A long hot day

 Today started with an apricot coloured dawn sky with the waning crescent moon hanging up there....

This morning we helped around here..I weeded the vege garden until I ran out of shade to work in and Pirate helped by painting deck stain on some chairs that my friend's husband had made. He is thinking up jobs for Pirate to do that keep him away from log splitting with an axe. That used to be one of his favourite jobs....but it's seven years since he has done it..and he is 84 this year.....

After lunch we went over to the Cambridge velodrome, run by the Grassroots trust....a local facility paid for by locals as well as government.  I had seen that there was an Espoirs Track Carnival...under 23 racing. However it had been cancelled due to lack of entries. Not surprising, with the devastation in parts of the North Island.

So we enjoyed a drink and a slice in the Bikery Café then wandered up to the seats around the track to watch about six riders having a training session.

It's great that the place is so welcoming and relaxed.

Then out into the boiling hot day and a quick drive home...we now have sussed the back road home, nicer than hopping on the expressway and just as easy!

Everyone sat around and kept cool until later in the afternoon...no sense in overheating!!

Well....some of us did! JRT puppies keep on charging around!! I was lucky to get this shot.....the next second they were gone!!

We had a lovely meal prepared by my friend...it had been her husband's turn last night and mine the night before! Then a relaxing evening with a beautiful sunset.

It is concerning that the cyclone's rain totally missed the South Island.. there had been hopes that it would get some much needed rainfall..although fears that heavy rain on dry land would not be good.  But looking at the forecast tonight it looks like there will be even more hot dry weather down South.