Emma

Sad day, I had to have my old friend Emma put to sleep. She never recovered from her tooth-pulling, and continued to lose weight rapidly in spite of the thyroid medication. The last few days she has been quite out of it, not eating and with diarrhoea and not sleeping but dozing. Poor baby, she must have been in pain, for we discovered when she had died that she had a large ulcer or tumour on the roof of her mouth. Whether this was the result of the tooth pulling, or was already growing, who can say?   So I took her home and buried her in the garden, with a little posy of catnip, then disinfected her poo-pod and the cat-carrier, and threw away her meds (useless). I miss her so much, she was a great character; I saw a lot of her as she had a great affection for me and was the Indoors Cat, always around, always trying to sit on my lap or get into the bed with me. This picture is how I'll most remember her, dozing in the sun (this was after her op, when she was still in reasonable condition).
  I still have the lovely Thomas, but of course, now I'm terrified that something will happen to him too. I won't get another cat to replace Emma, from now on I'm a one-cat household, it's so awful when they die.

Another good idea

 

Been thinking of how to use a lot of waste wood/dry trimmings, and thought of making a trellis with them. The Council no longer allows garden bonfires, and I don't want to pay to have them dumped. I've got a big pile of old dry elderberry sticks (cut off from the neighbour's constantly growing bush which pollards itself into my garden, very useful for stakes) and assorted wood bits. This is the result, and will be put up at the back of the garage for sweet peas. I lashed the twigs together with some of the twine that came with the peastraw bales, it's a pretty pale apricot. I might put a dot of superglue on the lashings to stop them unlashing, as my knot-tying is very amateurish. The good thing is that it doesn't have to last for ever, just this season, so heavy structural fixings aren't necessary, nor does it need any measuring or exactness - simple rusticity is the look I'm going for. As always, I've left the sweet peas a bit late to plant out; they've all tangled together in their planter, so here's hoping they still thrive.

Early morning pics

 

The new pumpkin patch. Thomas on fertiliser duty.

 

Now I know why the artichoke is failing to thrive. Emma on fertiliser duty.

                                                                     Ooo, nice!

 

Trending: dressing gown with gardening boots.

 

Aquilegias and irises - a good combination.

Lazier?

     I've been busy in the garden again today, hope to have some pictures tomorrow of my latest folly, a pea-straw bale raised bed for growing my pumpkins in. I don't really have room for big pumpkins, so I had a brainwave this morning prompted by a picture in a book. I've put four pea-straw bales together to form a square and filled the middle in with compost. It's also possible to grow into the bales themselves; there are several youTube vids about straw bale gardens. It doesn't look very attractive, but hopefully when the plants have grown over it will just look like a hill of pumpkins. In the autumn when the 'kins are harvested, the entire mound can be thrown onto the vegetable garden as a winter mulch. Sounds good, but the proof of the pudding....as they say.

    Thought for the day. Are we becoming lazier readers? I've been trying to read Ivy Compton-Burnett's 'Parents and children' and have had to give it up as too hard. It requires such concentration; almost entirely conversation, without much context, and each sentence is quite opaque but full of subtle meaning. It is not bedtime reading, the tired mind just blanks everything out, and I find myself at the end of the page thinking, what just happened? I've tried Ivy before and also drawn a blank, as with Henry James and that perennial stumbling-block, Crime and punishment. Perhaps it's just our busy times, or the circumstances we find ourselves in at the time. Mum told me that she started to read 'War and peace' when expecting me, but became totally confused by the names - nicknames, patronymics, titles, etc., often three entirely different names for each person, that she had to give up. And Mum was no slouch of a reader either, but probably being afflicted by chronic pregnancy nausea didn't help with her concentration. It's hard to lose yourself in a book if you have to dash to the toilet every five minutes.
These days, our attention spans are being cut ever shorter by the Internet and the sound-bite, hence the rise of genres like the short short story and the short film.
    Any thoughts? Have you been able to get to grips with Ivy?

BHANGRA at Indian Diwali Festival, Christchurch 2012

This is the Abacus Bhangra Group that I saw at Diwali. This is from last year, they are even better now. You have to imagine that the music is really loud, that you can feel the bass beat thumping your chest, and that a whole lot of Punjabi guys are dancing around in the audience. Exciting performance.

Diwali

I've just come back from the Festival of Lights celebrations at the local stadium. Very enjoyable, colourful and noisy, and with quite a different vibe from your average Kiwi get together. Best were the Punjabi men bhangra-dancing, which provoked a spontaneous outburst of dance from the Punjabi men in the standing area in front of the stage. Such energy and lack of self-consciousness! Imagine Kiwi men spontaneously breaking into dance - no, I can't, unless they were drunk.
  Such a variety of costumes, too. Different ways of wearing the sari depending on whether the wearer is from North or South India. Very small children, all dressed up and being carried around devotedly by their fathers, another non-Kiwi thing. The usual practice here is to leave small children to be supervised entirely by their mothers, thus leaving the bloke free to go off and do blokey things, to look independent and not tied down. The Indian men seem quite happy to be seen to be in love with their children, and very nice it is too.
   And of course, nasty old cougar that I am, I enjoyed being surrounded by dark, handsome, young men. Indian men just have sex appeal in spades; they're well-groomed, well-dressed and smell nice, not one was wearing a hoodie or jeans falling down to expose an unwanted expanse of underwear or arse-crack.
   Ah, the benefits of multi-culturalism!

Dreams

Had the most amazing dreams this morning. Yes, I know there's nothing so boring as someone else telling you their dreams. (Ex husband once shouted at me "Don't tell me your dreams!" which sums up the whole relationship really. But I digress. As always). Anyway, I've had sex with Naveen Andrews, (but he was old and fat, just my luck) turned into a man myself (and back again), been an extra in a Bollywood movie ( I was going to be decapitated, but a monkey and a cat distracted the executioner, so I was saved), turned into another woman, and been at a rockers party where a house was totally trashed. All in full-colour, surround-sound, and way better than most movies. So it's been a busy night.  Pity a person can't film their dreams, I could put it on youTube. It would go viral.
  When I think about it, all of these elements were present in my mind. Tonight is Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, and I'm thinking of going to the celebration here. (Explains the Indian theme). A colleague at work told me that he plans to deconstruct his garden shed this weekend (Explains the house-trashing theme). Had a long 'fussing-session' of cuddles and strokes with Thomas, who can behave a bit naughtyish (naughty little monkey - explains the cat/monkey as saviour). Not sure about the sex change and the decapitation (perhaps I'd like the strength of a man, to do the garden, and perhaps I should think less).  My theory is that dreams are the rubbish bin of the mind; they contain stuff that is being downloaded because the mind doesn't need it anymore. Anyone attempting to interpret dreams is like someone going through the household rubbish; it will tell you something about the person, but not all.
     Strange dreams. I blame the cup of Earl Grey tea I took before bed. Blame it on the bergamot. And just what the hell was in that scented candle I lit?
  
PS. (Possible plot for Halloween movie - unprincipled candle-maker puts psychotropic drugs into his candles, and mass-mayhem breaks out. In a small American town of course. Could call it House of Wacks. Oh, triple pun! I'm smoking, this morning. Oops, there goes another.)

In advance of the broken arm

OMG. The road works are back again, for the third time. Now they're going to be digging up the middle of my street, right outside my house. Why, why, why was this not done when the rest of the street was dug up six months ago? Why was it not done when the feeder pipes were repaired? The outfit doing it (Pipeworks) are the biggest lot of useless morons I've ever seen. They are slow and stupid - obviously someone has not done their job properly or they wouldn't be back here again. They've never bothered to notify us about what they're doing either, or care to estimate how long it will take them. At the moment they have unloaded the digger and dumped it in the gutter. One large fat fool is sitting in his van, chowing down on a pie (they are the only outfit I know that have an hour for morning tea). The others are nowhere to be seen. I've not seen the like since the bad old days of the Ministry of Works pre 1987, when it took at least five men to lift one shovel of dirt. With another five men to supervise them.
   And I don't like leaving my house while they are there, as the only time my house was burgled was when we had a road crew in the next street. A coupla hours for lunch, what else is there to do but scope out the neighbourhood? I think it's called salary supplementisation. What a bunch of jerks. Unfortunately, the crims have realised that putting on a hard hat and a high vis vest makes a person all but invisible in the city; no one (well, hardly anyone) will question you or why you are on private property. One poor woman was raped because she opened her door to some bastard posing as a workman.
   A workman came to the door the other day asking to use the water from my front garden tap. I talked to him through the living room window (conveniently right next to the front door), but it's a bit worrying that I might be out in the garden if someone comes round. Still, I'll usually be armed with a deadly weapon in the shape  of a spade, trowel, rake or bucket of foul smelling liquid manure. Hence the picture of Duchamp's In advance of the broken arm, a sinister and subtle title if ever there was one.

Garden daze

 

Iris "What, again?" 

 

So green at the moment

 

More steps down the track to the perfect potager. The old sixties beach umbrella is great for sheltering new plantings from the sun. I've laid out the peastraw now, so can plant goodies through it.

 

New acquisitions. Night scented stock reminds me of childhood. Never grown carrots before, I'm trying Paris Market, a round carrot which is hopefully easy to grow. Coriander for summer curries, and, of course, yet another dahlia (end of line and half-price, but looks  robust). And now I'm off to plant a Moorpark apricot, now deemed to be an heritage variety and referred to in "Mansfield Park":

 

      Mrs Norris : "We were always doing something as it was. It was only the spring twelvemonth before Mr. Norris’s death that we put in the apricot against the stable wall, which is now grown such a noble tree, and getting to such perfection, sir,” addressing herself then to Dr. Grant.
“The tree thrives well, beyond a doubt, madam,” replied Dr. Grant. “The soil is good; and I never pass it without regretting that the fruit should be so little worth the trouble of gathering.”
“Sir, it is a Moor Park, we bought it as a Moor Park, and it cost us—that is, it was a present from Sir Thomas, but I saw the bill—and I know it cost seven shillings, and was charged as a Moor Park.”
“You were imposed on, ma’am,” replied Dr. Grant: “these potatoes have as much the flavour of a Moor Park apricot as the fruit from that tree. It is an insipid fruit at the best; but a good apricot is eatable, which none from my garden are.”
“The truth is, ma’am,” said Mrs. Grant, pretending to whisper across the table to Mrs. Norris, “that Dr. Grant hardly knows what the natural taste of our apricot is: he is scarcely ever indulged with one, for it is so valuable a fruit; with a little assistance, and ours is such a remarkably large, fair sort, that what with early tarts and preserves, my cook contrives to get them all.”
Mrs. Norris, who had begun to redden, was appeased; and, for a little while, other subjects took place of the improvements of Sotherton. Dr. Grant and Mrs. Norris were seldom good friends; their acquaintance had begun in dilapidations, and their habits were totally dissimilar.

Two days

 

Corydalis

 Yesterday I went to the local school fair. I'm not so keen on this fair as the church fair - lots of yummy mummies and daddies trying earnestly to do well for their kiddies - it's a private Anglican church school and the whole focus of the parents' lives is their kids and their schooling. There's a lot of junk they shouldn't really be selling (old electrical equipment) and just plain dross. The customers are very aggressive; one woman was going around with a little grocery trolley for her purchases, ramming it at people's feet and screaming "let me through, let me through!" as if she was someone special. More and more these days I feel the urge to just let rip, and release my inner Berserker, and one day I will tell such a type to f..off.  Why does the world seem full of arrogant jerks these days? Is this something they have learned from American TV, that thinking only of oneself is somehow full of merit? The plant stall was good though and I bought some vegetable plants there.
  Today I did a garden centre crawl, and visited a garden centre I don't usually go to, because their prices are quite high. I did find a French tarragon, which the more common garden centres don't seem to have, but no chervil or chervil seeds, so no Oeufs fines herbes this year, my loves. I'll have to resow some of the stuff that didn't germinate from the last batch. We had a miserable week of cold, wet weather that rotted the seeds away, but I have more and will plant again. Banzai! Good to see so many people in the garden centres today, getting ready for the big plant-out next weekend, Labour Day being the traditional day in NZ to get your tomatoes in the ground.
  Hot today, beer and ice-cream and lawn-mowing weather. Lovely.

Garden pics

 

'Whisky' - first bloom 

 

This large deciduous azalea is probably one of the Ilam Hybrids, bred here in Christchurch from a variety of varieties, by a man named Edgar Stead, around the 1930's. Ilam was his homestead on the outskirts (then) of Christchurch.

 

 

I mixed these tulips together this year and it's worked quite well.

 

Close-up of azalea.

 

Pink rhodo (don't know what the name is).

 

Lilac 'Kathleen Havemeyer'. I love the smell of lilac, old-fashioned, suggestive of Victorian bath-salts.

This bush needs to be rescued from an aggressive coprosma that has smothered it; I only found the flowers by accident, so brought them inside to appreciate them properly.

Eleanor Catton wins Booker!

News this morning that Eleanor Catton, a NEW ZEALANDER, has won the Booker Prize with her novel, The Luminaries. Both our Booker winners (Keri Hulme was the first, with The Bone people) are female, and both novels are set on the South Island's West Coast, a magical place if ever there was one. Ms Catton is not from Christchurch, but was educated here, so our lovely parish-pump newspaper headline read "Christchurch-educated woman wins Booker". Parochial, aren't we? At least it does get a mention on the front page, but I doubt will generate the endless media-fest that occurred when we (NZ) lost the America's Cup recently.

Naughty cat

I'm getting very tired of Emma at the moment. She's taken advantage of her invalid status to start toileting in non-toilet areas of the house; the bathroom carpet this afternoon. And it's always poos, stinky, smelly poos. Why? I don't know, there is a perfectly good toilet tray and a garden to do things in. Is she trying to punish me for sending her to the vet? Or paying too much attention to Tom? Naughty, naughty cat. I'd like to get new carpet for the house, the present one is at least 11 years old and covered with stains (mostly hers) and scratched-up bits (Tom), but it's just not worth it while she's still alive. In future I think I will only have one cat. It's difficult when one cat is ill or has to be on a different diet or they must be kept apart so that the well one won't bully the sick one.
    Had a nice surprise today. Went to work as usual to find that I wasn't rostered on, but rostered on for a Staff Support Day. (This is a somewhat controversial leave that council staff were given to mitigate the post-earthquake stressors). So I went home again and sat in the garden in the sun with a glass of reisling, watching amazing cumulus clouds build up on the horizon. Trouble is, I was so keen to get away before They decided they needed me, that I forgot about the stuff in my in-tray that needs to be dealt to. I'll go in tomorrow evening and clear it up, so I can have the next two days with a clear conscience.

St Peter of the Holy Road Cone

 

Some irreverent but humorous person  has placed a road cone on the statue of St Peter's Church, Beckenham. The church is closed and surrounded by safety fencing, (earthquake damage) but someone was brave enough to give St Peter an alternative to the Keys of the Church. Poor St Peter, his road cone is sadly munted; it looks like a truck has gone over it.

 

Reminds me of a mis-translation I saw on the website of the Accademia Gallery in Venice. The title of a painting "Madonna della Candelletta" (Madonna of the Little Candle) had been translated as "Madonna of the Sparkplug" by Google. I suppose this is the Madonna you pray to when your car won't start.

When will I ever learn?

A day off work today, because (again) I've hurt my back. My sacroiliac joints to be exact. I worked very hard in the garden yesterday, moving my potted citrus trees out into the garden, and I worked fast, as rain was on its way. So, I hurt my back and the arthritic knees have been sending up signals of chronic pain too. Today I spent mainly asleep, alternating with Richard Lionheart's Third Crusade, about which I know nothing. The Crusades have never really appealed to me as an historical period, so many just plain crazy and evil men using religion as a carte-blanche for destruction and blood-letting on a large scale, so I've never read much about them. The Christians are at the moment fighting bitterly among themselves, paying off old grudges and family revenges, with the somewhat perplexed Muslims standing off and letting them go to it.

Anyway, here is the work in progress:

 

I had the holly tree removed last week, (along with the Damson from Hell) so now it's all on for the reconstruction of the vegetable garden. I suppose it's going to be more of a potager, really, small scale but attractive. I could be really pretentious and call it un orto. The stump of the holly is right in the middle of the picture; when my back gets better I'll attack it with a mattock to try and bring it down a bit.

 

A bit further down the track to the perfect potager. The potted lemon that did all the damage is up against the fence, left of centre. (This was taken from the conservatory, hence the strange washed out colour). Must get some of those multi-headed onions, they have a good sculptural look, and some coloured leaf-things. And more chives, I love the flowers. A couple of grape vines up against the fence, along with scarlet runners and sweet peas will be nice. This is the warmest sunniest part of the garden, and was probably the original vegetable garden years ago. I wish I could cover all the concrete with something; ideally it would be paved but that will be very expensive, as the concrete is not level and would have to have a level substrate before any paving could be put on it. Gravel is too noisy and travels to places you don't want it. Ho hum, back to the thinking board.

Hair

I've found a great hairdresser! Regular readers will remember my disgust at my last effort, with the woman charging me $51 to trim an inch off my hair and gob it up with 'product'. I went to a new hairdresser today, Fusion Hair here in Opawa, and the woman did a great job, just a simple razor cut, no washing or 'product" application, no hard sell to buy expensive shampoos. Just a brilliant cut. And only $28! I was so astounded, I said "Is that all?" "Yes," she said. "if you're a happy customer you'll come back, and that's worth more to me than making a lot of money just the one time. Plus you'll recommend me to your friends, which is also all good for me." Sensible woman. When I first sat down she ran her fingers through my hair and rearranged it, and it already looked better, without even being cut. A talented hairdresser; her price is above rubies.

   Lazy day today. The weather has turned cold, so I've spent most of the day inside reading Sharon Kay Penman's "Lionheart" (about Richard the Lionheart). I really like her books, she does her research carefully, and even adds an afterword explaining where and why she has changed the historical facts to make a more readable story. One of the problems is names. Medieval personal names were somewhat limited, so she has had to change or nickname people to distinguish them from each other. (There are three Geoffreys in the tale, and several Williams and Harrys). She even admits her mistakes; what she calls her "time-travelling grey squirrel" - there were no grey squirrels in medieval England, only the native red ones. Grey squirrels were introduced from America much later and wreaked havoc with the red squirrel population as they competed for habitat. All of her books are good, although I did find "When Christ and his saints slept" (about the war between Stephen and Matilda for the English crown) a bit long.
  Just like this post really. Over and out.

Yoga!

Went to my first yoga session in about 5 years today. Early morning, 7.30, so I had to get up early, which wasn't so bad, really. It was part of a course of three sessions, a sort of 'taster' put on by my employers. The guy who took the session was good, quite different from the sort of yoga I've done before, (hatha, lots of breathing at a meditative pace) more active. The guy teaches astanga (faster) but fortunately not at the frenetic pace of some astanga classes I've seen. Boy, was I tired at the end of it, and sadly, with a whole day at work to go to afterwards. I wish I could say that doing yoga this morning gave me more energy for the day, but no. It's school holidays too, so extra busy and demanding.
     I'm hoping to revive my practice, and do a regular session every day. There's a useful book by a New Zealand yoga teacher called "Forty days of yoga: breaking down the barriers to home practice" (by Kara-Leah Grant), which looks at the ways we procrastinate about home practice. She makes some very pertinent points, one being that many people think they have to attend formal teaching sessions to get progress, when really they would progress as much by regular home practice. It's the regularity, not the teaching, that makes practice perfect, although of course you do need instruction to begin with and to refresh yourself and give you new perspectives as you proceed. Some of the lessons in the book have a wider application too; why do we procrastinate about so many things?  For myself, it's just sheer laziness. I really have no good excuse for not doing stuff, just that 'Oh, can't be bothered today, maybe tomorrow" feelings. So it's on with those unattractive words, self-discipline.
     I have not posted a picture of me in downward dog.

Garden comforts

The saga of the car is not over. Now I have to take it to an auto electrician because the last lot of people cocked it up. Now they admit they can't fix it. Why not tell me that in the first place?
  Living life as an hermit has such a growing appeal, if only I could get someone to pay me. Eighteenth-century rich folk used to pay people to live in their faux hermitages; to be properly 'picturesque', an hermitage needed an hermit, but lacking a rich patron, I turn to the garden for comfort, in these days of cruelty, stupidity and fanaticism.

 

Stunning!

 

Ajuga reptans 'Jungle Beauty'

 

The first rose. Penelope, a hybrid musk

 

Dutch iris and arctotis

 

Pretty little 'Quail' narcissus.

R.I.P. USA

What the hell is wrong with the Republicans? I'm angry and I'm not even a citizen of the USA. Of all the cockamamie stunts, impoverishing their own country because of an idee-fixe on public health care. What really galls is that they've made sure that they get paid, even though 800,000 of their fellow Americans won't.  Utterly corrupt. Utterly illogical. Totally ridiculous. Patriots? Nah.