Two Firsts– And in the saddle again

Today 6 January 2014 was a day of firsts. Two of them, in fact.

FIRST #1: The birdsong consisting of a repeated series of short rattling notes ending with a flourish, rendered, chip chip, tell, tell, tell herry-erry-tissi chewoo.

What on earth is that bird up there on the pergola?

I clicked a few photographs of the little fellow, before he flew away between the trees: We then compared the pictures in Paul Scofield and Brent Stephenson’s Birds of New Zealand, which told us the identity of the first NZ bird. First, besides the Tui, for which I had only managed a few half-baked pictures so far.

 
Common Chaffinch (Fingilla coelebs) [ Maori: Pahirini ]

FIRST #2: A few minutes later, the second FIRST of the day. While we were in the lower paddock, with Clayton and Tyler snipping up the prunings for the composting heap, along came Brynn, enquiring about who had convened the “secret” meeting, which was apparently excluding her.

How could they be having secrets from her? Unacceptable. Quite apparently.

Next she made a momentous announcement. The statement confused me somewhat, but, hey, many things about the youth confuse me nowadays. Many things about the elderly as well, come to think of it.

“Release me! Release me! … I am free to live my life!”

I understood that Clayton had granted permission that she could go across the road to visit her little friends Poppy and Katherine. That was the last we saw of her until some two hours later, when we heard this right real commotion at the front gate, accompanied by a cacophony of dog excitement. Imagine our surprise when she rounded the corner of the house… RIDING A PURPLE BICYCLE.

Why surprise? No, not the fact that the bike was purple. You see, when she left earlier “to live her life”, she had been a complete non-cyclist, unable to maintain balance on a bike without the help and security of fairy-wheels. And here, for the very first time in her life, without any assistance, without teetering and tottering, SHE WAS CYCLING UNAIDED.

Notice the typical footwear attire – the all-purpose boots for your typical girl in the Reikorangi.

Concentrating down the back straight…

Great fun steering uphill on the large lawn…

Heading back to the kitchen/diningroom patio

Building up balance and steering confidence by the minute, there was a short break for supper, and then she was back again in the saddle for another spell around the lawns and pathways, until the summer light started fading quite late in the day.

Everyone agreed that Brynn’s achievement was a really good FIRST.