born to a red-headed woman

Flora & Fauna: Koh Sumet, Thailand

2012-01-27T13:42:00.000+13:00

More Holiday Pics - On the island of Koh Sumet, Thailand: Sunrise, Play, Sunset, Eat.

2012-01-26T20:00:00.000+13:00

That's what holidays are all about isn't it? Playing and eating ... watching the sun rise, watching it set ...

PLAY

SOMEONE (who's name begins with R.) forgot to take his wallet out of his pocket before he went snorkeling. Hence the photo above of cards drying out. Good thing that the family had previously noticed the state of said wallet (very shabby) and so there was already a secret plan afoot to buy him a new one for his birthday in a few days time.

SUNRISE

It means you have to get up at 5.00 to watch the sun emerge, but the early rising is worth it.

SUNSET

And then twelve hours later, you can make the dash across the island - took us twenty minutes to walk the dusty track - to see the sun set on the other side of the island..

The grandkids fell asleep. Bean bags were produced for them to sleep on, while us adults had a beer and then dinner.

sleep ...

EAT

Koh Sumet

2012-01-23T15:18:00.001+13:00

Calling all poets -: Just a reminder about the poetry competition currently running at Poems in the Waiting Room - go HERE for details. Closing date end of February 2012.

***

Dad and daughter check out the view of the beach from their patio

Ah yes this will do very nicely thank you ... holiday mode on our patio

swimming (apparently the locals think we tourists are mad - it's their winter! But definitely warm enough for us).

grandson snoozes on Grandpa's knee in the shade of a beach umbrella, while granddaughter negotiates with Dad (probably re him going to get her some more sea-water for her sand-play) ... Passing by, one of the many hawkers who ply the beach offering things for sale, such as fruit, sarongs, trinkets ... and massages. I never did take up that offer. Not my thing.

... the view over the cab of a green truck - Koh Sumet taxi - as we go off to explore more of the island and village (shopping)

... wee R asleep again. I am trying to show how old I am - A. has it easy at 3; try doing nearly-sixty!
The taxi driver proves the adage - Thailand, Land of Smiles. (Lovely smiles everywhere!)

... mermaid statue and explanation ...

... another statue in honour of the poet SunthornPhu - perfect photo opp. as the sun slipped down and cast it in dark relief. Being near the equator, on Koh Sumet the sun rises and sets at more or less the same time each day. Pretty much, twelve hours of sunlight, twelve hours of darkness. It seemed to be about 5.30 a.m when the sun rose and at 5.30 pm when it set. The difference between high tide and low tide is very small as well. Thus the restaurants are confidently able to each day set their tables and chairs in exactly the same place on the sand.

More sunrise and sunset photos next instalment.

Kapunka / Kapunkap

2012-01-19T17:20:00.001+13:00

Calling all poets -: Just a reminder about the poetry competition currently running at poems in the Waiting Room - go HERE for details. Closing date end of February 2012.
***
Meanwhile, more on our holiday in Thailand ...

In Thailand, to say thank you, you say 'kapunka' if you are a female, and 'kapunkap' if you are a male.We used it a lot. Thailand means Free Land. It used to be called Siam. They like to call Thailand, the Land of Smiles - and we can vouch for that. We found Thai people to be very open, friendly and smiley.

Bangkok street

tuk-tuks

street stalls - the city teems with sidewalk life; markets, outdoor cooking, eating, sitting, living ...

under here somewhere is a cyclist ... until Bangkok, I never knew how much it is possible to carry on a bike

traffic light countdown, so you know to the second when the lights will change ... must be very handy!

now that's what I call power!

***
And then the rest of the family arrived. (Our son, his wife and their two children).

Looking out the hotel window - Grandma and grandchildren bonding time ( previously they only knew us as Gran'ma and Grandpa on Skype).Some precious memory-making time had begun. The youngest started calling us 'GoomaOmpa' a kind of amalgamated title.

Grandpa and grandson

... after a long, hot trawl through a very busy market, it was time for a sit down and something to drink

... coconut milk, very refreshing straight from the coconut ...

The next day we were due to check out of the hotel and head off to the island resort - Koh Sumet in the Gulf of Thailand.

I must say, our holiday was well-planned and went without a hitch (apart from the flight Chch to SIngapore being delayed by two hours, which meant we missed connecting flight to Bangkok - but we were put up in a hotel in Singapore and it didn't matter in the end). The smoothly operated arrangements for our holiday were due in no small part to our travel agent. I'm happy to give him a plug (and why not?) - Ash Creevey, from House of Travel, Dunedin. A good travel agent is like gold.

In the next instalment; arrival at an island that looks as if it has been dropped into the blue ocean, straight from Paradise.

Day One ...

2012-01-18T21:20:00.000+13:00

... in airport Chch before leaving, wearing my usual expression; somewhat short-sighted & suspicious ...

... view of swimming pool from our 5th floor room in Bangkok - Princess Bel-Air - highly recommend as a place to stay - lovely staff, clean facilities etc etc

... a window-view this girl from Dunedin NZ isn't used to ...

So we had arrived. That first night we did a little reconnoiter of Bangkok city - well the corner we were staying in anyway. First impressions - noisy, dirty, intriguing, interesting, colourful, hot, smelly and absolutely fascinating. Life just hangs out in all its glory - in a mixture of goodness and grittiness ... Leaving us gobsmacked and exhausted.

The hotel fixed us up with a guide who was lovely. She patiently showed these two rather dazed and confused kiwis-in-awe, around the royal palace grounds and surrounds in the deep heat of late afternoon.

Thailand has an 800 year old history and is the only South-east Asian country that has never been colonised ...

real gold ... just beautiful ...

... this is a model of Angkor * which despite being situated in Cambodia, has an intrinsic place in Thailand's history - a history which we learnt a little bit about from our guide. Of course it just barely scratched the surface of Thailand's rich background. What can we westerners really see, understand, appreciate and know of such things in one hour? We can only stand amazed in the shadows; despite the bright sun glinting on all the rubies and gold; and try to take in what is possible to receive in a blink.

* Angkor is one of the most important archaeological sites in South-East Asia. Stretching over some 400 km2, including forested area, Angkor Archaeological Park contains the magnificent remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century. They include the famous Temple of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the Bayon Temple with its countless sculptural decorations. UNESCO has set up a wide-ranging programme to safeguard this symbolic site and its surroundings.

... this is not a statue ... not sure if it's a toad or a frog ... whatever, it looks like it's fully enjoying the life as a royal 'froggie'

palace, elephant statue, white-suited guards ...

tamarind trees ...

We were looking forward to the arrival at the hotel of our son, wife and our two grandchildren from Japan, due early in the morning. So it was early to bed for us in order to be ready for our 4.00 a.m. wake-up call.

***

New Skin

2012-01-17T17:12:00.000+13:00

on our last night in Koh Sumet, Thailand, on the beach we lit fire lanterns / kites to set free, high into the night sky, taking with them our wishes, dreams and hopes for the new year; plus thanks for a blessed and fantastic time together with S.E.A.R.(our son and his wife and kids)

Deep breath. Back again. I think my mind's caught up with my body. My heart may not have quite yet. It was sad to say good-bye to our son, his wife and their two children when we left Kyoto early morning, Wednesday. Very hard.

I have been having trouble finding a sleep pattern that fits with what should be my daily schedule. If I am rung for work over the next few days, I don't know that my body would cope. It will be like a dip in cold water.A wake-up call indeed.

Have been pottering away (again) on the ms for BTARW. The latter part has been chiselled, smoothed and added to. The first part of the book, right up to beyond the middle, I have always been very happy with. Now after the recent work I've done on it, I am also happy (happier) with the final sections. It's a good feeling.

I was considering changing the name of this blog - like any self-respecting snake (I was born in the year of the snake) I do like to shed old skins and revel in the coolness (the crispness) of a new skin. I was tempted to do away with BTARW and call it something else; such as 'Cabbage-Tree Splatters' or 'Magenta Nails'. Something dumb like that. However, I remain confident that one day there WILL BE a book to match the title, so I will press on with the old.

I trust you will forgive me as over the next few days / weeks ... however long it takes ... I slowly unspool wound memories of our most incredible, amazing, awesome ... all superlatives apply ... holiday.

Flying Beach Umbrellas

2011-12-14T16:17:00.002+13:00

a favourite desk calendar reaches the last page ...

Just been watching Youtube footage of beach umbrellas and how to / how not to put them up. Apparently it was meant to be funny. However the footage appears largely to have been shot by sniggering, smug types providing superior commentary about the body-shape and other such very human foibles and flaws of fellow-holidaymakers, blissfully unaware that they were being filmed.

I can just imagine these cowards lounging back BEHIND the camera, safe in the knowledge that the world isn't ever going to see them. Maybe while these people are making their furtive, sneaky films, someone else should be filming them filming, then see how they like them apples.

I did think the clip on the flying beach umbrellas was rather funny though. Dangerous things apparently, giant, flying umbrellas. One actually appeared to swallow a woman whole! And yes, I did laugh.

There is the promise of beach umbrellas where we're headed in a couple of days. (I don't think we'll be required to put them up, so that's a relief). However, on windy days I must remember to look out for umbrellas bearing down on me. Must also look out for people taking sly movies. I certainly don't want to be the fat lady showing the world how NOT to put up a beach umbrella.

'In a Sea of Glass and Tin'

2011-12-11T23:05:00.002+13:00

nativity scene on window-sill

A barbecue planned for this afternoon had to be held indoors; a not uncommon barbecue eventuality around these parts.

Our friends brought out their bagatelle board. Our sons used to play a more humble form of this on a board that my mother had at her house - they called it 'Nana's Marble Game'. Our friend has made this one from recycled rimu (a native NZ wood) and used ball bearings rather than marbles.

Some of us immediately thought of the song, 'Penny Arcade'. Roy Orbison's version of this song was apparently never a hit in America or Britain, but I certainly remember it being played extensively over the radio in New Zealand in the 60's. (I believe it was popular in Australia too). Today the song, written by a British songwriter Sammy King, is the current anthem for the Scottish football club, The Rangers.

... “Step up and play”, each machine seemed to say
as I walked round and round the penny arcade.
“Just ring the bell on the big bagatelle
and you’ll make all the coloured lights cascade”.

... At first I thought it a dream that I was in.
Lost , lost in a sea of glass and tin.
But no, so dipping my hand in the back of my jeans,
I grabbed a handful of coins to feed the machines.

One of the things I remember from our last trip to Japan, were my ears being assaulted by the frantic clatter of rolling pinballs issuing from the open doorways of the pachinko parlours; a Japanese version of billiard halls or gaming arcades.

Glancing into these frenetic spaces with their waterfalls of lights and blasting whistles and sirens, you see a 'shop' lit up like a flying-saucer full of intense young men in white shirts, desperately pushing buttons and pulling levers to set the pinballs rolling.

Even that small shot of frenzy as we walked past was more than enough exposure to pachinko for me.

The relatively sedate game of bagatelle being played today, indoors safe behind glass, while outside gale-like winds worried the red roses, was really more than enough excitement for me. For now.

Sunfish

2011-12-10T16:55:00.002+13:00

sunfish painting on Dunedin bus-stop (Portobello Road)

from wikipedia

Manyof the sunfish's various names allude to its flattened shape. Itsspecific name, mola, is Latin for "millstone", whichthe fish resembles because of its grey colour, rough texture, androunded body. Its common English name, sunfish, refers to theanimal's habit of sunbathing at the surface of the water. The Dutch-,Portuguese-, French-, Catalan-, Spanish-, Italian-, Russian- andGerman-language names, respectively maanvis,peixe lua, poissonlune, peix lluna, pez luna, pesceluna, рыба-лунаand Mondfisch, mean "moonfish", in reference to its rounded shape. In German, the fish isalso known as Schwimmender Kopf, or "swimming head".In Polish it is named samogłów, meaning "head alone",because it has no true tail. The Chinese translation of its academicname is fan-che yu, meaning "toppled car fish".

There is an enormous, stuffed sunfish housed at Dunedin Museum. (Last time I was there, it was hanging on the wall at the top of one of the stair landings). The museum's sunfish was caught by my late brother-in-law's great-uncle. My brother-in-law was understandably very proud of that fact.

Yesterday we were watching a video of my mother's 60th birthday. It was taken twenty years ago now. So many changes since. (Including my shape - where has that skinny young slip of a thing gone?) I've changed so much since then, even Robert didn't recognise me - and he was there at the time! Over the years since then, I've turned from a minnow into a sunfish.

It will soon be the anniversary of my brother-in-law's death. He was a great father and husband and I know his three girls (my sister and his two daughters) miss him like hell. There is a beautiful wee granddaughter too now, whom he never met.

Life is a mixture. Light and dark. Happiness and sadness. Often all at the same time. Like the warmth and plenitude that the word sunfish conjures on a cool, grey day; the humour too, of a sunfish caught in a cold concrete bus-shelter.

***

Excited! To be the judge of a poetry competition - especially such a worthy competition as this one that Poems In The Waiting Room (NZ) are running. Go here for the details. Be in, poets!

***

Little Miss a Hit

2011-12-07T15:49:00.000+13:00

amyrillis

This year, one of the amaryllis bulbs given to us by Robert's Dad has decided to flower. It's always a little hit and miss whether or not I am doing the right things with these potted plants. Twice in the three years since we've had the bulbs, one of the flowers has bloomed, filling that corner of the house with a quiet thrill.

These flowers remind me of the poet Diane Wakoski. On the back of her book, 'Argonaut Rose', there is a picture of her with an amyrillis. Her gaze from behind a pair of very large glasses is enigmatic - as if she is the only one who really knows why the flower warrants more attention than she does.

Her title poem opens with the lines:

'What is the history

of this arm of a red lily that towers

out of its January pot, ready to bludgeon anyone

with its axe-handled crimson blade? ...'

I know I am a greenhouse pleb., but it is a puzzle to me why amaryllis are a December / January plant, whether you live in the northern or southern hemisphere ... You'd think the bulbs would know better. Daffodil ones do; in New Zealand, daffs. wouldn't dream of flowering in May as they do in the northern hemisphere. For Diane (an American poet) it is a plant that emblazons her winter. For me, it sucks up summer light, reflecting it back in determined and boastful triumph.

New Zealand Writer Tim Jones Explains

2011-12-01T16:42:00.001+13:00

Tim Jones is a New Zealand writer I much admire. He is able to turn his talented writing-hand to many genres and forms - among them, speculative fiction, science fiction, short stories, novels and poetry.

It is my absolute pleasure to take part in the Blog Tour organised for his latest publication the poetry collection, 'Men Briefly Explained'; a book I thoroughly enjoyed for a myriad of reasons - not the least being for its guiless, self-deprecating humour and the descriptions and references to parts of New Zealand I am very familiar with.

1) The last time I saw you was at the first event on your recent book tour (with Keith Westwater and David Reiter), at the Circadian Rhythm Cafe in Dunedin. The audience there was treated to an excellent evening of high quality and entertaining poetry. How did the rest of the tour go?

It went well, although we took the rain we had at the Dunedin event around the country! We had good turnouts in Christchurch, though it's probably no surprise that audience reaction was fairly muted, and even better turnouts in our home stamping grounds of Wellington and Lower Hutt. We must have had about 80 people at the Wellington event, held in the YA section of Wellington Central Library - though since it is a library, I did notice that one seeming audience member was actually there to read a library book - it was a Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic, a choice of which I naturally approved.

I had a really good time at the Lower Hutt launch, held at Eastbourne's excellent Rona Gallery, and even though the Kapiti launch at Paraparaumu Library was organised at the last minute, and at two minutes before the scheduled start time there was only one audience member present, we ended up with an appreciative audience of a dozen or so people. Going to Auckland always makes me a little apprehensive, and by that point in the tour I'd acquired a cold - the rigours of touring life, you know - but our appearance as part of Poetry Live at the Thistle Inn was a good way to cap off the tour.

I enjoyed my turns to read, especially once I settled on the poems that worked best in front of an audience, and also enjoyed catching up with old friends - and new friends - along the way.

2) One thing that struck me about "Men Briefly Explained" was how much the first section, in particular, is about your own life. Since you grew up in Southland and Otago, that means there are a number of poems set in the southern South Island. This is a place dear to my heart, for as you know it's where I was born and brought up, but do you ever worry that these poems won't mean much to people who haven't lived in this part of the country?

This probably isn't rational, but I think I'd worry more if I were writing prose. It's true that there may not be many readers who know where Puysegur Point is ("Men at Sea") or have ever been to Haast Beach ("Shetland Ponies, Haast Beach"), but I hope the feelings and experiences communicated in the poems overcome the possible unfamiliarity of the locations. Just as a lot of the poetry in the first section of this book hearkens back to my own childhood, youth and young manhood, so it hearkens back to the places where those stages of my life took place.

Having said that, I was very impressed that my fellow book-tourist Keith Westwater, in his debut collection Tongues of Ash <http://www.ipoz.biz/Titles/TOA.htm> which includes a lot of landscape poetry, thought to put in a map of the locations which the poems are about. I associate maps with fantasy trilogies - I never thought of putting one in a poetry collection, but it's an excellent idea.

3) I was interested to see that you have included some prose poems in this collection, which I don't recall seeing from you before. Is that a direction you see your poetry taking?

I'm rather surprised to see them there myself! I have always been a bit nervous of prose poetry, perhaps because I write both poetry and short fiction, and prose poetry occupies an ominous netherworld between the two.

Of the two examples, the "Three Southern Prose Poems", which are all based on experiences I had growing up - as a child playing on Bluecliffs Beach at Te Waewae Bay, as a slightly older child climbing the Black Umbrella Range in Northern Southland with my dad, and as an adolescent, rather too full of my own self-importance, travelling back to Otago University from my home town of Gore - were written several years ago now, while "As you know, Bob", three alternative futures for the male gender, was written relatively recently, so I don't think that constitutes a trend. All the same, I wouldn't be surprised if a few more prose poems pop out from time to time.

4) As an ex-Gore High pupil myself; one who also headed to 'the big smoke' of Dunedin as a tertiary student; I'm dying to ask - did you really wear your Gore High School jersey to the bottle store, when you were eighteen years old and the drinking age was twenty, as described in "Down George Street in the Rain"?

Indeed I did. I don't know whether this was a subsconscious desire to be caught, but for some reason, when taking this little trip to the bottle store near my student hostel for a reason I now forget - supplies for a party, I expect - I wore my Gore High School jersey, and was turned away without so much as a bottle of Speights to my name. To this day, I never know what the right thing to wear is in any given situation.

5) What if any reaction have you had to the concept of publishing a book called "Men Briefly Explained"? Has there been a different reaction from women than from men?

At the readings, I tended to forestall any possible adverse reactions by putting my finger over the 'n' of "Men" and saying that the book might be better titled "Me Briefly Explained". Because, obviously, there is a lot of me in this book - although the second and third sections of the book are more about other men, both real and imagined, than about me.

Maybe I shouldn't worry. Reaction to the book has been good so far, but it was noticeable that, at the tour events, it was overwhelmingly women who bought it. I am hoping that men wanting gifts for women will come to the party over the coming months. Gentlemen, this is your chance to explain yourselves without actually having to do the explaining - what are you waiting for?

How To Buy A Copy Of Men Briefly Explained

Men Briefly Explained is published by Interactive Press (IP) of Brisbane. You can find out more about Men Briefly Explained, and buy it direct from the publisher, on IP's mini-site for the book: http://www.ipoz.biz/Titles/MBE.htm

On Tim's Men Briefly Explained page, there are more options for buying the book in person and online, plus latest reader reactions and reviews: http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/p/men-briefly-explained.html

Under the Radar

2011-11-29T22:45:00.002+13:00

rocks at Cosy Nook, Southland

Cosy Nook, southern coast, Southland

Cosy Nook - perhaps above all else, the thing that I like about this small bay is the way the grass grows right to the sea's edge, affording an unusual contrast between the sea and land.

Cosy Nook is not all that well-known. And that's the way we like it (I was brought up just up the road in Orepuki). The artist Nigel Brown lives in Cosy Nook. Since he made this bay his home, the number of visitors has increased considerably. People curious to see where this well-known artist has made his home, drive into this pretty cove tucked away in its own tiny corner. Once there, they then they have to turn around - not easy on the narrow road - and drive out again; there is no way through a cove. Understandably, the locals don't always welcome this intrusion. They prefer their home to remain under the radar.

A lot of people live, work and create under the radar. It's where a lot of great stuff happens.

At this time of the year things begin to accelerate. Massively. Christmas for us happens in summer when longer daylight hours are already causing a busyness not experienced in the winter months. Christmas preparations collide head-to-head with the end of both the school and business year, causing a huge explosion of energy and related stress..

Writing for me has gone by the board for a week or two, or three, not just because off the silly season, but also because I'm accepting more work. This is good financially, but not so good creatively. An ancient dilemma.

However, other people are being creative enough to make up for my lack.

Here at this site; Waiting Room Poems (NZ); you will see what Ruth, a friend of mine, is doing to promote poetry in the community. 'Poems in the Waiting Room' does just what it states, placing into the waiting rooms of medical centres and hospitals, selected poems that have been printed on to brightly coloured brochures. This year PitWR is running a poetry competition. (Details for this can be found as you scroll down the posts).

Another friend (I hope Jennie doesn't mind me calling her that ... we only met face to face for the first time last weekend) has also been inspired. She has launched Dunedin's very first ) Literary Walk. This is an informative guide designed to highlight our rich history (and present store) of writers. I wish her the best and can't wait to go on the tour myself.

I feel privileged to know Ruth and Jennie. Please take the time to click on the links above and have a look-see at what these two women are up to.

Through the Years

2011-11-20T20:31:00.002+13:00

Steve abandons himself to the warm, Kyoto rain. Go here to read his blog Kansai Trails.

November 19th

Nov 19th 1978 (Sunday) written from where we were working as waiter and waitress at Post House, Aviemore, Scotland.

A cold day today. We had a sleep-in after getting to bed late last night ... we saw the late-night movie 'Good-bye Girl'. Work is busy at the moment. The sun came out a bit this morning and it all looked beautiful - pink trees, blue hills.

Nov 19th 1979 (Monday) written from Dunedin; now working at Whitcoulls bookshop.

A busy day at work today which certainly helps. Went to a Fashion Show with Pam and Wendy. It's all the 1940's look with little hats with veils, gloves, tight skirts, tucks, padded shoulders, diamante.

Nov 19th 1980 (Wednesday) written from Hutt Hospital. Lower Hutt, Wellington.

Today at 4.35 p.m. our bonny boy was born. The 2nd stage lasted 2 hours and I had to do a lot of panting. Not nice. Robert was wonderful and we're absolutely delighted with our 4.080 kg (9lbs) son.

Nov 19th 1981 (Thursday) Manor Park, Lower Hutt, Wellington.

Stevie's birthday and a gloriously sunny day. We took photos of him with balloons (but no hat) cake and candle.

Nov 19th 1982 (Friday) Manor Park, Lower Hutt, Wellington. We now have two sons.

Robert arrived back on the 4.00 p.m. flight, Stevie had lots of presents to open. And then the FINALE of blowing out his TWO candles. A great day.

Nov 19th 1983 (Saturday) Manor Park, Lower Hutt, Wellington.

Stevie had his birthday party and had a wonderful time. Uncle Dave and Aunty Marg were both here for it.

Nov 19th 1984 (Sunday 18th & Monday 19th) Manor Park, Lower Hutt, Wellington ... I'm pregnant with our third son.

Nice having Bar to stay. She's reading lots of stories. Robert and I made a birthday cake - a Noah's Ark. Mum, Alan, R. and Jill came for his birthday which we celebrated on Sunday (day before). We went to Rail Museum. Had a ride on the train which made Steve and Mike's day - and Mum's. Steve got the tummy bug back on his actual birthday, so no kindy.

Nov 19th 1985 (Tuesday) Ravelston Street , Tainui, Dunedin.

Stevie's first day at school was very exciting for him. Pizza Hut for birthday tea. Lynley and Alan here for the birthday. (His birthday party was on Saturday 23rd; 9 kids. Bar came and helped).

Nov 19th 1986 (Wednesday) Ravelston Street, Tainui, Dunedin.

Stevie woke up bright and early and the 'Sophisticated Six-year old' calmly unwrapped his presents. The coup of them all tho' was his school-bag. (Saturday) The day of Steven' s - he's just about too old to be called Stevie now - party. What a rowdy lot of boys! All trying to outdo one another to be funny).

Nov 19th 1987 (Thursday) Ravelston Street, Tainui, Dunedin.

Steve definitely doesn't get called Stevie any more. We were woken at 7.30 by Granny ringing to wish Steve Happy Birthday. He opened Nana's present - lots of exciting goodies. We had chips and hot dogs for tea and a Mr Whippy's ice-cream before. (Steve's party was earlier on the Tuesday - 3 people came - 4 were asked. A much quieter affair than last year).

Nov 19th 1988 (Saturday) Ravelston Street, Tainui, Dunedin.

Steven had a marvellous day. We got his bike this morning. It cost $230 so he was told not to expect much for Christmas. He's frustrated because he can't immediately ride it. He had his party in the afternoon with 12 boys altogether. Very noisy and energetic. We organised lots of games. The kids from church were the worst behaved.

Nov 19th 1989 (Sunday) Ravelston Street, Tainui, Dunedin.

Steve had a real happy day. He got a Garfield from Granny & Granddad. His party was today. Nine year olds!!!! Greg was sick (pure over-eating!) I turned to see him with his cheeks full and eyes bulging and rushed him into the bathroom. Steve had planned some games (obstacle race and a Pin the Tail - with a difference as it was pin the tail on the salmon!)

Nov 19th 1990 (Monday) Ravelston Street, Tainui, Dunedin.

Steven's party was on Thursday. We all went to MacDonalds. Robert took them to the beach after MacDonalds and they had popcorn and fizz back here. They played tapes - Poison and Bon Jovi and got dressed up in some weird outfits. We took photos. Despite the modern haircut and cool approach to things, deep down Steven is a kid who loves to make supper for the family cares about environmental issues, little kids and knows when I'm feeling down. He has a sparkling agenda going on in his head at all times. He's a typical 90's kid.

Nov 19th 1991 (Tuesday) Ravelston Street, Tainui, Dunedin.

Steven's birthday but after opening some of his presents this morning we won't see him until after school camp.

Nov 19th 1992 (Wednesday) Ravelston Street, Tainui, Dunedin.

Steven's birthday party today with six of his friends - some of them rather large. The party was relatively easy as they virtually entertained themselves. But they are a volatile, unpredictable combination. Ended with Robert taking them to the beach where they had a 'grundy run' into the water.

... and so the years go! I stopped keeping a diary at this point. It's been interesting to read back. The main impression I get from reading what I wrote of ordinary family life and events back then, is that I was very busy. Probably too busy. I'm glad those days are over! and that I am not as busy now as I was back then. I guess it's all about ages and stages.

Happy 31st birthday (yesterday) to our son Steve! a busy husband and father. I guess it's now his turn.

Fall Into Ruin

2011-11-17T21:31:00.000+13:00

monkey's wedding

All day we have been waiting for the sky to come apart,
to fall into ruin like a house abandoned,
foxgloves growing in the old coal range.

Clouds in the east forming an avalanche that slowly churns,
milk in coffee, turning dirty grey and rain
drops between slices of sun.

"A monkey's wedding," said C., " weather like this".
The sun and rain dancing guests.
All day we have been waiting.

Note: 'A monkey's wedding' is a South African saying used to describe rain and sun together.

The bright pink peonies featured here, have opened as wide as dinner plates. They've lost all their Saturday-blush of fulsome crimson, and float above the bench like pale moons. Mother-of-the-bride hats. Cream meringues. Their heavy petals are falling to lie, waxen lips on the carpet, among the fruit bowl, or on top of the teapot.

The weather has behaved strangely all day. It didn't know if it wanted to be sunny or rainy.

Poetry workshop was held at my house today. We each chose a random phrase and wrote a poem from that. My phrase was 'fell into ruin' (which I actually mis-read as 'fall into ruin'). We'd been talking of the world's financial crisis, so it seemed appropriate. Even so, I ended up writing about the weather. As I so often do.

Each poet wrote a poem in their own voice. I wanted to write about a cow, but decided that was for another day. I've got two other poems in mind as well - one will be about a neighbour's comment (made twenty years ago now, but never forgotten) and the other about a woman called Molly.

The next workshop will be next year. Where has this year gone?

Quiet Life - Stone Story No. 3

2011-11-16T15:13:00.001+13:00

Stone Story No. 3

quiet life

Stain of sunset, summer grass,
or clay banks in the cutting
between our house
and Falls Creek Road;

the track we called The Lane
with its thistle, broom,
gorse and long, wet grass
rotting in winter frosts.

There is too, a hint
of darkness,
of damage, of wine
or the beginning of rust,

as if this stone has skin
and breathes changes
that float like smoke
on its surface.

Then I see why it is the stone
to tell my story.
There, a short figure in a hat
and big, warm boots,

who stands in the mist
with her hands in her pockets
as if she does not believe
this is her life,

this thing as large
as a dragon that breathes
and burns in clouds of gold
such fire, such silence.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

Stone Story No. 2

2011-11-14T11:16:00.000+13:00

Stone Story No. 2

the bear and the moon

A father tells stories to his children
while he works the earth,
his words falling
into their heart's pool
to shine like stones in the rain.

He tells them of the moon,
how it keeps its far-side
forever in the dark,
how it spins
light side up.

His words are cold draughts
his children spend a lifetime
drinking long after he has gone,
this father, this pale bear with the moon
at his knee.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

Peonies and a Tiger Hat

2011-11-12T18:01:00.001+13:00

Having our son and daughter-in-law back with us for a short time, has brought its delights ... the tiger hat ... (as per this post) ...

peonies ... and delicious, ethnic meals ... among them.

Able-Bodied

2011-11-12T17:19:00.002+13:00

... snow on tussock, taken last weekend at Shotover Holiday park - this Saturday is a sunny spring day, so it's hard to believe we experienced snow only a week ago ...

My right arm is sore at the moment - is it RSI (from writing?) or maybe arthritis? I need to find out. Meanwhile ...

my left arm is saying to my to right arm

All your life I have been here
shadowing your movements.
I have yearned to do those things
you always did instead.

Probably good for you
to slow down now, regard
my existence
as useful, not inferior.

Give me the chance
and I'll learn the intricacies
of combing the hair,
brushing the teeth.

You never realised,
did you, how adequately
I can do things and how
much you never let me?

I welcome the chance
to be the one to reach
for the cup of coffee
and hold it to the lips.

I am thankful that I have two arms. In a situation like this, with my right arm 'sick', my left one can come into service. I am surprised at how willing my under-used left arm is to work for me - as if it has been waiting all its life for this chance to prove how able it is.

Tiger Hat

2011-11-10T23:56:00.000+13:00

Another feature at our nephew's wedding last weekend. Old milk bottles in a wooden crate, put to decorative use.

It takes a lot to make me laugh in the mornings, but this morning the sight of my daughter-in-law in an antique dressing gown and knitted tiger-head hat, did the trick.

Perching

2011-11-09T18:39:00.000+13:00

... this quail flew up from the path we were walking on, to perch on the branch of a tree where it eyed us with its placid yet beady eyes, as we tried to get the light and profile just so ...

Sometimes all one wants to do is perch a while ... not roost ... just perch. At the moment we have a bit of that going on on in our family.

I think of our son perching in Chile, while his girlfriend from Germany, perches in Peru. When our son has finished his Patagonian perching, they will both perch on the same branch somewhere in (I believe) Bolivia. (Note: In light of the strenuous mountain-biking going on, 'perching' may be a mis-placed verb in the case of our son. However, I plead my case by insisting that he will soon be up and away again, so it is a form of perching, albeit of a particularly energetic variety).

And here in Dunedin, another son and his wife are perching for just a little while, before taking off again.

Meanwhile, Robert and I while remaining the firmly grounded individuals we always have been, are also experiencing a form of perching, as we look ahead to our overseas trip over Christmas and New Year.

from my perch

In this rain on this day,
in a fashion, in my own way,
taking in the existence of brown dwarf stars

and sundogs, an oozing
orange of a sun (today
hidden from me by grey, polar fleece).

As well, communing
with other spinning people
on the other side

of the moon waxing gibbous, 97% full.
Learning too, how
to accept

eternity, impermanence and compliments,
how to trust the givers of such
and that this branch will indeed hold.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

Thyme Under Heaven

2011-11-07T13:01:00.001+13:00

thyme growing wild outside the town of Alexandra, Central Otago, New Zealand

Triple-layer excitement! Amid all the excitement of Robert's mother's 80th birthday last weekend and our nephew's wedding this weekend; both held in Queenstown; was the fact that our son Michael and his wife Kate arrived back from Berlin. They are back in New Zealand for a bit of a pit-stop before heading away again to the U.K. in April.

They have spent five months travelling, starting off in Japan where our oldest son lives with his wife and two children, then travelling to China, Nepal and finally to Berlin, Germany where they checked out the local art scene.

... march of tyhme in November ...

Travelling through Central Otago, we were greeted with their spring show of flowering wild thyme, covering the hills and reminding us of the heather-covered hills we saw in northern England and in Scotland.

The smell of thyme reminds Robert of his Central Otago childhood. We stopped and he picked a piece to take home.

A few years ago now I wrote a poem about another occasion when we did this. It's a poem from my first collection, 'Feeding the Dogs'.

bottled thyme

Pincushion-shaped
thyme
spreading wild
marinades the air.

We stop, pull a lump
out, its roots still
dripping gravel
from the road's thin edge,

its scent bottled up
in the car
for him a reminder
of when he was a boy

and the backs of his knees
after a day
of sun's sear
were sunburnt pits

as he turned towards
home and the day's
heat drained from the face
of the sky

and the lake's lap
invited him
to sit for a while, sink back
into its cool drape,
but he never dared.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

Pink & White

2011-11-07T12:06:00.000+13:00

Remember, remember, this is the 5th of November - and SPRINGTIME in New Zealand ... so why did we wake to snow? Snow all around our little wooden cabin in Shotover Camping Grounds, Arthur's Point, Queenstown on Saturday. We were off to our nephew's wedding. A white wedding in November is an unusual occurrence in this part of the world.

The wedding venue - on the road out to Glenorchy, at Bob's Cove - was in Alveridge Hall, home of the bride's uncle, Ivan Clarke; creator of the famous 'Lonely Dog' character.

A stunning venue and beautiful surroundings for the wedding. No pictures of the wedding party or ceremony, guests etc. but I captured something of the many details that caught my eye. (The bride's favourite colour is PINK- and pink was definitely an an invited guest).

Mmmm ... a light, lemon cake with white chocolate icing - SO yummy.

Jars of sweets and candy were a feature ...

The bridal party's bouquets.

The car the bride and groom left in.

At one point, I took a break from all the festivities to take in some of the surroundings ...

As evening set in at my in-law's home, once again I was compelled to try and capture something of the sinking sun's light reflecting off the Remarkables mountain range, signalling the end to a very good day.

Today It's All About The Sky

2011-11-03T21:51:00.000+13:00

Earlier today the rain clouds began to gather.

Tonight the sun promised delight.

Sometimes it pays to lift your eyes.

Stone Story No. 1

2011-10-28T12:01:00.002+13:00

Stone Story No. 1

Japanesestone

Whatpast hand has sketched the future

dark-red,drawings of a sky of trees?

Stars,the moon, petals, branches

inthe snow. Rivers or veins.

Jettrails across a sky darkening to puce

as travellershead for the other side.

Ourson, too, drawn

toanother country, another culture,

settlingdown there. Planting

the garnet-coloured placentas

of his babies, his father-in-law

carryingthem ona train

along faithful lines. Their deep-blood

buried inside that family's

ancient ground, under their own trees;

a magnolia, an olive.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

Inlet Lets Me In

2011-10-27T19:16:00.000+13:00

The other day I went for a walk to one of my favourite places to walk around our neighbourhood ... the Andersons Bay inlet.

I appreciated the bright mossy greens against the dark grey basalt walls and steps.

The limestone of old shells embedded ino the rocks also caught my eye.

The ice plant was looking particularly 'pretty in pink' showing off its new spring flowers.

This old seed-head has weathered the winter to shine like a dead star among the new green.

The old wall that holds the Bayfield Park up and away from the inlet's encroach, has a certain ramshackle, rough beauty.

As I wandered along the edges of the inlet a low tide, taking the photos and sitting a while on the old steps and huge slabs of concrete, seemingly flung there by some bored ogre, I could hear the distress of the local residents - this pair of paradise ducks (the female is the one with the white neck).
She would call to him, two high honks of warning (that I was approaching) and they would swim farther away, keeping a certain distance between them and myself. He would answer with one, low, disinterested 'whatever' honk, and continue to feed, hardly ever lifting his head at all. He seemed bored and under-whelmed by all her female fuss. He obviously felt there were more more urgent matters to attend to; an empty gizzard to fill for example.

Stories Written In Stone

2011-10-25T16:13:00.002+13:00

This long weekend (New Zealand's Labour Weekend) just past, I've been looking more closely at the gemstone steps we have in our backyard. I've been looking at each stone, finding pictures in the shadows, colours and patterns.

There is a bit of a story that goes with these steps ...

I spent my early years in Orepuki, a seaside town on the bottom of the South Island of New Zealand, which (among other things) is known for its gemstone beach. My father was born in Orepuki and over his many years there - long before Gemstone Beach was famous or even called by that name - he, like all Orepuki kids, collected the coloured pebbles.
I have childhood memories too of picking up the colourful stones (as did my brothers and sisters). We'd take them home and keep them in jam-jars of water, thus ensuring their colours would glisten bright. (That is until algae grew around them, draping the stones with rank, green tendrils.

Nearly 60 years ago now, Dad plonked all of his stone collection into the wet cement of the concrete paths and steps he built around our house. After we shifted away from Orepuki the house gradually fell into a pile of rotten wood and the paths became overgrown.

The steps however, were always visible and in perfect order.
I vowed that one day I was going to rescue them from among the thistles and ragwort, and bring them back with me to my home in Dunedin.
About 1991, I wrote for permission from the owner of the land that the steps were on, and during a Christmas reunion at Orepuki with extended family, seconded my husband, brothers and cousins to help man-handle them on to the back of a truck.
From there they travelled to my brother's place in Balfour and then eventually from there to Dunedin - an effort which involved my husband's help again, my brother's front-end loader and the brute force of a friend from Yorkshire to help us carry them up our steps and into our backyard.
I was known as the 'mad sister' for all this effort. They weren't the easiest things to move, that's for sure.
However, it was so worth it. I love this tangible reminder I have of of my childhood home. I always feel close to my father (dead 43 years this Thursday) whenever I take time to sit on them and rub my palms over the smooth, rounded stones.
To me they are gems not so much semi-precious, as fully-precious. Each one tells a story and recently I've been paying attention.

A Poem

2011-10-19T16:03:00.001+13:00

3rdterm, 1970

HowI stalled,

hidinginside my head,

likingit there, cushioned.

Beingin the world

asit was unfolding,

withthe sun shining neat

onto footpaths, the rain's

dribbleon to hedges

andpatient mail-boxes,

thesmell of cooped-up budgies,

thedeep, warm bath

nineo'clock at night,

thecreak of the passage;

allthings that cluster

toform a town; was bearable

ifthe edges were woolly

withfabrications. Rhododendrons

andmarigolds.

Thehigh school's

highly-polishedcorridors,

shadowedbike-sheds,

laggedpipes in the pre-fabs.

Thesound of clocks, of wooden walls

relaxingbehind wallpaper.

Thesmell of a cold fireplace.

Ohand let's not forget

theheartbreak,

theheartbreak

ofnewly-mown grass,

ofany and every awful beauty.

Yes,and that ache

ofdouble-hung windows,

oflooking out at a world where hills

meetsky; the outside world,

itswhole big, blue bluster,

itsyodel and strut.

KayMcKenzie Cooke

New

2011-10-19T11:33:00.000+13:00

My friend Wandering Woman and I have started a new (travel? impressions of surroundings?) blogging venture - as Di says, 'let's see where it takes us'. Indeed. Go here to see our beginnings.

Blue Skies To Grey

2011-10-18T17:03:00.000+13:00

taken on Sunday on Highcliff Road above the harbour

I've had the flu for two days. Being sick stops time. But when you come through to the other side, everything feels new. New beginnings. I feel like I've shed a skin, giving me the opportunity to shrug on a new one. Sing a new song.

the view from our deck on a good day, showing Mt Cargill in the distance without its wig of mist

While I've been sick I mulled over the book I'm writing. I mentally honed ideas and bulked out a couple of the characters. I plotted segues and connections and tied some loose threads together.
Now I just have to write what I was thinking about; shovel the words.

flags flying from Fox Hall

I have spent today in bed listening to the rain on our corrugated-iron roof. It has rained all day. Once I heard a bird break out in song, its audacity to do so surprising even itself, but then it stopped and again all that could be heard was the ceaseless tap-dance of the rain.

Singing Kettle

2011-10-10T21:11:00.001+13:00

kitchen kettle

Now you are old,
sing to the sun, sing
the heat of kitchens, poured
water on tea-leaves
in a tea-pot poured out again
in small ceremonies
of thankfulness or worry,
or a way out of either. Singing

kettle at the back
sing, sing, sing and now
that you are old sing again
to the sun, to the earth
you have been filled in with,
to succulents that grow
in you, to the steam
of a remembered kitchen

with a low pinex ceiling
prodded in disdain. Sing
old kettle of the sun that spins
on through the grey and silver
here in this backyard
that could be the last kitchen,
or the first. Old kettle
let the heat of the sun rock you.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

Quiet Kindnesses

2011-10-08T19:58:00.000+13:00

All our sons are now overseas. This feels strange and unsettling.

Before their departure, our middle son, Mike, and his wife Kate, lived with us for over a year. A landlord who had suddenly turned vicious meant they'd had to find somewhere else to live. They were saving up for their overseas trip, so needed somewhere to live that had reasonable rent. Reasonable rent are two words that do not often go together. We made the offer they couldn't refuse. Live with us - for a reasonable rent - so that you can start saving.

It turned out to be a special time having them living with us. When they left in June this year, I missed them. I had enjoyed their company, support, cooking, their interesting, quirky, creative and non-materialistic take on life. I missed the quiet kindnesses, the peace, the wisdom, humour and thoughtfulness.

After the dust settles from the busy few weeks ahead, up until November, Robert and I will have our noses pointed towards Christmas and New Year. This year Christmas will be a very different for us - we are going to South-East Asia to spend it with our son Steve, his lovely wife and two adorable kids. Then we will spend New Year with them in their home in Kyoto, Japan.

After so long writing only in any interstices discovered between interruptions, one day soon I will have all the time and calmness I desire at my disposal. I will be able to truck on with the novel so far I have only pecked at. It will be terrifying.

Lines and Tides

2011-10-04T22:25:00.004+13:00

I took these photos today as I walked at low tide.

Looking towards St Clair ...

and towards St Kilda ... It was easy to see what the last high tide has dislodged.

Interesting striations in the sandbanks, where the wind and waves have kicked in.

Seaweed draped over old pieces of iron that have dislodged from dunes packed with building rubble and landfill; formerly serving as an adequate bulwark, now coming apart as the sea surges farther inland.

Steps leading to nowhere ...

Rusted iron, sinks into the sand. Once it was a useful container for heated metal or water, then it was discarded to serve as part of the rubble used to bulk out the land-fill and reclaimed land. Today it lies useless, corrupted by air and salt-water.

(Maybe by taking its photo, I have redressed the balance a little and given it back some usefulness).

Stirling efforts are being put in by these two yellow diggers to try and restore some of the bank. The grey concrete pole is part of the lights for the Southern Rugby Club's playing fields. The lights have been severely undermined and are close to tumbling.

Not so long ago they were part of the rugby grounds themselves, not teetering on the edge of the cliff-edge. They are tangible evidence of how far the sea has encroached.

Munted tennis ball. This gutted tennis ball lying exhausted on the beach made me laugh. (My son Steve will know why). It's a long way from Japan to here!

I just had to bring it home - you never know Steve, it may just find its way into that parcel we're getting ready to send to Japan!

This oyster catcher has no worries as it forages and paddles at the tide-line. It is just doing what it was designed to do.

Weeding

2011-10-01T23:27:00.002+13:00

Spent most of the day in the garden weeding.

Quote from Wikipedia on the subject of weeds: 'Perhaps the greatest defense of weeds is contained in the last stanza of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem Inversnaid:

"What would the world be, once bereft,
of wet and wildness? Let them be left.
O let them be left; wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet."

In my neck of the wilderness, the weeds are not left to be.

Because of their prolific nature, in some people's books, Forget-me nots are weeds. I let them go for it. I enjoy their brand of delicate cheerfulness.

From Wikipedia again.: 'In his 1947 long poem 'Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction,' Wallace Stevens mentions the forget-me-not, using its scientific Greek-derived name:

...It observes the effortless weather turning blue

And sees the myosotis on its bush." '

''In 15th-century Germany, it was supposed that the wearers of the flower would not be forgotten by their lovers'. (Wikipedia).

As Christopher Lloyd wrote in The Well-Tempered Garden

"Many gardeners will agree that hand-weeding is not the terrible drudgery that it is often made out to be. Some people find in it a kind of soothing monotony. It leaves their minds free to develop the plot for their next novel or to perfect the brilliant repartee with which they should have encountered a relative's latest example of unreasonableness."

This was not my experience as I clambered about our steep bank. Thinking and reflecting was a luxury in which I couldn't indulge, there was far too much hard labour involved in today's weeding - toil that was accompanied, I noticed, by rather a lot of old person sound effects.

I did feel a grudging admiration for the capacity weeds have to spread. Unlike a lot of flowers and precious plants, they need no coaxing to grow.

Portishead, Patagonia and Pink Gumboots,

2011-09-29T22:35:00.000+13:00

... Today this Cooke Baked

It needed to be a recipe without eggs (we were out) and the first egg-less one I saw was Gingernuts, pg 40 in the trusty 'every kiwi baker's standby', Edmonds Cookery Book.

Gingernuts

125 grams butter
1/4 cup of brown sugar
3 tbsps of golden syrup
1 tsp Edmonds baking powder
1 tablespoon boiling water
2 cups flour
pinch of salt
3 teaspoons ground ginger

Cream butter, sugar, syrup. Dissolve baking soda in boiling water. Add to creamed mixture. Sift flour, ginger together. Add to creamed mixture. Roll teaspoonsfuls of mixture into balls and place on greased oven tray. Flatten wit a fork. Bake at 180 C for 20 - 30 mins. Makes 25.

They turned out tough little cookies, but tasty enough. I'd made them SUPER QUICK as the grand-kids were here, requiring vigilance ...

Grommet was his ever-obliging self and happy to act as a play prop.

... eventually making his escape.

In the middle of it all, I managed a skype with our son Chris who is in Patagonia, Chile.

While talking to him, I heard an almighty crash. V had thrown a small glass dish on to the floor of the conservatory. A gift from a flat-mate from the time I was a student in Dunedin in the 70's, now destined for the 'mosaic-pile'. (It had survived the boys, but not the grandchildren!)

I attached the 'Made In Kyoto' Grandparent cards on to the fridge today, and thought of our wee family in Japan.

I listened to:
Portishead 'Roads' (courtesy of Chris, who sent it to me over Facebook). Beautiful. Good to listen to while flinging together a batch of biscuits cos it slows you down a bit, which can only be a good thing when you're baking.
Brett Dennan's 'Blessed Is This Life' (very fitting for a day when you have heard from all of the family).

It feels good to be on board again after three days in bed with a horrible cold. And tomorrow is Friday - already!

Scrumming It

2011-09-25T20:51:00.002+13:00

I can't even think the phrase, "I do love a brass band" without hearing it said in a northern English accent (perhaps the way my great-great-grandfather from Huddersfield would have said it). But we weren't at the new Dunedin stadium to hear the brass band,

who (oddly enough) at one stage, performed a haka ...

we were here (along with this lot)

not to watch an errant blue balloon

or even to discuss the merits or de-merits of the latest footwear fashion in rugby boots,

(although, on that subject, I like the bright boots; I find them very spec. fic. Tim Jones will know what I mean).

here, a ruck forms

We were here to watch the rugby. (Parts of which was very watchable).

We were watching England versus Romania (or Rumania ... apparently both spellings are acceptable).

here, a scrum

Despite both Robert and I having English ancestry, we weren't supporting any of the two teams.

We were just there for the occasion.

As I say, some of the rugby was very watchable ... as above. (English kicker, Jonny Wilkinson in his customary 'prayer position' before kicking for goal).

England won. By a lot.

This is our second attendance at Dunedin's new stadium. A new stadium that is costing Dunedin ratepayers a lot and for that reason, a lot of Dunedin citizens are agin it.

But it's here now, so in order that it not become a white elephant and to get our money's worth, Robert and I are happy to go along to events and enjoy the benefits of a covered stadium. (We were very grateful for the roof last night when a bitterly cold and wet southerly blew in).

New Zealand is hosting the Rugby World Cup at the moment. As a nation, we are fast becoming au fait with bunting and flag-waving. Rugby Cup fever has hit the whole country.

Some people I know aren't happy about all the attention rugby is grabbing. I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but I find myself enjoying the excitement because after two major earthquakes, a mining disaster and other bad things that have happened to our small country recently, we need the bolstering and energy that World Cup fever is supplying.

Before the match, we spent a bit of time in the centre of the city where the atmosphere was one of celebration and 'party mode'. The same is being reflected around other NZ cities. I heard that earthquake-ravaged Christchurch was also getting into the spirit at the rugby centre set up for them in Hagley Park.

Last night though, I could have done without the English St George cross being waved under my nose by the rabid (and very loud - I am talking Town Crier proportions) English supporter sitting next to me.

I am not a rugby fan per se, but there is enough history of the sport flowing in my blood from rugby-loving ancestors (on both my mother's side and my father's) for it to rise and take even me by surprise.

After coming home from the Eng. v Rom. game last night, Robert mulled us some wine and we watched (on TV) the All Blacks (New Zealand's national rugby team, so-called because of their all-black uniforms) beat the French. It was a revenge game they have waited 4 years for, and it was very, very sweet to watch the AB's win in such a convincing and poetic manner.

Whenever I engage with the game of rugby (not so much with its culture, which is another story again) I feel close to my rugby-loving ancestors (Scottish, Irish, Maori, English). If only for that reason, I do not object when the rugby fan in me wants to come out and play.

***
Today this Cooke Baked ...

Pikelets

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
Mix together into a batter. Place in spoonful amounts on to a hot base of frying pan or skillet that has been rubbed with butter.
When the bubbles formed on the surface of each pikelet begin to pop, flip them over.
Makes about 10.

We ate them with butter and 'McDinzie's Wild Blackberry' (my sister and brother in law's home-made jam).

***

Tethered

2011-09-21T21:42:00.000+12:00

These two cards arrived yesterday in an envelope addressed to Grandma and Grandpa. They are from our two grandchildren in Japan. They were made at the playcentre they attend with their mother; made for the third Monday of September; a National Holiday in Japan - (Grandparents Day) Respect for the Aged and Longevity Day (keiro no hi). Cool eh. A little veneration goes a long way. All countries should have such a day.

The staff-room clock where I work as an early childhood reliever (teacher). On breaks, it lets you know how time is running out. Its seconds hand is a tangible example of how time can be measured, second by second.

Part of the notice-board at work; reminders, deadlines, work-related goals and bullet points. (I've always thought the term bullet points an appropriate term). As a reliever I no longer have to worry about these things.

A different kind of work-space.

At home, at my desk is where I love to be.

Like I was today, but not tomorrow when I am back with the clock and the drawing pins.
Like a kite - free to fly, yet tethered by the obligation to work. (Luckily, the people and kids I work with are cool. It is not all bad).
And money is cool too; come pay-day.

'an awkward dance on clay-coloured legs'

2011-09-19T18:32:00.000+12:00

No, Robert's favourite bird isn't the heron.

Above is a photo taken of a blue heron we saw yesterday during our walk around the inlet. I have written a poem about the wading birds found around the inlet, the blue heron among them. (I have used a line from that poem for the title of this post. Maybe I will post the poem another day).

We also saw (but I failed to get a photo of) two paradise ducks and as is most often the case when you see paradise ducks, just the two of them, one male and one female.

"There you go," said Robert, "Paradise ducks. They would have to be one of my favourite birds."

Paradise ducks are endemic to New Zealand. They have distinct alternating calls (or honks) as they fly overhead; calls which never fail to remind me of the wide-open spaces of New Zealand's South Island; of mountains, lakes, tarns and tussock.

The call of paradise ducks are a motif from my country childhood, as evident in this poem from my first book of poems, 'Feeding The Dogs'.

the bleat of dusk

Paddocks which seep,
hiss green after rain;
the call of paradise

ducks flying low
over rusty bracken,

ticking tractors, tangled
tresses of binder twine,

beer pot hills, dust balling
behind the school bus;

down by the white bridge

twitchy dragonflies
with hologram wings.

This land that rocks
me never sleeps. Through
the shelter belt of pines
the wind from the north;
it calls

my name, I run
as far as the septic tank
and back. The sound
of yodelling; dusk soaks
my father feeding the dogs.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

Volcanic Remains

2011-09-18T20:21:00.000+12:00

When the car reached the bottom of our drive Robert turned to me, "So. Where to?" I reached into the pocket at the back of the seat behind him and pulled out 'New Zealand's Short Walks'.

I read out some Dunedin options. Karetai Track immediately appealed. The top of the track is where our son Mike and his wife Kate got married.
It was a sunny spring day, with no wind to speak of (the harbour was like a mill-pond). A good day to fulfill the promise we made 3 1/2 years ago on their wedding day: to one day go back there with our picnic basket.

The sea below was like a breathing thing, a large animal ramming against the cliffs. In one of my poems about another coast-line farther south (where I hail from) I liken it to a bull. As I looked down over the cliff today, I was reminded of that image.

We could hear the clear, yodeling cries of black-backed gulls. Maybe the NZ native falcon we saw fly off from among the rock-strewn ground, was responsible for their discomfort. Robert saw a gull trying to frighten it off. Through the binoculars, we could see it calmly soaring, unruffled.

Perfect conditions. We had caught the day at its best.

In Dunedin you have to do that, as there's a high chance the weather will suddenly turn bad. I reckon it's part of its charm, but not many people find changeable weather and the correspondingly touchy temperatures attractive. (This of course means that Dunedin's population remains small; which for me can only add to its charm).

Now you are just going to have to imagine the sounds - for example, the bleat of lambs and the calls of their mothers. Through the binoculars, I spotted a young lamb jigging on its spindly, spidery legs, then prancing over to its mother's side to burrow in for a drink. For me it's not Spring until I've watched lambs.

We were surrounded by thousand-year-old volcanic moraine; lichen spotted. Robert - ever the scientist - pointed out that the south-facing lichen was white, the north-facing, yellow or green.
The south-facing lichen in the rock above, was especially striking.

Always, there is a rock with a face.

We ate a good lunch from our picnic basket and used the hot water from the thermos to make ourselves coffee and tea.
In the time that we were there, only two other people passed by.
'My head's in Georgia but my feets says California-bound,' Robert said, quoting a line from a song we'd listened to earlier in the day (as we were washing-up all the dishes from last night's dinner with friends).
"Where is your head and where are your feet?" he asked me.
I said that my head was with our sons - all three in three different corners of the Pacific rim.
"And my feet", I said, "are firmly planted here ".
"So, scattered head and firm feet," Robert said.
"That about sums it up", I agreed.
He decided that his feet, and head, were also firmly planted here in Dunedin.
On a day like today where else would we rather be?
We lay back and listened to Robert's i-pod - a Joni Mitchell (my most favourite singer IN THE UNIVERSE) track, followed by a Bob Dylan (who Robert is rather partial to) one.
As my sister said after our trip last weekend up to Christchurch in a van we slept in the back of; we are such hippies. (The word 'old' was not mentioned!)

Today I particularly enjoyed the sound of the skylarks.
Through the glasses, I saw one soaring, mid-trill.
I asked Robert what his favourite bird was (it used to be a hawk ... but I thought maybe it had changed). Never one to answer such questions in a hurry, I had to wait two hours for his reply.
(I will let you know what it was in tomorrow's post).

Brick by Brick

2011-09-12T17:45:00.004+12:00

Friday's walk along the beach revealed a spring tide had been at work, high waves washing into the reclaimed sand banks and plucking out chunks of material used to bulk up the barriers set when land was reclaimed.

The sea appears determined to take back what was once its right - to roam inland and relax into estuaries and swamps over the flat land around Dunedin and its coastlines and harbour.

All along the beach, detritus and rubble lay as evidence of the sea undoing the dunes at high tide.

***

Saturday, we set off early for Christchurch for a niece's 21st birthday. We set off early because we drove up there in our son's van (it needed a run after months of just the occasional 'about town' outings) and as it is very slow on the hills, we wanted to start off when the roads were relatively empty.

I call the van Big Bertha.

'She's slow and thirsty, but she'll get you there' is how our son describes his machine. He's in Chile at the moment, so we are its custodians.

Before the 21st that night, we had time to look around the tattered and battered inner-city part of Christchurch; the after-effects of the two major earthquakes it has suffered.

It is one year since the first earthquake and six months since the second one. The first earthquake happened early hours of the morning and no lives were lost; although there was a lot of damage to buildings etc. The second one happened in the middle of a working day in February, and it took over a hundred lives. (Note: there have been thousands of earthquakes / tremors/ shudders since the first one in September 2010, a lot of of them sizeable and frightening and causing even more damage).

Surreal was indeed how it felt, walking around the outside of the fenced areas. The silence was eerie and cold. Much of the city was un-recognisable, not just because of the damage, but because many high buildings have been torn down, altering the sky-scape and street-scapes of Christchurch forever.

It was hard for me to be certain, but I think this space was where an early childhood teacher training building once stood. I attended a conference in that building about ten years ago.

The thing you instantly notice is all the space from where buildings have been knocked down. Christchurch has gaps, as if it has teeth missing. It looks like a building site and very far removed from the previously tightly packed cityscape of businesses and buildings found in what was a thriving city.

We were told by family living in Christchurch, that many more buildings were still to be torn down, including the two large hotels in the photos below.

Things have been left exactly as they fell on the day of the second quake - February 22nd. When I looked inside shops, things inside are covered in dust. There is a sense of time stopping.

It was unsettling to see abandoned hotels with shattered glass, windows wide open and curtains billowing.

Perhaps the biggest jolt of all, was looking through a wire fence down what was once a beautiful, tidy view of the city's cathedral, only to see the shattered remains.

An abiding image I have taken with me after visiting Christchurch, is the care someone / people took to make sure Spring flowers bloomed in the plots that were still able to be tended. This pride and resilience, this sign of hope; sense that 'life goes on'; is proof to me that Christchurch will rise up from the rubble.

The next day (Sunday) we drove around the Eastern suburbs, noting the slumped land, broken streets, walls, playing fields etc. Evidence of the upheaval caused when the earth juddered and tore Christchurch apart, is everywhere.

As we headed for Lyttleton, Robert's sister texted us - Did you feel that one? Another quake ... we hadn't as we were driving in the van at the time. 'A 4.5', she texted, 'Not too big but it gets the heart racing'.

In the harbour town of Lyttleton, a bleak scene greeted us. It was sad to see that there really is nothing left there in the way of the shops, boutiques and galleries that used to be there. Homes on the hills appeared hunkered down and staunch in the face of the disaster that twice rocked them on their foundations ... and of course the shakes that continue to do so ... but it is impossible to know how many of the houses are okay.

I didn't take any photos; it became too depressing taking photos of what was full of life and charming, but is now marred and ruined.

However, a cheerful fish'n'chip shop was doing a brisk trade and we ordered a take-away meal of crumbed hoki and chips. We ate it in the van, looking out over the harbour. If you scrunched your eyes and looked only at small parts, it was possible to believe that nothing terrible had happened here.

Ubiquitous and ever-hopeful seagulls lined up for crumbs; we could hear the rain-drop patter of their feet on the van's roof; but weren't about to encourage them, so they were out of luck.

***

Oamaru - a small North Otago town with many white-stone buildings, statues, sculpture and Victorian architecture

We headed for home, feeling the sobering effects of having seen with our own eyes the state of Christchurch.

There is a sign in Christchurch that says (I don't remember exactly) but words to the effect that 'This City Will Be Re-Built - Brick by Brick'. It's going to take a lot of time, but there is enough hope and resilience evident among the broken-ness, to believe there will one day stand a resplendent re-built Christchurch.

A couple of writers I know, Catherine and Joanna, who live in Christchurch and have experienced first-hand the earthquakes (which still to this day continue to rattle Canterbury) write wonderfully about what it is like to keep on keeping on after the earthquake. Do pay a visit and read their stories.

Skylarks and Poppies

2011-09-07T17:08:00.001+12:00

Spring, as always, fills me with a combination of positivism and dread. Positivism because the earth feels lighter, warmer and a lot more colourful. Dread, because the containment of grass and weeds means a term of hard labour is ahead.

Spring also means the air around our place becomes alive with birds - mating, nesting, feeding, singing - they fill the day with a chirpy, musical undertone. More often than not when I am home alone, I prefer a silent house with the radio and /or music off. This means that on days like today I am aware of continual bird-song and birdy busy-ness punctuating the air, creating a cheerful, chirpy murmur and hum through my day.

New Zealanders love their birds. For example, the talking tui called Woof Woof, who sadly died at the beginning of this year. He was aged 16 years and lived in a bird sanctuary in Whangarei, in the North Island of New Zealand. Video clips at the bird sanctuary's site show this remarkable bird talking in a perfect copy of the voice of the sanctuary owner.

I wonder if a local tui I've nick-named Don, and which at the moment is paying regular visits to our kowhai trees (but ignoring the sugar water that the little wax-eyes are going for) will start mimicking me if I talk to it enough?

Apparently, as well as the usual clicks, creaks, clucks, chortles and bellbird-like chimes in their song, tui also have notes higher than the human ear can pick up. Observers know this because they have have noted what appeared to be gaps in the tui's song, even though their beaks were open and their throat muscles were still working.

Another piece of information I found out about tui is that they have been known to sing at night - especially at the time of a full moon. The moon is on its way to being a full one soon; I will be keeping an ear out for Don's singing. (It might even include a bit of a yodel, you never know).

I thoroughly enjoy the tui, the waxeyes, bellbird and other native birds that I see around here; so much so watching and noting them from the window in front of my desk, interrupts my writing; yet my favourite bird remamins one of open spaces, the skylark, an imported bird.

Described as 'a favourite of poets'; an 'extrovert bird with secretive ways'; a 'drab bird with a soaring song', the collective noun for these birds is 'an exaltation'.

A few centuries ago, in Britain (and Europe?) they were caught for the pot. But what has mostly caused the decline in their numbers over in the UK, has been the change in farming methods, with dense crops of wheat not allowing them to freely scuttle the ground to forage, and (maybe) to nest. To allow the skylarks better foraging access, farmers who grow wheat are encouraged to interrupt the flow of seed for about five square meters, thus providing spaces of wheat-free ground, called skylark plots. (The writer in me likes the sound of 'skylark plots').

When I hear a skylark, I am reminded of the freedom to sing 100 meters above the earth and the existence of bliss.

notes

Each morning the tui
blats it, like an accelerator
pressed to the floorboards.
It is a bird that means business
in a tree, at its throat

a tuft of snow-flake
white and all the sounds
one world can contain.
By afternoon it has left
the trees, the air, emptied

until near dusk above
open ground by sand-dunes
beyond a cantering ocean
that will never let us forget
we live on land

reclaimed, one skylark
leaves the earth, high and dry
to soar lost in its own shrill blue
song as if forever searching
in sheer amazement.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

My Real Job

2011-09-06T23:47:00.000+12:00

paintings on broken skate-boards. Artist: Micahel D. Cooke

Each day that's free from paid work, I head to my writing room to write. I put in the hard yards.

People ask me "What do you do?" Meaning - what is your paid work? Nearly always I simply say I am an early childhood teacher; a reliever (supply teacher, substitute teacher) for a child-care centre.

Sometimes I tell them that the relieving work suits me because it offers me the freedom to do the work I really want to do - write.

Because I work with children, people then presume I write children's books - which would be nice, but I don't. If I can be bothered I go on to explain that I mainly write poetry. People then presume it's rhyming poetry about gardens and cats. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but they are heading down the wrong track. Usually it's far too exhausting trying to haul them back on to the right track, so I just leave it at that.

I love my work; I have the best boss in the world, even if she is a bit stingy as far as the pay goes.

Father's Day Tui

2011-09-04T18:23:00.002+12:00

I'd swear he was looking right down the lens. How mischievous. I think I'll call him Don.

Today this tui visited the kowhai tree outside my writing room window. It often visits, but today on Father's Day it was special because tuis are one of the things I associate with my father.

***

Don and Shirley McKenzie, Ch'ch Airport, Summer, 1967

I have one memory of a Father's Day when my dad was alive. I was aged about nine years old and I'd raced out to the gate where he was just getting down off the tractor after arriving back from the farm. (I realise now that it would've been the middle of lambing season, a busy time for farmers, so that is why he was working on a Sunday).
I was keen to wish him happy Father's Day.
His response has always remained with me because it was so unexpected.
"Commercial rubbish," he said.

No doubt my face reflected a "Wha'?" kind of expression. I had no idea what he meant.
I either found out then, after he probably explained (he was always a good explainer of things) or later, that Father's Day had really only recently (I am thinking back to about 1962) been 'invented'. Shops liked it because it was good for business, or so people said back then.

Mother's Day is a more traditional celebration (it used to be called Mothering Sunday in Britain) with a more ancient history. Whereas Father's Day's history is a more modern one.

It wasn't part of my father's upbringing, so he didn't really take to it as an occasion. I think I can remember a packet of lollies (licorice all-sorts) being involved in the incident I describe above (no doubt his Father's Day present). I hope he was grateful for them!

McKenzie clan - apart from me (I was taking the photo). Taken about 1966

I like to honour my father (whether he'd like it or not) on Father's Day. If it doesn't sound too Irish, he would most likely be dead now, if he hadn't died when he was 48. (I can hear him sniffing with laughter, me saying that!) It will be his 91st birthday tomorrow ... if dead people still have birthdays?

I've written as many poems about him as I think I am ever going to write now. I hardly ever have the dreams that I used to have about him - dreams of him coming back to be with us again (resurrected?) but changed. In the dreams he was wan, sickly, remote, self-involved and a pale imitation of himself. He didn't remember who we were and had no desire to connect with us. They were horrid, unsettling dreams that seemed to symbolise ultimate betrayal and desertion; no doubt exactly what a child feels when a parent dies too soon.

However, in my waking life, I often have a sense of him around - what I have inherited of his sense of humour, colours things I see and hear. He shows up in different aspects apparent in my daughter, my sons and grandchildren ... My siblings also manifest parts of his personality.

During my recent visit to Wellington, I was lucky enough to attend the poet Joy Harjo's lunch-time reading at Te Papa. When she was asked by NZ writer Patricia Grace who, or what, she considered to be her muse; or as Patricia put it, "Who sits on your shoulder?" Joy Harjo replied that her ancestors were a vital part of her creative pursuits, and life in general.

I know exactly what she means. I too would consider my ancestors to be with me, part of my work and inspiration. They abide lightly, supportively and, sometimes, mischievously.

The Purple Roses of Gore

2011-09-02T15:33:00.002+12:00

When I last visited Gore, in summer at the beginning of this year - which actually seems like a long, long time ago now - I took the above photos of the purple roses they have in the Gardens there.

purple roses of Gore

I lived in Gore back when Flemings Oat Mill

made porridge, not pet food

and the middle car parks hadn't been replaced

with hanging flower baskets and a concrete sheep

and the old library

with its round, brick walls was still the old library

and not an art gallery.

Gore has always had points of interest;

streets named after rivers,

a hundred-year old ponderosa pine,

an aviary with a kea and a peacock.

Gore has two theatres and rugby-coach farmers

with heavy fists getting out of dusty utes to punch

in the number of their parking bay.

It has purple roses.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

Name on a Tombstone

2011-09-02T01:10:00.003+12:00

name her

I know nothing about her,
my great-great-grandmother,
(the Irish one).
I can only visit her
iron-fenced bones
while standing at some funeral
in the sun

or wind and rain with brothers,
sisters, cousins, as the sea drones
below that cliff-top cemetery,
sharing memories
of fathers and uncles
with their Irish sense of humour.
No-one left now

to ask if it was her widower,
my great-great grandfather
Bernard, who married again
someone so disliked by his daughters
that one day while she was away,
they buried all her clothes in the garden?
All I can do in the present

is to name her,
Mary Frances Reilly,
then use whatever is left
of her in me to picture first the girl,
then the woman, imagine
that she was tough,
trust that she was kind.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

view over Te WaeWae Bay from Orepuki cemetery

Knowing

2011-08-31T20:48:00.003+12:00

painted bus shelter; Dunedin

waiting

My great-grandmother
on the back of a horse,
cut quite a figure.
When my great-grandfather
first saw her, suddenly
the trees bent sideways,
the dark nights, billows of fern,
rain, all made sense. Her face
followed him, her neck, as soft
as a cloud. He knew then
why he'd left London,
his home, his parents. He knew
he would have sons, grow a garden
full of cabbages and silver-beet.
He was the song and dance man
his bones buried in this foreign soil
he made home. Two of his sons too,
buried away from their home country,
killed in a war their father never knew
anything about.
His widow and daughter in the end
left to keep the garden going,
feed the hens.
My great-grandmother
learned to live on, waiting,
never looking back,
you can see it written deep
in the only photograph we have,
the one on the wall,
her eyes knowing, following
your every move.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

Plum Job

2011-08-31T00:19:00.007+12:00

This photo of the plum tree at the bottom of our driveway was taken a couple of years ago when we got a good haul of plums from the branches that lean over into our property from the neighbour's tree. (I have no idea if we have a 'right' to help ourselves to the trespassing fruit, though I'm sure the neighbours don't mind or care).

I'm sure my sister would approve of this example of urban foraging.

Last year the birds got to the plums before I could. I wonder what will happen this year? I am already eyeing up the blossom as it gathers into a white cloud over our boundary.

Plum trees remind me of our early years of marriage, in Manor Park, Lower Hutt, where we lived for four years in a small, wooden house shaped like a shoe-box; houses rented from the Government Dept. Robert worked for, called Ministry of Works (not to be confused with 'Ministry of Silly Walks').

The backyard had an established plum tree with strong branches for stringing a hammock to. Each year we'd gather plums for stewing and jam, but there were always too many plums for just us to consume. The neighbours would arrive with baskets, plastic bags and tins, but even then, heaps of un-gathered red plums were left to ferment on the ground beneath the tree.

These days I'm happy to just make a batch of plum sauce - but it all hinges on the birds not getting to the plums first.

'starting over'

When we moved north

to Wellington, we felt like

we'd absconded, replacing mountains

and blond grass

with nikau palms and fennel

on stop-banks,

our four years there

living next to a railway line,

measured by the clatter

and arrival of trains and babies,

the ting-ting-ting of the barrier arms

coming down,

near where we happily bunkered

right on a fault line

running through

a backyard with a plum tree

we'd anchored a hammock to

for swinging in

with our young sons,

over a lawn

so strewn with the burgundy skins

of last season's

fermenting plums,

the very air smelt like wine.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

(The title to this poem is also the title of a John Lennon song. Using it in this way, it serves as background music to the era and mood of the poem ... whenever I hear this song, even though I don't particularly like it all that much - it has the capacity to instantly transport me back to the time it was popular on the radio - early 80's. In other words, it provides a portal into the past).

Held

2011-08-28T15:22:00.002+12:00

It seems every year I get taken hostage by the image of kowhai trees around our property, popping with yellow, bell-shaped blossoms, and not released until I have produced a 'kowhai poem'. This spring is no exception.

kowhai

The tree named for its colour

(kowhai, yellow)

has sprouted soft bells

the tui

and korimako (bellbird) go for.

There for a season only

the flowers

clamour to peal,

rung by a returning nor'easterly,

only to end up

swinging in useless silence.

Like me wanting life

to be believable

yet knowing that when I've gone

everything will still go on

forming and falling, that birds

upturned by tides of air

are just fish with wings.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

South Sea Spring

2011-08-27T21:21:00.002+12:00

Spring has arrived in the Southern Hemisphere.

Today a friend and I visited the South Seas ...

... art gallery, that is. Out at Brighton, a small coastal suburb just out of Dunedin.

We were there to be part of a promotional advertisement for the gallery, filmed by local television. Janet (owner of the gallery) has a dream / vision for the gallery and garden space to be used for arts events.

Dancing, poetry, painting, pottery, sculpture, music ... food and coffee ...

The nearness of the sea providing the sound of breaking surf.

Mosaics ... broken things used to form something new.

Back home another spring announcement; outside my writing-room window, young kowhai blossom.

... a bellbird, the icing on the cake.

I'd Rather Be Writing

2011-08-26T21:48:00.000+12:00

Another working day. Sometimes I wish I had a job that wasn't so noisy. Over twenty tiny vocal chords all being utilised at once, stresses me. Funnily enough.

As early childhood teachers (even if like me, you're 'only' a reliever / supply / substitute one) we are required to be 'on' at all times; alert to the needs and safety of the little ones. No breaks (apart from the designated all-over-too-soon lunch & a couple of 10 minute tea-breaks). This is a job where there is no allowance for day-dreaming (my ideal job would be one that allows for time for meandering thoughts and silence as a component).

On my walk to work I ran into another e.c teacher I know. During our conversation, she said that work (of any description) is getting harder and harder to find.

I continued on my walk to work, thinking that at least I had work and today was Friday.

Halfway there I looked to see if our son's 'Poet Wins' was still there. When he was living in Dunedin, he was in the habit of committing random acts of street art. In this case on hoarding over an empty shop window.

And there it was. My favourite poet. Still there.

While Walking

2011-08-25T22:05:00.001+12:00

cliff-face - Anderson's Bay inlet

I walked home from work the 'new' way again - passing by the inlet. So much more interesting than tar, asphalt and exhaust fumes; the smell of the fish shop on the corner replaced by the smell of still water.

calcified shells on rock - Anderson's Bay inlet

The sight of traffic replaced by the sight of seagulls lazily bobbing on the ebbing tide. Of two boys throwing stones into the water.

leaf on green algae - Anderson's Bay inlet

When a car stopped to let me cross at an intersection, the driver called out, asking me if I was doing any good writing lately. I turned to recognise him as the father of one of our son's friends.
It certainly didn't take me long to catch him up with my lack of writing output lately. We quickly caught each other up with our respective offspring, then we were on our way again. He in his land-cruiser, me in my desert-toned Nevadas.
The brief encounter left me with an extra bounce in my step. The walk home didn't seem such a plod. When I become immersed in a week of work, as I have been in the last week and a half, I find it too easy to forget about writing.
Now I just need to find some time to do some of that writing I was asked about.

Algae and Mud

2011-08-22T22:10:00.003+12:00

ice plant; Andersons Bay inlet

Today I walked home from work a different way - it may even have been one minute quicker. It certainly is more pleasant because I pass by part of the inlet and out of the way of snarling, home-bound traffic.

rock wall; Anderson's Bay inlet

Since arriving home I have only been able to chase ideas for writing and / or reading around in a mind lacking the time for reflection. Like one loosed, lost button rolling around on a formica table-top.
A searing headache drove me to bed as soon as I got home.
We decided it'd be fish and chips for tea. Blue cod and a scoop of chips from 'our wee man' on the corner. $13. Pretty decent meal for not much. Someone told me a f'n'c meal costs twice as much in Australia.
A friend rang to say her sister had died. Things change. People leave us. We leave them. Loss. "Life is a roller-coaster," I said.
Tomorrow is another day, work again and another walk home. I think I will go the inlet way again. There is something calming about the smell of algae and mud.
Aggie, the smaller introverted one of our two cats, lies beside me asleep on the bed. Her contented purring an idling tractor. The house is quiet. The earth moves on its axis. I will soon be asleep.

For the Birds

2011-08-21T17:08:00.003+12:00

The waxeyes have discovered our custom-built bird table. We are now waiting for the local tuis and bellbirds to do the same.

Our son in Ecuador ... before that, Colombia ... is on the move again; back to Chile for six months. When he finally gets back to New Zealand, he will be bringing a friend from Germany with him. We can't wait to meet her.

Another son, and daughter in law, are in India. They have cleverly discovered / made their own Artist's Residency there. They are safely ensconced in a place that meets their aesthetic and ethical values and will spend a month painting and photographing and discovering, exploring.

Another son is in Kyoto, Japan, where he lives with his wife and their two children. We are making plans to be with them for Christmas and New Year; first of all in a place yet-to-be-finalised in SE Asia (more on this as plans materialise ...) and then in Japan. We visited Japan two years ago. We adore the place and can't wait to get back there.

Having my daughter and partner; and three grandchildren; here in Dunedin, means we don't feel absolutely bereft of near kin. (The grandchildren get lots of cuddles - when I can catch them!)

Elephants to Ladybirds

2011-08-18T23:30:00.001+12:00

A catch-up of photos from my stay in Wellington.

We went for a walk along Pukerua Bay on the Saturday; the wood drifts evidence of a recent storm.

This rock is called Elephant Rock ... I wonder why?

From elephants to ladybirds ... this one was resting on a dried-out piece of kelp.

Large trees, large seas.

Stormy Petrels that didn't survive the storm. Sadly, there were a lot of them lying dead along the shore.

Soup from a thermos for lunch ... food always tastes better eaten like this.

Hello South Island!

Pauatahanui Inlet - water fowl retreat and reserve.

A representative of a feral group of fowl. We stopped to say hello. This rooster seemed pleased to show off his fine plumage.

Then the snow hit. It hasn't snowed in Wellington for forty years, so it caused a lot of excitement.

Part of the reason for heading north (apart from visiting family) was to read poetry as an invited reader for NZPS.

However the polar blast that hit Wellington right on the day of my reading, put the kybosh on a large turnout. It turned out to be a very small gathering around one table at the Thistle Inn. Small gatherings often create their own charm; which proved to be the case.

Before the reading took place, I became stranded in the city and unable to get back to my sister's place to pick up the material I was going to read from. My sister and b-i-l had dropped me off at NZ's national museum, Te Papa, in order to hear American poet, Joy Harjo (who was excellent; I was very pleased I went, even though it did mean I got myself stranded.)

After the event, I headed for the railway station in order to make my way back by train to my sister's place. As I watched the flakes thicken and felt the temperature plummet, it became apparent that I was going to have to spend the night in town. There was now no way, even if I did make it back up to their home, that my sister and b-i-l were going to be able to bring me back into the city for the reading that night.

Phone calls were made, with the result that poet Tim Jones and his wife Kay, kindly offered to have me stay with them. Kay also arranged to meet me and withdraw my two poetry books from the library with her card, so that I had material to read from.

I bought a toothbrush and some toothpaste and maybe felt a little bit of what it must feel like to be a refugee.

Now I am back in Dunedin where I belong. It is good to go and it is good to get back. I had a great time, but east, west, home is best.

Time Capsules

2011-08-11T01:25:00.003+12:00

If you took a core sample of the contents of Mum's house, it would reveal in colourful, striated layers, evidence of many decades.

my father bought this plate for my mother early on in their marriage (circa 1950)

my mother bought this clock for her parents' 30th? wedding anniversary (1951) She's recently had it repaired and it came back chiming a very quirky and incorrect version of the Westminster chimes

it's about time Mum got herself a new dictionary! Somehow she still manages to use it for her crosswords ...

this has been the 'sugar' cup forever

the sugar cup with a pre-war shaker that still measures in 'gills' !

taken over fifty years ago ...

taken 1969

***

I had a coffee with Palmerston North poet Helen Lehndorf on Tuesday, gaining insight and another take on Palmerston North's culture and character.
On the walk back to my mother's place, I hatched the beginnings of a poem about Palmerston North.

This poem.

ghost gums dance

Palmerston North's a grid.
A cinch to navigate
streets so straight.

I am walking the black racks

of shadows fences lay down.

I am seeing cabbage trees

in front of rough-cast villas,

blue sky choking on fat clouds

lumbering over

Featherston Street.

Palmerston North, so flat
boy racers could flip

it over like a pancake.

So much space, so much

elbow room. Ghost gums dance

at Cloverlea and I am walking

over the over-bridge

over the railway line

where on Palmerston North nights

bellowing diesel trains
roar right through
the very walls of bedrooms, or

so it seems; rolling north,

or south, dead straight.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

Green Buckets on Their Heads

2011-08-10T11:00:00.000+12:00

art deco toilets - Palmerston North

signs of spring - evidence

part of the Square - Palmerston North

carvings outside a five-star restaurant on the southern edge of the Square. Called 'Bethany's', it's named by the owners after their daughter who died of bone cancer, aged 12

conglomeration of dishes - a familiar sight peculiar to downtown Palmerston North

War Memorial statue; symbolic grieving mother of soldiers killed in wars

Palmerston North rugby fans are called 'Bucket Heads' because they wear green buckets on their heads. Fact. Read about it here.

Gotta love that.

I discovered Palmerston North's parking meters have a complicated and malicious computer system. Blithely unaware of the trap the meters set for unsuspecting users, I duly fed the right amount of money in and wondered why the meter didn't issue me with a stub for the car's dashboard.

Mum said not to worry, they were run by computer, that it's all worked out and a paper slip is not needed. She failed to inform me (or didn't know herself) that I should've entered the parking bay's number on to the screen; or some fandangled thing.

To my horror, when we arrived back at the car there was the unwelcome sight of a ticket under the windscreen wiper-blade. We'd been fined $40.00. Apparently I had 'Failed to activate the meter'. What? Even though I paid the money?

I intend to lodge a protest, but I suspect that the officialdom of middle New Zealand will weigh against me.

Middle of New Zealand

2011-08-08T00:55:00.000+12:00

Mum and I went to the Cloverlea market this morning for vegetables. It was a windy day so the clothes and jewellery stalls weren't present, but plenty of chunky vegetables.

My sister-in-law says that ever since the day the bus that was meant to pick up her mother from the stop failed to call into Johnsonville, she's been a little nervous that it will happen again.

“We saw it go sailing past over there on the motorway,” she said pointing to the hills. I could see the silent line of cars and trucks running along, as if on a conveyor belt.

However, there was no cause for alarm, the bus duly arrived. It was even a little early. Wielding her clip-board, a nimble, blonde bus driver stepped lightly down the steps.

“Have you got a ticket?” she asked me.

Full of confidence I pulled out my print-out. Then at exactly the same time as she did, I saw the date: Thursday 4^th August. Wasn't today Friday 5^th of August? Uh-oh. 'Adventures With Kay' strikes again.

I don't know how many times I'd examined that ticket to make sure I had the right time, the right day. Why didn't I ever notice the mistake I'd made with the days in my original booking? I guess you read what you believe should be there. Especially when you book on-line.

Luckily for me there had been someone else the bus needed to stop for in Jo'Ville, or we would indeed have seen the bus go sailing down the motorway. Luckily too there was room on the bus.

My sister-in-law tried to make excuses for me, bless her.

“She's the creative sort,” she told the bus driver.

The driver takes no notice. “Have you got your boyfriend in here?” she says as with some difficulty she man-handles my (I confess, I pack heavy) suitcase into the luggage compartment. She didn't wait for my reply (which now that I've had time to think of something clever, could've been, “No, not this time, just a few books.”)

My sister-in-law and I are still standing there laughing nervously about my mistake.

The driver motioned at me, growling, "Get on the bus".

I understood then not to expect any blonde solidarity. Anyway, I need to get used to that as I'm more silver (euphemism for grey) than blonde now.

And so the bus sails away on down the motorway with me on board. Off to Palmerston North to see my mum.

I pass some of the time it takes to get there – two and a half hours – imagining what it must be like to drive a bus. I guess much like a car, except way, way more back end.
The driver switches on her microphone to tell us there are three rules; no alcohol, no smoking and no shouting at the driver. She means it. Just the other day, she says, two men who were inebriated and causing trouble, got left by the side of the road and with a very long walk ahead of them.

After we leave the coast to head inland on flat roads, there are no landmarks to speak of. I remember in the 80's when we used to make this trip in our brown Vauxhall Viva. Our sons were very young. Somewhere along the straight bit of road, just before you get to Palmerston North, they'd start to get tired and scratchy. We'd get them to look out for the rocket and a front yard full of gnomes – or was it a yard full of miniature jockeys? Maybe it was both.

The bus pulls into Palmerston North. I get out and look for Mum. She's always been easy to spot. I used to look for the red hair; these days I look for the whitest head of hair I can see.

After sampling the one Mum made - and polishing off what she had left - I just had to make some more. I used to make this slice years ago now. It has been too long.

'Citrus Fudge Slice'

125 g butter

½ tin condensed milk

Zest and juice of one lemon

Zest and juice of one orange

1 packet Superwine biscuits, crushed

85g dessicated coconut

Citrus Icing

25g butter

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp orange juice

2 cups icing sugar

Grease an 18cm x 28 cm Swiss roll tin

Melt butter and condensed milk, add juice and zest

Mix biscuits and coconut in bowl and add melted butter

Press into tin and refrigerate for four hours

Ice with citrus icing and decorate with citrus peel.

Not So Intrepid

2011-08-05T00:40:00.002+12:00

I feel a little like Kupe this week - on a voyage of discovery, pointing intrepidly in an onwards and upwards direction. My expression is maybe a little less intense. Definitely less focussed. As I walked down Wellington's Lambton Quay, it was probably more one of someone lost, desperately seeking bookshops and coffee.

My brother tells me that the likelihood of running into someone you know on Lambton Quay is very high, even if you're from out of town. I haven't see anyone familiar. (Not that that means much, I am well known for 'not seeing' people. Once when I was out walking, I was about to walk right past one of my sons walking towards me, until he blocked my path). This afternoon, I may have seen a writer, but I'm not sure which one it was ... Kate Camp? Or Elizabeth Knox?

Yesterday just after I arrived in the capital city, the sun left. It just couldn't compete, you see, so it scarpered.

Central Wellington is full of mirror-glass high-rise buildings, but also has its fair share of splendid, wooden buildings, with attachments and decorative touches. The piece of heraldry in this photo is atop a building that has something to do with the government and history. A lot of the wooden buildings in the centre of Wellington seem to have something to do with the government and history.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bath. Three Dunedin poets will know what I mean - I took this for you. (You know who you are).

There are parts of Wellington that remind me of parts of Dunedin, but this isn't one of them. For me this is Wellington and couldn't be anywhere else. If you asked me why, I couldn't tell you. It may have to do with the ridiculous (redundant?) yet at the same time strangely necessary, chimney. Or the way the building looks as if its ready for something to occur. Or the way the hills opposite are reflected in its windows.

Another historical Wellington building. It also happens to be where I will be reading poetry on Monday 15th August as guest reader for the New Zealand Poetry Society. When I saw a street-sign announcing they had a muffin and a coffee deal for $6, I stepped inside to partake, but the sight that greeted me of tables full of dark-suited men talking about money and not a poet in sight (maybe they come out at night) scared me. I quickly scuttled out again. Opening a varnished, wooden door that launches you into a place full of confident people is a horrifying experience for the shy.

So ends my short stay with my brother and his family and time spent tramping the streets of down-town Wellington, being greeted at every corner with this city's history and personality (so many statues!) Tomorrow I head off to Palmerston North (as opposed to Palmerston South, you understand) to spend time with my mother.

I shall return to Wellington though, to catch up with family again - and poetry. Also, I will do a little more historical research. A little more delving into archives and rifling among National Library CD Roms. Something tells me I have only just begun.

Not Dancing But Trooping

2011-08-02T21:17:00.000+12:00

... view of St Clair beach from Swell cafe

"It's all very complex," M. said as she drove me home after our coffee.
I agree. It's all so middle-class, working class, no class. I'd asked her for a ride back. I'd walked, "Which darn near killed me," I said and made M. laugh. Must've been the way I said it. I love how I can make M. laugh. I love how she gets me.

... pretty peppermint tea

"It's a good day when you hear from all your children," Robert said last night. Email, Facebook message, Skype and a then to top it off, a visit (in the flesh) to my daughter. Who always makes me laugh. She is someone who really is funny, unlike myself who obviously isn't all that funny, otherwise my friends would laugh more at the things I say; like M does.

Today, I believe, was also a good day. As I sat with M. making her laugh, I was also thinking as I looked out at at the ocean looping in its blue-and-white high-tide dance and rush, how lucky I was to be free of commitments and expectations, enough to go for a coffee in the middle of such a glorious day like today. How lucky to live in a country like ours with freedom of choice. How lucky.

... looking towards St Kilda

Once one of my aunties described me as a free spirit. When I think about that, I tend to chase the thought down with, "Yeah, I wish." I see myself as more earthbound, grounded. Maybe I perceive a free spirit as someone who is flitting about in rarified air. I see myself as more of a trooper.

... in Dunedin people surf all year round, wearing wet suits. This either says something about how hardy they are, or what the weather's like here in summer ...

Certainly as I walked to the cafe to meet M. for the cup of coffee, I was thinking of myself as not dancing, but trooping. Free spirits don't wear Nevadas bought from the men's shoe department. (Now you'll either laugh at that, or rush to my defence. Depends whether you think I'm making a joke, or feeling sorry for myself).

... my desk in my own room - glad to be back here again after a spell of using the corner of our 'sunroom' as writing space. While it was pleasant enough in its own way, a 'room of one's own' cannot be beat ...

As M. said, life is complex. Layers and levels. One of my favourite angles on life, when trying to nail things down, is to respond with,"But it's all realtive." Pretty much solves everything. Compared to my mother, I'm not old at all. Compared to one of the street artists our son and daughter-in-law recently met while in Nepal, we're millionaires. Compared to a soldier in Afghanistan, I am a free spirit.

... the sky at dusk, as seen from my writing room window today

Right about now is where I need my daughter-in-law Kate, wearing her funny beanie and antique dressing gown, to wander in with one of her gems. She'd say something like, "Guess what I've been thinking about all day?" And I'd say, "I couldn't hazard a guess." She'd give me one of her quirky looks, plonk herself down in front of the fire, sigh, and say," I've been thinking all day about how space is full of nothing".
And I'd say, "Of course you were."

In Between

2011-07-31T15:54:00.002+12:00

As I sat on the doorstep tying up my shoelaces, I caught sight of a bird (chaffinch I think) in our small plum tree. Obviously spring is on its way, with the promising appearance of blossom.

The top of the beach track - the track is closed for the most part because the encroachment of the sea on to the sand dunes has made it dangerous. A shame, as up until the last couple of years it has been a pleasant cliff-top walk

All thoughts of spring engendered by the blossom in our plum tree back home, were quickly dispelled by the sight of frost on the sand-dunes.

The frosted sand-dunes stretched all along St Kilda beach. In the sun it was very warm and there were a number of people out walking - one woman was even walking in barefeet. We are in that in-between state; between winter and spring, when anything can happen.

Some boys were sliding down these icey dunes, using body-boards as toboggans.

I notice the cliff-face feature dubbed as Lawyer's Head is developing a bulbous nose - the lawyer being outed as a brandy drinker?

Remains of last night's party on the beach? Must've been a mighty frosty celebration.

Kelp in the sun ...

... kelp in the shade.

I thought this log looked like a rhinoceros. (A sea-rhinoceros?)

Back home and a comfortable blackbird in our tree. We have a bird table that, so far, only a blackbird visits. Maybe it is this one. He's certainly acting like a local. And he's not about to announce his discovery of the bird-table.
Through this winter I have seen fantails, kereru, tui, bellbirds, chaffinches, grey warbler, wax-eyes ... Seagulls lope past, high and slow on their way to the ocean, or back from it. Sometimes I hear the strangely lonely sound of a passing oyster catcher overhead.
Soon the birds will be building nests. They know what season it is, even if the weather doesn't.

(This is a P.S. photo added in after publishing this post. It shows a kereru sitting in one of the trees around our place. The photo really doesn't do this bird's large size justice. I only had its back view so couldn't capture its resplendent white-aproned front).

Later, as I gathered in the washing I could feel the air beginning to freeze again - another frost on the way. Then I heard a familiar sound. The whip of wings in the still air as a large kereru (native wood pigeon) flew overhead to land in the branch of a tree. Portly birds, someone I know describes them as the Iroquois (as in helicopter) of the bird family.

Skiffs

2011-07-26T20:10:00.000+12:00

Went for a walk around the inlet this morning. Perfect light for photos. This is what I saw ...

ice on the inlet? no, just a trick of ripples & light ...

ob-scene ...

is it a tree? ...

reflections ...

crushed ice anyone? ...

bird landing ...

speaking for itself ...

wings like ruined venetians ...

flamingo-pink feet ...

not one of Michael's rabbits ...

the hills from home ...

Ending up at home looking out at the hills and the sky; always the sky.

Below are the opening lines to the poem, 'heat and cold' from my book, 'Feeding the Dogs.'

heat and cold

As the tide goes out it leaves the inlet
bared, lifts the hatch of its engine room,

its hidden motor of mud where seagulls
elbow and grab and slap splayed feet.

Along smoking gullies, mist forges
a mute trail of bulging steam. Where heat

and cold condense , it falls, coats the grass,
turns it grey ...

Snowy Update

2011-07-25T23:22:00.003+12:00

Silly us, listening to the wrong radio station for cancellations. 97FM is the station we should've listened to, not Classic Hits. Foiled by our demographic once again.

skiffs

Not hearing that his workplace was closed for the day, Robert walked to work. It was too dangerous to drive - unless you have a four-wheel drive. We don't. We have Ruby, a very small Cortina.

white on green

Nothing for it then but for him to walk home again. He suggested I walk and meet him halfway. I decided it would be the perfect time to try out the birthday present my mother sent me a whole month ago now. Ear muffs.

rooftops and verges

On the way, I'm delighted when snow falls and I'm caught in the spinning flakes. As Pooh Bear once said, "Trudging through a snow flurry is always something to aim for in winter".

catkins

Actually, Pooh never said that. But he could have, while walking through the Hundred Acre Wood muffled in a scarf. On a snowy day.

Always watch where you are going. Otherwise, you may step on a piece of the Forest that was left out by mistake.
Winnie the Pooh

An Imaginary Line

2011-07-24T19:04:00.001+12:00

Today where I live, winter blasts outside. Snow thinly covers the hills, but is not thick or persistent enough yet to stay around our place, here at sea-level. I haven't got out of bed. A dogged headache keeps me pinned. I'm a muted trumpet. A lark without sky.

Looking at the photo above, you would be forgiven for thinking it shows dunes covered in snow, not sand. It captures the July coldness of a beach south of the 45th parallel. (The 45th parallel is an imaginary line drawn around the earth to mark the halfway point between the equator and the south pole).

This winter has been a kind one. Up until now. I look out to see the sky, low, white and furious. Sleet flours our lawn and sporadic hail showers pelt our roof.

Whenever the weather falls quiet, I hear one bird's lone piping. As if it tests to see if it's still alive. Maybe it's a pointless query as to the whereabouts of today's sunshine. It is either brave, or naive.

The showers stop and I can see the hills are white as far as Signal Hill, but not as far down as Waverly. This indicates that the snow is lying down to 200 feet above sea-level. Mount Cargill (kopuka-tau-mohoka) remains its customary deep blue, not snow-covered. It takes a heavy snowfall to cover that hill's forested slopes. (Looking up to see what the name of Mount Cargill is in Te Reo, I discover that the mountain is made up of three peaks, said to represent the petrified head, body and feet of a princess from an early Otakou tribe). Right now the princess' head sports a halo of lavender light. The transmitter tower stark against the sky like a monstrous, steel pine. (I wonder, is it a little too facetious to imagine the tower as representing the princess' tiara?)

The storm appears to have moved on and my headache has lightened, a little. Robert's sister and husband are checking road conditions for their trip back home to Gore, right when our internet has decided to go on a go-slow. We find out what we can. It appears that the roads are not too bad. They set off in the intrepid manner of people from the south. We wave to them as they leave us, their car sporting a crest of snow. They will go as far as they can, we may see them back to spend the night with us again if the roads prove too treacherous.

Darkness has descended. Our house is now just another light on a hill in a city full of lights on hills. We will have to wait for morning now to see if Dunedin will get its 'Snow Day' - on a Monday too, that's always a bonus. A 'Snow Day' is usually a welcome day off for anyone at the top of steep, snow/ice-bound driveways. To some it'll seem a shame that it's actually fallen in the middle of school holidays.

Whatever, it appears that once again, down here near the beach, it is a case of the cigar - close, but no snowman.

Ghost

2011-07-21T02:34:00.000+12:00

Gold Office, St Bathans, Otago

Vulcan Hotel, St Bathans, Otago

Post Office, St Bathans, Otago

old stone house, St Bathans, Otago

Over a year ago we said we'd go back to St Bathans. Another promise to ourselves we have yet to honour. I must admit, the claims that a ghost haunts the Vulcan Hotel (where we planned to stay when we re-visit the place) creeps me out. Despite the wide popularity of Harry Potter-like or vampirish-fictions these days, I remain a paranormal-horror-semi-phobic. I have no fascination for ghosts and their ilk, just a wary unease. I think an alternative place of accommodation may have to be found.
When we visited the town of St Bathans, it felt peaceful yet heavy with history; a relatively recent history compared to the history of the 'old countries' such as Ireland and Scotland ... but a history nevertheless; one that dates back to the 1860's when the town was full of gold-miners and associated activities.
The more I delve into the history of our world, the more I realise how true the saying, 'The more things change, the more they stay the same'. (I believe we can credit someone French with that truism).
The people who frequented the buildings in the photos above, or worked the land in the photos below, would not be that much different to us. They may have worn funny clothes and spoke weird, but like us they sweated, swore, bled, cried and laughed. They thought themselves fortunate or thought themselves wretched, depending on the weather or circumstances. They endeavoured and they dreamed. They despaired and gave up. They loved, they hated, were optimistic and bitter. They were cynical. They were realistic. They were romantics. They were hopeful. They believed in a better future and yet they were convinced that they lived in the best of times.

remains of a sluice pipe and gold dredging mounds; Blue Lake, St Bathans, Otago

remains of gold dredging, Blue Lake, St Bathans, Otago

Blue Lake, St Bathans, Otago

unseen

I invite no ghost
to look right through me,
nothing from the past to find me
hiding in the here and now
from whatever wraith howls
for a future turned inside-out.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

Turned

2011-07-19T02:16:00.000+12:00

In the summer we went to Dunedin's Festival. It had been many years since we had last taken the trouble to go. It seemed strange to be there without children and we wandered a little lost-ly. I experienced claustrophobia in the crush of the Thieve's Alley. Really, I wasn't particularly enjoying myself as much as I remembered enjoying such things in the past; despite the smell of hot dogs and candy floss. The clowns annoyed me and without any children as translators, the trinkets and toys just seemed to take on a tawdry air.
Then we came across a stall full of wood-turned mobiles. Charming. Unfortunately we didn't have any cash on us and the maker of these hood-winking wind machines didn't take plastic. "We'll come see you in your workshop," we promised, "we definitely want one."
So far, we haven't made it. Seeing this photo in my file has reminded me of that promise we made to treat ourselves to some wooden magic.

***

wooden thing

Fashioned and bent
to trick the eye into tracking
the mute wind's turn

to dance and play, to stall,
then move again. We think
that if we buy this wind-toy

we will own it, the wind
and its moves
that run like water

to play the air like children
we think at last the wind and us
have caught up.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

Winter Woollies

2011-07-16T17:10:00.003+12:00

Winter does have its attractions.

snow-covered Remarkables through cloud

view from Cooke's

Three Sister's peak covered in mist / cloud

Three Sister's Peak revealed; sun-tipped

kiwi with leg-warmers and beak scarf! (is this the work of Knitsy? - see note below)*

* 'Knitsy' is a guerilla, graffiti knitter from Wanaka who 'yarn bombs' where you least expect it, leaving quirky knitted items around street-lights, shop signs etc. in the dead of night. A bit like the way Banksy works - hence the name, Knitsy.
Knitsy even has their own Facebook page.

The kiwi is right outside Patagonia Chocolates where we had a couple of hot chocolates (a Chili Hot Chocolate and a Lavender Hot Chocolate). Mmmmm.

remains of last week's snowfall in the garden

mossy paving stones

When we visit Robert's parents in Queenstown (his home-town), we like to do the Wander to see 'what's new'. (Something we've done since the 70's). From that time Queenstown has just grown 'n' grown 'n' grown ... except the lake and mountains which thankfully remain the same. Robert's little boyhood town has long gone. Queenstown has a certain bustle and excitement (it could maybe be described as rich, funky-adventurer) that we can only take so much of before we scurry back home to the more peaceful, less demanding (and dare I say, less pretentious) haven of mountain and lake vista.

There is always fine food here; Robert's dad cooks amazing meals. Tonight we are being treated to a roast chicken with stuffing & gravy, mushrooms, potatoes and a platter of mixed vegetables. But first, we are treating ourselves to an Alexandra wine bought on the way here - a Shaky Bridge pinot noir. *Slainte!

*Gaelic for 'Health'.

P.S. (Later) Adding these photos of the sunset reflections on the Remarkables.

Quickening

2011-07-10T19:18:00.000+12:00

Orepuki -: in the foreground, farming land the McKenzie family (of both Irish and Scottish heritage) established. In the background, the ocean at Te Wae Wae Bay, the Princess Mountain Range in the distance.

After weeks of plodding through the Scottish links with my family tree, one day last week I decided on a whim to take a bit of a peek into the Irish connections.

Immediately, or so it appeared, my imagination lit up. Previous to this, I had been finding it hard to come up with any spark. However, I may have been searching for the lode in the wrong place. It seems that at this particular time, for me, Ireland’s past is where the energy lies.

Re-energised, I am taking a gander at Irish myths and legends. I listen for the quick, and the dead; familial voices from the past that call to my present.

the drowned bell (an excerpt)

As the horse and I rode by the lough, I threw the small bell wide and hard and I was not sorry it was gone. Down and through, cutting dark water like the blade of a sword. No sound save a swallow from the throat of the lough as it took it. Took it from me, yes, but better yet, also from them. No longer can it sound the call to prayer. The bell of hammered iron, dipped in bronze, is now a drowned voice and I am not sorry. It has been silenced, yet in its fall it has been saved. Kept by water. The horse under me darkens, then flares as the blaze of fires from the monastery light up the sky.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

On Iron

2011-07-07T06:30:00.001+12:00

Some find it easier to write the story, then do the research. As I plough into the relatively dim, unexplored interior of my own 'story-writing', I find that sometimes I need to research as I go. The research activates ideas, or in some cases (if I'm lucky) turns on a light. It can take on a life of its own however; that's when I have to watch it doesn't take off or I can end up in places I never intended to go, tangled up in the mangroves of sub-plots.

I have been researching 'bells', which led me to foundries, which led me to furnaces, which led me to iron, which led me to iron ore. It was a backwards journey (as research often is). I was starting to get to grips with the history of the ages, the metallic innards of our planet's (or in the case of iron ore, rocks from other stars and planets). Basic chemistry re-entered my conscious thought. (Some of the internet sites I looked up were 'for kids' - what a relief to find simple explanations with pictures). I guess in the world of research, the internet could be regarded as an inferior source, but for me any heavy library research will be down the line from this point in my story.

I learnt that in pre-historic times, the world's iron probably came from meteorites. Iron has been mostly replaced these days by alloys - aluminum, steel ... Some of what I had learned years ago in basic high school chemistry, came back to me. I still remembered the symbol for iron. The symbols were the one thing I enjoyed in chemistry; letters always doing so much more for me than numbers or equations. That K is for potassium was always going to be easier to remember than those weird, alien symbols you get in algebra.