Head of the Harbour

'Meet me on the other side'...

2012-02-13T19:51:00.001+13:00

PRESENTED WITH
PART OF THE

CURRENT

JULIA MORISON: MEET ME ON THE OTHER SIDE

10 FEB 2012 – 25 MAR 2012

Julia Morison's evocative post-quake sculptures and 'liqueurfaction' paintings return to Christchurch for a special showing in a gallery space overlooking the inner-city 'red zone'.

Something, for example

Laconic thing

On Sunday HB and I met in the wasteland that is the back of Madras Street -

to catch up and venture into the Ng Gallery. 'Venture' in more ways than one, because the gallery is upstairs in the old Bain's building, on the very edge of

the inner-city cordon and therefore of some quake-concern. 'Venture' also

because, as the images above suggest, it was not likely to be an easy viewing experience.

In fact, we both loved the exhibition and became increasingly animated as we

circled the amazing, cavernous gallery space - stark white painted brick walls,

black wooden rafters, black earthquake bracing and natural wood floor. At the

far end of the gallery room, as much a part of the experience as the works within,

a view across what was once the bustling heart of Christchurch's Madras,

Manchester and High Streets' retail area.

Julia Morison's works unsettle, challenge, seduce, subvert. They are (in some

cases) ugly and elegant at the same time. Justin Paton calls them "fantastically, wonderfully ugly". They make the familiar (ironing board, bird cage, plastic

shopping bags...) strange and uneasy. As HB eloquently put it, we view such

objects through a 'Janet Frame' filter.

Liquefaction stars. But is transmuted. A liqueuer collection, lost to silt, is reborn

in ten paintings with such names as...

Monochrome in liqueurfaction: silt and amaretto

Monochrome in liqueurfaction: silt and black sambuca

Monochrome in liqueurfaction: silt and cherry brandy...

Melted plastic bags exude, threaten to escape the containers which cannot

contain forever. The medical/experimental implications of the two works

illustrated above unsettled me, made me slightly queasy. But together, HB and

I went to 'the other side' and delighted in the shared journey. The two lovely

gallery guides enhanced our discussions and asked us to spread the word - encourage Christchurch people to seek out this gallery in the wasteland space

and engage with...whatever may be found there.

And finally, from Leonard Cohen, via Glenn O'Brien by way of Justin Paton...

there's a crack in everything,

that's how the light gets in.

The bold and the beautiful...

2012-02-11T08:00:00.000+13:00

An exclusive - from Pleasant Point

Wildflower? weed?....

2012-02-10T10:12:00.000+13:00

While I'm on 'flowers', I can't resist posting the following sequence, spotted on the roadside near Pleasant Point, South Canterbury. None (of the four) of us was sure what plant this is. Wildflower or weed, it was delicately beautiful. Strawberry chocolate fish to the first person who can identify...

Summer frills...

2012-02-06T12:15:00.000+13:00

I have some catching up to do...

Here's an easy one, from my December garden. All the poppies are self-seeded and all are growing in the vegetable garden. These are tall poppies - human height in some cases - not the more usual iceland poppies.

More from Chelston Farm...

2012-01-06T06:23:00.000+13:00

I had frequent visitors at the Shearers' Quarters.
Scratching and watching were popular pastimes...

Chelston Farm, Port Levy...

2011-12-30T15:11:00.000+13:00

I am writing this at Chelston Farm, Port Levy on Banks Peninsula. Boxing Day, 2011. From the Shearers’ Quarters, where I am staying, I can see finches and bellbirds feeding on the flowers of an unfamiliar shrub. Below them, the sheep and adolescent lambs are already gathering in the shade. The cows and pigs are out of sight and even the hens are temporarily quiet – the lull between breakfast and the first lay maybe. Beyond the close paddocks, the valley curves five kilometres or so down to the sea. The hill covering is a mixture of tussock/grassland, pine plantations and regenerating native bush. Manuka and kanuka are in flower, a powder of dusty white. Every so often a kereru soars overhead.

Back in the mid-late nineteenth century, Chelston was the site of a sawmill, one of many that gobbled up the native bush on the Peninsula. The milled logs would have been carted to the summit and then down to the rail line at Little River for transport to Christchurch, or maybe down to the wharf at Port Levy – whichever way an arduous task for man and beast. Today Chelston is a small farm with homestay accommodation in The Stables (dating back to sawmill days) and the Shearers’ Quarters (1942).

Port Levy (Puari) was a significant Maori settlement pre and post European arrival. Today the village is small but there is a sizeable marae and plenty of evidence that this remains a Maori enclave. With the exception of the church, school (now a community meeting place) and a few colonial homesteads at the head of the harbour, the village to the south and scattered farm settlements to the north, Port Levy is empty of human habitation. While just ‘over the hill’ (up Purau Valley) from Lyttelton Harbour, it feels much more remote.

Being here over Christmas is a way of avoiding the commercial and social whirl of the festival, which I find increasingly distressing. It is an opportunity to explore another little part of the Peninsula, not so far from my own home in Governors Bay and sharing some of the same historical characteristics. What Elaine (who is renting The Stables) and I didn’t anticipate was that our arrival at Chelston would be heralded by magnitude 5.8 and 6.1 earthquake aftershocks – the most significant since June. The wooden Shearers’ Quarters rattled, rolled and bounced in response to a shallow undersea rupture in Pegasus Bay. Our immediate thoughts were for family, friends and our homes in Cashmere and Governors Bay. And so our holiday began with a swift journey back to Lyttelton Harbour to check my house (in particular the still marginally-secured water cylinder) and enable Elaine to contact neighbours regarding hers. A little more breakage and spillage, but nothing (comparatively) of significance. The news not so good from the eastern suburbs of Christchurch where yet more liquefaction has occurred. By late afternoon we were back at Chelston, grateful for the radio coverage that has enabled us to keep informed of quake news.

The Stables

The Shearers' Quarters

So far the days here have involved reading, sleeping, eating, walking (a little), talking to the animals and, yesterday, swimming. My rocky recovery from shingles means that I am, of necessity, slow and sore – so not inclined to the strenuous. Today Fleur, Ian, Georgie, Rob and Ali are coming over about lunchtime – a good opportunity to make inroads into the ham!

RIP Rosie...

2011-12-22T05:39:00.001+13:00

Poor old Rosie who spent her life tethered in a paddock up the road. I imagine her purpose in life was to keep the grass down for the absentee section owner. In this she demonstrably failed. When I took over her 'care' from my sick friend Gloria, Rosie rewarded me with frequent, savage butts, usually to the shins. She was old but she was tough, wary and cranky.

Over time our relationship improved. I learnt not to come between Rosie and the food I brought her daily - a plastic bag of rolled oats, weetbix, biscuits and, often, apples - plus branches of foliage from the natives in my garden. After eating she was happy to be brushed down, have her head scratched (between the horns) and her ears rubbed. Neighbours Leonie and Ken set up a long wire which gave Rosie greater access to the section. Peter trimmed her hooves when required (a major operation to wrestle Rosie to the ground!). She liked to sit in her strategic position above the road and watch the world pass by. Earlier this year she was savaged by a visiting dog but recovered to make it through to mid-summer.

Age eventually caught up with Rosie and in recent weeks she was struggling to walk. In the past few days she could scarcely get to her feet. I called the 'large animal' vet who came over the hill from Hallswell and confirmed my fears. And so on Monday (the same day that I was diagnosed with shingles!), Rosie had an injection and died quickly and utterly peacefully - no resistance, no distress. Janet Gough and I kept her company and Janet's son Ian dug a hole - so Rosie is buried right beside her shelter, in one of the spots where she liked to sit and keep watch. I cried all day.

Dawn chorus...

2011-12-14T05:04:00.001+13:00

The dawn chorus has just begun. There is a single bellbird right outside my open bedroom window and his call is liquid clear and penetrating. In the background are other peeps and gurgles and trills — surround-sound. I hear the dawn chorus every morning but seldom really focus on it. What a wonderful time of the day!

Not my photo obviously

Summer bounty...

2011-12-11T06:09:00.001+13:00

Having planted an almost exclusively native garden by choice, I encourage wildflowers to colonise my vegetable garden. At present, broad beans, snow peas, lettuce, radishes, carrots, courgettes, strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, chives, parsley and corn are happily co-existing with a medley of poppies, foxgloves, columbines (just past flowering), hollyhocks, marigolds, delphiniums, pansies, love-in-the-mist... I enjoy the impossible profusion - the transformation from winter bare to summer glut!

Harbour Art # 7

2011-12-01T15:18:00.001+13:00

A while back I ran an intermittent series of posts on 'Harbour Art' which involved snapping walls, letterboxes, bus shelters ... spaces that had attracted artistic attention.

Now I can bring together 'Harbour Art' with 'Life after the Quake(s)', because the children and teachers of Lyttelton Main School, with the help of 30 Enviroschool representatives from around New Zealand, have painted an awesome mural on the (pretty ugly) stone wall outside the school. The mural, designed by artist Jennifer Kenix, features a styalized harbour and the many old Lyttelton buildings that were badly damaged (and have since been demolished) in the quakes. It's a stunning work which makes me smile every time I walk up Oxford St to the Lyttelton Farmers' Market :-)))

State houses for penguins...

2011-11-26T14:16:00.001+13:00

Claire and I booked to participate in a guided walk at Pohatu/Flea Bay, a fundraiser for the Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust. Come the Saturday it was tipping down and the walk was postponed to the following day, which dawned misty and damp. We drove across to Akaroa, met up with other trampers there and, in a small number of vehicles, negotiated the amazingly steep, narrow, unsealed and mist-shrouded Lighthouse Road. High above Pohatu we met up with Francis Helps, local farmer and conservationist who was to guide us down the steep valley, pointing out features of the native flora and fauna. (Pohatu/Flea bay in bottom right-hand corner).

The descent was muddy and slippery and we all came to grief at various stages, but the stream and bush were stunningly beautiful.

'My' part of Banks Peninsula (Lyttelton Harbour/Whakaraupo, the Port Hills, Mts Herbert and Bradley) is dry and has lost most of its original bush cover. So to find significant waterfalls in the gully was a surprise. The photo below shows Brooke (the BPCT employee who organised the walk and was a day-long bundle of joyful energy) pointing out tiny insects on a rock.

As we dropped below the bush and approached the old cottages at Flea Bay the mist gave way to brilliant sunshine.

And here was the highlight of the day for me. Francis, Shireen and volunteers have built hundreds of little wooden shelters ('state homes' says Frances) for the white flipered penguins that frequent the bay. Some were in residence with their chicks while others (the adolescents maybe) bobbed about in the bay below, keeping company with a sleek, solo seal.

I couldn't wipe the grin off my face :-)

New life...

2011-11-09T19:05:00.000+13:00

Everything is relative. There are the 'big things' - earthquakes, Rugby World Cup, elections - and there are the very 'little things', equally worthy perhaps of attention/celebration.

Niki and Geoff got me a dozen fertilised eggs from Roger (whom I have never met). Not because I needed more hens (# currently 14) but because watching a hen sit on eggs, hatch and rear chicks is a wonderful thing of which I haven't yet tired.

I moved Amber Hen from the 'big house' laying box where she was brooding to the A-frame and put the eggs under her. And she sat ... and sat ... and sat ... Twenty-one days with brief breaks to peck, poo and preen.

Then...

And...

A world full of puzzlement...

... and wonder

Amber Hen is a ferociously protective mother of her five hatched chicks. My greatest delight is watching her teach them to peck. Despite the fact that she has eaten little in nearly a month, she pecks at the food and drops it, modelling the process and presenting the food for her chicks, putting their needs above hers, as do most mums.

Wonderful :-)

A new project...

2011-10-27T06:07:00.002+13:00

It has been a while since I have felt inclined to write here, not for any negative reason, but because my writing time has been colonised by another project - one about which I am both excited and apprehensive.

I have long believed that every idea that refuses to disappear, that remains tucked at the back of one's consciousness, will have its day. Sometimes that idea just needs a little encouragement, a shove. So it has been here. Back at the end of July I got an out-of-the-blue email from Marion...

Hi Jane,We digitised this on the library website recently. I thought you might be interested. http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/DigitalCollection/Archives/Archive17/Reminiscences/Marion Ogier Content Manager Digital Library Web Team

This digitised, 1935 booklet about Governors Bay surfaced an idea that had been lurking for some time - that I might write about the communities at the head of Whakaraupo/Lyttelton Harbour - Teddington, Allandale, Ohinetahi, Governors Bay. My first thought was to interview long-standing residents of the 'Head of the Bay' and compile a digital archive. With this idea in mind I contacted David Bundy whom everyone pointed to as the authority on Bay history. In the course of a two-hour conversation, David mentioned the need for a book about the history of the Head of the Bay communities. I sat there and said "I would love to do that".

Gulp! Here was me, someone who usually does things first and then talks about them afterwards, making a public statement, a commitment of sorts. My response was a measure of just how much the idea energised me. Later an email of encouragement from David...

Hello Jane,
Looked at the Library material sent. Remember most of those names, where they lived etc. How can i encourage you re the proposed book? Have some archive stuff here, a small no. of photos. Anything that is here will be available, would be so glad to see it contribute towards a book. Have done bits & pieces of research but only where it relates to an Historic Project, ie. the Lockup at Allandale and the TB Museum at Lyttelton.
Cheers, David.

The email from Marion, the positive response from David, have been enough to give the idea wings. The reality, of course, is fraught. It is not, as another friend put it, a commercial proposition. It is unlikely to attract a publisher for this reason. And I have to earn a living, however meagre - so it can only ever be a very part-time project. Nevertheless I want to do it - and my writing about it here is testament to that.

It is, perhaps, no coincidence that my blog is named 'Head of the Harbour'.

A post-apocalyptic Macbeth at The Loons...

2011-09-11T07:04:00.002+12:00

Venues for live theatre in Christchurch have been decimated following the earthquakes. The Court Theatre, Theatre Royal, James Hay, Ngaio Marsh, Repertory Theatre... all are out of action, with fates already or yet to be determined. The Loons Circus Theatre Company in Lyttelton soldiered on until the last 6.3 dictated serious strengthening work.

A production of Macbeth, 'brutally slashed' by Joe Bennett and directed by Mike Friend, was scheduled. What to do? In keeping with the times the company decided to make use of the vacant space until recently occupied by the Volcano Cafe and Lava Bar. The audience would be sheltered under a heavy tarpaulin flanked by the ubiquitous containers - though still 'outdoors' as such - while the actors would be fully exposed to the elements.

Anna and I went last Thursday night. We picked up our tickets in the container on the right of the photo above and negotiated our way, none too certainly in the dark, across the planking and up into the seats. Facing us was a raked 'set', backed by high walls, the ground a mixture of large gravel, concrete block foundation and muddy ponds. Several braziers scattered around the set provided additional illumination, some warmth for the actors and plenty of atmosphere.

This version of Macbeth was physical, brutal, barbaric, elemental, tribal... The language took a back seat to the action, the sound effects and the set. A disappointment perhaps for Shakespearian devotees but this production was so right for its time. It took the earthquake devastation by the scruff of the neck and shook it all about. It was brave, fearless and a triumph (I thought).

I don't apologise for continuing reference to the earthquakes because this is the Christchurch reality. Living in the aftermath dominates every day, every conversation. Each week, as more central city buildings come down, there are also small triumphs and celebrations. Macbeth was a massive triumph and a celebration of creativity and endurance. Bravo!

September 4th – a year on…

2011-09-05T05:50:00.000+12:00

As I write this it isSaturday 3^rd and I am sitting in the morning sun, listening to thechorus of laying hens below and the bellbirds calling liquidly to one another. I amcrying.

Two things thismorning. A letter to the Press recalling Vicki McKay’s calm assurance onNational Radio in the early morning hours of 4^th September 2010. Inthe dark, alone, with a house full of shattered belongings and no electricity,I was fortunate to have a transistor radio. I turned it on and listened toVicki as she reported the breaking news of the earthquake. It wasn’t that I wasfrightened. The house was intact and there was nothing I could usefully dountil daylight. But to be connected, through the radio to a wider community, tolisten to Vicki talking of news coming in from other Christchurch residents –that was both informing and affirming. So the tears are, in part, a mark of gratitude for the presence of thatvoice, that morning.

The second thingthis morning – Kim Hill interviewing Andrew Holden, editor of The Press, about hisexperiences of the past year. The Press took up where Vicki McKay left off. It has been there every morning, tellingour stories. Even on the morning after the February quake, when The Pressbuilding was shattered, staff members were rescued from the collapsed top storyand one employee died, The Press was lying at the top of my driveway. It hasbeen such a collective lifeline for the city. And so the tears flowed again.

Late on Sunday 4^thnow and the weekend has had its pleasures as well as its sadness. I became (asHB put it) ‘part of the artwork'. As one of the SCAPE 2011 installations, Ahmet Öğüt's, "Waiting for a Bus" was sitedright outside the just reopened Canterbury Museum.

So while I waited onSaturday morning for HB and family, I took a seat and revolved at a pacewhich invited close contemplation of the immediate environment and the folkpassing by. Together the four of us then worked our way along Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s stunning photographic exhibition Earth from Above. It was heartening tosee people out and about in (almost) the central city, enjoying the photos andreturning to the Museum. And I realized how unaccustomed we, in Christchurch, have become to doing just this and how the art fed my soul.

Finally, on the anniversary itself, Claireand I met up in Lyttelton and joined the group of locals in the space onceoccupied by Ground, now an open meeting place andpetanque court. We made medals to give to earthquake ‘survivors’ (ieeveryone!). People came by with their dogs and families, someone had baked aspecial anniversary cake and it just felt like a gentle, affirming way to markthe day. I came home and planted lettuces – a sure sign of spring and renewal.

Locals stitching...

Claire stitching...

Little lad who joined us stitching...

4th September quake cake

Bee bits...

2011-08-27T07:05:00.000+12:00

The 'bee lady' came the other day for the first time. Lee - or Leigh? Such a nice person. She wanted to check the hive for possible disease, introduce a new Queen and remove some of the honey built up at the hive's previous location.

I know nothing about bee keeping so it was an opportunity to ask beginners' questions like "what does the smoke do?" (answer, subdues the bees) and "what do I do if I get stung?" (as I was, twice, in the head - answer, wait and see if you get an allergic reaction. I didn't, but it felt like one of those 'yeah, right' moments!). Apparently women make good bee keepers. They are gentle.

The new Queen came in a little, plastic container. I missed the removal of the old Queen and am not sure what happened to her. An ousting. Lee pointed out the bees arriving back at the hive, their little legs heavy with pollen - some yellow, some cream. I wondered if the cream pollen came from the Tree Lucerne or Tagasaste, currently in full flower and a favourite of the kereru.

There is much about the honey-making process that I don't yet understand. What intrigues me is that 40,000+ creatures can interact within such a small space, act beneficially in the environment and produce a desirable, natural product. Much we humans could learn from that! I wonder what it must be like when all 40,000 are in residence - at night or during the snow. Snug and warm no doubt.

A week or so after Lee's visit I spent the evening trying to remove a bee sting from Tabby's nose! I think it was a sting. The proximity of the bees is going to cause some problems - especially in summer when doors and windows are open and the house is added to the fly-zone!

More snow...

2011-08-23T06:07:00.000+12:00

The second 'snow-to-sea-level' event in three weeks came with gale-force winds and more snow than event #1. Snow began to fall Sunday night and it was Thursday before I could get the car up my driveway. With lots of editing work on hand, the log burner crackling 24 hours a day, two feline hot water bottles and plenty of food, I was snug as a bug... only having to rug up to feed the chooks down the hill and Rosie up the road...

Rosie and friend

Snow girls

The elusive pukeko!

Front deck

Young friends planking...

...and celebrating!

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..............

2011-08-16T05:44:00.000+12:00

I have a beehive! Well not really 'mine' as such. I suppose I am renting it. The man who sells honey at the Opawa Farmers' Market will put a hive on your property for an annual fee. He and his partner service the hive and extract the honey (guaranteed 10 kilos) which comes to the 'renter'. I have always been interested in bees and honey; always loved to buy different sorts of local honey when travelling around New Zealand. I saw getting a hive as a way to learn more about the process and to benefit the local gardens - as well as to harvest the honey. The bee keepers will supply protective gear if their customers want to be involved in the honey extraction - I definitely do.

My hive arrived on the Friday evening preceding the weekend of the first big snow. I couldn't understand why the bee man would bring the hive in the dark to an unknown and steeply-sloping property. Lesson #1 - bees are better resettled in the dark. Then it snowed - and snowed. On the Monday morning there were all these little dead bee-bodies lying in the snow! I felt responsible and negligent. Lesson #2. There are 40,000 bees, give or take, in this hive and they have short lifespans. This is the way of the bee world. In the absence of snow I wouldn't get to see the dead bees.

Since then the bees seem to have settled in well. They are most active when the sun is on the hive - then there are dozens of bees exiting, entering and circling. I'm enjoying their busy presence. I'm not so sure how summer guests will find this. I had imagined the hive located well down the garden, out of harm's way (harm to visitors that is). But the bee man wanted it to be accessible - and so it is in the turning bay, very close to the front deck with its outdoor table and chairs. We'll see.

At my request, family and close friends gave me a contribution towards the beehive in lieu of a birthday gift. I guess they are like 'shareholders' in the hive and I will look forward to sharing the honey with them in late summer.

Roof sculpture...

2011-07-29T06:10:00.005+12:00

I think this photo deserves a post all of its own. As the thaw set in the icy snow began its gradual descent down the roof to drop onto the deck with thumps that had us tensing up as we do with the quakes. I caught this row of incisors early morning and at about their maximum length I suspect. Must say I am very proud of this shot :-)

With the nor'west winds the snow is melting fast. Fortunate for the chooks who refused to put a foot on the white stuff. They huddled in their house and could not be tempted out by the tastiest morsels. Similarly Rosie goat who stayed in her house and waited for food to be brought to her while children tobogganed down her snowy section. The cats, on the other hand, had a ball in the snow. While the bees...

... but that is another story.

Winter wonderland...

2011-07-25T12:57:00.001+12:00

And we were worrying that we hadn't had a 'real winter'! My house, garden and along the road about 9.00am this morning.

Garden below the house

Harakeke

Lancewood and meuhlenbeckia in lower garden

Lancewood

Chez moi

Chez Rosie

Neighbour Lauren skiing down Merlincote Crescent

Steve and Jayden at the Cholmondeley turnoff

My letter box

Corner dairies...

2011-07-23T06:49:00.004+12:00

A chance conversation on Facebook had me pondering on the role of corner dairies in our younger lives. When I think of the Opawa shops of my childhood I think of the much anticipated Princess magazine that I used to buy weekly. And the big jars of sweeties (aniseed balls, gob stoppers, smokers...) over which we lingered. And the two-tier ice creams. And the much-longed-for fish and chips which I missed out on because I had to go home from school for a decidedly inferior, healthy lunch!

So I think of the destination and the purchases. But I also think of the route. Two options from our home in Richardson Terrace. I could follow the Heathcote River, passing under the railway bridge, to Opawa Road and round the corner past the Library and the Post Office. If I walked this way then I would always stop outside the house with the goldfish pond (which belonged to the local chemist) and count the number of plump orange fish.

Or I could walk a little way along the river and then cut up the track to the railway line crossing at the Opawa Station. To the right the tracks lead to the city. To the left they headed enticingly towards the Port Hills, the tunnel and the port of Lyttelton. Across the tracks and into Vincent Place I passed the early pioneer home known as The Hollies and a tiny building used for Russian Orthodox church services from where resonant singing could occasionally be heard.

The comfortable and pleasurable familiarity of these routes remains palpable.

And of course the corner dairy - the local shops - are potent symbols of our changing lifestyles. Where do we do our shopping now? How do we get there? And how much more do we consume as a result, seduced by overwhelming choice and crafty marketing. The Opawa shops serviced a community. Two dairies, a Four Square, chemist shop, fish shop, bicycle shop, library and Post Office. They made that community possible.

I hope that, in our post-quake world, we can re-value our little, local shops and all that they represent.

Belonging...

2011-07-04T06:31:00.000+12:00

One of the outcomes of the city earthquake damage has been the loss of central meeting places – C1, the Globe, Le Café, Dux de Lux, The Coffee House, Alchemy, Café Roma… (I’m thinking tea/coffee here as opposed to alcohol). My other destination of choice to meet with friends – Lyttelton – has lost all but one of its many cosy, cheerful, character-filled cafes. An interesting consequence of these losses has been the necessary search for other spaces in which to gather, enjoy good coffee and share stories. There has been a move to the periphery. So yesterday my friend Anna (who has relocated from her damaged home in Heathcote to Leeston) and I met halfway at the Tai Tapu store. Other recent gathering places with other friends have included the Little River Café & Gallery, The Blue Duck at Motukarara and the general Store at Diamond Harbour (the always-popular Cup on Cashmere remains). So other little businesses benefit, in the interim, as our places and spaces shift to accommodate a changed and changing world.

Even for those of us less materially affected by the quakes, the sense of dislocation is significant. Never in my life did I think I would mourn the passing of a supermarket, but, as I negotiate the still unfamiliar Colombo St Countdown, I long for my St Martins New World where I knew the location of all items, recognised customers and checkout staff and felt ‘at home’. I go to the Riccarton Mall of necessity but do not feel I belong. It is not my part of the world. Despite having worked for many years in the (comparatively unscathed) north-west, my allegiances have always lain in the south-east of the city: Opawa, where I was born; Beckenham, where I lived for many years; adjacent St Martins, en route to the Rapaki track; Sydenham where I shopped and enjoyed the gritty history; Heathcote and Horatane Valleys – Sunday drive destinations from long ago and weekly must-goes for summer fruit; Sumner for the sea; Lyttelton through the tunnel to another world. The common threads are proximity to the Port Hills and the Heathcote River – the defining, much loved geographic features of my life.

Last week the Opawa shops were demolished. No great architectural loss; certainly not a significant commercial loss. But these brick shops defined my childhood. A five-minute (less?) walk around the river or up and over the railway tracks to a group of little shops that served a community. From where, pre-supermarket and (for us) pre-car, my mum purchased all her groceries. From where I collected my much anticipated, weekly Princess magazine. From where the ‘lucky’ children at Opawa school, in the 1960s, could buy fish and chips for lunch.

The earthquakes have ‘surfaced’ our often taken-for-granted allegiance to place. Suburbs that some Christchurch residents may never have heard of are part of the collective conversation, precisely because they are about to be erased entirely from the map. The more community-oriented ‘village’ seems to be replacing ‘suburb’ in the discourse of rebuild. If, out of all this, we who remain in Christchurch end up with an enhanced sense of commitment to our communities – to the parts that constitute the whole – then something of great value will emerge from the rubble and silt.

Shake, shake, rumble, roar...

2011-06-14T07:10:00.009+12:00

Where to start? It's the (early) morning after yesterday afternoon's 5.5 and 6.0 (now upgraded to 5.6 and 6.3) 'aftershocks'. The word aftershock just doesn't cut the mustard. 'Aftershock' implies something less significant than the major event. But yesterday's shakes were big and scary major events in their own right, to say nothing of the constant lesser movement throughout the afternoon, evening and night. I gave up trying to sleep at 3.00am.

When the 6.3 hit yesterday I was down the section. I dropped to my hands and knees and held on. The first time I have been in direct contact with the ground in any of the big quakes and it was more frightening I think than being inside the house. Worse still was the prolonged roar that travelled up the harbour as the tremors subsided. I knew instinctively it was massive rockfall - and I think that unnerved me more than anything else.

Rockfalls at Whitewash Head, 13 June 2011 (not my photo)

Ornaments and paintings fell in the house again - though not on the September or February scale. My carefully stacked woodpile (in the garage) has again collapsed onto my mother's once much treasured mahogany dining table. The cats fled. I checked on neighbours, they checked on me. We shared our experiences. Without power, neighbour Clare's car was stuck in her garage and she borrowed mine to pick up Libby and Joe over the hill. The power finally came back on about 10.30pm. For the first time I felt scared and well and truly 'over it'.

Ironically, on Sunday cousin Claire and I had taken the ferry across the harbour to say farewell to Godley House, badly damaged in the September and February quakes and due to be demolished. It was a beautiful, calm morning in Lyttelton.

Tug Purau at Lyttelton, opposite the Diamond Harbour ferry terminal

Claire and Stormy on the ferry

According to its website, Godley house was built in 1880 by Harvey Hawkins, a ship chandler, ironmonger and speculator and one of Lyttelton’s leading citizens. The Hawkins home was a grand house for entertaining and a jetty was built at the bottom of the hill to bring the people over from Lyttelton. The home was painted by Margaret Stoddard whose father had sold the land to Hawkins.

Godley House, Diamond Harbour c. 1913.

In my parents' time, Godley House provided fashionable accommodation. I think Mum and Dad spent part of their honeymoon there.

Godley House, 12th June 2011

The chair, in a garden usually busy with picnicking families and couples having afternoon tea or a wine/beer, was somehow symbolic of the absence that pervades so many locations around the city.

A lone chair in the Godley House grounds

The Dalai Lama visits Christchurch...

2011-06-09T07:00:00.001+12:00

For the past two days the Dalai Lama has been in Christchurch, a visit he requested after hearing of the February earthquake devastation. Given that there was almost no pre-publicity surrounding his public address yesterday, it was amazing and heartening to see at least 5000 people awaiting him in the CBS arena. No politicians, no City Council representatives (was this a political statement?). Had it not been for the size of the venue, this would have been a low-key, almost intimate gathering, ceremony reduced to a minimum with a welcome from the local iwi, a brief introduction from Bishop Victoria Matthews and a member of the local Tibetan community acting as host. I am sure this would be the Dalai Lama's preference.

What I saw and heard was a man of compassion, practical, wise, warm and witty. Very human, very down-to-earth. During the Maori welcome he vacated his special seat to sit next to Bishop Matthews and question her on the pōwhiri (questions she may not necessarily have been able to answer as a recent arrival in New Zealand. There was no-one to advise him on Māori protocol). He held her hands. I noticed how tactile he was. Hugging, holding - as though he was able to transfer energy to those in need. He quickly picked up the hongi (pressing of the nose and forehead) and applied it with gentle enthusiasm to all his subsequent greetings.

As he spoke to the families of those who died in the February quake and to the audience at large, he talked of the need for acceptance, to transform grief for a loss that was beyond anyone's control, into positive action for the future; the need to move on, rebuild. He positioned the Christchurch experience in a global context - the ever so much greater devastation in Haiti and Japan, the threat posed by global warming. Nothing in this message was particularly new but it was delivered with great mindfulness, insight and much aroha. After the address the Dalai Lama and the Buddhist monks, who had been seated patiently cross legged on the stage for hours, prayed in a chant which I found particularly mesmerising and beautiful.

The experience reinforces for me that the basic tenets of religion and of leading a good life are very simple and essentially practical. To care for one's 'brothers and sisters' and for the world about us. To be compassionate, open to others, accepting of difference. To me the great value of someone like the Dalai Lama is that he transcends religious and political divisions and offers a much needed global perspective that combines thought and action. Above all he is a delightful, charming human being.

Foggy morning on the road to Lyttelton...

2011-06-04T05:35:00.001+12:00

Looking to the future...

2011-05-22T06:52:00.001+12:00

Last weekend (15 May) Claire and I went to the Westpac Arena (or whatever its latest corporate brand name is) to participate in the City Council's Share an Idea Community Expo - the first large-scale opportunity for the citizens of Christchurch to articulate their thoughts/desires for the rebuild of their city. I went because I thought it was important to be there, to seize the democratic opportunity and swell the numbers - but I also went with a fair dollop of cynicism, fully aware that this could be a token consultation, largely disconnected from the 'real business' of earthquake recovery.

I was blown away. The arena was set up with a 'speakers' corner' where invited experts were addressing a large audience sitting in the raked seats of the auditorium. On the floor there were four designated areas addressing different aspects of the rebuild. Each area had panels mounted with large-scale photos of relevant city environments. There was a wall which presented 'trigger questions' and people were invited people to provide their feedback. They could do this electronically - there was a row of computers for each of the four themes - or on post-it notes. What stunned me was the seriousness and intensity with which people were engaging. The ideas flowed. Hundreds, thousands of pieces of coloured paper. Many people silently reading what others had written. Council staff were busy removing and filing post-its as the walls filled and filled again... 10,000 people participated over two days.

In another area ample supplies of lego enabled children - and adults - to express their visions for Christchurch in 3D. The children, of course, were all constructing skyscrapers - though I suspect that, if asked, they would have vehemently denied any wish to rebuild in this style. I was hugely impressed at the number of families with young children. One man I spoke to explained that, since this was their (the children's) future, it was important that they participated in the process.

I was particularly impressed by this very solid (!) multi-coloured Hundertwasser-style construction!

There was a large-screen video of before and after the 22 February quake still shots. Another screen played interviews with adults and children talking of their visions for the future of Christchurch. There was also a big, summary wall on which people were invited to write directly. There seemed to me to be significant consensus on many aspects of the rebuild. Low rise, green, eco-friendly, wood as a preferred building material, good design - respectful of heritage but not bound by it, multi-purpose (commercial, entertainment, residential...), supportive of diversity, people-friendly, foot, bike and public transport friendly...

There was dissension too, architecture and transport in particular hotly contested.

I came away feeling moved and heartened by the City Council's thoughtful and creative preparation for this event, and by the response. The genie is out of the bottle. You can't invite feedback on such a scale (and this is just the beginning of the public engagement) and then ignore it. Always strongly opinionated when it comes to their city, Christchurch residents will, I believe, fight for the best solutions possible within the constraints of budget.

Time of the phoenix...

2011-05-15T06:36:00.001+12:00

Yesterday I drove round the harbour, as I usually do on Saturday mornings, to the Lyttelton Farmers' Market. After the February quake the market ceased briefly and then decamped to Mt Pleasant Community Centre. Within a month it was back in Lyttelton, the stall holders bravely setting up, even though the crowd that usually throngs the Saturday market was much diminished. One lady who sells beautiful summer produce - tomatoes, peppers, aubergines etc - told me how nervous she was about coming through the Lyttelton tunnel. I'm not surprised given that the epicentre of the quake was very close and that the tunnel itself, which I use frequently, is looking sad and poorly maintained.

But yesterday, for the first time, I sensed a change in mood. Little roadside stalls were popping up along Oxford Street. There were more people. They were talking not so much about the devastation as about the future. Conversations have turned to what could be. It seems that, as more and more historic buildings are demolished in London Street and Norwich Quay, the empty blocks - the spaces - are enabling new visions to emerge. I too feel this confidence. I know the residents of Lyttelton are strong enough, and sufficiently determined, to drive a rebuild that will meet their needs as a community.

One of the things that has concerned me, especially in the city, is that I will see empty spaces and wonder 'what was there?' - even in a city I know so well. However yesterday I noticed something different about the spaces. That you can look through. That they open up unexpected vistas. Obvious, yet unanticipated and strangely liberating. As though we need to be reminded that the absence of a building is a space and an opportunity. This parallels the many conversations I've had with friends and acquaintances about the post-quake, changed relationship with possessions. Items that we have treasured and lost seem unimportant in wider scheme of things. 'Stuff' is just stuff - and in times of emergency, a potential encumbrance. Perhaps we all feel lightened (literally and figuratively). Never could I, as someone who treasures objects and buildings with history and personal import, have imagined this possibility. It has taken a seismic shake to realign my/our relationship with the man-made environment.

Eye for an eye...

2011-05-08T11:10:00.002+12:00

I posted this (below) yesterday and then removed it. I was concerned that it might offend. But through yesterday's rain, and as I walked around the foreshore track this morning in moist sunshine, I decided I was wrong to remove it. That it is no more than one perspective amongst many and that it is by putting out our thoughts that we begin to talk and hopefully understand.

There is a horizontal southerly rain outside. Very heavy. I am sitting by the fire. Tabby and Van are curled up asleep in their blanket-lined baskets, even closer to the fire than I am. Leonard Cohen is singing in the background. I am hoping optimistically that a break in the rain might enable me to slip-slide down the hill to feed the chooks.

But the reason for clicking on 'New Post' is to ponder out loud about something that has bothered me the last few days. It is something I have felt silenced about and am unsure even now if I want to say what I am thinking - but here goes.

My dis-ease is around the death of Osama bin Laden, the global responses to his death and the media coverage. It has felt like a feeding frenzy. An Old Testament 'eye for an eye'... Revenge but not justice. Maybe if I had lost family in the twin towers or in the Bali bombings or in the London underground ... I would feel the need for 'payback'. But my preference is always to ask why. Why Al Qaeda? Why the Taleban? I'm not sure that we (the 'West') have a good track record in the Middle East. We have interfered too often in the past. We have supported corrupt and violent regimes when it suited us. We even supported Al Qaeda when the Russians were in Afghanistan. Just as it is possible to link the rise of fascist Germany to the Versailles peace treaty, so perhaps we need to acknowledge our culpability in the emergence of fundamentalist, militant Islam.

There, I have poked my head above the parapet - and now I will move from the global to the very local, brave the rain and feed the poor, bedraggled chooks.

*****

This morning I listened to a very good interview on Radio New Zealand. It was that, plus Niki's prompting that encouraged me to repost. Here are the details of the interview.

10:06 James Fergusson - Inside the TalibanAs a foreign correspondent, James Fergusson covered the Taliban for years and got to know many within the organisation, and how it ticks. He talks to Chris about how the Taliban is rooted in Pashtun culture, its mission to drive foreign invaders from Afghanistan, the relationship with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, and how the West's bid to win Afghan "hearts and minds" is doomed to failure.
James Fergusson is based in Edinburgh and will be in New Zealand next week, to speak at the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.www.writersfestival.co.nz'Taliban' by James Fergusson, is published by Bantam Press.

Alchemy...

2011-05-05T06:07:00.000+12:00

For DKM...

Prepare about 1.5kgs of fruit (you can do more but it makes the straining more difficult). Cut up the quinces (I quarter them) and include cores and skin. Just cover with water and add a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice (helps with setting). Cook in a covered pan until completely pulped (I complete the pulping with a potato masher). Strain through a jelly bag (my bag is made from two old tea towels stitched together). Measure juice and allow ¾ cup of sugar to 1 cup of juice. Heat juice to boiling point. Remove from heat and stir in juice until dissolved. Return to heat and boil briskly until setting point is reached (I use the ‘drip’ test – when the drips from the stirring spoon begin to merge). Skim to remove scum (I don’t bother). Pour at once into sterilised jars. And gloat – or despair.

Store somewhere earthquake-proof.

I eat mine on toast.

Fate of the male...

2011-05-04T06:33:00.000+12:00

Yesterday my two glossy black, adolescent roosters went home - back to Niki and Geoff at Oxford, from whence they came as several-day-old chicks.

Nobody wants roos. My first hatching several years ago produced some magnificent boys. When the time came to part with them I checked out TradeMe, not wanting to make money but to find happy homes. While hens were attracting hot bidding and remarkable prices, roos were consistently listed with a $1.00 reserve - and still no bidding! I felt sad for them all.

The next time around I held on to my roos a little longer. The strangled, practice crows grew into full-on, all day advertisements to the girls and the world at large. I advertised on TradeMe. No luck. What to do? I couldn't dispatch them myself for fear of mangling the job. Next thing there was a letter in my box and a knock at my door - disgruntled, roo-averse neighbours. I got desperate. I took to plucking the roos off their perches at night and stashing them in cartons in my garage, to discourage the dawn chorus. They crowed anyway, in their boxes, in the garage - but at least I was the only one disturbed, until their morning return to the harem. Finally one of the disgruntled neighbours offered to take them away - to a farm in Little River. I don't think they were destined to strut their stuff and be fathers...

My point being that life is tough if you are a roo. You do the deed, perpetuate the species and then no-one wants you. Maybe this is true of the male of the species in general?? I think guys get a tough time.

Thank you Niki and Geoff for resolving my dilemma. It will be a little less 'colourful' in the Bay.

The Little River rejects

Harvest festival...

2011-04-24T06:56:00.000+12:00

I love autumn. (This is NOT a poem, just a list - though I guess a list can be a poem...)

crisp cool mornings

sunny still days

storms

the first dew on the grass

dawn chorus

day chorus

the last of the edible summer garden

and the promise of winter produce to come

flutterbyes

bottling

jellying

squirreling

stacking wood

sunny chrysanthemums

magpie warble

leaf turn fall and crunch

the first fire...

and the next..

hotties

hibernation

As a child I loved harvest festival at church. The aisles lined with magnificent pumpkins, carrots, silver beet, potatoes ... the bounty of people's gardens. Do churches still celebrate harvest festival in this way I wonder?

Rosie Goat...

2011-04-21T12:46:00.000+12:00

I inherited the care of Rosie Goat from my friend and neighbour Gloria. Rosie is old (no-one knows quite how old), cantankerous, arthritic and has never been well socialised. She is tethered by a chain that runs along a long wire :-( Her only real interest in life is food.

I have become very fond of her. She has character.

Breakfast!

Christmas!

Posing in my winter coat

One day recently I got a phone call from neighbour Janet Gough to say that Rosie had just been attacked by a dog. I high-tailed it down the road to find Rosie on the ground, bleeding from multiple puncture wounds in the neck, hyperventilating and clearly in shock. The Gough family, whose daughter Naomi is a doctor, were doing everything possible - most importantly compressing the worst of the bleeding. We took it in turns to sit with Rosie over the next several hours while we tried to get a vet - an endeavour complicated by the fact that it was the day of the memorial service for the earthquake victims and a public holiday. We needed to know whether Rosie had a chance of survival or would need to be put down.

Finally a vet who was willing to come out. By this time we had got Rosie on her feet. She was given antibiotics, painkillers, a spray to discourage flies and a great deal of TLC. Three weeks or so down the track she is thriving (as much as 'elderly' can be said to 'thrive'), especially on the additional attention and food treats. The neck wounds seemed to have healed cleanly. And a local retired gentleman has offered to build her a more commodious (deluxe) wooden shelter for the winter!

On the mend - neck bandage and fancy dog harness

Back to the future...?

2011-04-14T18:13:00.000+12:00

Christchurch, unlike New Zealand's other main centres has a charm that depends largely on features built or planned by man. The calm and dignity of the city owes much to its early buildings. and Christchurch's history can still be traced in the many examples that remain.

In the days after the quakes, citizens of the world saw more of what was happening in Christchurch than did most its residents who were without electricity and access to media images. Even when the lights and images returned, we saw what had happened to our central city at a distance, on a screen, mediated by photographers, journalists, city councillors, civil defence personnel... We were living our own quake stories in our various communities, but, given the cordon around the central city, we were excluded from participation in that evolving story.

Seven weeks after the 22 February quake, we are creepingly gaining access to the heart of Christchurch. I have increasingly felt the need to see the city in its damaged state before too much is demolished. I fear an erasure that will have me wondering 'what was there - and there - and there...?' Because I suspect that where we live and work, we don't often see. I remember taking part in an anti-Vietnam demonstration through the heart of Christchurch while a student and, because sightlines were forced up on account of the thousands of people, engaging with the often overlooked second stories of the lovely old retail and commercial buildings.

So this morning I drove into town, parked in Gloucester Street, just short of the Civil Defence headquarters at the Art Gallery, and walked in a once very familiar part of the city. I went down Montreal Street and past the old Christchurch Girl's High building in Cranmer Square where I was a student. It is being demolished.

I walked across Cranmer Square to the old Normal School, now Cranmer Courts.

Then past the Provincial Council Chambers where I used to guide when a university student. The glorious Stone Chamber in ruins.

The old university complex, now the Arts Centre, where I began my university study.

The streets were empty and silent. I expected to feel sad, bereft. But I didn't. I didn't really feel anything (except cold in the autumn cloud) and I'm not sure why. I belong to the Historic Places Trust, I have taught history, I have loved and lived with these buildings most of my life. Perhaps it is the enormity of the event, or the inevitability of demolition following the second quake, or the fact that some of these 'iconic' buildings are likely to be restored/rebuilt. Perhaps too I am willing to acknowledge the fact that nature has the upper hand - that this sweeping away is an act of nature and a part of the cycle of history.

Finally, for the moment, there were some images that caught my fancy....

...and one sad bunch of now dead flowers, on the barrier in front of the Bridge of Remembrance, that moved me.

Four days on the West Coast - part 2

2011-04-09T06:37:00.000+12:00

Our Coast destination was Okarito, a tiny settlement best known for its colony of kotuku (white herons) and as the residence of Kerri Hulme, author of the bone people. We did not get to see the kotuku (the boat was temporarily out of commission) or Kerri Hulme (!), but I was charmed by Okarito.

Here is a 'typical' shot, looking south down the main street. The swan high stepping it down the road belonged to a local family.

I climbed up to the trig station in pouring rain and took this shot looking down on part of the village and Okarito lagoon.

I loved the baches...

A group of us spent several hours one night walking into the bush and 'waiting' in silence, surrounded by mosquitoes, to be rewarded by the sight of a female kiwi, coming out of the undergrowth and onto the track, used by the resident rowis as a convenient highway. The first kiwi I have seen in the wild. Our guide used infra-red torch light to gently illuminate her. She was apparently unaware of us and moved slowly, probing the ground with her long, sensitive beak. Special. Go to http://tvnz.co.nz/meet-the-locals/meet-locals-s2009-e19-rarestkiwi-video-2806800 for a video clip about the rowi rescue.

Elaine and I also went kayaking on the lagoon...

...and I spotted this amazing driftwood tuatara ...

Sadly it was only as we drove back into Christchurch on the afternoon of the 22nd February that we became aware of what had happened in the city three hours previously. What a difference a day makes...

Four days on the West Coast...

2011-03-22T19:36:00.000+13:00

My mother used to say the West Coast was 'another country' (she loved it). The contrast between the flat, bush-denuded Canterbury Plains and the forested Coast mountains is just one part of this 'other' which extends to people, buildings, industries and lifestyle in general.

In the week before quake #2, Elaine and I took off for the Coast to meet up with her sister Margaret at Okarito. We stopped at Arthurs Pass where I couldn't resist a conversation with the cheekiest of three kea...

Wonderful camouflage!

I am not feeding the kea. He is biting my finger and I am grinning from ear to ear!

On the other side of the Pass ('over the hill' as coasters say) we stopped at Otira just in time to watch the Trans-Alpine Express coming through, its colours a happy contrast with the grey sky and dark bush.

Trans-Alpine at Otira

And as for colour, I was enchanted by the Otira Hall where locals were holding a market. One of the ladies-in-charge gave me a run-down on the history of the hall which, with its sprung floor, was the venue for local dances in her youth, also doubling as a cinema.

Smoko outside the Otira Hall

At Hokitika I wanted to see the sea (from one coast to the other) and so we 'happened across' the driftwood sculptures on the beach. These too made me smile because while they had clearly originated in a competition, it was also apparent that spontaneous sculptures were colonising the beach in all directions.

Mushrooms (driftwood and flat stones)

Cactus - and a study in grey

More to come...

Contrasts...

2011-03-15T11:03:00.000+13:00

In times of trauma and distress we fall back on cliches. To my horror I have heard myself using them post-quakes, aware of their hollowness but at a loss for other, more meaningful words. 'Life goes on'. Indeed it does - and rather than use words I thought I would share some recent photos which contrast quake trauma (of which my photos are few and very localised) and life going triumphantly on...

Norwich Quay in Lyttelton after 22 February 2011 quake

Godley House in Diamond Harbour

Sunny day, sunny sign...

The Governor's Bay fete, just under three weeks after the quake

Bay residents relaxing at the fete

A sign on the railings in Lyttelton. I spotted this after the 22 February quake and don't know if it was there before or if it was prompted by the quake

Four weeks on - spotted outside the old library building in Lyttelton

Quake-therapy...

2011-03-08T06:21:00.000+13:00

Despite the quake, the autumn harvest continues. In a time of sadness and uncertainty, when routines are disrupted and the familiar changes shape, it is reassuring to do something concrete and creative. Here is tomato sauce (I swear you could smell it bubbling away all over Governors Bay!), quince jelly (the first quinces to fall from my tree), a garden gathering (tomatoes, courgettes, corn, eggs, peppers, gourds...) and muesli. Not posed - this is just as they ended up on the bench. The sunflowers in the background are also from my garden. The white rooster belonged to my special Governors Bay friend Gloria. He too is a sign of hope.

While I grow tomatoes I don't produce sufficient to splurge on sauce. The sauce tomatoes came from the relocated Lyttelton Farmers Market. With Lyttelton on its knees following the quake, the market moved to the Mt Pleasant Community Centre. I thought it important to support the stall holders who were willing to turn out in difficult circumstances and so Claire and I bumped our way down Ferry Road and tried to buy at least one item from each stall. A usually reserved German (?) lady who sells lovely vegetables and from whom I always buy the most beautiful capsicums, was almost in tears as she recounted her drive into the city - obviously her first experience of the damage.

Down the road, 16-year old Libby is making batches of cupcakes. Often there will be a knock on my door and there will be beautiful Libby with a delicious cupcake. That is part of her therapy I'm guessing. To end with a smile, here is a cupcake Libby gave me some time back...

The shaky isles...

2011-03-03T20:57:00.000+13:00

It is nine days after the earthquake that has changed the face of Christchurch forever and taken so many lives. The days since the quake have been given over to coping on a hourly basis - three days without power or sewerage, eight without water. The rhythm of these days has focused on the basics. Clearing a safe path through the mess in the house; removing the worst of the glass and ensuring I wore sandals inside until power returned and I could vacuum the almost invisible glass shards; finding containers for water; collecting water from the tanker at the fire station; boiling water for safe consumption on the little gas camping stove; emptying water into the cistern to flush the toilet; morning sponge baths...

I thought of the Cambodian primary school where we volunteered. Six hundred children. No electricity, no running water. The children were clean, the school buildings also. I never did find out what the toileting arrangements were. Here 'poos' and 'wees' - or the adult equivalent - have become conversational staples over the past week. I have been unable to take photos of buildings this time. It feels too intrusive. But the image at the end of this post is one with which Christchurch residents have become very familiar.

These days have also been given over to sharing with, and caring for, others. In Governors Bay the community has pulled together to check on neighbours, share scarce resources and information, swap quake stories. Up at the water tank a stranger offered me two 4-litre bottles of clean water. People all over Christchurch are opening their homes to quake 'refugees'. Simi, Chris, Jai and Priya stayed with me for a couple of nights when it seemed their house might be unsafe to live in. Elaine took in elderly neighbour Doreen and made a 'home' for her in the living room. Students are shovelling silt all over the city.

Once again there was a sense of unreality. Without power, we were unable to access images of the destruction. All we knew were our own homes, our immediate neighbourhoods. Ironically others around New Zealand and overseas were better able to comprehend the citywide damage. And once the images became accessible, it still seemed unreal - as though happening in another country. However a car trip to check on those I was most concerned about revealed the following. Big boulders on the road over the hill. Undulating roads awash with silt from liquefaction in St Martins. The St Martins New World supermarket (my supermarket for 25 years) closed for good. In Heathcote my friend Anna's house (only one of many) minus most of its bricks and several windows. Ferry Road and the Causeway to Redcliffs pot-holed, sink-holed, cracked, bombed. The Lyttelton tunnel, closed. Evans Pass, closed. The road to Sumner (at least a couple of days ago), closed. The historic port town of Lyttelton, including the iconic Timeball Station, smashed, beyond repair and smelling of rotting garbage. And this is just around the base of the hills. The central city is cordoned, off limits.

After the September quake we wanted every damaged heritage building repaired, restored. Post 22/2 many of those buildings have gone and now it is only the most 'iconic' that stand any chance of restoration. Christchurch's brick and stone public buildings which bespeak its colonial heritage are now too dangerous. It will be a new CBD that rises from the dust. And today, as I listened to citizens advocating the rebuilding of the Cathedral, I found myself thinking that we would be better to start again - a new, adventurous and edgy building, a phoenix but not a recreation.

A week on from the quake, residents gathered (as they did all over New Zealand) at the Governors Bay School, to acknowledge the quake deaths in two minutes of silence. The waiata following the silence, and the newly unfurling monarch butterfly that Mel’s little daughter Sasha held gently, undid me and I cried for the first time. While my relationship with Christchurch City has always been somewhat ambivalent, it is the city in which I was born, grew up and where I have spent most of my life.

My house is standing. The kitchen floor was awash with red plum preserve syrup, mixed with red currant jelly, marmalade and heaps of broken glass. The contents of other rooms were smashed, splintered, spilt - the floors strewn with books, paintings, broken ornaments, broken glass… The large water cylinder has shifted significantly and leaked. But I am fine. My whanau are fine. The furs and feathers are fine. We live on shaky ground and we may never feel entirely safe again. That is the nature of the planet we inhabit.

Sign of the Bellbird

2011-01-25T05:26:00.000+13:00

Harry Ell on right with Leonard Cocayne

I have always been interested in Harry Ell, the dedicated conservationist who dreamt of building a Summit Road along the Port Hills and over the Peninsula and oversaw much of its development (during the Depression) as well as the building of four rest houses - Sign of the Takahe, Sign of the Kiwi, Sign of the Bellbird and Sign of the Packhorse.

The Sign of the Takahe and The Sign of the Kiwi I would pass maybe six times a week on my way from Governors Bay to Christchurch and back. The Sign of the Packhorse I can see from my kitchen window, a tiny speck in the distance on the saddle below Mt Bradley, across the harbour. Reaching the Packhorse requires a dedicated tramp from Kaituna Valley. The Sign of the Bellbird, though not far as the crow (!) flies and accessible by car, is off the beaten track and requires a planned visit.

So this afternoon (having started work early morning and feeling I had earned a break) I drove up to The Sign of the Kiwi, turned left and made my way on round the Summit Road to the start of Ellas Track. (If 'Ella' was a person then this seems to have been forgotten as the track name does not use an apostrophe - must do some digging...).The track winds around the cliff edge high above Governors Bay, offering a true bird's eye view of the Bay and a panorama of Lyttelton Harbour.

Lyttelton Harbour from Ellas Track

At one point there must have been an earthquake-related rock fall because the narrow track became decidedly challenging. I crossed this section knowing I was lucky not to have lost my footing on the loose volcanic grit; knowing actually that I was foolish and should have turned back!

I came out onto the road just short of the Bellbird which, like the Packhorse, is now a ruined shell - but which nevertheless offers welcome shelter, an alternative gathering place for young people and a wonderful view across the Canterbury Plains. Interestingly the building shows no signs at all of earthquake damage though I doubt it has been strengthened.

Sign of the Bellbird

Bellbird with Canterbury Plains below, Southern Alps obscured by cloud

Later I was delighted to find this photo from Christchurch City Libraries archive in a google search...

The Sign of the Bellbird, a tea-house, Kennedy's Bush on the Port Hills, Christchurch
[ca. 1925]

Creativity...

2011-01-16T08:04:00.000+13:00

A while back I ran a series of posts entitled 'Harbour Art'. These posts featured 'happened across' public pieces of decoration/whimsy/creativity that caught my eye and made me smile. It occurred to me over Christmas/New Year that I could also share some of the wonderful, creative art gifts I have received recently from young friends. Here is a selection of surprises that have given - and are giving - me great pleasure.

Jai's diorama...

I especially like the smiley fish and octopus...

Amber's card... (I love my buttoned jacket and fancy shoelaces!)

Matt's card... (look at my smile!!!)

Reuben's hen...(I smile every time I look at this!)

Over the years I have seen wonderful art made by children and adolescents and have mourned somewhat that in adulthood we tend to be too busy with the business of 'life' to exercise this creativity. May we all make the time to share our 'cluck luck'!!

Solitude...

2010-12-31T15:26:00.000+13:00

A couple of months or so ago I joined in a Facebook conversation around the word 'retreat'. Here is some of what I wrote...

Retreat is my default setting. It is where I most want to be and from where I 'venture forth' in selected ways. I love space and silence and thinking - and with plenty of that I am better equipped to engage meaningfully (and selectively) with friends, whanau, community...

In the meantime I read Anthony Storr's Solitude: A return to the self which suggests that "solitude ranks alongside relationships in its impact on an individual's well-being and productivity" (blurb). While Storr's book didn't offer me quite what I was looking for, it led to a post-Christmas discussion with a friend about the distinction between solitude and loneliness and a recommendation to read Petrarch's edited letters. Finally, I finished Marilynne Robinson's Home yesterday (I am now re-reading Gilead, for more about which see http://headoftheharbour.blogspot.com/2009/09/marilynne-robinson.html) and in googling Robinson I came across the following interview excerpt. The full interview is at http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5863/the-art-of-fiction-no-198-marilynne-robinson

I don’t think I could want something else. For instance, I’m kind of a solitary. This would not satisfy everyone’s hopes, but for me it’s a lovely thing. I recognize the satisfactions of a more socially enmeshed existence than I cultivate, but I go days without hearing another human voice and never notice it. I never fear it. The only thing I fear is the intensity of my attachment to it. It’s a predisposition in my family. My brother is a solitary. My mother is a solitary. I grew up with the confidence that the greatest privilege was to be alone and have all the time you wanted. That was the cream of existence. I owe everything that I have done to the fact that I am very much at ease being alone. It’s a good predisposition in a writer. And books are good company. Nothing is more human than a book.

And I went yes, yes, YES!!!!!! More to come on this.....

Christmas tears...

2010-12-27T04:56:00.000+13:00

When I was growing up there were three stories guaranteed to make me cry. Two I only ever heard on the radio. One was Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince about the little swallow and the statue, narrated by Bing Crosby. The second was the Christmas story called The Small One about a little boy and his donkey, also narrated by Bing Crosby. The third story was Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose, which I mostly read in print form. In each case I think the tears signalled an empathy with marginalised characters and animals/birds. The recordings, of course, were designed to trigger tears (cue mood music, fruity voice...) and Paul Gallico has been criticised for his sentimentality. Yet, despite my adult self objectively 'knowing' this, early on Christmas morning, I unexpectedly caught a recording of The Small One on National Radio and I sat there in bed with my cup of tea, sobbing my heart out...

Night noises...

2010-12-22T21:58:00.000+13:00

It was so stiflingly hot last night that I decided to sleep downstairs. Buried under a sheet in the vain hope of fooling the mosquitoes, I finally drifted off, only to be wakened in the early hours of the morning by a loud bang in the garage. I leapt out of bed, turned the garage light on and just caught sight of Mr Black Possum hightailing it out the cat flap. I think the possums make regular visits to the chook food bins - which I have learned to seal fast. This time, in the hope of getting some more, undisturbed sleep, I dragged a small chest across the cat flap and crawled back into bed.

Sometime later I heard a commotion down the hill in the chook enclosure. I raced upstairs, found a torch, scooted downstairs, removed the chest to get out the garage door and stumbled downhill. The big girls were all roosting quietly in their house. Amber and the 11 chicks were on the move in a very agitated fashion. My biggest fear has been that one of the cats would get into the enclosure and pick off chicks. However no cats were visible. Since all the movement was away from the A-frame where Amber takes the chicks at night, I shone the torch in there and discovered - a little hedgehog!! All that fuss for a hedgehog not much bigger than the chicks and probably way more frightened.

I decided to let Amber sort it out and made my way back to bed. The moral of this story? Sleep upstairs in the heat or get earplugs...

Iceland poppies and sweet peas...

2010-12-11T06:03:00.000+13:00

Two flowers I have always struggled to grow successfully are poppies and sweet peas, both favourites. Finally this year I have had poppies to pick. I love them for their hardy fragility. They transform from wrinkled old age to full-faced youth (if only...!). Mine however are nowhere near as spectacular as those I used to buy from a home in suburban St Martins. Poppies en masse in a bucket at the gate. Huge, generous, blowsy bunches and a little honesty box. My mother used to grow opium poppies - more by accident than design - and was affronted one year when someone stole the lot!

Sweet peas I still struggle with, my hard-baked clay not to their liking. In compensation, my cousin Claire picks me lovely, sweet-smelling bunches from her garden. Both of us grew up in gardening (flower and vegetable) families and one of our great pleasures in middle age is sharing our garden produce.

Transformations...

2010-11-07T05:35:00.000+13:00

Raoni and pine on a misty morning

Below my house, on the cliff edge (and probably preventing the cliff from eroding into the sea) is a solid bank of rather funereal pine trees. They obscure what would otherwise be a remarkable view. The land belongs to Cholmondeley Children's Home so I can't deal to the pines as I would like - and anyway it would be far too expensive. But over the last few years, with permission from Cholmondeley, I have had some topped.

It is tricky work. The trees are large and growing on a vertical, clay cliff. All the 'rubbish' has to be removed - lots of mulching. Raoni and his team do a great job. When he is not working as part of his Four Seasons Tree Care business, Raoni trains Greenpeace activists in abseiling techniques - in preparation for protests on high buildings or the sides of large ships (I like this connection).

My aim is to try and encourage the regeneration of native plants on the cliff. Nothing regenerates under the pines but open up the canopy and seedlings are quick to appear. I have planted 15 cabbage trees along the very edge of the cliff. They are deep rooted and will (hopefully) help with erosion control.

The recent removal of another small group of pines (small group not small pines!) resulted in this pile of wood. Yesterday a friend in Governors Bay, who had hired a log splitter to deal to his very large gum logs, came round to address my pile. Five hours and a great deal of noisy hard work later, we had a pile of split wood which will hopefully dry out sufficiently over summer to be stacked and used on the log burner next winter.

There was something both intriguing and disconcerting about watching the splitter in action. I felt a sadness and some guilt about my role in the felling of these trees (mediated by the knowledge that they are pesky commercial imports which do nothing for our indigenous landscape and birds). The logs were still fresh - full of moisture. The wood was so dense and even the power of the splitter struggled with the large knots. On the underside of the dark bark were wonderful reds, creams and oranges. I loved the logs that were full of sticky resin, knowing already how brightly they will burn in winter. My job was to catch the split logs and add them to the stack which, towards the end of the day was looking something like this...

Hobbled...

2010-10-25T11:07:00.000+13:00

I have been disquieted by the stoush over the filming of The Hobbit, a dispute of truly theatrical and labyrinthine proportions. Whereas the media, and many commentators, have painted it as a battle between the heroes (Sir Peter Jackson and his team) and the villains (Actors’ Equity), I see a much sadder complexity. Regardless of the Australian union manipulations, I am hugely impressed by Jennifer Ward-Leyland and Robyn Malcolm’s staunch public advocacy of improved standards and conditions for New Zealand actors and a little disappointed that Jackson’s necessary kow-towing to Warner’s means that he is unwilling or unable to support their cause. A classic example, I suppose, of what happens when you get into bed with big business. Socialism versus neo-liberalism played out on the world stage. And while, in fact, all the local players may deserve hero status, a stageful of goodies doesn’t make for riveting drama.

Celebrity...

2010-10-17T06:15:00.000+13:00

Just down the road - about half way between my place and Rosie goat's section - lives Margaret Mahy.

There is so much I could say about this famous children's author. She has a list of publications - and a list of awards - longer than my arm. She has an inspirational life history. She has given generously of her time to children in schools over so many years. She is intelligent, forthright, imaginative, creative, unconventional...

http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/mahym.html

But what has prompted this post is my own hesitancy in

relation to celebrity. I don't see Margaret very often but over the last seven years we have exchanged occasional greetings and passing comment, usually about her dogs (Baxter and latterly Honey), either on Merlincote Crescent or along the foreshore track. My thought has always been - this (famous) person doesn't want to have to pass the time of day with yet another member of the public. She doesn't want to have people (me) fawning on her. And she certainly wouldn't recognise me from previous brief encounters. These are entirely my thoughts. Nothing that Margaret has said or done has indicated any such reaction. Yet my hesitancy, my unwillingness to 'impose' means that I have never introduced myself, never acknowledged that I am perfectly well aware of who she is... There is an elephant in the corner of our conversational room; one entirely of my making.

Yesterday we met again, Margaret making heavy work of coming up the hill from the jetty with Honey, me with a handful of pilfered greens for the chooks, returning from feeding Rosie. I told her that the albino blackbird we had seen some months back on the foreshore track (of whose future we had been doubtful) was still there and holding its own. We parted, both pleased about the whitebird's survival.

Maybe that is enough.

Community...

2010-10-12T19:27:00.000+13:00

My last post and responses to it ("in this age of isolation, when we don't know our neighbours as well as we could...") reminded me of the following little story...

When I first came to live in Governors Bay I was working full time at the university. I would leave home about 7.00am and return about 4.30/5.00pm. I really didn't know my neighbours at all. Then I resigned and started working part-time from home. At about the same time my friend Gloria (about whom I have written at http://headoftheharbour.blogspot.com/2009/04/gloria.html) asked me to look after Rosie Goat.

Rosie was tethered in a large, sloping section further down the road. Her on-site owner had died and her new owner lived further round the harbour in Cass Bay. Effectively I inherited Rosie's care. Twice a day I would walk down the road with a plastic bag of 'treats' (a selection of rolled oats, weetbix, biscuits, apple, carrot...) and a leafy branches from the native trees in my garden.

While I could write at length about my initially rocky relationship with Rosie (!), the point of this story is that the simple act of walking down the road to feed and check on her marked the beginning of my getting to know my neighbours along Merlincote Crescent - and the beginning of an on-going process of coming to 'belong'.

Hard labour...

2010-10-08T05:34:00.000+13:00

A new experience for me. I've taken on, along with Bob Spigel, the voluntary editing of the Bay News - Governors Bay's bimonthly newsletter. With Bob away on holiday, last weekend saw me clenched and hunched over the laptop, trying to come to grips with the intricacies of Erik's Word formatting. I had forgotten a) how tenacious I can be when I want/need to get a job done and b) how stressed I can become at my lack of sufficient IT knowledge. Word slips and slides all over the place; the regular disappearance of large chunks of text and graphics not good for my equilibrium!

All that aside, a newsletter did emerge from a difficult labour and strangely, I feel more pride in this small achievement than I did in the production of my PhD. There is something very satisfying about facilitating a publication by and for the community in which I live. Also this particular issue follows the bay experience of the earthquake and reflects the extent of our neighbourhood support in a crisis.

None of this would be likely were it not for my decision to forgo full time employment and to work part-time and independently, from home. A decision I have never regretted. Now I am really looking forward to developing my desktop publishing skills and working with Bob on further issues.

I'll post a link to the newsletter when it goes up on the Governors Bay website...

Sydenham without words...

2010-09-18T18:31:00.000+12:00

Sydenham surrenders...

2010-09-18T05:58:00.000+12:00

What the developers had not quite completed in retail Sydenham, the quake has. Over the years I've watched with dismay as the old commercial buildings along Colombo Street have been demolished and replaced with tacky, jerry-built boxes devoid of character or integrity. The remaining little two-story, lightly embellished brick facades were the retail face of an early working-class and semi-industrial suburb. Now the massive cordons on each side of Colombo Street suggest they are likely to go. I doubt they will be considered of sufficient 'heritage' value to be restored/rebuilt, though I would be delighted to be proved wrong. And it could yet be that the damage is superficial and easily repairable. One thing this quake has shown is that appearances are hugely deceptive.

We don't have a good track record as far as our industrial built heritage is concerned. Two examples from 'my' side of the city are the 'iconic' Edmonds Sure to Rise factory which was demolished to make way for a (no linger existent) petrol station and the Malt Works in Heathcote which will shortly give way to a subdivision. The Malt Works buildings could have accommodated a wonderful craft centre along the lines of Saltaire's Salt Building in Yorkshire.

Adjacent to the Governor's Bay jetty there are the remains of an old slipway and cradle that belonged to Lionel Jeffcote the boatbuilder. A while back there was talk of tidying up this area and removing the slipway piles and rusty metal cradle. I have since thought it would be good if they could stay - a reminder of a local industry, a little bit of visual variety and a convenient resting place for the shags as they dry their wings.

Sad scenes in Lyttelton...

2010-09-12T19:27:00.000+12:00

Some of the buildings that help define Lyttelton township have been damaged. No word as to whether The Empire and the Harbourlight can be saved. The demolition (?) teams were hard at work today (Sunday) while a good chunk of London Street remained cordoned off.

Empire Hotel, London Street - cracked facade

Empire Hotel

Looking down London Street to the Harbourlight

Shoring up the Harbourlight

Cracking visible

More trouble along Oxford Street

Six days later...

2010-09-10T04:25:00.000+12:00

This is the strangest time. The aftershocks are now infrequent and for hours on end the world feels 'normal'. Then there is another sharp jolt and we are re-reminded of our vulnerability. The scariest part is hearing the pre-jolt rumble and bracing for whatever is to come.

There are layers of unreality. An interesting one is to do with the media coverage which would suggest that Christchurch has been flattened. Not so. There is the very obvious 'devastation' in certain (particularly the eastern) suburbs and of some heritage buildings in the central city. But superficially at least, much of the city appears untouched. It can be difficult to reconcile the hyped up reportage with the apparent 'reality'. I think of Haiti, where the term 'devastation' might truly apply, and feel ashamed that we can be so indulgent and self-absorbed. Yet there is a perverse pleasure in devouring the media coverage of our plight, in seeing ourselves spotlighted in the national and international news. There is a certain pride in attracting apocalyptic labels.

Having said that, I have learnt that the nature of quake damage can be deceptive. There is the very obvious and dramatic - and then there are the creeping fissures, the hidden cracks and gaps whose impact may not be felt for some time to come. I have a snaking, post-quake crack in the bank above my house which, given rain and time, may threaten my safety. And I'm reminded of the Leonard Cohen line:

"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in".

Beckenham shops

Quake...quake...quake...

2010-09-08T10:58:00.001+12:00

I am trying to work but it is impossible to settle. The phone support networks are kicking in after a series of strong tremors (5.1+) this morning. There is a need to know that others are safe, to talk through the latest experience, to share the fear. I am aware of almost constant, low-level movement and am uncertain as to whether it is my nerves or a physical reality - I suspect it's both!

I notice that my reactions have intensified over the past 4-5 days. Now when an aftershock hits, I tense and brace myself. I jump at all sounds - the rubbish trucks outside, the local fire alarm... My body is constantly on alert. Strangely, through what was a comparatively quiet night, I almost missed the rumbling and shaking which has become a part of our daily lives. We have all learnt not to assume that 'the worst' is over.

I was talking with Jai (not yet 5) on the phone early this morning when another shake had him bravely taking shelter yet again under the table.

In a conversation with Denis we talked of our pride in the swift official response to the quake, in the exemplary leadership (politics aside!), in the systems - both official and voluntary - that have swung into action, in the stoicism and pragmatism of a population under stress. But maybe the people most severely affected do not feel this way...?

On a personal level, the messages of support from within New Zealand and overseas, have been absolutely heartwarming. It has been very strange to realise that, with power down here for the first two days following the big quake, friends in the UK and elsewhere knew (and had seen) as much (if not more) of what was going on as we did. I still have not seen anything of the central city damage and I'm feeling a growing need to witness the passing of familiar landmarks - to say goodbye.

This is a very heavy painting which fortunately didn't fall...

The earth moved...

2010-09-07T01:23:00.000+12:00

In the silence of the night you can hear the aftershocks coming - a distant rumble, followed by a sharp jolt/rattle. I am beginning to feel movement all the time and I don't know whether it is just me or whether there is constant subterranean movement, barely perceptible.

In the dark following the big quake, my overwhelming thought was that, when daylight comes, the world will look different. The mountainous harbour skyline will have changed irrevocably. And come the sunny morning, everything looked the same, familiar - and yet unfamiliar in light of what had happened. I continue to struggle with this disjunct. How can such force leave the Lyttelton Harbour profile apparently untouched?

But it is only apparent. One thing I am learning is that the ravages of such an upheaval are not necessarily immediately apparent. There is the obvious damage, so sadly apparent in many central Christchurch buildings, and then there are the less visible cracks and fissures threading their way across buildings, snaking through the landscape.

The fissures extend to we humans. We are on edge, sleep-deprived, apprehensive, out of control, frightened. In the hours after the big quake I cleaned up the shattered glass, the emptied bookcases, the pictures and ornaments that littered the floor - and then found it so difficult to settle to anything. I have spent a lot of time wandering and standing, looking outside at that 'unchanged' world... The cats are terrified. They head out of the house at each shock. Following the main quake the chooks staged a mass breakout, forcing their collective way through a weak place in the netting enclosure. Normally stoic Rosie goat is up for all the cuddles and comfort she can get.

With no phone/internet contact I was so grateful for the local neighbours and friends who called in at various times - Steve, Nigel, Denis, Claire, Elaine and Mike... we supported one another and we talked, the talking a way of re-viewing the experience from a safer place, of sharing the fear and the strength. On Saturday afternoon I walked around the foreshore track. Everyone I passed stopped to talk, acknowledging the exceptional experience, sharing information, putting a human face on an inhuman event. On Sunday, still without phone contact and with no idea of how friends and whanau over the hill had fared, I was finally able to get my car out of the garage and do a sweep of the southern city, calling in on Elaine in Cashmere, Claire and Genevieve in Opawa, Anna in Heathcote, Simi, Chris, Jai and Priya in Redcliffs. Just touching base. A surreal weekend ended sitting in the sun on the deck of Denis's Charteris Bay home with coffee and chocolate cake!

The big local sadnesses are the damage to tiny, historic St Cuthberts Church and to Miles Warren's Ohinetahi, both Bay landmarks. Further around the harbour, Godley House is reportedly in a bad way. Many of the historic Lyttelton buildings, including the Harbourlight Theatre and the Mitre Hotel, are under threat.

As I write this in the middle of the night, the aftershocks are coming thick and fast. I find them more disturbing than the big shake itself because now we know just how bad it can be - and could be again. Yet in the midst of the thousands of sad dramas playing out all over the city and rural areas, is it also possible to suggest that perhaps it is good to be reminded of our comparative insignificance and powerlessness? To be reminded that try as we might, we cannot yet control all the forces of nature. To be put firmly in our place.

Included in this mix, a precious Royal Doulton jar that belonged to my Nana and a lot of gooey, freshly made marmalade

Dining room...

...and again

On the foreshore track

Flag at half-mast on the off-limits Governors Bay Hotel

St Cuthberts Church

Little River Gallery...

2010-08-22T06:01:00.001+12:00

For one of the most successful 'must stops' in an otherwise 'drive through' village, you can't beat the Little River Gallery http://www.littlerivergallery.com/. For most of my life Little River represented a toilet stop on the way to Akaroa. Now it is a 'go to' destination in its own right. The combination of local grocery shop, cafe (with excellent food) and gallery with both art/craft shop and exhibition space, is a winning one. You can buy a newspaper (or some excellent local produce), peruse it over a coffee and then support local artists with a purchase.

Yesterday Elaine and I drove from Governors Bay, over Gebbies Pass, skirted around Te Waihora and Lake Forsyth to Little River and spent a good three hours on a cold, cloudy day enjoying coffee, conversation, gallery browsing and lunch. The cafe was buzzing, the gallery busy and it was a truly satisfying weekend excursion. Congratulations to the owners for their vision, commitment and success over what is now an extended period.

Van the Man (again...and again)...

2010-08-18T08:03:00.000+12:00

How's this for a stately, man-in-charge pose...

Hmmmm - slipped a little...

And really I'm still just a curious kitten...

Faces...

2010-08-08T06:59:00.000+12:00

Along the coastal track between Governors Bay and Allendale...

Conversation...

2010-08-04T14:20:00.000+12:00

I had a conversation about conversations yesterday. We talked about the opening up and closing down of conversations. About dialogues and monologues. About questions and curiosity. I thought, nobody teaches us how to converse. We learn by example and through participation, but generally in an unreflective way. That is, we might reflect on the content of a conversation but seldom, I suspect, on the conversational process and our part in it. Yet conversation is the foundation on which relationships are built, at work, at home, face-to-face, electronically, every day... Conversations are relational - speaking, listening, giving, taking. Yet how often do we talk at, past or beyond one another? How often do we cease to hear because we are so intent on formulating our own contribution?

Eileen Coveney...

2010-07-17T10:28:00.000+12:00

9th July. Today Claire asked us all for one memory of Nana – Mum’s, Uncle Russell’s and Auntie Jan’s mother. Through the day many pictures formed. Here are a few.

Eileen as a young girl

We (Mum, Dad and I) lived with Nana at 20 Judge Street in Opawa until I was five. I remember Nana teaching me to make drying dishes more fun by playing ‘weddings’ – lining the dried dishes up two by two in rows.

I remember savouring fruit bread toast and Nana saying with deep scorn that the bakers must have stood on the roof and dropped the sultanas in one by one.

I remember watching Nana getting into her fleshy-pink laced corsets with their long row of hooks and eyes. I loved her dressing table with its wing mirrors and drawers that contained intriguing jewellery and smelt of face powder.

I knew I had to behave because Nana was stern. She rarely smiled. Yet she loved company and in an age of ‘afternoon teas’ I remember Mrs Marshall and Mrs Massey, neighbours in Judge Street, Mrs Manning from Hawford Road, Mrs Buckley from Murray Ansley Terrace… Long before I was born Nana and Grandad had a summer house – the bungalow – and a tennis court, overlooking Richardson Terrace and the Heathcote River where my parents later built their house. Many friends and visitors stayed in the bungalow over the years.

Nana loved sweets (she had her teeth taken out when she was 21) and always had packets in the sideboard drawer. I especially liked the Irish Moss jubes.

When television first arrived in New Zealand Mrs Marshall next door had a set and Nana and I would go over to ‘watch TV’. Mrs Marshall sat by the fire, Nana next and I shivered in Siberia. Mrs Marshall used to burn rose prunings and Nana complained that only Mrs Marshall got any benefit from the fire.

Nana and Grandad

Nana had a beautiful garden. The front bank, overlooking Judge Street, had a very large copper beech tree and a Mt Fuji flowering cherry. A wisteria grew around the sun porch corner of the house, meeting up with a huge cerise pink rhododendron. Every year there were early lavender stylosis hiding out the front by the lemon tree and round the back, shy lilly-of-the-valley. Also at the back was a big walnut tree (home to a rope swing and a tree house), several varieties of apples (Cox’s Orange, Red Delicious, Sturmer, others I can’t remember…) an apricot, nectarine, gooseberries, black currants, vegetable garden and hen house. And of course the army hut, the bungalow (both somewhat past their best by my time) and a secret woodland area which eventually became our Richardson Terrace vegetable garden.

Much later, when she was an old lady, I remember Nana's eyes sparkling as Dad gave her a second sherry on Christmas Day.

Winter treats...

2010-07-06T18:29:00.000+12:00

Sometimes, at the end of the day, the sun strikes the brown-gold hills on the other side of the harbour and the effect is almost mystical. This day I was driving back to Governors Bay from Sumner and the sun was catching Mts Sinclair and Evans to the east of Purau. The headland in the centre of this photo (adjacent to Ripapa Island) is up for sale and there has been sustained local pressure on the Christchurch City Council to purchase the site for a reserve before it is claimed by developers. No resolution as yet...

At this time of the year the kereru are especially active in Governors Bay. The tree lucerne, which is such a favoured food source, is just coming into flower. My resident pair kamikaze from the lucerne above the house to the pine trees below, almost grazing the roof. This one made a detour into the kowhai just beneath my deck and posed obligingly...

Mah Jong and memories...

2010-07-03T17:45:00.000+12:00

A conversation on Facebook prompted me to hunt out my Grandfather's old Mah Jong set. I remember playing Mah Jong as a child and being entranced by the tiles - bamboos, circles, winds, flowers... and by the terminology - 'twittering the sparrows' is one term that comes to mind. I am not much of a games person, lacking the necessary sharpness of mind and killer instinct, but I love the look of games. Mah Jong and poker are associated for me with warmth (the card table in front of the fire) and security (family together).

Writing this triggers two related thoughts. For me the childhood build-up to Guy Fawkes day was almost as exciting as the day itself because I loved to arrange - and rearrange - and rearrange - my little cache of fireworks. The pleasure was in possession and anticipation - but also in the visual appeal of the brightly coloured cylinders (similar to the visual appeal of the Mah Jong tiles). The importance of the visual was there very early on.

Mah Jong also reminds me of visiting the old Chinese shop in Madras Street, with my mother. We both loved to go there. It was dark inside and exotic. My Mum would buy little beaded slippers, paper parasols and delicate celadon green rice bowls so fine you could see the light through them. (Both Mum and Auntie Nora wore Chinese slippers and used the parasols which I regarded as the height of elegance. Mum also kept two pairs of slippers at the front door for visitors wearing stiletto heels - we had cork floors). Together we bought paper lanterns for the Christmas tree and pretty Chinese fans. Much later the shop moved to larger premises in Welles Street (between Colombo and Manchester Streets) where it remains as Hop Yick Trading.

Creative indulgence...

2010-06-28T20:21:00.000+12:00

Four creative pleasures last week.

The first, On the Rocks at The Court Theatre - a play by Amy Rosenthal about the friendship between DH Lawrence, Frieda Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield and John Middelton Murray. I was a bit dubious about the possibility of making an absorbing play from such self-absorbed characters, but four strong performances and an excellent script made this an engaging theatre experience.

The second pleasure was the Royal New Zealand Ballet production of Carmen to Bizet's music, played by the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. This was a modern Carmen, set in a sleazy Rio de Janeiro, the performance in turns seductive, poignant, always edgy. I loved the choreography and particularly the stunning expression of raw emotion through dance.

Third pleasure involved the purchase of a CD featuring German singer Ute Lemper. In the City South Library recently I picked up, by chance, a DVD featuring Ute Lemper performing Kurt Weill. What a find! This woman does cabaret - and especially the songs of Weimar Germany - like no one I have seen or heard before. She is mesmerising.

The final pleasure was the arrival of a book purchased in London and sent out surface mail. It is about the Russian artist Natalia Goncharova - whose work I first saw in Canberra in the 1990s at an exhibition of Diaghilev's Ballet Russes costumes and sets. Her costume designs were magnificent. Coincidentally there is a small exhibition at the Christchurch City Art Gallery right now featuring works by Goncharova and her partner Larionov - but this doesn't really do justice to the sumptuousness of much of her painting and design.

Lyttelton Festival of Lights - Street Party!

2010-06-26T06:04:00.000+12:00

Masks, lanterns, fireworks, music, dancing, mulled wine, families, dogs... a wonderful mid-winter community celebration!

The Good the Bad and the Ugly...

2010-06-24T14:41:00.000+12:00

This photo makes me smile - Van reading my current book!

And the green fuzz peeping out of the book is another source of pleasure, a special present from Jai...

However the book is another matter. For years I have been intending to read Lynley Hood's A City Possessed: The Christchurch Civic Creche Case. Recently I picked up this copy in a sale and I have been reading it compulsively, with admiration and horror.

I knew the very broad outline of the Civic Creche story, as most Christchurch residents of the early 90s would. But not the detail. My admiration is for the huge research task that Lynley Hood undertook, for the clarity with which she presents her case and for her courage in tackling such a controversial and polarising topic. The horror is reserved for the relentless unfolding of what Hood describes as a witch hunt fuelled by hysteria. On one side the safety of children; on the other the guilt or innocence of the creche workers in general and of Peter Ellis in particular. Nowhere could the notion of truth as a relative and socially constructed entity be more frighteningly displayed.

Now near the end of the book, I am left wondering what has happened since in the lives of the participants - the creche workers, the children, the families, the police, the City Council managers, the lawyers... What has been the long-term impact of this appalling event?

Chook challenge...

2010-06-21T06:03:00.000+12:00

I am not sure what we call a gathering of hens. Is there an official term? Like a 'herd' of elephants or a 'flock' of geese? I suspect there might be a really obvious word that I have overlooked. Suggestions?

In these photos I was trying to capture the three latest additions - Coco, Chanel and No 5 - but getting a hen to pose for a photo is an impossible task. However what I did like about the heads down, tails up was the pleasing blend of colour and texture. Never mind that they are wrecking the garden... Sidney, who is in extreme moult, is missing.

Hmmm - maybe a 'huddle of hens'...???

Reflections on Water...

2010-06-14T06:42:00.000+12:00

It was great, yesterday, to be part of the large gathering ("thousands") in a sunny if chilly Cathedral Square protesting against the sacking of ECan and the weakening of Canterbury's water conservation orders. The speakers (a truly representative group) included Brian Turner, poet; Lydia Bradey, climber of Mt Everest; Brian Deans, farmer; Robin Judkins, Director Coast to Coast; Morgan Waru, student and Peter Beck, Dean of the Cathedral. The musicians were Graham Wardrop, Liz Braggins and Ariana Tikao. Everyone spoke and performed from the heart. Brian Turner had me in tears.

Those participating were also pleasingly 'representative'. At first I feared it was going to be mostly a grey-haired brigade (in which I can include Claire and myself!) but in fact there were little children, adolescents, young adults - people with passion. Seagulls wheeled symbolically over the crowd throughout the protest and, at the end, one needed a rest!

The protest ended with the building of a cairn of rocks (the idea created by sculptor Sam Mahon) brought from South Island rivers and handed across the Square by long lines of protestors. The cairn will remain until ECan is reinstated. A powerful symbol and a wonderful way to involve all of us - and warm us up!!

Claire and rock-passing neighbour

In a truly touching gesture, some of the rocks had been inscribed with their places of origin - and they had come from all over the region (well, maybe not? but symbolically powerful)...

For me, being there was not just about Canterbury and dairying and water quality - hugely important though those are to me. It was about the wider issues of care for our environment, of thoughtfulness for the other living things who inhabit that environment, of the guardianship of the land and sea which we, in our position of power, must exercise with humility and a deep understanding of global interconnectedness and fragility.

A sad tribute...

2010-06-07T06:01:00.000+12:00

Two posts ago I expressed my constant delight in this Sumner garage mural. Now I think I may have discovered its creator under the most tragic circumstances. It is a somewhat convoluted story. Gloria was a cheerful and treasured neighbour and friend in Governors Bay, through whom I met brother Bruce and Bruce's partner Halina. Gloria tragically died of cancer last year http://headoftheharbour.blogspot.com/2009/04/gloria.html.

Two days ago I learned that Bruce had committed suicide. At his huge farewell service yesterday, friends made reference to Bruce's habit of painting garage doors. The more that was said, the more convinced I was that this must be Bruce's work. What a devastating coincidence that I should post about this wonderful mural just days before its maker took his life. So this post is to say thank you to both Gloria and Bruce for making this world a sunnier, quirkier place and to Halina for her devoted support of both.

The entrance to Gloria's house.

Head of the Harbour

'Meet me on the other side'...

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JULIA MORISON: MEET ME ON THE OTHER SIDE

10 FEB 2012 – 25 MAR 2012

Julia Morison's evocative post-quake sculptures and 'liqueurfaction' paintings return to Christchurch for a special showing in a gallery space overlooking the inner-city 'red zone'.

The bold and the beautiful...

Wildflower? weed?....

Summer frills...

More from Chelston Farm...

Chelston Farm, Port Levy...

RIP Rosie...

Dawn chorus...

Summer bounty...

Harbour Art # 7

State houses for penguins...

New life...

A new project...

A post-apocalyptic Macbeth at The Loons...

September 4th – a year on…

Bee bits...

More snow...

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..............

Roof sculpture...

Winter wonderland...

Corner dairies...

Belonging...

Shake, shake, rumble, roar...

The Dalai Lama visits Christchurch...

Foggy morning on the road to Lyttelton...

Looking to the future...

Time of the phoenix...

Eye for an eye...

Alchemy...

Fate of the male...

Harvest festival...

Rosie Goat...

Back to the future...?

Four days on the West Coast - part 2

Four days on the West Coast...

Contrasts...

Quake-therapy...

The shaky isles...

Sign of the Bellbird

Creativity...

Solitude...

Christmas tears...

Night noises...

Iceland poppies and sweet peas...

Transformations...

Hobbled...

Celebrity...

Community...

Hard labour...

Sydenham without words...

Sydenham surrenders...

Sad scenes in Lyttelton...

Six days later...

Quake...quake...quake...

The earth moved...

Little River Gallery...

Van the Man (again...and again)...

Faces...

Conversation...

Eileen Coveney...

Winter treats...

Mah Jong and memories...

Creative indulgence...

Lyttelton Festival of Lights - Street Party!

The Good the Bad and the Ugly...

Chook challenge...

Reflections on Water...

A sad tribute...

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