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life, one moment at a time on the edge

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Lovely evening across the bay last night

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Loved the light in this photo, the night before we felt the affects of the cyclone that came to New Zealand

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The weather has seen some drama over the weekend with the rain though I will admit for some of our people it would be nice to have a break from it.

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Still one of my go to photos of home, its a shame it was taken with such a blah camera but love the feel of it anyway

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The colours of nature - just being in the moment, this can be rather nice at times :)

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Ok, back to writing as I know I enjoy it and did loose focus for quiet some time

There is a time when you must decide to leave what you have known for most of your life, there is a time when you must do what is needed to find again who you are as a human being,

I had been doing what i was now for so long from work to home and work to home, there needed to be more to life than this, there needed to be a reason for doing what i do and that had been the case for a long time

Is there a need to just find that trail that may take one into the darker parts of the world, away from the every day to where you would see just life as it should be and not as people want it to be.

Is this a cry out for slower days again and not with agendas, i will admit as i write this i am not sure watching the day outside the window but that journey is calling all the same.

It had been a day of the usual drudgery that had brought me to thinking like this as i had arrived at work and seen all the reports and paperwork to catch up on.

Do we as humans know what we want from life or do we just go about the day to day and not really care what results,

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There is something rather nice about the start of the day

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There is a time when you must decide to leave what you have known for most of your life, there is a time when you must do what is needed to find again who you are as a human being,

I had been doing what i was now for so long from work to home and work to home, there needed to be more to life than this, there needed to be a reason for doing what i do and that had been the case for a long time

Is there a need to just find that trail that may take one into the darker parts of the world, away from the every day to where you would see just life as it should be and not as people want it to be.

Is this a cry out for slower days again and not with agendas, i will admit as i write this i am not sure watching the day outside the window but that journey is calling all the same.

It had been a day of the usual drudgery that had brought me to thinking like this as i had arrived at work and seen all the reports and paperwork to catch up on.

Do we as humans know what we want from life or do we just go about the day to day and not really care what results,

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The turn - a new direction

The pen some times needs to be rehashed and done again if you find that you have lost focus on the story you were trying to write,

Last time I tried this, yes I did enjoy writing and exploring but I was looking to use AI to much I felt, one needs to write what is required and what flows from the mind if you ask me it is the best way to really bring about a story.

I was looking the other day out across the sands of the Nile and thinking what does life have in store, do i keep going the road I am on now or do i take a new direction and turn towards something that is not the usual,

Do I take a turn that will find a new discovery, a new look and feel in life, I don’t know it is something i have been mulling over in my mind and will just see where it takes me

Be it along a river or over a mountain one will have to wait and see i guess,

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The pines

[important-dog-pics]

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❤️

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Beautiful little day today

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What should we do :) love this ! - The Shrug

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Loved it up Mt Albert in the low cloud the other day, even though it was a gentle rain

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Chapter 10 - A map of whispers

The word "doorway" hung in the air of the small, quiet room, heavy with implication. I stared down at the journals, at the spidery script and the intricate symbols that had been waiting here for more than a century. My entire life had been spent walking through doors—office doors, front doors, car doors—all leading to predictable, prescribed places. This was something else entirely. This was a door into the unknown.

Martha must have sensed my need for solitude, for the chance to let this new reality settle. "You stay as long as you need," she said softly, her hand briefly resting on my shoulder. "I'll be in the main room. Just... be careful. History is full of stories about men who chased maps to the edge of the world." With a final, meaningful look, she left, pulling the door quietly shut behind her.

Alone with the three volumes, I felt like an archaeologist who had just unearthed a forgotten tomb. I moved the lamp closer and began a more methodical search, my past life as a detail-oriented analyst suddenly finding a new and profound purpose. I wasn't scanning spreadsheets for profit margins; I was scanning history for whispers of truth.

For hours, I cross-referenced the symbols, noting their recurrence and the context in which they appeared. The spiral with the three radiating lines was the most frequent, often drawn near mentions of the winter solstice, extreme tides, or strange atmospheric lights seen out at sea.

It was in the second volume, tucked into a sleeve inside the back cover, that I found it. Not a note, but a piece of thick, hand-drawn parchment, folded and brittle. I carefully unfolded it. It was a map.

It depicted the coastline around Seaview, but it was a mariner's map, more concerned with the shape of the seabed and the direction of currents than with the town itself1. Forgotten Falls was marked with a small waterfall symbol. But my eyes were drawn to another mark, several miles north along the coast, on a long, jagged headland that jutted out into the ocean like a stony finger. There, sketched in the same faded ink, was the spiral symbol.

Beneath the map, a single line of text was written in the same hand as the journal entries: Where the Watcher looks, the sea gives up its secrets.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I laid the map next to the page with the cryptic phrase from the first journal: When the mountain sleeps and the sea speaks, the path will open.

The pieces began to click into place, forming a fragile but electrifying hypothesis. "The mountain sleeps"… behind the town, the jagged peaks loomed, ancient guardians of the coast2. Perhaps it meant after sunset, when the mountain was cast in shadow, asleep for the night. "The sea speaks"... what if that wasn't just poetry? What if it was literal? The sound of the tide turning, or the roar of waves in a specific cove? And now, a location: a headland. A place called the Watcher.

I carried the map and the open journal out to the main room where Martha was meticulously archiving old photographs. I laid them on the table before her.

"The Watcher?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "What is that?"

She adjusted her spectacles and peered at the map. A slow recognition dawned on her face. "Ah. That's what the old-timers call Storm Point. It's a dangerous bit of coast. There's a sea-cave at its base, one that's only accessible during the lowest tides of the year. They say that when the tide turns, the water rushing out of the cave system makes a deep, moaning sound. A sound like a voice."

The sea speaks.

A shiver traced its way down my spine3. "And the Watcher?"

"Look at the shape of the cliffs at the very tip of the point," she said, tracing the line on the map with her finger. "From the water, they say it looks like the profile of a face, staring eternally out to sea." Much like the fisherman's statue in the town park4.

I looked from the map to the window. The sky had deepened to a bruised purple, and the first star was visible above the dark silhouette of the mountain. I had a when, and now I had a where. The journey that had started as a frantic, aimless escape now had a direction, a purpose laid down in ink and myth more than a century ago.

"Thank you, Martha," I said, my voice thick with a gratitude that felt insufficient for the world she had just unlocked for me.

"The thanks isn't mine to take," she replied, her eyes serious. "These stories were here long before me. Just remember what Arthur told you. Some paths don't have a turn-around"5.

Stepping out of the Historical Society, the night air was cold and sharp. The lights of Seaview twinkled around the harbor, a small pocket of warmth against a vast wilderness of dark water and stone. I looked north, in the direction of the unseen headland. I didn't know what I would find there, or what path would open. But for the first time in thirty years, I felt I was exactly where I was supposed to be, guided not by a road map, but by a map of whispers. And tomorrow night, at low tide, I would go and listen to what the sea had to say.

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Changes - for good or bad ?

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Chapter 9 - The Keeper of Stories.

The dregs of my coffee had long gone cold, but I remained in the booth at The Salty Siren, the world outside the window a blur of grey sea and sky. Arthur’s words had anchored me in place, shifting the very foundations of the journey I thought I was on. This was no longer a simple escape from the past; it was a pull toward a future I couldn’t have imagined. The symbols in the cave, the pulsing light, the deep, resonant hum—it was all real, and according to a man who looked as old as the coastline itself, it meant something.

Leaving a few notes on the table, I stepped out of the cafe's warmth and back into the brisk, salty air. The town of Seaview, which had at first seemed merely a charmingly rugged port, now felt different, imbued with a quiet significance. I saw secrets in the weathered faces of the buildings and heard whispers in the cry of the gulls. I had a new destination, one more concrete than any I’d had since leaving the city: Martha at the old library building.

I asked a woman arranging a display of knitted hats in a shop window for directions. She pointed a friendly finger down a side street leading away from the harbor. "The Historical Society? That's the old stone library, just past the church. Can't miss it. Martha's likely there; she practically lives in that place."

The building was just as she'd described, a stoic, two-story structure of dark, sea-stained stone, with tall, arched windows that seemed like watchful eyes. A small, neatly lettered sign read "Seaview Historical Society." Pushing open the heavy oak door, I was met not with silence, but with the soft rustle of paper and the rich, comforting scent of aging books and wood polish.

An elderly woman with sharp, intelligent eyes and silver hair pulled back in a neat bun looked up from a large, map-strewn table. "Can I help you?" she asked, her voice clear and precise.

"I'm looking for Martha," I said. "Arthur from the cafe sent me."

A flicker of recognition crossed her face. "I'm Martha. It's not often Arthur sends me visitors. This must be about more than the town's fishing records."

I felt a nervous energy, the same mix of fear and excitement I’d felt at the mouth of the cave. "He said you might have some old journals," I began, choosing my words carefully. "Ones that mention a place... Forgotten Falls."

Martha’s posture straightened, and she regarded me with a new intensity, her gaze seeming to peel back layers, searching for something. "The falls are just a local legend, mostly," she said, though her tone suggested otherwise. "A story to spook tourists."

"I was there," I said quietly. "Last night. I went into the cave behind the water."

The careful, professional mask she wore fell away, replaced by the same undisguised gravity I had seen in Arthur. She placed the magnifying glass she was holding down on the table. "You saw the markings?"

I nodded. "They glowed. I touched them."

For a long moment, she simply stared, her expression unreadable. Then, with a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of generations, she gestured for me to follow. "Come with me," she said. "The journals Arthur spoke of are not for public viewing."

She led me through a maze of tall shelves into a small, climate-controlled room at the back of the building. From a locked metal cabinet, she carefully retrieved three thick, leather-bound volumes. They were worn with age, their covers brittle and corners softened by time and countless hands. She placed them on a clean, wooden table under a single, focused lamp.

"These are the private logs of the town's founders and their descendants," she explained, her voice low. "They contain observations, theories, and warnings. Most dismiss them as folklore. Arthur and I do not."

With gentle reverence, I opened the first volume. The pages were yellowed and fragile, filled with elegant, looping script in faded brown ink. As I turned the pages, my breath caught. There, sketched with remarkable accuracy, were the symbols from the cave wall. The complex web of lines and curves was unmistakable.

Beside the sketches were notes, frantic and filled with wonder. One entry, dated 1888, read: The light is not of this world. It breathes with the tide. The pattern shifts, I am certain of it. It is a map, but a map to where, or when?

Another entry from decades later theorized: The elders spoke of the 'Star-Stone.' They believed the light within was a reflection of a constellation not visible in our sky. They said it only reveals itself to those who are lost, to guide them not home, but forward.

I traced the sketch of one particular symbol—a spiral with three lines radiating from its center—that I distinctly remembered from the cave. It had seemed to hum with a greater intensity than the others. Beside the drawing, a single, cryptic sentence was scrawled:

When the mountain sleeps and the sea speaks, the path will open.

The outside world had ceased to exist. The cubicle walls, the deadlines, the droning traffic of my old life felt like a story about someone else. This felt real. This search, this room, these ancient words—this was the most important work I had ever done.

I looked up at Martha, who had been watching me silently. "What does it mean?"

She shook her head, a sad, knowing look in her eyes. "As Arthur said, the full knowledge was lost. These books are all that remain—fragments of a much larger story. But they all agree on one thing." She leaned forward, her gaze locking with mine. "That cave is a beginning. A doorway. And it seems, for whatever reason, it has now opened for you."