Creative Interlude or a City at Play

Now that I have my wheels, and passengers, ready for the road, it’s time to resume my gallivanting; first of all with a look in the rear view mirror, so you can see some of the jaunts I took during my 17 day blogcation.

Looking back…..

In the midst of my not very busy holiday schedule, on a not very nice weather day, my friends and I had a short interlude in the centre of Christchurch; short because interludes usually are, but, also, because it was a beastly cold day, not suited to our yet to adjust, lingering-in-summer, bodies.

Cold, as it was, and we were, we did see a little of the fun side of  the city. Here is my record of the day.

The Chalice, our millennium statue, sometimes referred to as the ice cream cone.

The Chalice

Art work wrapping around the ruins.

Civic Art

 

Portrait let out to play, from the Art Gallery.

Rita Angus’s Portrait of O’Donnell Moffett Quiet Invasion

Rise Ballerina

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Is She amused by events?

The Queen crowned with a bicycle helmet

Pretty tiles replicated and replaced on New Regent Street.

Replicated Tiles Replicated Tiles in New Regent Street

Oh, it is a  lovely playground we have in our city.

A scaled down braided river at the Nature Play Park

Nature in the City

Warning

This post was prompted by Sally at http://lensandpensbysally.wordpress.com/  who alerted me to a New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/travel/after-earthquakes-a-creative-rebirth-in-christchurch.html  ,published on April 6th, about the creative rebirth of Christchurch, post earthquakes. It is an excellent article. Thank you Sally. I only wish you had been with me to focus your camera on the intriguing sights we saw, on our city excursion, at the beginning of April.

© silkannthreades

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One sandwich short of a picnic

In our rush to get out of the house today to enjoy the sunshine, I failed to throw even the most basic of picnic ingredients into the car. Which was a great shame because as we peregrinated (if one can in a car and in one’s own country), we came upon a beautiful picnic spot. Here it is; Ouruhia Domain, a few kilometres north of Christchurch, en route to Kaiapoi.

Ouruhia Domain

The Domain has playing fields, club rooms, playgrounds, tennis courts, picnic tables, old trees and superb macrocarpa shelter belts.  As well, there is  a serene area of native plantings. The native plants border the Kaputone Stream which is a tributary of the Styx River. I wrote about the Styx River here Source- to-sea.

Now, come wander the Domain with me; first across the bridge and in to the bush;

Ouruhia Domain

Bridging

Kaputone Stream

Streaming towards the Styx

What lies beyond the bridge

then back across the Kaputone stream to the fields and courts , so true to the style of the traditional country Domain.

A traditional country Domain

with tennis courts

and fields and neat macrocarpa

As I was leaving the area of native plants, I noticed a plaque, nestled in the ground under a bush. It stopped me short. It was so unexpected. And it moved me to a small tear to see such a simple, modest tribute to one of New Zealand’s  world-renowned scientists. Here is the plaque. It honours Dr Neil Cherry.

Simple marker for a Scientist

A summary of his work and a little of his life story can be found on this website. 

In many ways, he was a traveller /pilgrim in his fields of interest and research; exploring new ideas and always working for a better world to the very end of his days. I particularly admire his work on behalf of veterans exposed to radioactive fallout from nuclear testing in the Pacific.

More of his life story can be found at  http://www.nzine.co.nz/features/neilcherry_lifestory_part15.html

and the story of his work with Ouruhia is here.

I must say I was glad I only discovered the Ouruhia community’s concerns about electromagnetic radiation when I came home, or we might not have stopped at the picnic spot for so long.

Being without that picnic sandwich, or any sustenance at all, and beginning to feel hungry from our explorations in exciting, unfamiliar territory,  we left the pleasant fields of Ouruhia and continued on to Kaiapoi. There we stopped for a McDonald’s take away before heading homewards. I have a guilty feeling that the take away may have done us more damage than any passing exposure to residual electromagnetic radiation at Ouruhia. Oh well, we had lovely peregrinations. Did you?

© silkannthreades

Backyard learnings

When I was very young, I went to kindergarten (pre-school) in my own back yard; my  very own backyard on the tropical island of Fiji. The kindergarten was owned by my mother who was also the sole teacher. It was a wonderful little school and the best part of it was that I didn’t have to leave it to go home. It was home, and I could play there all day and every day for as long as I wanted. It was a very pleasant introduction to education.

Backyard Kindy

That’s me at the top of the slide! At least I think it is!

Sand and sun and stories

My father made most of the equipment including the much loved cars made from packing boxes.

As the only kindergarten in town, (and possibly the entire Colony of Fiji), there was always a waiting list for my mother’s school. She hated turning away children  but there was a limit to the number of little ones she could handle on her own. The fees charged were miniscule, token, in fact, because her training and background were in the old New Zealand  tradition of free education for kindergarten children. (Plus, I think the colonial authorities may have had some rules about  private enterprise on colonial property, which our house was! ) She took that tradition with her from New Zealand to Fiji, and stood by it, throughout her working life as a teacher/school owner/manager.

We had a great selection of books at my mother’s kindy. I still have many of them but here are two favourites of mine.

Times have changed

My all time favourite reading

One of the Nine Stories has fallen out of favour but the remaining eight are still popular with today’s children, as far as I know.

So, in this simple setting, with these little books, and others like them, my interest in literature, in reading, took its first steps.

Today, I am reading on my laptop via  Project Gutenberg Australia “The Diary of a Provincial Lady” by E.M Delafield. I feel that this passage was written for me:

‘January 14th.–I have occasion to observe, not for the first time, how extraordinarily plain a cold can make one look, affecting hair, complexion, and features generally, besides nose and upper lip. Cook assures me that colds always run through the house and that she herself has been suffering from sore throat for weeks, but is never one to make a fuss. (Query: Is this meant to imply that similar fortitude should be, but is not, displayed by me?) Mademoiselle says she hopes children will not catch my cold, but that both sneezed this morning. I run short of handkerchiefs.

January 16th.–We all run short of handkerchiefs.’

By my bedside table, for evening reading, I have “Toujours Provence” by Peter Mayle.  For any time reading, I have “Poem for the Day’ edited by Nicholas Albery and “To Bless the Space Between Us” by John O’Donohue. For idle moments, I have the newspaper where I read that the Humane Society of the United States has endorsed the launch of DogTV, a round the clock digital cable channel, specifically programmed for your dog.  I have not passed on this news to my little friend, Jack, but, then, he is  content to soothe his ears with the voices from  Radio New Zealand (http://www.radionz.co.nz/). I do hope, however,  he closed his ears when the announcer said that our Parliament has just passed  legislation to regulate the sale of legal highs, (party pills and synthetic cannabis).  Sadly, this legislation which  requires manufacturers to prove their products are safe for human use, before they can be sold in New Zealand,  will certainly  mean a continuation of unnecessary animal testing . I can’t help thinking that many of us  would do well to return to our kindergarten roots. We would do well to  remember how much pleasure and fun and wonderful highs we got from our very first books, featuring members of the animal kingdom.

Here is another of my favourite books that I first met in the kindergarten in my very own backyard.

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© silkannthreades

Which way does the path take us?

Remember the best bus stop in Christchurch that I mentioned in my previous post. Here it is again from a different view point.

I am looking at it from across the road in Erica Reserve. The Reserve is a continuation of the restored natural habitat we visited yesterday. It includes a playground and picnic tables and room to run and jump and squeal, none of which we did because it was such a languid afternoon.

Instead we watched ducks being ducky and listened to water gliding by with a little ripple and chortle here and there.

And we let the warm breeze float over and around us and rustle off  over the stream and through the trees.We sat on the park bench and wondered if we could hear the grass grow. But we couldn’t. We listened so very closely and carefully  yet  our ears were too dull to catch a single sound.

So we sat in silence on the park bench and absorbed the sunshine in the gentle company of another seeker of sun.

At the end, or may be it is the beginning, of the Erica Reserve pathway there is a bridge across the stream and some wetland ponds. To the right of the water pools is a retirement home, or village as the owners like to call such places. It looked very tranquil in its restored wetland setting.  Thinking of all the work and repairs awaiting at home, I was almost tempted to knock on the door and ask “May I come in?”But, then, I remembered the elderly gentlemen we talked to, yesterday, on the pathway across the road on the other side of the bus shelter. He lived in another retirement village close by.  He said “It’s a fine place. It’s really the best place for me but, you know, it’s not like home.”

So we stretched and eased ourselves slowly off the park bench and went home for a fine supper of chicken, followed by apple sponge pudding.

© silkannthreades