Illustrated Epistle Extract: Cartooning With a Puppy

January 22, 2021

Our personal Christmas was quiet because our Jack Russell puppy kept us close to home and busy.

Molly is adjusting to this new life more quickly than we are. I got behind on my official deadlines (6 weeks ahead for daily cartoons and I was down to 4) because when Molly was in the studio I could only work when she was sleeping. Otherwise she would play with things like electrical cables or want to be OUT in the garden. If I had her on my lap she would walk on the keyboard, or chase my pencil.

I was lamenting this to a friend who told me to just puppy proof the studio already. And make an outdoor run. She was right and an hour or so’s job made the studio a lot safer. This weekend’s job was to put up some chicken wire and waratahs (star pickets/metal stakes) in the garden so that she can go out and play on her own whilst I am working.

Molly is three months old and out the prime age to train according to a book (Dog Zen) a friend lent me.
So far we have

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Happy Holidays and a Reason to be Cheerful (Puppy!)

December 23, 2020

I'm not sure how long this will last, given that everyone in New Zealand seems to have forgotten about the pandemic raging around the world, but we are still Covid free here and it is wonderful as we head into the summer holiday season.

It's a bit late for Christmas, but if you know someone who needs cheering up, or you would like to buy a fun book for your e-reader (because it is full colour, the print version is a bit pricey unless you want to REALLY treat yourself), Reasons to be Cheerful could be right up your alley.

Ebook: https://books2read.com/cheerfulreasons

(You can search your favourite bookshop for the print version using the ISBN: 9780473542542)

And finally, we have a wonderful reason to be cheerful in our house this week. We picked up a Jack Russell puppy. Her name is Molly.

Expect to hear more about her once I am back to sleeping normally.

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We hired a kayak from Abel Tasman Kayaks who have been in business since 1986. In 1996 I had tried to kayak with them but they were booked out. For days. But now the international tourists are gone. They’ve had to lay off 25 guides and they are one …

Illustrated Epistle Extract: Kayaking Abel Tasman in a Time of Covid

November 30, 2020

We saw another penguin and a ray, but no dolphins. Maybe they had been laid off because of Covid too… We were on a four day kayak/camping trip and our first night was at Te Pukatea Bay. We shared the beachside campground with two pairs of kayakers, …

The next day we continued north, leaving the day trippers behind. Our campsite for the next two nights was on the beach at Mosquito Bay. Nobody was there. No mosquitoes either. The only things to bother us were wekas. After a lot of pest control, we…

On the morning of a third day we woke to watch a dolphin and a pot of orcas swim past. I hope that the orcas were after the rays in the park. The weather was due to worsen, so we went on a quick paddle, made shorter by the sea becoming noticeably ch…

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Moeraki boulders are weird and wonderful (Click to see options for using the image)

Living in New Zealand: A Weekend in Moeraki

August 19, 2020

The alternative Maori explanation for the boulders:

I went to Moeraki for a weekend of walking, thinking and writing. I had to visit the boulders of course, but apart from that, there aren’t too many distractions in the area and it is a good place to mull things over. It’s easier (I found out the hard way) to walk from the village to the boulders along the Millennium Track than it is to get there by scrambling over the rocks at low tide.

2020-08-08 14.39.14-moeraki-beach-low-tide.jpg

The other reason many people stop at Moeraki is the legendary restaurant, Fleur’s. You can get beautiful, locally-caught fish there if you don't mind paying a bit more (mains are $40 plus), but since I was on my own I went to the Fishwife to have fish and chips (less than $15). The blue cod was excellent.

And if you are on your own, I can recommend going to Fleur’s for coffee and cake, or a glass of wine before dinner. Unfortunately, the pub seems to cater more to the mass tourist crowd than to locals as you can't sit by the bar because it is a “working area”. A working area that is 15 feet long.

Because of Covid-19 there were very few tourists in town during the winter weekend and absolutely nobody in the water except me.

Very briefly.