That time of year

"That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or few, or none

Do hang upon the ragged boughs that shake against the cold

Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang"

So said Shakespeare in one of his sonnets. It's not been a really cheerful time for me; one of my closest friends had a stroke last weekend and is still in hospital. Her prognosis is good. She was with her family and she was speeded into hospital very quickly, but I fear it will be a long process of rehabilitation before she has her old self back again. She is a chirpy person, so it was a shock to see her lying in a hospital bed, not very with it at all. And a shock for her too. She has always been careful of her health and this was not something that was signalled in any way.

And of course the news is not any help in encouraging one to have positive thoughts. The massacre in Orlando is horrible; even worse are people like Trump who are using it to justify their own agendas. There seems to be a level of madness in the so-called civilised world that we have not seen for a long time. "Let's all go armed to the teeth to defend ourselves from mad people" is a strange idea, rife with a deep paranoia. How do we know which armed person is mad? How do we know which are sane, and are just "defending our families" as the NRA likes to put it? "We have seen the enemy, and he is us".

Around the neighbourhood

Went for a walk today around the neighbourhood, starting in my own garden with the maple in the corner. We are now almost at midwinter, but very mild temperatures have meant the leaves are staying on for longer than usual.

The pundits were wrong; birds do eat the crabapples once they become very ripe.

One of the last Red Delicious still clings to its tree.

This is what's left of a lovely old building after arsonists have set a fire in it. This is Risingholme, in my neighbourhood park. On Monday night a fire erupted there and burned most of the second storey. No one was living there at the time, as it was boarded up, awaiting restoration for earthquake damage. Squatters or arsonists got in and lit a fire on the second floor; most of the roof is burned away. As if we hadn't had enough grief in this city with the quakes, complete and utter arseholes have burned many abandoned properties, for "fun". 

Some cheer is still to be had from nature. These are persimmons in a nearby garden, glowing like lanterns on a dull day.

The people in the house don't seem to eat these, but the birds are.

Not much to report

Not much to report this week. The weather has been sunny but cold, hard to get motivated to do anything but sit by the heater. I've done a little painting (apples, above) but still procrastinate about getting started. 
    Today is Queens Birthday in New Zealand. This is the celebration of the official birthday of the Queen, although her real birthday is sometime in April. New Zealand is still a constitutional monarchy, and although I am not a Royalist, I hope it stays one. The spectre of a Premier appointed by his cronies is not attractive to me. If we become a Republic, then all we will need will be the bananas. The Queen is far away and not susceptible to political manoeuvrings, unlike a NZ-based head of state. Our politicians are such a rotten bunch (as are most politicos anywhere) that I wouldn't like to trust them with the country.
    Another think I'm fed up with is housework. It seems that every time I turn around there are more dirty dishes, washing, vacuuming, etc. to be done. Why, why, why is the default option not tidyness instead of untidiness? Some bright mathematician or physics prof. should come up with a Theory of Housework to account for it. Perhaps it's part of Chaos theory. Schrodinger's Vaccuum Cleaner? It's on or not on depending on whether it's still in the cupboard or not?
   It's a mystery.

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.