Feeling a bit Homesick?

In the almost 8 years we have lived in New Zealand I have never really felt very homesick. Miss my family - yes. Miss friends - yes. Proud of my Scottish heritage - yes. But homesick - not really. Until now.
It started by complete surprise. Lloyd and I went to the cinema to see Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
(Wonderful film) Part of the film is set in Scotland, in the Highlands and it looked so stunningly beautiful that in the middle of the cinema my eyes filled with tears and I got huge lump in my throat. I honestly thought I was going to start sobbing loudly!

The following day I was back at the cinema to see Brave with Claire and Amber.  Another absolutely amazing film from Pixar. I loved every second of it. Again another film set in Scotland, all Scottish accents, lots of incredibly realistic looking Scottish scenery and one character who was completely unintelligible to everyone in the cinema bar me as he was speaking the Doric dialect. My dad speaks like this, as it's local to where I'm from in the NE of Scotland. This set me off , again.

Then Andy Murray got to the finals of Wimbledon. First time since the 19th oatcake that a British person has made it, perhaps the first time in history that a Scot has! We're not exactly known for our tennis prowess.

(From wikipedia - explanation of 19th oatcake, as when Lloyd read this he said "what's the 19th oatcake?" I thought everyone know this!)

So, all these things have conspired to make me very homesick this week. I'm sure it'll pass. Any other migrants out there had this? And what do you do when you are? I'd love to know.

Anyway, to make me feel better I went diving. Diving is good for my soul.
Anemones spawn twice a year, when the moon is right and the tide is high. Oh, and for a whole half an hour. Northland Dive timed it perfectly and we arrived as they started and ended the dive as they finished. It was amazing.
I have to get up  nice and early and catch a ferry to get to the boat launch site, and this is what the weather was like - stunning.

Now, if you've never seen anemones spawning, this is what they look like! Gazillions of tiny eggs squirting out, all over the place. These anemones would be about half to one cm in size. My new camera casing did me proud!

I'm now going to post an overkill of anemone photos, cos they are so cool ( I think!)

Ok, that's enough, you get the general idea! That's it for another year.

Yesterday Lloyd and I and some of our friends went over to Russell for the Russell Bird Man festival. There are lots of events going on in the town, and it's just a really good family day out, finished off with a bunch of folk in fancy dress launching themselves off the end of the pier to see who can fly the furthest before landing in the sea. It's very good fun. This year the weather was amazing and there was an absolutely huge turn out.

A tiny fraction of the crowd watching the birdman

My viewpoint was the pier - it was too far away to really see properly, but it was still excellent. I'm in here somewhere.

So, I look at these photos, and think how lucky I am to live in such an amazing place in such an amazing country. How on earth can I be homesick? But I just am for now. I think it's winter. It always messes with my head. Bad winter.