Odd Spot

 

Wonderfully, I am starting to do a few more 'normal' things again. On the weekend I even did a little bit of slow, careful gardening- great therapy for my hand the physio tells me. In the process of getting some compost out of the compost heap, I discovered why I always seemed to need to buy new vege peelers......

Mainly Square Reflections

Sunshine took me out walking this morning, and I was inspired by George to go looking for a few reflections, mainly around the Square. The first photo though is just fun. It looks a bit like this duck is eyeing up the lion behind itself, but I suspect it was more interested in making sure my motives were not nefarious...

Coleman Mall is looking especially pleasant at present, with a whole row of blossoming trees, (of which I am showing you just one- you'll have to visit soon yourself to see the rest.)

Now we get to the reflections. This one shows the City Library, formerly the DIC department store. It was transformed by the architect Ian Athfield, and is well worth lots of exploration inside, even if you have no intention of borrowing books.

I wonder if a certain supercilious Jafa TV presenter sees any irony in describing Palmie as boring, when on the same programme Auckland's inability to restore its own majestic St James Theatre is reported. This library is only one of our restored buildings: the magnificent Regent Theatre was also restored with a huge level of community support.

And now, a wee 'reflections' interruption to show Andrew my latest aducpas offering. I see I have discovered six draincovers in this series now- three fauna and three flora. I wonder how many there are....

And without further ado, on with the reflections. The only good thing about the oddity of this Auckland style skyscraper in our much more human-sized cityscape, is that you can watch the clouds pass by in its glass.

Maybe I have posted these trees reflected similarly on the blog before- but I can't find them..

 And it is interesting how many different reflections of the clocktower you can get, just by changing your angle a bit...

Finally, away from the Square now. There is a new modern building next to the Catholic Cathedral. The reflection shows quite a clash of eras and purposes....

By the way, I have added a new label, Palmy Pride. A certain segment of the media can't see past their noses when making pronouncements about 'boring-ness'. (Fortunately, we are not all obliged to live in the sprawling metroplis of Jafa Opinions.)

FARA fundraising gig

Coming up on October 15th here in Palmie there is going to be the FARA fundraising gig, organised by a friend of mine. 

From the ticket:

"Friedreich Ataxia Research Association (FARA) Fundraising Gig. 

Friedrichs Ataxia is a degenerative neuro-muscular disorder affecting a number of young New Zealanders. There is currently no treatment or cure for this debilitating and life-shortening disease. FARA is a non profit organisation dedicated to supporting families with FA and promoting research that will improve the quality and longevity and ultimately lead to a treatment and cure."

If you live locally, you can come along and jive to the band, "Ruff n Ready".  (Contact me via comments and I can tell you more about getting a ticket.) 

But I know most of my readers aren't local. You can read more about the Australian-based FARA organisation here, and the site has info about the research into a clinical drug trial for Friedreich Ataxia. If you would like to support this cause, here is a fundraising page for this Palmie gig.

Calm before the storm

I headed out into the countryside today to visit a friend, and en route home saw this 'calm before the storm' view of sheep in the sunshine, with dark clouds that looked so threatening looming above the Ruahines. 

And at my friend's house, I enjoyed becoming acquainted with her baby, plus a whole array of farmyard animals. Here is one of her chooks, and I am looking forward to eating the free range eggs she gave me!

Blogging inspiration

I have had a bit of a blogging break recently. With my arm and much of my hand encased in plaster, I couldn't take any photos for weeks, and typing wasn't exactly easy either. But I did keep reading blogs, and in this post will share just a few of my favourites. Call it a bit of springtime inspiration if you live in the right part of the world- or autumn consolation otherwise I guess!

We'll start locally with Pohangina Pete who takes exquisite photos, some shared from his overseas travels, and some taken somewhere quite nearby, little things I might have noticed myself if I had looked- like this apple in winter or this detail on a building down Main St.

And next we'll jump across the Tasman, where I know a whole bunch of bloggers who often have me wishing I could take a quick jet trip to explore that wee island out west of us. One of them is Simon, who loves to head out into the local National Parks whenever he can find the time. Here is one of his latest forays, to Penrith Lakes, man-made; and here is a record of what he saw at Goulburn River National Park, shortly after he returned home from a trip to England that had been slightly extended by a certain volcanic eruption.

Now I will jump continents to a newly discovered blog by George. You can see some of the reflections he has captured here on the waters of the Inner Harbour of Baltimore, and also see some of the visions he has recorded of the modern buildings. Art and beauty and inspiration. And while we are in the US of A, I have been a regular reader of Kelle Hampton's blog, Enjoying the Small Things, for months.  She shares many beautiful photos of her two young girls, and here is just a random sample. She leaves me wanting to notice and enjoy the 'small things' every day in my own life.

I can't quite leave the other side of the world without paying a visit to Robert, the Solitary Walker, (who in fact led me to Blogger George.) Robert has been walking the South West Coast Path in England in recent days, and writes so persuasively, and adds such photographs that you wish you were walking with him, even if it is raining.... Then there's ornithologist Maalie, who spends a bit of his retirement having 'well-earned holidays' bird-watching in odd places all over Europe; but who has recently bought a kayak to explore a bit closer to home.

I guess I do tend to dabble more in blogs with photos, but there are more text based blogs that inspire me as well. (Can you spot the 'lapsed Catholic' peaking out from the next two?) Recently Paul Brian Campbell SJ, who often shares little tidbits of inspiration, shared a bit from a poem by Mary Oliver that I love:

"this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice can speak."

And Becky Eldredge, in her blog "Everything is Holy Now" recently quoted something about the very concrete-ness of being Catholic, that almost made me wish I still was one....

" Catholics are a sacramental people. We see signs of the presence of God around us in every moment of our lives. We know, of course, that God is greater than we can imagine and beyond all that we can touch, but we are also convinced that creation, from the most ordinary--water, oil, bread--to the most unlikely--the stranger, the enemy, the cross--can reveal divine love. "

Anyhow, that is enough for now..... more another day perhaps.

Down by the Riverside

After more than a week- was it even as much as two weeks- of stormy, windy, wet, cold, crap days... finally a sunny calm afternoon. 

 Yippeeeee! So after physio I went a wandering down by the riverside.

And as you can see, the river is flowing quite full of muddy sediment after all our recent rain.

Sunshine on his sign...

I'd vote for this man if I could. He must be glad to finally get a sunny, calm day to show off his election sign...... Chris Teo-Sherrell .....

PS Did you notice the driver eating a banana at the wheel?

Normal Life Resumes...

Today dawned bright and sunny- a treat after the heavy rain we had on Monday. I had a physio appointment, so left home by foot in plenty of time, with my camera in my backpack to take some photos as I walked. It was just such a sunny morning that I had taken my camera out some two months ago, and ended up with a broken arm... I was keen not to repeat that part of the experience...

 

Not far from home, I noticed the shadow pattern made by the wrought iron gate that is part of the War Memorial Gate on Ruahine St, at Terrace End School. I loved the way the shadows and the moss sat together.

Right near the physio's clinic, there was a blossom tree, and the flowers looked magnificent against the blue of the sky- a great announcement that spring has definitely sprung. And there was more good cheer at my appointment: I really do have some useful fine motor movement now- quite a change from twelve days ago, and truly a credit to the skill and dedication of a wonderful physiotherapist.

After physio I continued walking to town, and saw two more of the 'interesting drain cover' series, and hereby present them for the edification of fellow members of aducpas- the non existent 'Australasian drain and utility cover, and plumbing appreciation society'. 

The breeze was blowing in the Square, filling the flags...

 

I had a hot chocolate, pretending I was in France, then walked on home again. About 6-7kms or so. Training for the next Camino maybe!!?

Addendum: I can now drive, as of yesterday afternoon. Short flat distances. If I use my splint. But had wee adventure with my splint this evening- searched to find it for an hour. Thought my new-found freedom was a 'goner'. Eventually found it. Velcro on splint had attached itself to velcro on raincoat, and both were hanging neatly together in the cupboard...

Welcome to Spring!

Welcome to Spring! Today was a lovely warm sunny day for us all to breathe in the start of the new season .....though tomorrow much rain is forecast!

On Friday I had my cast removed, something I was very happy about. Saturday I had a bit of a 'melt-down' as my hand felt so 'useless'. But this week I have met an angel of a physiotherapist who has given me hope that 'ordinary life' is not too many weeks away....

Lessons learned from a broken arm

• A car moves faster than a pedestrian. Even if you have checked and think the road is clear, things can change in seconds. Luckily, mine was a low speed impact.
• You can have a 'nasty' broken arm without feeling excruciating pain/ having immediate swelling. But you will be certain straight away that it is broken, as it just doesn't feel 'solid' anymore. (In these circumstances, it might be wise to rate your pain as higher than 4/10, so you don't get triaged at first as having a minor injury!!)
• There are skilled medics here in Palmie. Thanks to ED and the Orthopaedic Clinic staff who skilfully fixed things up so my bone could heal. Thanks especially to the Dr and nurse who mainly treated me in the ED for their sense of humour that made me laugh.
• Thanks to some very kind friends and family for help and support, so I could be independent without going loopy. My sister prepared a whole lot of meal sized portions for the freezer and microwave and that was a godsend.
• There are all sorts of things that are hard /impossible to do with one hand eg washing dishes in the sink without them spinning around, trying to do up your jacket zip on a bitterly cold winter's day, chopping up fresh veges, taking photos, handling bits of paper, pulling on some retractable seat belts in cars.... 
• Your good-hand fingers quickly become more dexterous than you ever thought possible. (Having to use one hand to open the screw lid on the bottle of prescribed codeine painkillers the first night at home was a good incentive to discover this.)
• You will get tired and tearful and feel exhausted sometimes.
• Eventually things improve so much you become quite blasé about the cast, and nearly step into the shower without covering it up. This is hopefully a sign that tomorrow at clinic, the cast will be removed!!!!

Green for Turbos!

Now we have the new lighter version. Also fluoro.  

 Turbos supporter. Of Irish extraction. 

With matching rainbow polyprop- stretches over cast for winter warmth.

fluoro orange

My heavy old cast with a new orange coat, 

plus extra wiggle room for my (still swollen) fingers and thumb.

blogging break

We will be having a small break in blogging transmission..... I have broken my arm.....

 but my sister has been an angel and came down and filled my freezer with meals I can just put in the microwave....

What makes you come alive?

 Foxton Estuary

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs.
Ask yourself what makes you come alive,
and then go do that.
Because what the world needs
is people who have come alive."

~Howard Thurman

Manawatu Estuary, Foxton Beach

There was a doozie of a frost here this morning: at least one website told me minus 3C. But the morning was calm and sunny, and I had a new GPS unit to test out, so I set it for a journey to the Manawatu Estuary at Foxton Beach. And en route, you could see snow on the tops of the Tararua Ranges- so it was no surprise we had such a frost!

Quite a few people were at the wharf by the Estuary when I arrived, enjoying the peace and calm of such a Sunday morning.

The Manawatu Estuary is in fact listed under the Ramsar Convention as a wetland of international importance. It hosts various birds from the Arctic, including godwits, that make their way down here for feeding during our summer months, then return north to breed in the northern summer. 

In autumn the godwits leave our shores, but the Manawatu Estuary then plays host to some visitors who arrive from further south in New Zealand, such as the royal spoonbills and the pied oystercatcher, who spend their winter in slightly warmer climes.

So here are photos of four of the birds I saw at the Estuary today. (Maalie- I know you will correct me if I have misidentified any of these!)

Pied Oystercatcher

Pied Stilt

White-faced Heron

Royal Spoonbill

Extramural Contact Course

This week has been the 'contact course' for the extramural paper I am studying this year through Massey- Flora of New Zealand. 'Full on' and intense, but ahhhhhh it has been such a worthwhile week. Suddenly, seeing things in the lab/field, all those 'words' that you read about in the texts just 'come alive'.

And I felt like a little kid again, seeing some 'simple' things that I just never really knew about before, and being surprised by them. Joyful, joyful happy days!

I was a bit anxious when the week started with two microscopes in front of me that I never knew how to use: I worked out it was 35 years since I had last set foot in a biology lab with a microscope! But the lecturers and demonstrators were all very helpful through the whole week, so that hurdle was soon crossed....

So, what exactly did I get excited over, looking down a microscope? First day, it was seeing the little green Chlamydomonas alga swimming around at lightning speed- and even better, the colonies of Pandorina and Scenedesmus algae going slowly enough for me to watch them dancing on the slide! (I found it hard to sleep that night- I had dancing algae swimming in front of my eyes!) We also got to see Chara, and 'seeing is understanding' rang true here: all the things we had been reading about Chara and the transition from certain green algae to land plants suddenly made perfect sense.

Seeing the details on bryophytes was another highlight. By now I was getting the hang of the microscopes..... And on the liverwort Marchantia I could see the gemma cups, the air pores, the ventral scales. Looking at the 'jelly-like' substance that was Porella liverwort it became obvious what is meant by 'no true leaves'. And I could have watched the beauty of the capsule and operculum and peristome teeth on the Funaria moss all morning if I had the time!

When we started looking at ferns, I discovered that I had a 'trilete' spore on my slide. I had read about these often, and now suddenly, there right in front of my eyes was one I had scraped off a fern sorus....

Next came floral formulae. Ever since I began this course, my walks have been 'ruined' as I keep stopping to examine things that I pass. But now, we were being equipped to examine the flower parts in a structured way, that was soon going to help us quickly see some differences between some families of flowering plants. (The young demonstrator for this lab was amazing by the way: how he managed to find so many relevant flowering plants in winter was a real tribute to his dedication.)

Two days in the lab peering down microscopes can tire even the most enthusiastic soul though, and Wednesday we took off for a field trip to look at some forest remnants. And just to give my loyal readers some of the photographs they have come to expect, here are a few...... First photo is taken from one of the terraces as we travel 'downhill' to the Rangitikei River.

And here we are at river level, where we parked to go and explore the Pryce's Rahui Reserve.

In this reserve, we all learned how to use a 'key' to identify various plants. Then we divided up and went into different parts of the forest to examine the type of growth. One of our esteemed class members memorably described his section of the forest as the 'crap forest'. I was glad to find I was in the 'swampy' forest- any excuse to get muddy is fine by me!! There were some large kahikatea and many pukatea with their wet feet buttressed in the swampy ground, and the plot was quite fascinating.

And now another quite irrelevant photographic stop: there were some beautiful fungi in this damp forest.

The 'sad' part about this trip was that all three forest remnants we visited showed evidence of disturbance. After a lunch/discussion stop, we were off to Sutherland Mangahoe Reserve, where we climbed up to find a flat section on a ridge top that had a younger stand of nearly all podocarps- and the question was raised, had a land-slip brought this about? Then we visited McPherson's Reserve where we were faced with the huge destruction to tawa wrought by the 2004 floods. Within a year of the floods, the tawa, young and old, were dying. Some research is showing that the sediment load left behind by the floods is what has caused this- with the trees being suffocated by lack of oxygen. We have a lot of questions to address in Manawatu/ Rangitikei hill country areas about slippage and land use....

Thursday was back to the lab. We did some intense looking at flower types in different families. It was a busy time- but by the end of it- a few pennies had dropped in this brain about what it all meant. Again I was fascinated by some 'simple' things that I had never seen before, eg the globules spilling out of and down the stamen I had on the dissecting scope were pollen grains.... Then in the afternoon we were exposed to divarication - a trait special to some New Zealand plants- and we had to explore what that was and how you might measure it. Lots to think about.

But all too soon, the week of the contact course was coming to an end, and a practical test loomed on Friday morning. There were 60 plants we had to learn with common and Latin names, but specimens of them all had been laid out in the lab all week, which had been so helpful for learning them- so much easier than from photographs. Plus we had to able to draw and label and work out various things related to the week's lab/field activity. It seemed like it might be a tough two hours. But in the event, the test was much easier than I had feared. Seeing something loom down the microscope didn't elicit too many 'oh my gosh what is that' panics: mostly the details came back fairly quickly to mind...

And then it was all over, and a few of us moved across to the Massey cafe for lunch and coffee etc. It was great to meet the others studying this paper, quite literally from all over the country- as we had someone from Haast and someone from the Bay of Islands... It was a productive and enjoyable week: full marks go to the Massey staff involved.

But the sun was shining and it was a glorious winter's day. Now it was time to put the camera in the backpack, the iPod in the ears, and head out for a bit of a relaxing walk......

Random Kitchen Stuff

Oh My Goodness. Now that I am out of FB, I have time for other mischief. This might have been my next random fb photo album..... "random kitchen pics"..... But is it art?
First two pics are from my sister M's kitchen. Hubby is a great cook, who likes to cook for others, so all kinds of unexpected bits and pieces can be found there, and work is often 'in progress' when I visit.
Next two photos are from Christmas lunch and Boxing Day breakfast in Havelock North. My b-i-l 'inherited' his love for cooking from his mother.
My friend M in Chch has all sorts of interesting wee treasures in her house.
I was 'helping' get ready for a party, but got distracted by these glasses...
And just to finish..... my other friend T in Chch had brunch for her 50th last week... and here were some of the 'doings' ready and waiting for guests to arrive...
My resolution.... 'next time' I walk a Chemin/Camino..... I am going to take more food pics!!!

And beware... coming soon to you another day...more random kitchen pics.... You'll all be wishing I would rejoin facebook sometime soon....

River walk-autumn afternoon

My reward to myself today once I had finished my Massey assignment, was a walk beside the Manawatu River. The forecast was for rain.... but it seems that once again the rain mostly visited the eastern side of the ranges.

It was mid-afternoon when I walked, with the sun pushing its way through some sombre clouds.
Here are some of the groynes in the river that are designed to help push flood flows more towards the other bank. We humans have tried to 'cheat' nature here by moving the whole course of the river over away from the town. But when the water is in full flood, it all wants to find its way back to its previous course.

The water is so very low at present, it makes it hard to believe that this river can ever be badly behaved...
Today it was just a gentle river under a steely sky
Autumn giving the promise of winter.
A glorious place to stand and gently be.