Christchurch City Art Gallery

Today I visited our art gallery for the first time in over five years. Not because I dislike it, but because it has been closed since our 2011 earthquake. The gallery has just reopened, after extensive repairs, not to the windows as might be thought, but to the foundation. This has been re-levelled (they squirt resin into the ground beneath the foundation, gradually raising it up) and base-isolated, in effect placing the building on giant rubber tyres so that the building moves with a quake rather than resists it. The building was the Civil Defence headquarters during the emergency phase of the disaster, then had to be closed as two nearby office blocks that leaned over it had to be demolished. (These blocks actually banged together during the quake, and ended up leaning against each other).

The upstairs level of the stair well. A sculpture of upside-down chairs and florescent tubes hangs from the ceiling like a chandelier

The bull on a piano has become something of a symbol of Christchurch's resilience. First exhibited outside in a post-quake wasteland, it now has pride of place in the foyer. The work is "On first looking into 'Chapman's Homer" by Michael Parekowhai.

A great view out over the surrounding streets from the upstairs foyer.

This is the view you get when you sit at the piano.

Main foyer and stairs

There are several exhibitions on here at the moment. One I particularly liked was of the work of Margaret Stoddart. One of the first New Zealand women to have a career in painting, she was an adventurous explorer of the local landscape, using the 'respectable' pastime of botanising to travel through some of the wildest country of the province. The picture above is of her homeplace of Diamond Harbour, painted in 1909.

The gallery was quite busy even early in the morning when I visited. It's great to be able to enjoy looking at art again in such an interesting building. 

Decluttering days

Hosta flowers - you can see some of the hail damage on the leaves. One of the hostas in my front garden was shredded; sadly, it will look awful for some time yet.

Now we're coming up to New Year, I've bitten the bullet and am doing some serious decluttering. It won't make a huge difference to the way the interior of the house looks - I like most of my tchotchkes and they will stay - but more to the inside of my cupboards. There is a lot of stuff that I have kept, with the best of intentions, meaning to fix or alter or repurpose them. 

Part of the decluttering process is absolute honesty. Do I really want this? Will I really use this ever again? Will I take up this hem, alter this curtain...etc. etc. I tend to keep things like old curtains, just in case I move house and the curtains will fit the new windows (they don't fit the current windows, which is why they are in storage). And duplicates of things - two (or sometimes three) of everything, in case I lose or break one. It's best to give them to charity, I think, then at least someone can use them, instead of just filling up a drawer or a cupboard. I keep ancient seed packets with ancient seeds. They will not germinate and I know this, but still I keep them. I found two brand new spanners in a box. I have no idea why I have them or when I would ever use them; I do not fix my own car or plumbing or even my bicycle myself. 

I have kept a lot of newspaper and magazine clippings, about gardening and cooking. These were yellowing and musty and I have never looked at them again after clipping them. The Internet has obviated my need to keep such stuff; if I want to know how to prune a fruit-tree, Google will tell me. And I will still keep my books, my many gardening books.

So I'll continue, and then have a big houseclean so I can go into the New Year all bright and shiny. Many cultures have this "clean before the new year" custom, but I've never bothered before. And I may not bother again!

Merry Christmas!

   This is a photo of my garden taken this evening. Southern Christmas is a summer event, which can be a bit odd; cards with reindeer and snow are a bit out of place down here. Our Santa wears red board shorts and a T-shirt and jandals (aka thongs or flip-flops) and eats salad and ice-cream and enjoys a cool beer rather than egg-nog.
   Those of us in the Southern Hemisphere have almost finished our Christmas Day now. In the Northern Hemisphere, you'll just be starting, so to both hemispheres I hope you had and have a very Merry Christmas.

Rebuilding

This is the Opawa Methodist Church. The church was badly damaged during our earthquakes in 2011, and is now being rebuilt. The church building was brick with a wooden roof, quite a beautiful wooden roof, which was removed in one piece and set aside on the site while the foundation and superstructure were rebuilt. This week the old roof was popped back onto the new framing with giant cranes. All went smoothly, and now a modern church will be filled in under the roof. This is a brilliant re-use of the old with the safety of the new, and I look forward to seeing the new building take shape.

Here you can see one of the new steel stanchions that support the old roof.

SEE:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/75197869/crane-swings-20-tonne-roof-back-into-place-for-opawa-methodist-church

Post-hailstorm blues

Pot of nasturtiums -shredded

No, this is not a new laceleaf zucchini cultivar

Garlic completed flattened where the hail ponded

Some despondency today, after looking more closely at the damage done by Sunday's hailstorms. I've been at work since then, so haven't really had time (or the inclination) to do a proper inventory of the garden. Much shredded leafage, and some pitting of fruit, but since I'm not growing for export, this last won't bother me. All across the city, you can hear the lamentations and gnashing of teeth as gardeners discover their vegetables and fruits damaged. Hopefully they will stage a resurgence, (gardeners and plants) so best leave the stuff and hope for a better more clement summer from now on.

Thomas likes to sit on my kneeling pad, and gets on it every time I move off. The new non-black spot replanted.

On the bright side,this afternoon has been sunny, so I've got out and completed the redevelopment of the "black spot" I talked about in my last post. I decided to remove the lambs' ears after all, and have replanted with a row of Lebanese cucumbers (they will have a support), an odd cucurbit that self-seeded in the strawberry bed (might be a pumpkin?) and a row of chives at the front for decoration. I'll also scatter some coriander seed in the middle section of the plot, and hope for the best.

I'm also thinking about making some fruit wine this year. There's only so much jam a person can eat, and with the price of wine what it is, this would be an interesting exercise. (Although New Zealand wines get good press overseas, most of the cheap wine available here is not that good.) My dad used to make fruit wines from the garden and very nice they were too. Apricot and peach were particularly good, I remember. It's a good way of using the surplus, and even if I get only vinegar at the end, at least it will be my own vinegar!

Crazy weather

Rose "Double Delight"

Nutty weather today. Two severe hailstorms one about 3 hours after the other, plus a tornado reported out in the countryside. I was at work when the first storm came in, it was so bad a large seagull came down to rest on the lawn outside because it couldn't fly in the hail. Never seen that before. About 15 minutes after I arrived home there was a second storm, not quite so bad hail-wise but lots of loud thunder and lightening. Some of the plants in the vegetable garden are shredded. The zucchini plants are particularly bad, and one of my Purple Calabash tomatoes has been stripped right down into a stalk! Very annoying - I have been coddling these as they are not very robust anyway - and many of my seedling basils have been broken off completely. Grrr! I'm glad I'm not a commercial grower and my livelihood depends on my crops. It's the start of the cherry season here now, which is brief enough anyway, without hail damage. There'll be a lot of farmers who will be looking at their fields and shaking their heads right now. And the bloody supermarkets will be using that as a reason to put their prices for fruit and veg. up. Grrrr!

Black spots

Every garden has its black spots, and this is one of mine. It's been deteriorating for some time now, a bed of violets that has been infiltrated by twitch grass. For some reason, I haven't been able to "see" this until the last few days, so stealthy has the takeover been, but today I got into it and removed most of the weeds and violets. It is only a small patch of garden, and I have to leave the overgrown part to the right, where the lambs' ears are, because the bees love the lambs' ears flowers and I'm loath to remove the plant when it's being utilised by them. The soil is quite hard and threaded through with violet roots and the fibrous roots of the fern on the right. I don't know what I'll put here; it is quite a difficult place as it gets no sun until the late afternoon, when it bakes. Perhaps a bush cucumber or coriander? It's right outside the kitchen door - perhaps parsley, although I have a lot of that growing all over the garden.

First strawberries today, with a few raspberries thrown in. Yum!

Lots of garden pics

Nice hot day at last, so I washed out some of my vintage stuff. I'm still undecided about whether I want to sell them; I can't wear them anymore as I am too portly now, but I do like them, and I have a horror of selling them only to find out that I really should have kept them. I've done lots of gardening, transplanting the vege plants that I still have in punnets, and sowing a bit more. The tomatoes are planted out, except for the Purple Calabashes, which are just sitting doing nothing. I think our climate here is too changeable for them, they need a steady heat and a mild night-time temperature. Oh well, I know not to grow them again. Our summers are not long, about 4 months, so things need to be up and growing by about mid-December or there is no time to get a crop. The dragonfly is a first; I have never seen one in the garden before, I think the very boisterous wind we had today must have blown him from the river (not too far away, at the end of the next street). Off now to water the potatoes, which will be parched.

Roses, roses

Crown Princess Margareta

Buff Beauty

Haven't posted for ages! probably because very little is going on right now, except for the flowering of the roses. They've been delayed by our mad weather, which has been quite cold and windy, but today has been hot, so now they are coming out quickly. The vegetable garden is several weeks behind, one minute I'm worried about frost, the next watering like mad because it's drying up. Anyone who says that climate change is a lie is a fool, in my opinion. The weather now is so completely unlike that of my childhood that it is like living in a different country. I'm sure our weather was more stable and less changeable than now; we used to have  whole weeks of hot weather in summer, now we just get a day here and there. We used to have hot nights all night too; now the temperature always goes down overnight, so by four o'clock in the morning I'm looking for the duvet to cover up to get warm. Of course, this is all "anecdotal" as the pundits like to say, it's not proof.

Of course, terrible things are going on in the world. As always. There is always conflict somewhere. The Vietnam war played on TV every night when I was a child, and sadly, nothing much has changed. Some philosopher once said that the world would be a better place if everyone just stayed quietly at home. I stay quietly at home, growing my vegetables and admiring my roses; I feel that this is the only way I can contribute to world peace, just not being a violent pain-in-the-arse to everyone else.

Bits and pieces

                                         Jiro using the washing as a hammock.

Not much going on at the moment (not that there ever is, and I can be quite thankful for that; I'd rather have peaceful nothingness than drama and crisis). The cats are being delightful at the moment, they like the better weather and longer days that summer brings. Jiro's latest game is to meow outside the kitchen door, then run away when I open it, just like a kid doing the door-knocking game. Thomas is being very snuggly and affectionate; he's finally realised that even though there's another cat, there's still enough love for him. Not that he likes Jiro any better, but is a bit more relaxed and friendly towards me.
     It's still quite cold here though; tonight the temperature is down to 5 degrees (Celsius) so it's not exactly warm. I was looking at my posts for this time last year and see the same comments, the weather is hot and dry and I'm watering the garden, the next day it's cold and wet. We've had Halloween, I even went to a party, but didn't dress up for it; I'm scary enough as my real self. Now Guy Fawke's night is coming up tomorrow, so I'll brace myself for the noises. No doubt it will go on all through the weekend as well. Not my favourite celebration.
      The spring-cleaning continues sporadically. I start with a hiss and a roar and bags of enthusiasm, then rapidly lose interest. The problem is that the house doesn't stay clean, so it's a labour of Sisyphus or Hercules. At least it's only my own mess to clean up, not some dodgy husband or flat-mate. The cats aren't too bad either; they are both young and don't throw up too often in the house! But why do cats always have to up-chuck on the carpet, not the vinyl flooring? One of those mysteries that will never be solved.

Diwali

This week I had the fun of creating a Diwali display for the library I work for. Here is Mona, our mannequin, in my sari, draped with the aid of several youTube tutorials. I've pinned the sari up in critical spots, unlike real sari-draping professionals who just tuck the sari in, but I think she looks nice. She looks better than I do, because I am somewhat stout and look more like a bolster in the sari than a graceful woman. The sari was bought in India, in a loft warehouse presided over by a rather greasy-looking dude with permed hair. There were hundreds of sarees there, all second hand but still beautiful. This one I particularly liked as it has a heavy, silky fall that drapes very nicely, unlike cotton or chiffon that tend to bunch a bit if you don't get them right.

Diwali is the Indian festival of lights, celebrating the victory of good over evil, light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance. There are several legends about the origin of the Diwali festival. Probably the best known is that it celebrates the return of Rama, Sita and Lakshman to their home city after a long period of exile. To welcome them, every house was lit with burning lamps, hence the close association of the festival with the symbol of the lighted lamp. 

Like many festivals around the world, Diwali is a time for cleaning and renewal, buying new clothing and redecorating and cleaning the house. I've been doing a lot of spring-cleaning too, dusting, polishing, turning out cupboards and drawers, and sending things to the Sallies and the numerous fairs we have at this time of year. I find it hard to throw things out; I was raised by a mother who had been through the Depression and the London Blitz, and she liked to keep things "just in case we need them sometime in the future". I understand this thinking all too well, and always worry that I will find a use for something just after I've got rid of it. I did once throw out a milk jug that Mum subsequently decided she needed; happily, we were able to buy it back from the church white elephant stall a few days later. I still have it, now it probably will stay with me forever!

Artichokes

This is my artichoke plant this year. Last year I had two small chokes but this year two big ones and five little ones. They take some time to process for cooking, but I will try them when I know I'm not going out anywhere the next day. The first and only time I had them (in Italy) they created a mighty wind overnight! The plant has become something of a villain, a big aggressive thing that overshadows everything else in this bed, so I'll have to cut it back after harvesting if the dahlias underneath it are to have any chance of surviving. I love the colours of the chokes; green and purple are very attractive. It's interesting how beautiful vegetables are. Think of carrots, aubergines and tomatoes, even the humble onion is a work of art. The tomato seeds I planted have germinated, but the heritage "Purple Calabash" is incredibly slow-growing, I hope to see some fruit from it by the end of the summer.

We've had terrible gale-force winds from every part of the compass over the last fortnight. My garden is very sheltered, but even here some of the climbing roses have been torn off the wall and lily-stems broken off. I had to go next door and fix the fence I share with my neighbour, as the pieces of corrugated iron were coming loose and banging like the devil. He wasn't home, so I made the repairs anyway. Having a hammer in my hand makes me feel very powerful and Rosie-the-Riveterish. Woman can, woman do!

More tulips and a rant

Gorgeous tulips in the front garden at the moment. I really like the bright orange with the bright green of the hellebores. These tulips are "Temple's Favourite". This is the best bit of this bed, the other end is a bit bare and weedy, waiting to be infilled with foliage of dahlias and roses and assorted underplantings.
   We've had terrible winds here the last few days which have played havoc with power lines and trees. Just sitting here a half and hour ago and a huge gust blew my aging and warped front door open. The door has warped so much from dry rot and many hot summers that the lock was only barely engaging. Now it doesn't engage at all, so I've wedged it closed with bits of wood. Fortunately, there is another door into the house inside this one (it's really the front porch door) which is much more secure. So - more expense.
    What really pisses me off is that yesterday when I was out the Jehovah's Witnesses dropped by and pushed a pamphlet through the crack at the side of the door. I'll bet they hammered on the door too, probably causing it to lose its last connection with the lock. Everybody who comes here to beg for money or my conversion seems to hammer on the front door; there is a bell there, but few people seem to have the wit to see it. One guy hammered so hard on it I thought he was the police. Coming at  night this was quite frightening and I told him so in no uncertain terms. 
    Why do they have to come at all? It's ALWAYS some kind of something that I want nothing to do with - donating to charity, signing up for some silly broadband or TV scheme or religious nutters. I notice that no one comes round to give me money, or anything, for that matter, unless you count the religious nutters who want to give me salvation and the life everlasting. Do I go round to their houses with my nutty religious ideas? No, I wouldn't have the affrontery. They are so certain that they, and only they, are right. So far I have resisted getting one of those notices that says, in effect, bog off, deeming it unfriendly, but really I think I'll have to.
       Funny thing about the Jehovah tribe too, is that they only go door to door on fine, sunny days. I find this strange; I would have thought it more of a test of faith to go out on miserable wet and cold and windy days. 
        My ex-husband used to call them Jehovah's Witless. I'm sure if I wanted to become one I would have the wit to find out where my local church is and go along. 
       They really don't have to come to my place and break my bloody door down.

'Verona' tulips

Tulips and Iceland poppies. 

Christchurch Botanic Gardens

I made a quick visit to the Christchurch Botanic Gardens today, quick because it wasn't very warm. Typical spring weather, fits and starts of sun and cloud. It's been cold and damp for the last week, so I thought I'd go and see the daffs this afternoon. "Going to see the daffs" is something of a tradition here in Christchurch, it means that spring is really here (no matter how cold and wet it can be).

This is one of my interpretation boards that I put together when I worked at the gardens. Glad to see it still on site, so much is changed in the city.

This is a New Zealand native plant called Kaka Beak, because the shape of the flower is like the beak of one of our native parrots, the kaka.  It's probably the most spectacular of our native flowers, which are usually small and white.

The daffodil lawns under deciduous trees

And my interp. board for the daffodil woodland is also still there. Good to see that my hard work remains in place.