching the light disappear, then made my own way
home.