dogging with dad

hi there

well, as it would be hard for many of you to forget, i started off July on this blog with some memories and videos of Heaton Park last year. hopefully the casual reader here enjoyed that post, and indeed it would be great if people who were there found it on this site and had amazing memories come back.

the start of August marks a year since my Mum & Dad headed off to that fine, if somewhat Hobbit orientated land of New Zealand. it has been, as you will have seen on the instances where they have chosen to send me pictures, been a very good year for them, and indeed here's to many, many more years of happiness over there.

to mark a year in New Zealand, my Dad has taken something of a different approach for the anniversary. far be it from me to say better or worse than what i did with Heaton Park, instead let us just leave it at different. just how different? well, here we go with the pictures he sent on to me this morning.

the above, other than looking spectacular, is what i am left to presume is the coast around Mount Maunganui, or somewhere in the area of the Bay Of Plenty. i did not get too much information on that at all, which is kind of fair since the picture speaks for itself. a magnificent shot, well done Dad.

what i did get slightly more information on - whether i wanted it or not - was the rest of the pictures. here we go with an image of a sea lion.

why is it that i am getting pictures of a sea lion? why is it that my Dad is off in the early hours of the morning, climbing over rocks and cliffs to take pictures of a sea lion? because it is, as my Dad reliably informs me and i have no reason - let me repeat that, no reason - at all to doubt him, the sea lion breeding season.

ever since my Dad discovered the term and phrase "dogging", well, i would not say he has been unbearable, but he has been if not obsessed then certainly interested in it. not in actually doing it, as far as i know (and i don't want to know), but the concept. despite our best efforts to explain to him that it usually really only involves overweight middle-aged types in pub car parks in Birmingham (and the odd ex-professional footballer every now and then) he has somehow got it into his head that it happens everywhere, and that all forms of life engage in it.

this is all well and good, i suppose, but why he feels the need to go to such lengths to document it is beyond me. all i can do is get the pictures off him and, when the chance arises, post them here.

they are great pictures, at the very least!

thankfully, or perhaps sadly if you are of a certain mind, i have received no pictures of sea lions engaged in either breeding or whatever it is my Dad thinks their variant of 'dogging' is. i've never asked my Dad for clarification on exactly what it is he believes 'dogging' involves as such and it is unlikely that i ever with make such an inquiry. for all i know, he believes that 'dogging' is exactly what the sea lion above is doing at the moment. in all likelihood it's probably the case that the sea lion above is kind of hoping that the funny man in red shoes goes away as quickly as possible so he (or she) can get on with this breeding business.

sea lions are not the only living thing my Dad either photographed or appeared to believe were engaged in a spot of early morning 'dogging'. here's a great shot, as it were, of an Oyster Catcher.

a brilliant picture Dad, well done!

now, whereas you or i would assume that it is off to catch an oyster or two, hence the name, no doubt my Dad was under the impression that this bird was flying off to look for a suspiciously parked transit van or something. or whatever it is that Oyster Catchers and Sea Lions do their dogging business in. again, i stress, i am not having that conversation with him.

many thanks for the pictures, Dad! glad to hear that all is going OK, and that you have found a hobby that seems to amuse you a great deal!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!