A Conversation with Kiwi – Me

It is Matariki, a time to remember, to celebrate, to gather together, to share stories, and to look forward to a New Year in New Zealand. Thank you, dear Rebecca Budd, for encouraging me to share my story at this time of new beginnings; at this special time when we are celebrating our first national holiday for Matariki, a uniquely New Zealand holiday.

My story is a small one, just one of the millions that make up the story of New Zealand. Rebecca, as many of you know, is a gracious and very kind host whose mission, with the help of her husband, Don, is to bring our ‘everyperson’ stories into the light of the world. I hope, dear readers and listeners, that you will enjoy my story. It is not perfectly told but that’s okay. I know you will be kind and understand that my heart is in it even when my words don’t quite match what I meant to say.

Please join in the podcast conversation at Tea Toast & Trivia. https://teatoasttrivia.com/2022/06/20/season-4-episode-26-travelling-to-new-zealand-with-mandy-henderson/

Season 4 Episode 26: Travelling to New Zealand with Mandy Henderson

• Post authorBy Rebecca Budd
• Post dateJune 20, 2022

In Mandy’s Garden (Photo Credit Mandy Henderson)

RETURN
I am home again.
My house seems too large, too empty.
In the silent hollow,
I fill vases with flowers.
Flowers for the kitchen window sill,
Cornflowers, lavender, nasturtiums.
Flowers for the bedroom,
Geranium, roses,
And some for the table.
The old posy ring brims full,
And in the stillness of the blooms,
There travels birdsong without,
And words within.
 Mandy Henderson (Written in Dec 2014, after a family visit in Timaru)

Tea with Mandy in her Garden (Photo Credit Mandy Henderson)

Welcome to Tea, Toast and Trivia.

Thank you for listening in.

I am your host Rebecca Budd, and I am looking forward to sharing this adventure with you.

Living in the reality of Covid-19, travel has been curtailed, internationally as well as domestically.   While travel is coming back, I have found, over the past months, that travel is possible through the alchemy of technology.

Welcome to Tea Toast & Trivia – “The Virtual Journey” which will explore new horizons through the eyes of a friend.  As Marcel Proust reminds me, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Today, I am traveling to New Zealand to meet up with my blogger friend, Mandy Henderson. New Zealand is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses: the North Island and the South Island and over 700 smaller islands.

I invite you to put the kettle on and join the conversation on Tea Toast & Trivia. I have never been to New Zealand and am excited to be sharing this adventure with you.

In Mandy’s Garden (Photo Credit Mandy Henderson)

https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/5hikVZcpHmkDi1V83NixFU?utm_source=generator

If you want to learn more about Matariki ( New Zealand’s newest public holiday) click on this link .

The ‘kiwi’ poll I mention in our conversation was organised by the fine young people who publish THE SYSCA DAILY NEWSY Their latest newsy has a lovely article on Matariki, too.

Now, as Rebecca always says, “until next time we meet, keep safe wherever your adventures take you”.

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Silence ~ an Advent Quest ~ silent, velvet footed

There had to be cats, there always are

In silence, I contemplate the presence of cats at the Nativity.  There had to be cats, still small voices of calm.

And, quite possibly,  there were fleas, too. 🙂

THE CAT’S CAROL
(Sister Letitia)
Tune: Once In Royal David’s City

Come you cats of every colour
Kittens, too, of every size
See, the Lord who made the tiger
Lowly in a manger lies.
Praise him all his little tigers
Let your joyful purring rise.

Siamese and stately Persian
Homely black and Tabby gay,
Leave your cushions, leave your roof tops
Call a truce with mice today.
Swift and silent, velvet footed
Hasten now down Bethlehem way.

See, he smiles to see you coming
Mary welcomes you within.
Joseph with a friendly finger
Gently strokes your furry chin.
Ox and ass are there beside you
Sheep and camel peering in.
All creation sings his praises
Voices, music, sharps and flats
Join the chorus, cats and kittens
Praise him, just by being cats.

 

Silence ~ an Advent Quest ~breaking the silence

Absorbed, in its world, one frog

 

Breaking the silence
Of an ancient pond,
A frog jumped into water —
A deep resonance.

Matsuo Bashô: Frog Haiku translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa 

I fear I may be drowning us all in silence, so I will take a break until Monday.  Until then

 “Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.”

Silence ~ an Advent Quest ~ a voice that is still

First Fruits, blackcurrants, my father’s favourite

Blackcurrants, my father’s favourite, the harvest begins

 

“But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand,

         And the sound of a voice that is still!”

Break, Break, Break by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

(The flower photos underneath my plate of blackcurrants were taken by my friend and photographer, David Dobbs.)

Year out, year in; begin again?

Have you ever tried to sum up your blogging year

in a photo?

Like this ~

2017 ~ Flowers and Friends, Wabi Sabi, and slightly out of focus!

Or in  a poem?

Like this ~where I play upon the titles from this year’s blog posts, plus the title from my first blog post in 2012.

 

T.i.c.k. t.o.c.k.

at my desk ~  on the road,

delving
into past and present:
Gandhi Jayanti;
chelonian tales with a difference;
t.i.c.k. t.o.c.k.

floral interlude

t.o.c.k.t.i.c.k.t.i.c.k.t.o.c.k.

from my desk
the great debate,
year out, year in,
begin again?

gallivanting and roses,

on the road, at my desk,

t.i.c.k.t.o.c.k.t.o.c.k.t.i.c.k

t.o.c.k….

 

Do any of the titles stand out for you? Or prompt you to remember a post of mine which you particularly enjoyed?

And, without researching, can you guess which title/words belong to 2012?

Would you like to have a go at a blog title poem?  Feel free to add it in the comments. I would love to read it.

As this year ends, and as I prepare for the next, I want to thank you for your wonderful  readership, support, and comments (and emails and visit ) in 2017.   As usual, and as is the case for most of us, this year has had its share of the good and not so good times; you’ve been with me every step of the way, and I love you for it.  Blessings and bon courage for whatever 2018 holds for you.

Aroha nui

Amanda Anne aka Gallivanta.

#loveyourshell

© silkannthreades

From my desk ~ on the road again

I am on the road again.

On the road ~ inland from Mt Hutt, Canterbury, New Zealand, (photo credit to my brother)

Not in a literal sense but in an imaginative one.

I am exploring new territory in my creative journey by attempting poetry and prose readings.

Would you like to listen in? My first two readings have a New Zealand theme.

 

Reading out loud to myself or to an audience is something I haven’t done in a long while. It brings back warm memories of bed time stories, evenings by the radio, school plays, Bible readings, and some not so pleasant memories of  terrifying speech giving.

I would like to thank Clanmother  

and Wendy L. Macdonald

and my daughter for the inspiration which they have given me to pursue the spoken word again.

Now, on any journey, it’s handy to travel as lightly as possible. So, this week, I have not only been shedding the weight of my voice from its inner sanctum, but I have also been setting free some of my precious history.

I like to farewell treasures with love and appreciation, when I list them for sale. I do this by recording them in little tableaux. Here are two of my favourites. Together they speak to me of long journeys, strength,  and the courage to adventure, in the company of family and friends, and even strangers.

Commemorating the Centenary of Canterbury in Irish Linen

Time repeats its path…..in 2018 this 1979 calendar will be up to date again.

ps I would be grateful for feedback on my voice recordings. Is my voice clear to you?  Do I speak too quickly? Is it easy to understand the meaning of the poems and the prose?

At my desk ~delving into past and present

At my desk, this spring day, I read these words

 

My Mother’s Other Life

Before we go out
to dinner or a movie,
after a long day…..

my mother would stop
in the middle of our rushing…
…and say,
calmly, just a second,

sitting down on a black-cushioned,
straight-backed chair placed
beside the door solely

for that purpose: to rest
briefly, to deeply breathe in
and out until her heart

slowed down and her face
calmed……

Philip Terman

And I listen to them, too. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/podcasts/76392/my-mothers-other-life

Am I hearing my mother’s other life or my own other life?

Last night I finished reading Connon Girls ~ A Study of 20th Century New Zealand women at university, by Marie Peters.

Once that was my other life. I was a Connon Girl.  Some fragments of my story are written within the text.

Connon Girls by Marie Peters. Flower photo by David Dobbs

Back cover of Connon Girls

Do I miss my other life? Not really. It’s a good place to sit , for a while, but from my desk, this spring day, my life is present here ~ mostly.

Nectarine in full bloom, Sept 6th, 2017

For I am a mother, and for a mother there is always an other life.  My daughter sings it.

Adventures

Like many bloggers this year, I am looking at Christmas through the lens of Advent.  For me,  it  is a way to salvage some of the sweetness of the holy season, as well as a way to ease the despair which often engulfs me at this time of year.

For daily Advent reading, I am following  Kerry’s Advent My Way https://lovethosehandsathome.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/advent-my-way-10/.  My own Advent story happens each Sunday. It involves fresh flowers and a reading.

Here’s how it looks so far.

For the first Sunday in Advent, the reading was a quote from

“Into the Darkest Hour,” by Madeleine L’Engle

‘It was a time like this,
War & tumult of war,
a horror in the air.
Hungry yawned the abyss —
and yet there came the star
and the child most wonderfully there.’

First Sunday in Advent

The second Sunday in Advent went like this

“After Annunciation”

‘This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child.’
—Madeleine L’Engle

Second Sunday in Advent

For this third Sunday in Advent  I chose an excerpt from “Christmas Bells”, written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow during the American Civil War.

‘  And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!” ‘http://www.potw.org/archive/potw118.html

 

Third Sunday in Advent

After the second Sunday in Advent, I felt spirited enough to set up a nativity scene, and make a Christmas tree with favourite books and ornaments. I had fun.

Oh Christmas Tree

© silkannthreades

 

 

Meads and Posies and Life

This post comes to you,

just because it’s spring,

A Spring ‘Blue’ for outstanding performance, to the sweet peas, hebes, phacelia, borage, forget-me-nots, alyssum, campanula, and clematis.

and flowers demand attention, with winning ways,

Clover, sweet peas, and roses have seductively winning wiles.

and because I promised Tish Farrell , Writer on the Edge, I would  photograph my mini-meadows when they flowered.

‘Oh may I squire you round the meads
And pick you posies gay?’ A E Housman

‘Ah, life, what is it but a flower?’ A E Housman, A Shropshire Lad

© silkannthreades

Unboxed

Spring opens like a long-lost jewellery box.
From its musty, darkened depths, spill
gems of every hue: sunshine topaz; dewy pearls;
sapphires, sunrise pink or celestial blue; amethyst
of heartsease.

In the lingering light, my smile returns,
my soul stretches from the shadows, warm
again.

I choose pearl strands.
Gentle blossoms to bejewel old bark.

Gentle

blossoms

to bejewel

old bark

 

© silkannthreades