Ōtautahi / Christchurch Daily Photo

I’m not sure what variety this dahlia is, but it’s doing very well in our garden right now. Many of the other dahlias stopped flowering probably due to the heat – I find they go off in late January, early February and start to come back about now.

It’s been a weird day (a very suspect parking fine which we think is a scam, and finding bird poo all over our car after our valentines lunch, so a pretty dahlia seems a good thing to post. Unfortunately, they are also fighting another big fire in the Port Hills – I could see the smoke from home, but it looks much more dramatic from other parts of the city. I made the call not to try and get any photos from other parts of the city and stay home. I’m thinking of everyone that’s doing their bit to get the fire under control. It’s 7 years to the day that we had another large fire in almost the same spot, and the one of the helicopter pilots lost his life.