Spring fair time

Yay! Spring fair time, when all the churches, schools, scout groups and service groups have garage sales, fairs, and boot sales.
  Today all the action is at the St Mark's church fair, just a few minutes walk away from me. Here's my haul, a goodly selection of books, a raspberry lampshade (to go with the raspberry wall), a lovely old beechwood plane to plane my garden gate so that it shuts ( a casualty of the quake) and a pretty 1940's plate. There was no plant stall this time around, they have no room for it as much of the area around the church has been fenced off, but will have it separately in November. Usual crush of people, but that's OK, it adds to the atmosphere, as long as it's not standing room only.
   Sometimes people get uncomfortably close, I well remember standing next to a woman at the bookstall one year who leaned on me to get me to move, the way a cow leans on a fence to get at the greener grass on the other side. I just leaned back. Give way, will I 'eck!
   You can of course do some guerrilla warfare tactics. I don't brush my teeth before I go to these shindigs; one blast of foul gas from my unwashed, overnight mouth usually gets them away. Leaving your hair unbrushed  is good too, plus some sort of irregularity about your attire; I've found that if you look like a psychiatric patient on day release, people will give you a wide berth. And keep your elbows sharp. In extreme cases, a little light elbowing will have an effect too.  Ah, happy days! The cut and thrust! (Especially the thrust,  says Julian).

    Emma is much better today, thankfully. She slept most of yesterday (mind you, she usually does anyway) but was perky and affectionate this morning. Poor wee sausage, but at least we don't need her fitted with dentures. Just imagine how that would be.

Veterinary things

Just picked Emma up from the vet. They've taken out 13 teeth, all rotten. I feel like the worst cat mother ever. Why didn't I notice? Because cats won't let you look at their mouths. She's been in an out of the vets for rhinotracheitis for the last three years, so it's a wonder they didn't notice anything either. Poor baby, she's very groggy, just sitting around looking at the floor. She's also pooed herself and walked in it, so she's smelly as well. I'll try and clean it off when she's asleep. Poor little puss, it would have saved her some pain just to have her put to sleep, I think the vet was shocked when I said this but really, it's true. But then I suppose I wouldn't have had myself put down when I had my wisdom teeth out, so I guess the vet was right to be horrified.
   And coming home in the dark, I noticed that I only have high beam on my lights; those fools at the garage have rewired it back wrong. So. Damn, damn, damn.

Pretty

aaaargh!

Just come back from the car mechanics. After assuring me this morning that it would be ready by 4.00  I arrive at 4.30 - 'oh, we're not finished yet - we've forgotten to replace the park light'. 15 minutes later - 'we don't have the right size in stock, can you bring the car back tomorrow?' No, I can't, I'm totally fed up with the whole thing, having had to wait for a bus and walk half a mile in the freezing cold, through the zone of destruction that used to be a city. I took it to this garage because in the past they've been good, but the boss is on holiday this week (just my luck) so everything is all ahoo. So now I still don't have a warrantable car (no park light, which I never use anyway), and will have to get it fixed and warranted hopefully back at the original place (which was too busy the other day to do it within a week). And as I left, the mechanic told me that my battery needed replacing too, it's old and past its best, hoping no doubt that I would change my mind and leave the car overnight again. No. I was not in the mood for doing this all again tomorrow. Was he trying to drum up custom? They can't deal with what they have now. $555.00 and the car still doesn't have a warrant, and still needs more work!
  And the weather is lousy, Emma has just sicked up violently (poor babe, it's not her fault) and still we have the trauma of the vet and the tooth removal on Thursday to go through. And my holiday is nearly over, and soon I'll be back at work, which I loathe, and it will be the school bloody holidays again, with the nasty kiddies and their even nastier mothers. I'm starting to find that I can't understand what people are saying to me, they seem to gabble in a mock English. And I feel I'm being lied to, all the time, by everyone.
  Life sucks. I am so over it.

CBD = City Bloody Depressing

Had to take my car into town to get it fixed, so I took the opportunity to walk around while I waited for the repairs. I was supposed to pick the car up at 2.00, but come 2.00 the mechanic had only just started work on it! so I'll pick it up today. I had to go home on the bus, pretty much a whole day wasted.
  Some pics from the walk round:

 

Michael Parekowhai's sculpture of a bull standing on a grand piano is packed up for storage; the sculpture was the focus of a fund-raising campaign to buy the bull for the city. It was the first positive thing that we saw after the earthquakes. The top picture show the bull already crated up on the back of a lorry and the piano remains. What was weird was how quiet the work/workers were; if this was Italy there would be a lot of shouting from the workers and good advice from observers, it would have been much more entertaining.

 

 Our poor old Cathedral, or what's left of it. Prolonged squabbles about what to do with it have left it like this. Pigeons now roost in the rafters, and rats make nests in the kneelers and prayer books. Disgraceful.

 

This is what a large part of the CBD looks like now. A wasteland, huge desertlike spaces with ruins dotted throughout.

 

This is the new 'cardboard' cathedral, designed by Shigeru Ban as a temporary home for the Anglicans, and a venue for events.

 

 

These are figures from the rose window (now destroyed) copied onto polycarbonate panels.

 

Can't decide whether I like it or not. The clutter of stuff around the altar detracts from the austerity of the structure.

 

 

This is the site of St Lukes Anglican church, an old stone building dating from the 1870s. Now completely  demolished, a labyrinth has been built from bricks on the site. Churches were particularly hard-hit in the quakes, being both old and poorly maintained.

 

Very handsome and healthy borage growing on a vacant section - used to be someone's garden. 

 

This is McLean's Mansion, built in the 18 somethings for wealthy man Allan McLean. The owners want to demolish it, although it is structurally sound. I think the problem is that they are woefully underinsured so cannot afford to do the cosmetic work and earthquake strengthening required. I have hopes that it will be preserved (local music groups would like to use it as an education and performance centre, as our old one was destroyed) but I'll bet one morning we'll wake up and it will be gone.

The Spanish/Deco/Hollywood fantasy that is New Regent Street. Most of the shops have been restored. The man in the hat is the Wizard of Christchurch, local identity and eccentric.

 

Reading and viewing

Some brief remarks about recent reading and viewing:

At home with the Georgians DVD - fascinating look at the Georgians' invention of domesticity as we know it. The rise of the middle class in Georgian England started the English fascination with houses and interior decoration;  they invented wallpaper, changed laws to reflect their obsession with home security, and men were obsessed with marriage as a status symbol! Very enjoyable, using letters and diaries of the period.

Renaissance people: lives that shaped the modern age. Short readable biographies of well- and less-known Renaissance characters. So many things that we take for granted now (double-entry bookkeeping, secular books, Protestantism) all owe their beginnings to the Renaissance. The obscure persons are the most interesting.

The skull and the nightingale by Michael Irwin. Had great hopes of this, but a bit disappointed at the end. The writer is very knowledgable about 18th c England in the time of Hogarth, but the story just seems to go on and on, more as a vehicle for showcasing the writers knowledge than providing a gripping novel. Reviews led me to believe this would be more Gothic and shocking, but a bit of a damp squib really.

 Paris: the luminous years DVD. Paris 1905-1930, teeming with new ideas and breaking new artistic boundaries. Hard to believe that some of these paintings are now over 100 years old. Still viewing this.

The Ladies' Paradise by Emile Zola. Came to this via youTube- posted series made by the BBC, called The Paradise, that I happened to chance on, based on a novel by Zola.  The BBC have shifted the action to a department store in an unnamed English city, but the original novel takes place in Paris, modelled on the setting-up of one of the great department stores of the mid- to late 19th C, the Bon Marche, and the social and economic upheaval caused by this new phenomenon in shopping. Denise, an impoverished country girl, comes to Paris and finds employment at The Ladies' Paradise, a department store run by the charming but ruthless entrepreneur, Mouret.

Interrobang?!

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/15/social-media-icon-interrobang

You learn something every day!? (or ?!)