Japanese anemones/wind flowers make shadows on the path.
A woman at singing this morning reminded me that it’s the official last day of summer today. After several gloomy days, this afternoon is brilliant with sunshine. The crickets are chirping – always a sign that it’s nearly the end of summer. But the light is lovely, slanting in and casting shadows as the sun moves lower in the sky. The raspberries, apples and grapes are ripening. I felt a pang that the hens are all gone. They loved the grapes and would stand under the grapevine looking meaningfully upwards if I was near. I picked the first bunch today.
Blue sage towers over my head. The cranberries are plump and smell divine. The Japanese anemones flower in late summer and are at their best now. The roses are giving it their last shot. Bees are busy.
Blue sageNZ CranberryThe feijoa has grown tall and has fruit. The Cecile Brunner is still flowering above the Japanese anemones.Busy bee in the rosesStrawberry IceBlueberry Hill
I found some new (to me) varieties of greens for the vertical garden. As ‘hardy greens’ they may prove to be good for winter salads. What great names they have!
Time to repair to the egg chair – with a slice of watermelon – to enjoy this glorious day. Perhaps we’ll have one of those lovely warm autumns…
I am usually overwhelmed with courgettes, but this year…no such luck. The plants look healthy, but the fruit is minute and often rots at the end. Gardening seems to be a mix of triumph and disappointment.
I overheard someone describe my garden as ‘overgrown’ which sent me into a frenzy of tidying last week. It just is that kind of garden, though, as I posted earlier about being ‘hands off’.
Flowers for the bees, including flowering broccoli. Ready to eat: beans, tomatoes, rhubarb, broccoli, silver beet, spring onions, potatoes. Just planted: more broad beans.
While I’m far from self-sufficient in the garden, it’s lovely to bring what you have grown in to the kitchen. Today I was pleased to find the first potatoes I’ve grown in this garden, and to add them to this ‘still life’.
And then to use the produce in a nutritious meal.
At the garden centre today, the assistant suggested there might be too much nitrogen in the soil where the courgettes are growing, as it’s where my compost bins used to be. Knowing more about the soil is something I could work on.
While at the garden centre, I was intrigued by a sign which made me look worriedly about my feet. Fortunately, I hadn’t stood on any monarch caterpillars, and I could see them on the swan plants.
Monarchs often flit about my garden, and I’ve seen a few yellow admirals this year – and lots of white butterflies. The egg chair is a good place to sit and watch what’s going on.
My ‘bathroom advisor’ and I went to Tile Max to return the tiles we had borrowed. I was thinking that we could place an order for the sage green tiles we liked. BUT: we discovered a dozen or so model bathrooms at the back of the showroom and loved this one. The art deco style ties in with the age of my house (built in 1930 – just one year younger than Mum!). Instead of the usual black and white chequerboard look you associate with art deco, this tile is softer and interesting. We like the large subway tiles (less grout) on the walls too. The chandelier would be a step too far in my bathroom.
The sage green tile is now replaced by this one, also a Replica tile: Replica Provincial Gris. The distressed look goes with the rather battered look of my bathroom skirting board. (It’s battered because it shows decades of wear and tear and layers of paint which proved too difficult to remove when I stripped it back in 1993). It was a relief to see that we could keep the wooden panelling unpainted.
We spent ages looking at all the bathrooms. I could have moved in, they were so beautiful. We started comparing showers and tapware, enjoyed the tactile (haha) tiles and other features such as a large photo on the glass wall of one shower.
Bathroom advisor inspects shower fittingsTactile raised pattern on splash back tilesA restful scene to enjoy while bathing or showering
On Friday we meet with a bathroom designer to see what she has come up with. It’s turning out to be a drawn-out process, so let’s hope we get some progress after that.
The images in this exhibition (the title translates as ‘Breath of Mine’) take you from the physical to the spiritual world. The more you look the more you see. The patterning and carving elements remind me of this:
There was once a carver who spent a lifetime with wood, seeking out and exposing the figures that were hidden there.
Patricia Grace. Prologue to Potiki. Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd. (1986)
The exhibition space shadows the shape of a whare whakairo (carved meeting house). It’s about manu (birds) “treasured in Māori mythology as messengers that connect the physical and the spiritual realms” says the introduction, and honours the work of musician Hirini Melbourne whose bird waiata I enjoy. He researched early Māori instruments, which often echoed bird sounds, and revived their use as you can hear in the soundscape accompanying the exhibition.
This tiny flute reproduces the sound of the riroriro (grey warbler)There are intricate details on these tiny carvings
I particularly like the painting of toroa (albatross) having seen them in flight recently at Taiaroa Head, and also the detail of sea life. If you look closely, you can see nets and boats, so exploitative human interaction is there but, mostly, there’s the power of nature such as water and wind and the special character of each bird and animal. The triptich panels echo the kōwhaiwhai panels used for storytelling and oral history in the whare whakairo.
ToroaThird panel of Ngā Hau e WhaBird shape in cascading water and wind
The exhibition is a travelling one, in Christchurch at the pop up Canterbury Museum space at CoCA until the end of April. The link will take you to better photos than mine. You can also hear the music here.
The paintings are by Robin Slow and the carvings are by Brian Flintoff. The musicians are Bob Bickerton, Ariana Tikau, Holly Tikau-Weir and Solomon Rahui.
A friend recently said she likes to ask her sister’s opinion when she has a decision to make. “Give me an opinion so I can ignore it,” she says. I don’t have to ignore my sister-in-law’s opinions as she helps me to choose what to do with my bathroom.
A builder is waiting for decisions to be made. I’m waiting for a bathroom designer to come up with plans. In the meantime, I have to choose tiles, shower, toilet, basin and cabinet. Aaarrgghh! I asked for help.
My sister-in-law suggested an app which helps you put together ideas. This led to hours of searching and looking at endless designs. Helpful, and fun, but to a point: the point at which you see bathrooms in your dreams!
I love my wee bathroom (178×222) which was last altered in 1993, but an ominous crack in the tiles, which travels from the end of the bath to the wall opposite, shows that all is not well underneath. Then Mum broke her hip, so it made sense to not only repair the underfloor, but to put in a walk-in shower.
I love the original featuresShower over bath
The bathroom has original features such as wooden (precious rimu) dado panelling and a corner wall-mounted cabinet. We considered painting the panelling, but wouldn’t you have to paint the door and the window frame too? I can’t picture it fitting with the rest of the house. I also remember the months it took to scrape away layers of paint after I bought the house in the mid 1980s. When the kitchen was renovated in 2015 I left the wooden dado panelling there, and two walls of original built-in cabinetry and other original features. The bathroom is a cheerful room which fills with sunshine in the morning. Admittedly, the cabinet added in 1993 is too big for the space and the terracotta tiles are a bit too orange…
It’s not easy finding tiles which fit a 1930s house with humble expectations. Yesterday, we went from tile outlet to tile outlet till we were cross-eyed. Having samples to look at at home (my sister-in-law’s idea) made a huge difference to the selection process. The tile we thought was ‘the one’ turned out to have phallus shapes all over it when you saw it in situ. Imagine walking over that every day. Once you’d seen it, you’d never not see it. However, that was the tile which turned our thinking from blue to soft green. We found another with a more subtle flower and diamond pattern and, thankfully, it is available locally.
Too ‘busy’ – makes your eyes go funny. The black and white is too harsh.Nice! Sage green is preferred to blue.
We’re thinking the tiles will cover the floor, including the base of the walk-in tiled shower, with white or off-white subway tiles on the walls. The shower and toilet (currently behind the door) will switch places. A new, smaller cabinet will be chosen, possibly ‘floating’ to make the space seem larger, and I’m thinking a vessel basin (the jargon I’m learning!) will add a tiny bit of wow.
It’s great to have the first decisions made. Thank you, sister-in-law!
The inspiring Richmond Community Garden got me thinking about how best to garden. Formal gardens are all very well in a public place, but this community garden is more realistic – and based on environmental principles.
This? (Victoria Square)Or this? (Richmond Community Garden)
The hands-on garden (Victoria Square) is colour-coordinated and surrounded by concrete. The hands-off garden (Richmond Community Garden) lets plants grow and do their thing as companion plants. Organic material is used for paths, and the upside-down letterboxes have been repurposed as planters. There’s humour in a hands-off garden! There are also chooks, including a vocal rooster. Of course, a lot of work is evident in the hands-off garden too, and the activities at this community garden are inspiring.
After visiting this garden, I thought about my own style of gardening. It’s a mix of hands-on and hands-off. I take advantage of a space to pop in some broad beans for example – there’s little separation between flower and vegetable spaces – and I’m delighted when things appear without my interference, such as the forest of sweet peas which flourished this year, and the self-sown bay tree which I topiaried (well, rounded off) by the letter box. Then, when the sweet peas died back I thought I should pull out the dried vines, but the shasta daisies popped up through them which meant I didn’t have to tie the daisies back. There’s a lot to be said for hands-off!
Broad beans amongst the flowersA forest of sweet peas – and poppiesThe bay tree makes a roof over the letterboxShasta daisies supported by sweet pea vines
There were a couple of ‘blah’ days this week. I guess I was worn out from the long drive south, all that emotional energy spent, the socialising, swimming in the salt-water pools, watching albatross soaring so easily after flying hundreds of kilometres, relaxing with sea views…
However, I hit the ground running yesterday. Two loads of washing, vacuuming, and supermarket shopping filled the morning. My mojo’s back! Even this morning I’m getting ready to wash the floors – and there’s more washing on the line.
In the afternoon I searched the internet for a copy of A Book of Noises by Caspar Henderson and found that it was available at the University Book Shop. I’d read a review of it in the Listener. The review mentioned that there’s hardly any sound in space, although the author wittily wrote, “Except, perhaps, for the occasional billionaire shouting ‘Whee!'”
I drove to the University and squeezed into a tight angle park. My front wheel was a bit over the line into the neighbouring space, but I didn’t bother straightening up, thinking I’d only be a minute, and my energy levels were dictating that I keep moving.
Of course, I was in there for more like 30 minutes. There’s so much to see, and I came out with six books, not one.
There was a piece of paper under my windscreen wiper. A flier about some student activity, I thought. But, no. This made me laugh out loud:
Felix is also back on form – much more laid back than I am – and with the habit of occupying my chair if I happen to leave it for a moment. He’s an expert at looking instantly relaxed (although his tail puffed up to four times its normal size yesterday morning when, having followed me to the gate, he was surprised by the near silent approach of a passing jogger).
Our trip to Dunedin has helped Mum to be more independent – and brave. She showered herself there and has continued to do so at home. This morning I hurriedly cancelled the showering help when Mum shot into the shower early (she can move fast). She even managed to wash her hair without help.
She is beginning to eat breakfast at the table again. Soon she will be getting it for herself.
Managing to take a few steps without the walker when fetching something a few steps away is giving her a sense of accomplishment: “Look at me!”
This afternoon I came home to find her doing the dishes.
Another “Look at me!” moment
This morning her eight-month course of daily calcium injections began. Let’s hope this will help her avoid any more bone disasters.
Here she is in Dunedin on Sunday with her second great-grandson who turns one this month.
Funny, exciting and sometimes action-packed vegan-friendly children's comics, stories, picture books and nursery rhymes, FREE TO READ HERE and available in paperback from our bookshop.
Anne-O-tations 