Searching for my happy place

Volcanic dyke at Witch Hill.

I took a little trip today up into the hills behind Christchurch, partly to find a memorial for a man that I have been studying for a "Research a soldier" project for WW100 commemorations, and partly to rediscover one of my happy places. I have visited the memorial before,  finding it by accident when I lost the Crater Rim walkway path one day several years ago. What I didn't know until now was that it commemorates the life of Frederick Andrew Anderson, a local man who died at Messine's Ridge in 1917. (I'll write more about Frederick Anderson in another post).

This is the Summit Road, which is now closed to vehicular traffic from this point on, owing to the unstable state of the road and surrounding bluffs after the earthquake. Cyclists and walkers are still permitted there, and enjoy this section of the road free from motorised idiots.

View down into Lyttelton Harbour from the car-park. The impressive peak at right is Te Poho O Tamatea, the breast of Tamatea. Tamatea was a notable Maori explorer who walked along the skyline here. Several of the volcanic outcrops locally have an association with his name. The library has more information on Tamatea and his adventures here at http://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/ti-kouka-whenua/te-upoko-o-kuri/

This is Witch Hill, fronted by an impressive volcanic dyke, where molten lava squeezed up through a radial crack in the volcano's wall. In the weekends, this wall is a great attraction for rock climbers. The track down into the valley at the left is Rapaki Track, a "paper" road (only a road on paper, not in fact) that leads down to my home suburb, very popular with cyclists, runners and walkers. I have walked this, but I'm not really fit enough now. The track was used in olden times by the Maori people to get to and from Rapaki, the settlement down in Lyttelton Harbour, to the flatlands of the plain.

The other side of the Harbour. Quail Island, Mounts Bradley and Herbert.

I didn't go up to the Memorial today, as it is quite rough and I didn't have my boots on or any food and drink. You can just see the memorial on the skyline right of centre on the top of Witch Hill. The peaks in the distance are The Tors, another eroded outcrop on the lip of the old volcano. There is an old quarry on the right hand side of the photo; the stone from here built roads and buildings in Christchurch. The second car from the left is my car. Quite an impressive landscape, beautiful on a nice day like today, but a killer in bad weather.

 The herb horehound grows wild up here, liking the sun and the sharp drainage. I picked some for winter teas; apparently it is very good for coughs and sore throats, although it can give you the runs if taken too often. Along with thyme, it used to be an ingredient in cough-drops called Hacks, which Mum used to doctor me with in childhood. In winter I was always sent to school with a Hack to suck, to "keep the cold off" my chest.

Hopefully, I will visit the memorial at some other time. The weather is closing in now, and the road up to the carpark is often icy until midday, a bit scary when you have a drop on one side!

More art stuff

We've just started into our winter here in New Zealand. Sudden snow has caught people out on our mountain passes; people stranded in vehicles have had to be rescued, but this is only in the mountains so far. We have had a lot of rain in Christchurch, and it is now quite cold. I shifted my painting stuff in from my little sunroom - it's too cold in there and a waste of electricity just heating that room then having to heat my living area too. The sunroom is also very draughty because the door has warped and he wind goes right through it. So now I've got my painting stuff on one end of the table and can have meals on the other end. I'm going to be one of those funny old people who live in one room for the duration of the winter.

I'm carrying on with "mucking about" with paint. This is a fantasy door that I made up just to try out some stuff. Not totally convincing but I'm getting there.

Also continuing to work on my crabapples, adding layers of colour. (The green blobs are masking fluid, just to preserve the highlights on the apples). Will do more tomorrow, now that gardening is unpleasantly cold. I still haven't finished the autumn clean-up, but will continue on now that most of the leaves have come down. And then, of course, we start with pruning - fruit trees, roses, cutting back the dead stuff and getting ready for...another year.

Big Day In

I had an Art Day today. These are crabapples for a large watercolour that I'm going to do.

"Setsugekka" camellia - another flower that I want to paint, but today I just took the photo.

This is a wonderful book for wet-on-wet watercolour techniques. Lots of useful ideas and techniques with no "you must do this" or "you musn't do that". I've never painted much in wet-on-wet, so this has inspired me to try.

This is a made-up out of my head door, just to try out some techniques

An experiment with wet-on-wet flowers - you can see it's still wet with the shine on the paper! I like the softness of the vase; the flowers are not so great but it's early days yet for me with this style. The stamens in the centre of the flowers need a bit more work to make them pop.

My bedside table. I've got a lot of reading to do at the moment. There's all sorts of  reading there. I'm reading "The observations" by Jane Gillespie, "The bad-ass librarians of Timbuktu" (non-fiction) and various books about Rome and Ancient Greece. The house is a total pigsty at the moment - more important things to be doing than housework!

Morning glories

Woke up this morning to the glorious sight of my Dahlia imperialis in full flower. I trotted out in my dressing-gown to take these photos. Fortunately they are in the back garden, so I can slouch around in my night-attire without being thought crazy. The flowers are a bit battered by a storm that came through a couple of nights ago, and there are pink/lilac petals scattered around the garden, but they are still lovely enough for a photo. The bees are particularly attracted to them, as the flowers are high up and easy to reach.

Another flower in the garden also got a photo-shoot. This is a dwarf abutilon that has started flowering, as we have still not had any prolonged spell of cold weather. So pretty with its ballerina dress. I bought this a few months ago, and it seems to have taken well.
  We are still having roses in flower, with autumn camellias and spring narcissus. The seasons are all ahoo this year, with the warmest April on record and probably the warmest May too, I would think.

Leaves and windfalls

I assembled this little still-life of garden windfalls this afternoon

and started to work up a painting. This is just a brief study. I hope the finished thing will be better.

Thomas looks a little overwhelmed by the huge leaf-pile I raked up for him!

Mainly red

Lots of red in the garden at the moment, and a ridiculously early "Paper White" narcissus - strange to see it flowering with autumn leaves all around it.

Pineapple sage flowers - vibrant!

Hydrangea flowers turn red late in the season

This is another salvia-type plant with a striking colour scheme

Thomas loves autumn

Dahlia imperialis flowers, about fifteen feet up in the air, against a stormy sky. I managed to get a stalk down and have the flowers inside in a vase. Being so high up, they are very vulnerable to bad weather, which is on the way, the pundits tell us.

New Zealand cranberry

I spent about an hour this afternoon picking my cranberries. These are not the cranberries that Northern Hemisphere readers will know, but rather a little bush that has the botanical name of Myrtus ugni. It is also known as Ugni molinae, Chilean guava, and confusingly, as New Zealand cranberry, although it has no relationship at all with the Northern Hemisphere cranberry. It does have a similar appearance and can be used in much the same ways; in jams and sauces and conserves, and can be dried in a dehydrator quite successfully. It is a small attractive bush, about 1 metre maximum, that I trim back after fruiting to keep compact and non-twiggy. It is very easy to grow once established and doesn't need much water. Mine grows on an average silty soil and is not fertilised, but manages to produce more than enough for me every year. The little fruits are like currants, with a pleasant fresh taste and sweet smell. I've never made jam with them, but usually dry them and put them in muesli. 

The only thing I find annoying about it is that the bush tends to sucker, which is OK if you want to propagate it to give to friends, but can look untidy poking up through other plants. Mine grows in a flower border with dry-loving plants like iris and lavender.

Lots of big, fat sweet berries this year! I've never noticed birds eating them, but perhaps this is because they are right near the ground and by my main pathway. I'm growing one as a standard and I've heard that they can also be used as an informal hedge. Apparently, these fruit made Queen Victoria's favourite jam. 

Still having great weather here for our autumn. Expecting it to turn nasty any day soon!

Mid-autumn

Our autumn here is progressing pleasantly. We've had nice warm weather, better than summer because there's no wind. The leaves are turning slowly and falling gently around us. My daily chore now is collecting the pear tree leaves from the lawn. I rake them up into piles, and Thomas comes and scatters them to make a nest.

The vegetables have grown - now, above...

....and then (about three weeks ago)

Katydids live on until the first frost - they've had a long season this year 

Camellia sasanqua "Yuletide". The stripy leaf is a Phormium tenax (New Zealand flax or harakeke)

My old boots are on their way out. I bought these when I was about 19 or 20. I am now 57. They were very expensive at the time, about $280, and I quailed at the expense and bought them anyway, because when I put them on, they felt just like gloves do on your hands. They are La Sportiva boots from Italy, and they have been wonderful. I've used them for hiking all over New Zealand and for my first hike in Tuscany, and worn them as snow boots and as gardening boots. How many miles they have walked through mud and water and over rocks and shingle I don't know, but now the soles are starting to separate from the uppers and the padding around the tops is frayed. I've had nearly forty years of comfortable wear out of them, and when they finally go, I'm going to bury them in the garden with full honours.