Month: May 2025

Back in the garden

It’s great to be back working in the garden after a ‘gardening drought’. Once I got started, I was encouraged by my progress and have been gardening for several days. Tidying around the edges came first and led to more deadheading and cutting back the raspberry canes. I mulched the berry patch with leaves from the cherry tree.

The vegetable garden required more thought. I want to rotate the vegetables, but it’s difficult when I have no success with some things. I drew up a plan and made a to-do list, then researched the prices of vegetables packs and bark for the paths. I bought the plants at a favourite nursery (Oderings) – and added a Pink Princess daphne plant to my trolley as well. I prepared the beds and planted most of the vegetables (broad beans, and onions) until I ran out of daylight around 5pm – so frustrating, but time for cheese and crackers and gin and tonic.

Today I went to Mitre 10 for bark – and bought some pea straw and thyme plants. (I recycle used plastic plant pots here too.) I planted the remaining vegetables (rainbow chard and curly kale). The daphne required a bit more care according to my research. I measured the soil ph/acid levels, dug the hole wide but not too deep, put bark mulch in the hole to aid drainage, and added sheep pellets and a bit of acid fertiliser. The daphne looked a little sad in the nursery I thought, but it was the last they had of the variety I had seen recommended in an article. I hope she cheers up!

Pink Princess

I bought three varieties of thyme (lemon, golden and common) and put them in terracotta pots to go alongside the stepping stones which I’ve put through the centre of the vegetable patch. I’ve widened the garden by moving the brick edging further into the lawn. It felt creative, deciding to add some stones here, bark mulch there, and some old boards as edging. Pea straw around the chard and kale added the rustic look I like – and it smells wonderful!

Take a dose of art

Feeling rather depressed by newspaper articles today. One is about working people struggling to pay their bills and to keep warm over winter, and another, from the Washington Post, records the dire effects on people in the US who have lost their public service jobs. I’ve heard that Wellington is quiet these days, with fewer public servants about and, with today being Budget Day, I worry about what further cuts will be made by our government. An elderly man in the first news article commented that this government ‘lacks compassion’. Coincidentally, I’m part-way through a Listener article subtitled ‘How to cope when the world is going crazy’.

Somewhat cheered after Singing for Pleasure this morning at the WEA, I hoped a dip into art might lift my gloom further. This particular piece intrigued me. I noticed it from two flights up when I heard running water and looked for the source. It was in the space under the stairs.

Fountain in Transit by Yona Lee
Art Deco influences, perhaps?

From below, I was able to investigate other features, including the lighting, but also the way the water is directed to each part of the installation. It reminds me of all the plumbing options we considered when renovating the bathroom. I like its playfulness.

The exhibition about our relationship with the land was too sombre, so I revisited the Francis Shurrock exhibition. Traumatised by his World War I experiences, he came to NZ in the 1920s and taught and inspired his students at Canterbury College School of Art – even introducing Morris Dancing. I like this Art Deco piece he did in Oamaru stone, and the bronze sculpture of writer Frank Sargeson by one of his students, Alison Duff. Across the street from the Gallery an Art Deco-inspired block of flats caught my eye.

Perhaps the government will decide art galleries are a waste of space too. But, on further thought, that is unlikely; too many rich people invest in art. Monetary value seems to be what counts when, clearly, art has a value more ephemeral than that. Now I’ve depressed myself again.

Domestic disaster and delight

Disaster’ and ‘delight’ are perhaps overstating it. My 32 year old washing machine finally did what I’d been expecting – broke down on the last spin. Over the phone, my regular repair man (well, I’ve needed him twice in 32 years) said he was semi-retired now, but suggested I try wrenching the bowl to reset it. To my relief, that worked and I was able to hang my heavy flannelette sheets on the line. However, he advised that my old Hoover Commodore, purchased in 1993, had had its day. Some quick research (including reading helpful reviews) and consultation with my sister resulted in the purchase of a new energy efficient Fisher and Paykel machine.

Old and new

My sister and brother in law replaced their dish washer the same day. Their son had picked it up for them. Before long, he arrived to collect my new washing machine. There followed a Dukes of Hazzard adventure in his girlfriend’s black, double-cab ute, with his younger (but taller) brother riding shotgun and me in the back wielding the credit card. We roared up the road to a northern suburb distribution centre where a man donned a helmet and safety harness and collected the boxed machine from a high shelf with a large fork lift. My nephew had the gear to strap the machine onto the deck of the ute and we took the scenic route along back roads to home. There the two young heroes un-installed the old machine and installed the new one. Just like that.

I read the manual carefully, ran a Quick Cycle to check the pipes were correctly connected and then a Hygiene Cycle to clean away any residues from the manufacturing process. There are 14 cycles available! I was awake in the night strategising the alteration to my usual ‘chuck everything in together’ routine.

This morning, it was good to go and proved efficient – and quiet! My old one sounded like a jet plane taking off and creaked and groaned and even shrieked. The new one has greater capacity, but is about the same size otherwise. It is also gentler on clothes, with no tall central agitator to tangle things up.

It’s a little sad to see an old stalwart go – but the delight of watching a digital control panel go through each cycle will win me over in time! Maybe it has already.

Goodbye, old friend.

Art and architecture

Today was so beautiful I had to get out and into it. Walking to Singing was great, and after a good old bellow there, I popped across the street to the Art Gallery. The visual delights started with an amazing whale-tree suspended from the foyer ceiling. It was quite meditative looking at the art upstairs, and moving too.

The huge triptych ‘Colonization’ by William Dunning is more essay than painting. The kawakawa tree in the foreground is by Shona Rapira Davies (who also did the ‘whale-tree’ in the foyer). I was pleased to see a Robyn Kahukiwa painting (on the right) as she recently died. I love her work in Wahine Toa with Patricia Grace. The book was in my classroom for years until it disappeared. Someone else loved it too, as I’d hoped.

Out on The Terrace, the colours were brilliant and it was hot. I stopped for ice cream, then headed off to explore.

Pre-earthquakes, High Street had a row of lovely old buildings, home to specialty shops and cafēs. Now, it is a street of restored buildings and new buildings housing boutique businesses. Some façades have been preserved, while inside and out the back you can see how new the buildings are.

Old and new sit cheek by jowl (photo below). A new floor (perhaps a penthouse apartment) has been added to the building in the middle, so I suspect only the façade is original. The building under construction on the right, has amazingly massive timber beams, some curving around the corner. It replaces the old Excelsior Hotel, which stood in its post-earthquake ruined state for ages until it was demolished. No-one would take on its restoration, despite hopes to preserve at least the façade. The landmark palm trees at the front remain.

An idea of what High Street used to be like (with imaginative additions) is preserved in Kate de Goldi’s book From the Cutting Room of Barney Kettle.

Cover design and illustrations by Gregory O’Brien
Back cover design by Sam Bunny

Changes

The cherry tree is losing its leaves. The camellia is flowering.

Autumn is a time of contrasts. You begin wearing shoes and socks, then change to jandals – then back to shoes and socks. A day begins misty then clears to sunshine. Leaves are turning yellow and falling, and new flowers are coming out. Fruit is ripe, and birds are making the most of the myrtle berries and grapes before they rot.

Ripening feijoas
Blackbird eating myrtle berries
Grapes ripe and rotting

Changes are happening in the city all the time. The new Court Theatre opened this week. A few doors down the street, the old Isaac Theatre Royal with its traditional architecture reminds us of the past, even when it is zhooshed up at night.

The End of the Golden Weather fits for the first performance at The Court Theatre. The play reminds me of the beginnings of professional theatre in NZ (I saw Bruce Mason perform it solo in the 1970s) and of a time when summer centred on the beach, and families ate afternoon tea from tea trolleys and played charades – and many made sport of the less fortunate. We still do, it seems; more brutal when it is government policy.

It makes me think of what has changed and what hasn’t. I change from my sixties (freedom: I may do as I like) to my seventies (I may do as I like but can I?) this month. It is daunting (checking for signs of decrepitude), yet I’m curious to know what comes next (not the decrepitude bit). It’s plays, books, the newspaper and history which remind me that a lot changes in the world and a lot does not. That’s why Shakespeare – and Bruce Mason – remains relevant. I’m still waiting to see what we can achieve to redeem ourselves.

The astronauts in Orbital circling the earth continually, get the big picture. They see night turn to day, note weather patterns changing, and observe other evidence of our impact on the planet. They conclude that the solution to our survival is not in outer space.

I can imagine what they see, but I’m pretty short-sighted, just living in the moment: Is it time to put extra blankets on the beds? what’s for dinner? what’s the weather like? what will I wear today? – that sort of thing.

Time may change me

But I can’t trace time.

– David Bowie gave us a masterclass in adaptability and re-inventing yourself. Even he sounded uncertain when he sang ‘Ch-ch-ch-ch -changes’.

Fabulous fundamentals

In these days of uncertainty – currently rain, wind and floods – it’s good to have a firm foundation. To that end, I swear by Thunderpants. I have a drawer full of them, several with matching bra or crop tops.

Locally and ethically designed and made, they have a firm fan base who send in photos, poems and endless praise for these comfy, cosy, slightly crazy and always good humoured fundamentals. Today’s newsletter was too good not to share. Enjoy!