Serendipitous: (adjective) "occurring or discovered by chance in a happy or beneficial way." (Oxford Languages Dictionary) Or, perhaps a better phrase would be Tender Mercies. Psalms 145:9: "The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works."
This week we had a surprise dinner with five unexpected guests on Tuesday night; we took a Wednesday shift at the Family History Library, had piano lessons with Mary, and visited friends on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
The tender mercies were a result of taking walks to restore Elder Rooks' Achilles tendon to full functioning. There is no pain and he is walking without much of a limp, which is a great relief to him, since he is looking forward to golfing again.
Saturday night we walked to the other side of the geothermal pond next to St. Faith's Anglican church.
On one of our walks, we revisited the scented garden. Right now the begonias are loving the cooler weather which has come with the autumn rains. I am having to put on socks in the mornings because it isn't 80 degrees anymore.
Chartreuse and green shrubs at the scented garden
A Whirling Butterflies (gaura) plant and a Japanese maple
Elder Rooks thinks this is eerie enough for Halloween
I think these are tōtara trees, podocarps endemic to New Zealand. This is a commercially planted softwood tree used in making furniture, doors & windows, etc. and will eventually grow to 25 meters
More tōtaras. (I think.) We recognized the name because it is the street we turn onto in order to go to the LDS church building in Rotorua.
Manuka shrubs in bloom, where the famous manuka honey comes from. It must take a lot of bees and a lot of manuka shrubs.
It was a gorgeous Saturday evening after a day of steady rain, so we walked across Lake Road to Ariariterangi Street. In the picture above, you can see three residences each with carports and one narrow access lane that doesn't allow turning anywhere. You can only back down the lane. This is a common configuration. Kiwis are masters at backing their cars out of any tight spot.
Elder Rooks saw something on the road across from House Number 42, next to the speed bump. It was a Samsung phone with a crack in one corner.
It was fortunately unlocked, and actually working. The most recent phone call, to "My Sunshine," had happened only ten minutes ago. There were many calls to "My Sunshine." So we called "My Sunshine" and the girl who answered said the phone was hers, and it must have fallen off the top of the car, and could we take it to her Auntie's doorstep who lived at Number 50? And was she ever happy and grateful!
Auntie's doorstep. She asked that we leave our contact information with it, which we did, after many Thank Yous! And You're Welcomes!
Serendipity, I say. A tender mercy for her.
Then we wandered down another road and saw a geothermal stream against a backdrop of beautiful clouds
Handsome young athletes walking toward their marae from a practice area
We hadn't seen this marae before. It has an Anglican cross and may be related to St. Faith's
It even had the requisite Purple Swamp Hen
Elder Rooks being goofy
On the way back we went down a few streets looking for Lake Road, and found ourselves in front of Karla's house. She was at home, and gave us mugs of hot chocolate, because we like mugs of hot chocolate.
She said she had been thinking about us because she had just gotten a recommend from her bishop to return to the temple in Hamilton, where she had been that day. She wanted to invite us to go with her again, so we made an appointment for April 5th.
A serendipitous and very tender mercy.
In this picture there are two pukekos. We think our bachelor Mr. Pukeko is playing coy, because Ms. Pukeko seems to be running after him instead of the other way around. We will see if this develops into something serious, unless possibly Mr. Pukeko has been a bachelor for too long.
Having Ms. Pukeko hanging around may explain the unusually high-pitched shrieking we have been hearing lately.
