June Beginnings

June has started out eventful:
Yesterday was granddad's birthday as well as the first round of our local legislative elections (which actually weren't much to get excited about, inspiring a record poor voter turnout, <40% in all three of our Polynesian constituencies).
Today was french mother's day (not the same day as in the UK or the US, just to keep you on your toes); this year Matotea was unable to contain her excitement at having prepared a mothers day card at school, she couldn't even wait 'til the day itself to give me the card!

 

It was also the day of the Queen's diamond jubilee party on the Thames (Lord bless 'er Majesty). Tomorrow we welcome Tuati back here for the long holidays, he will be defending his horse-riding title this july. On tuesday there's the transit of Venus to enjoy, don't forget because the next one will be in 2117! To add to all this Viriamu's re-doing our septic system, so we're up to our necks in cement and rubble. This afternoon, with the cement-mixer rumbling in our ears it seemed like a perfect opportunity to get out of the house, and given that we actually saw the sun for a few hours, we girls decided to take a hike along the beach up to Matotea's cliff.

The girls were absolute champions, they must have hiked a good 6km in total, and all without too much grumbling, though we did make a lot of stops.

blue rats tail, a common weed, with an edible blue flower

We collected all kinds of interesting things on the way: two types of edible flowers (squash blooms and blue rat's tail), pebbles, water from the source, some fresh vanilla vine, hibiscus cuttings, candle-nuts for planting and a whole heap of Tropical Almonds (Terminalia catappa, autara'a) that we didn't manage to crack open, yet but we'll work on it as I'm told that they're good.

squash flower

Squash flower

We ate the blue rat's tail flowers with our sandwiches, they taste slightly like raw mushroom, and Matotea loves the idea of eating flowers! For dinner we had our squash flowers....they are really, really tasty battered and deep fried.......you can also use courgette flowers in the same way.

deep fried squash flowers