How to be cheerful

Occasionally one or other of us can’t make our weekly beach walk. This was the case today, so I decided a change of scene was in order and headed to Sumner Beach. It was an excellent choice. I enjoyed the drive along Ferry Road which has a scattering of interesting places such as antique shops, cafes, bakeries, schools with colourful playgrounds and murals, op shops and little shopping centres – a mix of traditional, quirky, run-down and aspiring-to-be-upmarket; all with community character.

At Sumner, I managed to find a park on the Esplanade where I admired the traditional houses dotted among the new and the dungers – surfies’ hangouts with what look like unconsented additions.

There was a steady stream of cars heading to Sumner, no doubt for the weekend vibe. The beaches weren’t crowded, however, such is the extent of them, and there are loads of cafes which were busy today. After walking to the Scarborough end of the beach, I walked back to the Sumner end and had coffee at the bar/restaurant where I recall having brunch on my 50th birthday. Two fondly remembered aunts were with us.

I headed back along the beach to my car, stopping to watch a surf lifesaver attending to a young surfer. Two other surfers came along to offer assistance.

I passed two lots of parents each of whom had a 10 or 11 year old boy dragging his feet and full of complaint. It made me wonder how you counter negativity. Wouldn’t it make you happy to be on the beach? One of the boys was wearing crocs luminous against his tanned legs. Wouldn’t that cheer you up? (Jury’s out on that one.) And so young! Wouldn’t that cheer you up? Look at Mum this week, celebrating her 97th birthday and always looking on the bright side. That’s what makes her easy to live with. Imagine having complaining people whingeing around the house all day.

My brother and sister-in-law took us out for lunch on Mum’s birthday this week.

I certainly felt cheerful on the beach. It was an overcast day, but warm, and the clouds were amazing. The air was fresh. There were joggers, surfers, walkers with babies and dogs, little kids with bikes and scooters. Pairs of young women were talking earnestly together – remember doing that? Well, we still do, but the topics have changed! There was plenty to be cheerful about.

I drove with the window down heading home so I could make the most of the ozone and the seaweed smell of the estuary. Not to mention the sight of people enjoying themselves. I saw queues of people at coffee carts with seats in the shade nearby, and flags out at the yacht club where mainsails were hoisted as sailors waited for the tide.

Whatchamacallit

Is there a word for that lovely feeling you get when you remember a happy event? A frisson, perhaps? That’s the feeling I get when I look at the first page of this year’s calendar which hangs on the back of the kitchen door.

I got the same feeling when I walked into this garden in September. It’s the Katherine Mansfield garden, a reconstruction of the scene in her short story ‘The Garden Party’. There are now 18 enclosed, themed gardens at Hamilton Gardens. I’m looking forward to seeing the new one in November – the Medieval Garden – and to seeing the English Flower Garden which was closed for renovation (replanting?) when I was there.

Sad case of flat rat

New Year’s Resolution: close the door to the hallway firmly to keep Felix out of our bedrooms at night. Every night before bed I pull the door to so Felix can’t interrupt our sleep. Recently, he’s found he can pull the door open. This has happened when his food bowl needs filling and, last night, when he wanted to show off the rat he’d caught. I endured some hours of thumping and clawing at the carpet and bumps under my bed, then long periods of ominous silence, before Felix hopped up on my bed (minus rat, luckily) and, seeing I was not impressed, went away. But where was the rat?

A quick look under the bed revealed some things were in disarray. Shoe bags had been pulled out of the suitcase I keep under there. I gingerly extracted the suitcase (which I store open, with a smaller case inside) lifted the contents and found a poor flat rat. It must have squeezed under the smaller case which was then jumped on by Felix – repetitively, if I recall all that bumping correctly.

I’ve reduced the size of the image to reduce the shock it might cause the viewer. As I tipped the wee flat rat out onto the garden under a tree I could see its white tummy. It had emptied its bladder on a shoe bag (which I binned) and didn’t seem to be quite dead. I left it to expire in a friendlier environment, under a blanket of grape vine leaves, not being able to bring myself to finish it off. We watched Stuart Little on TV last night.

Some random two-legged rat vandalised our green bin which was out on the street for collection this morning. The lid was partly ripped off and garden waste strewn about the road.

Once the bin was emptied, I attempted a repair with Gorilla glue. Meanwhile, the suitcase has been wiped down with Dettol and is airing on the deck.

Refreshed

The last two days (the last day of the old year and the first of the new year) have brought a good amount of rain. It was nice to be mostly indoors reading and puzzling over the jigsaw I was given for Christmas (it’s hard! It will take me months! Good-oh!). The garden is refreshed; there’s evidence in the kitchen window sill full of sweetpeas – and the scent!

Progress on jigsaw of NZ fungi
A flower at last on the second courgette plant
First beans
Mum’s favourite: Precious Platinum. These are all on one stem.

The garden that keeps on giving

Just when I thought the sweet peas were about finished, more have appeared. Oh, joy! The scarlet runner beans which reappear each year, are flowering and tiny beans are forming. I’d already picked all the blackcurrants – I thought – but there are more! The gaura, ‘ballerina rose’ which I feared had succumbed to frost, is flowering.

The parsley has mostly gone to seed. I have parsley trees! But they look rather lovely with shasta daisies pushing up through the green canopy of parsley flowers. Tomatoes are ripening. Even though the bay tree seems to have died, it has shoots growing at its base, and its leaves have turned a lovely copper colour. The ‘sexy rexy’ rose, which I moved from the garden to a large pot a few years ago, is flowering brilliantly this year, underplanted with self-sown violas.

From my window, as I write, I can see the climbing rose ‘Cecile Brunner’ which I cut back with hedge shears after its first flowering, beginning a second flowering. I have also spotted the white-and-tortoiseshell cat, a frequent visitor, curled up on a cut-and-drop pile under the camellia. And it looks as if the hoped-for rain is beginning to fall.

You had to be there

This photo is disappointing. The beach this morning was much more vibrant in real life. The ships on the horizon seemed closer. The sea was sparkling and dynamic as the tide came in. And, of course, the photo can’t record the sound of the waves or salt-sea smell. While the scene looks calm, there are clues to the vigorous movement of sand and sea. What looks like an edging to the path was once a handrail and most of the timber slats which mark the path are under the shifting sand.

I often notice that photos aren’t what I expect. The eye seems to have a way of zooming in on aspects of a scene, which a photo does not pick up. A former colleague told me he never takes photos when he’s travelling. I think he meant it stopped him from being observant. Probably we cut ourselves off from truly experiencing the place or moment and some part of our brain dies off from lack of use when we rely on a camera to record our lives.

Picture this

There was a book due back to the library today and another to pick up by today so, after putting the washing on the line, I walked into town. By the time I was walking home again, I decided what I’d experienced was a sensory walk of sights, sounds, and smells…

No photos were taken, but I can picture it all (well, most of it).

What I saw: A long, twisting branch on a weeping elm. A row of people sitting cross-legged on a long bench with their hands in prayer position and eyes closed. The tempting covers of books on the Recent Returns shelves. Posters of a white dove with olive branch on the synagogue gate. A white waxy flower yet to open on a magnolia tree. White clouds against the blue sky.

What I heard: It was comparatively quiet with less traffic so the sound of the walk buzzer seemed extra loud. The rumble and clack of the Invercargill tram. Water splashing in a fountain. People saying hello in passing.

What I smelt: A dark, rich odour from the organics rubbish truck. The hot tar on the pavement. The cool fresh scent of a shading tree.

What I felt: The sudden coolness under a huge leafy tree. The weight of my backpack. The hot sun making my skin prickle with sweat.

What I tasted: Cool clean water from a drinking fountain.

Most of all, I thought about the huge trees which gave me shade. Under them I sensed unappreciated power in their change of atmosphere.

Gooseberry Buckle

When the broad beans from the garden finished, I was able to fill the gap with frozen broad beans from the supermarket. When a gooseberry crop didn’t eventuate, I thought a Farmers’ Market would be the only possible source, so I was delighted to find punnets of fresh gooseberries at the supermarket in the weekend. A search for recipes led to another buckle cake (three layers of cake, fruit and crumble, as in the Blackcurrant Buckle I made several days ago). I supplemented the purchased gooseberries with a few strawberries and blueberries to make up the weight stipulated in the recipe and the combination was perfect.

Macerated berries on top of the cake layer
Out of the oven…
…onto our plates

The cake layer is light – an almond sponge, rather than the heavier chocolate base of the Blackcurrant Buckle. The crumble topping includes rolled oats and flaked almonds.

Thank you, bbcgoodfood.com