Winter solstice madness

     Today I didn't really know what to do with myself, so sure enough, I went to a garden centre and bought things. Some women like to go clothes-shopping, and impulse buy stuff they don't really need; I do this with plants. The shop also had a special offer on these coconut bird-feeders. They are filled with a vegetable fat, peanut butter and seed mix that hopefully the birds will find irresistable. Usually bird-feeders like this attract the little wax-eyes. I didn't put one out last winter because of my cat Jiro, who was an enthusiastic bird-hunter and who would have killed many of them. Jiro has since died (sadly) and Thomas is older and wiser, he just likes to look at the birds from the comfort of the conservatory.
      I managed to find a treasure at the garden centre, a pale yellow camellia called Nuccio's "Golden Anniversary." This is a japonica camellia synonymous with Camellia dahlohnega.

It looks very pretty and is loaded with buds.

I also bought this hebe "Marilyn Monroe" to put in my front garden to liven up my perennial bed which looks quite dreary at the moment...

.... and this lily called "Pretty Woman"; I like the combination of soft pink and cream.

I am really a mad, extravagant woman! (The manageress at the garden centre knows me quite well now.)

1066 and all that: historical novels rule!

My old battered copy. Set in the Late Roman Empire when the Empire was starting to break apart. 

Lately, I've taken to reading historical novels again. 
   My motives are twofold. First, to revisit my girlhood. My mother was a keen devotee of historical novels and passed this liking on to me. Some of the novels we read were factual, others more fanciful. 
    Before there was ever Hilary Mantel or Phillipa Gregory there was Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt and Phillipa Carr. Actually these were all the same person, an English writer named Eleanor Hibbert.     As Jean Plaidy, she wrote fact-based novels, often about royalty in general and English queens and princesses in particular. As Victoria Holt she wrote what might be called Cornish Victorian Gothic. Many of these had heroines who were governesses or companions or orphans or poor relations in large spooky houses with enigmatic masters/heroes, sort of Jane Eyre-ish. As Phillipa Carr she wrote fictionalised history again, but this time about ordinary women rather than royalty. The "Daughters of England" series took readers through English history using the same family down the centuries. 
     There were other authors too; Mary Campbell Barnes "My lady of Cleves" and "Brief gaudy hour" and Margaret Irwin's "Young Bess", and of course, Catherine Cookson, though I never really took to her; a bit too much "trouble at' Mill" for me, with their downtrodden characters and grim settings. As a younger child, I'd loved Rosemary Sutcliffe's novels of Dark Age Britain, so Mary Stewart's wonderful series about Merlin and Arthur, which started with "The Crystal Cave" were a continuation of that historical thread, one of those "take me away" books that you live in for a time and feel lost without when you finish. 

You can visit so many places and times...Renaissance Venice...

....or Theodora's Constantinople, for example.

     And this is the second reason why I have returned to reading historical fiction. With the world in the way it is, it's strangely comforting to reflect that this is the way the world has always been. Other demagogues built walls to keep out barbarians, and the gap between the haves and have-nots was always a gaping one.  
      Historical fiction is a wonderful time-machine; you can visit the past without having to experience the smells and the filth and the cruelty first-hand, and if you get sick of it, just close the book and you're back in your own house in your own time, with carpet and heating and plumbing and modern medicine. Perfect escapism.

Camellias

Soon it will be camellia season again. We've already started off with "Yuletide" ...

....and the lovely "Setsugekka", ("Snow flower"). These are both sasanqua camellias, autumn-flowerers with a strange, mossy, patchouli-like scent. The nice thing about these is that the blooms come out before the really cold weather damages them. The sasanquas  need sun to flower fully; my "Setsugekka" has been more prolific this year since I removed a shrub that was growing next to it and shading it out. Our climate here in Christchurch is not the best for camellias, it's too extreme; late frosts can brown off the flowers, particularly the whites, into an unsightly mess. A milder, wetter climate would be better for the japonicas.

Later on, we will have japonica and reticulata camellias. "Nicky Crisp" is one of my favourites.

"Barbara Clark" which usually flowers right through from August to November.

"Waterlily" a beautiful formal double

"Nuccio's Gem" - whiter than white.

I have several other camellias in the garden that I don't have pictures of. I've just planted a "Quintessence", a low grower, in the black spot of the front garden, and have another low grower, "Baby Bear" out there too. Camellias are well worth growing in a small garden. They are neat and easily managed and make a quiet background to the showier perennials during summer. There are even yellow camellias, which I do have a hankering for. "Jury's yellow" is a nice one that I covet, but it would have to be in a special spot away from the pinks. Oooo! sudden inspiration! Out the back, by the grey fence. Now all I have to do is shift the agapanthus...

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!