When I ventured into the wilderness of the garden this morning I found one answer to an October post titled ‘Where does he go?’

It’s a very nice bed of rose petals and chop-and-drop prunings which are probably warm as they break down.

Taking the bus into town this morning was a good option, on account of the rain. I got off at the Bus Interchange and exited through a familiar door, crossed the road, but failed to find the laneway I usually go along. I continued along the side of the building which looked different – but then we’ve become accustomed to things changing since the earthquakes – and found myself on Tuam Street, not at the Colombo Street Lichfield Street crossing.

Discombobulation. My head did a sort of mental spin as I reorientated. I walked along Tuam Street still calculating where I was, took a quick look over my left shoulder and was relieved to see the Port Hills where I thought they should be. I figured I was going in vaguely the right direction. I passed interesting lanes: Sugarloaf Lane and Te Pohue Lane and the Fluffy Bake Shop which, despite its name, had quite serious looking people in it. Ahead I could see one familiar landmark (i.e. pre-quakes): St Michael’s school.

I realised I was approaching the new (i.e. post-quakes) Justice and Emergency Services Precinct; the Police Station and District Court. It brought to mind a novel I’ve just read by local author Karen Zelas, about lawyer Rebecca Eaton who, similarly disorientated since the earthquakes, found her way about these very buildings. And sure enough, there was a young woman in professional clothes, carrying a load of files, getting into a waiting car (parked on yellow lines) on Durham Street. I borrowed the second book from the library yesterday.

With some relief, I crossed into Riverside Market for a takeaway coffee to jolt me back into familiarity before walking on to my singing class – which was fun, as expected.

Foxgloves can choose to grow in the oddest places. I’m forever replanting them from pots and paving stones. This one has grown very tall – maybe 6 feet? – and wide, and has inadequate root space to anchor it. You have to dodge around it to get through the gate. Already bent over by the wind, it was defeated by the rain this morning and ‘fainted’ across the deck. The mighty foxglove fell and I didn’t hear it!

Bees were still visiting the flowers. Here’s one just backing out:

A rescue effort was launched – a bit late, but anyway. I cut off the top flower stem and put it in a watering can in the hope that the buds at the top might still open. Then I tied the remaining plant to a stake with some of Mum’s very useful old panty hose (the best use for panty hose in my opinion). Bees were all over it in no time.

We will still be dodging around it to get out the gate, but that’s customary in my um, wild? overgrown? – ah, enthusiastic! garden.

I have been standing on the deck breathing in the smell of rain on dry earth. There’s a name for it: petrichor. Lovely. The garden is dry. Watering has been necessary in the last week or so and long before that for the container plants.

Today was a great day for getting washing dry before the weather changed. The change was signalled by a sudden wind which slammed doors in the house and sent cabbage tree leaves all over the lawn. The broad beans were blown this way and that and must be feeling the relief of stillness and rain now. The banksia rose was unmoored from the fence, so securing it somehow will be a weekend job.

And, wouldn’t you know it? Felix has returned to his previously customary mooring on the woolly rug on Mum’s bed!