Road rules, Pianos, Tea and Marmite

Changes to the road traffic rules came in to effect on Sunday - after months of preparing the public and specially designed slogans being broadcast on radio and TV - "top of the T goes before me" being one of them. Monday morning saw television crews posted at busy intersections throughout New Zealand capturing the first working day morning of the new rules in action. The up with the lark set were outstanding - plenty of straightforward and confident driving. A little later, with bumper to bumper traffic - not so much! There were near-misses, screeching brakes and random fingers waving while some folks just ignored the new rules and 'did like they always done'! causing general mayhem and little groups of cars all in the intersection, with nobody quite sure about whose turn it was to go!! The rest of the world has been driving to these rules forever, so I guess the kiwis will eventuallly get the hang of it!

The State Highway between Wanganui and Palmerston North has recently been sporting this new addition to the scenery - since our pianos spent 13,000km on the high seas and then were in 'quarantine' on the wharf in Auckland for a couple of months, while we tried to sort out the whole ivory importation saga, they could both really benefit from a tune-up. I do have the number now, which means the ad worked! Incidentally, we are not absolutely sure about the rules here - in South Africa, a grand piano (even without it's innards like this one) on a pole beside the highway is illegal - we are assuming that permission has been granted by the relevant State Highway authority and that the farmer whose paddock this piano is floating over, is quite happy to have it there! If nothing else it is certainly quirky!

The two Johns (I shouldn't laugh) had a cuppa together in a cafe, just before the elections. It transpired that the conversation - to which the media had been invited, but behind the glass windows - were not to be privvy to what was being said, they were merely supposed to be observers - like the picture with the sound turned off!. HOWEVER - one enterprising cameraman/journalist saw an opportunity and popped a discreet recording device into the little black bag pictured here at Prime Minister John Key's left elbow and got every possibly incriminating word on tape! Now we still don't know what actually was said - smutty? -possibly; libellous? -probably, but in any event when the news broke, New Zealand went into 'oh dear' mode and referred the whole tatty little incident to the police and to some judge who perports to know about such things. It has now been revealed that the contents of the tape will not be released, the cameraman/journalist concerned, however enterprising, has had his 'letter of regret' published and the whole sorry saga has been closed. Wonder what they said?? Everyone putting out fires and blaming other folks - lots of talking about privacy and transparency and such! Something of a storm in the proverbial teacup if you ask me!!

Marmite (as we know it,) does not exist as a rule in New Zealand. (Available at a price in speciality Imported shops if you are lucky)

 The marmite which is available in the supermarkets looks quite different,

 tastes quite different and indeed is quite different.

 Although we haven't managed to acquire a taste for the 'new' marmite, (we have half a jar in the pantry) we are still baffled as to why the whole country is in a state of mourning over the lack of the spread in the shops at present.

They are even bidding on the last of the supply on Trade Me (the online auctions similar to E-Bay) - frankly we don't understand why, since the locally made Marmite (in Christchurch and the building so earthquake-damaged that they have to relocate, hence the lack of the stuff) we could cheerfully never look for it again. But if the price is right, perhaps we could auction off our half eaten jar!!

And a smile - for our English speaking blog followers - the caption reads;"Grandad, my mum wants to dress me in that BLUE BULL shirt. PLEEEEEEASE can I come and live with you? "

Dis al!

Cathedral demolition? and good grief gardening

The Christchurch Cathedral is causing huge consternation throughout New Zealand - after the announcement that the Cathedral is to be pulled down (well, actually to a height of one to two meters) and the valuables removed to a safe place until there is a new place of worship to house them, there have been structural engineering reports published and broadcast, which claim that the old Cathedral can indeed be saved. Although this could still be a debatable fact, it was ignored by the folks who went ahead and organised a 'farewell' tour through the square of Christchurch for folks to go and see the immense damage for themselves and farewell the old lady. A huge amount of land in Christchurch has been red stickered - meaning that the buildings are to be demolished as they are irreparably damaged and/or the land is not suitable for building on for the forseeable future. One particularly poignant moment was when the news team interviewed an elderly gentleman who was part of the crowd and who was visibly emotional - when asked how he was feeling, he replied that this was so hard to witness, since his great-great grandfather had carved the wooden doors for the church over a hundred years ago.

So much of the centre of Christchurch has been lost to vendors and shoppers since the land and buildings housing their businesses has been red-stickered. A huge thumbs-up for the enterprising folks who decided that shipping containers could be converted, artistically re-designed and arranged to provide a 'container mall' - here are a couple of photographs of the new look shopping available in one part of  Christchurch CBD. I just love the fact that there have been planters and little islands of flowers introduced too - amazing what inventiveness mother necessity envokes!

When you rent property, you accept the condition and state of the 'grounds' as part of the deal - in some instances, the owners or managers of the property see to it's maintenance, in others it is up to the tenants to do general yard work and keep up the garden. In our case, 'keeping up the garden' was a synch - since this is what we got when we moved in. After many discussions and hopeful conversations with the managers of the property, it has become painfully obvious that the owners are not in the slightest bit interested in sorting out the garden - so the tenants (in this case, us) have lived with the situation as long as they could and then finally got fed up and did a bit of a clean up. If there were any indiginous and/or special plants lurking in the 'jungle' - sorry, the operative word is 'were' - in the past tense. We have a way to go yet - but things are looking up!

We borrowed Junè and Johann's trailer and carted this load off to the dump - the lady in the 'pay-here booth' said that if there was any flax in the load of green waste, it should not be added to the green garden waste area, rather put in the general rubbish heap. Just shows how tough flax is to get rid of and how almost impossible it is to shred. Which is why the original Maoris used it so extensively for basket and mat making. Unlike other parts of the world that we know of, in New Zealand, you pay to dump the garden refuse. And it aint cheap as chips either!!

Our neighbour behind us decided to trim the foliage on the border between the two properties - he left dead bits in the trees (to be blown into our garden at the first big wind) and let this heap of branches fall into our side. We were decidedly unimpressed, but choose to ignore the situation for now - here is the heap of 'neighbourly clean-up' required.

Loved this picture - this chap looks to me like he's thinking about his upcoming career as a world famous air guitar player! (we have actually seen guys taking part in air guitar championships - and being hysterically serious about it!) Makes you think! Dis al!

Holiday parks and homemakers

Summer is on her way out! The days are becoming fractionally shorter with every passing day and the mornings and evenings have a touch of a chill on them.  Our recently acquired caravan has allowed us to do a bit of weekending away and we have found some more really beautiful spots around the North Island. Admittedly, we have been quite fortunate with the weather for the most part - (the few days in the pouring rain at New Plymouth a couple of months ago, we choose to disregard!) and these pictures should give you a good idea of how really beautiful the scenery is here.

Late afternoon down at the beach and there are children splashing about in the river and paddling on 'boats' made from some of the driftwood that is always around on these beaches.

The holiday park at Opunake Beach is right on the shoreline - there are walks in all directions and the beach is safe for swimming - with lifeguards on duty in the summer. We watched some of the aforementioned lifeguards running through their training drills on Sunday morning, culminating in rubber ducky race-out-and-rescue missions which saw the blow-up boats leaping dramatically into the air as they crashed into the waves at speed to rescue colleagues who had minutes before leaped spectacularly from the boats and were by then flailing about in the surf and looking like they were about to drown!

When it's really hot and humid at the coast the sun is extremely fierce - maybe we are just getting on a bit, but without a good sunblock and spectacular hat, you are doomed to a miserable few days with a touch of sunstroke at the very least.  Here Rudolph and Jo are waiting for Adelle to take a foofy slide ride over the river.

Finding folks with similar interests is a big advantage to happy weekend caravaning trips - Wilma and Rudolph have a very flash campervan and since they hail originally from the town almost next door to ours, we had something to talk about while we got to know one another! It turns out we have loads in common, not least of which an enjoyment of tramping about on the trails beside the sea and late night cards and liqueurs in a part of New Zealand we hadn't yet visited. Wilma is also a keen photographer and so we have made lots of time for taking photographs and documenting our adventures here. 

When folks actually own more than one tripod for their cameras and forget them back at the holiday park on EVERY occasion, you have to resort to the balancing-camera-on-hankerchief-to-protect-it-from-the-rock trick in order to take group shots with the 'balancer' included in the picture! It became almost a ritual - we all stood about while Rudolph got the camera and hankerchief all nicely organised, then everyone watches him half-run, half-totter (depending on the terrain) to join the group whilst counting back from 10 - (like an Appollo mission lift-off) and then whipping off the baseball cap just in time to smile sheepishly at the camera! You would think that one of these would be enough, but no.... we must have done at least five of them! When I get hold of one of these pictures, I shall post it up here for you to see!

No trick photography here - this little guy really did sit on Jo's hand and take the bread bit by bit - we had coaxed a whole lot of these little LBJ's the day before with tidbits of bread, bringing them closer and closer to us. This little chappie appears to be really young (and probably too dumb to be scared) - but we thought it was something quite special!

I have had a few days in which I can really relate to this old duck! and makes me think of the Introduction to one of the 'home organising' books I read years ago in which the main quote was "Life is too short to stuff a mushroom" and indeed it is! Dis al!

Christchurch Cathedral

The badly damaged ChristChurch Cathedral will be pulled down, it has been announced.

Really unhappy news - but looking at this picture, it's hard to imagine a different decision being viable.

Bishop Victoria Matthews confirmed the city's icon would be demolished at a press conference on Friday afternoon in Christchurch

The cathedral was badly damaged during last February's earthquake which killed 185 people.

Bishop Matthews said the building would be deconstructed down to a level of 2-3 metres so heritage items could be removed and stored until decisions about a new cathedral were confirmed.

"There will be no bulldozers or wrecking balls, on the job," she said.

"We acknowledge the high level of community interest and sense of ownership as the cathedral was both an iconic building and a place of regular worship by many.

"However, this is now a very dangerous building that needs to be made safe."

"Our priority is also to ensure people working on-site are safe - in fact if anyone had been in the building on December 23 [when an aftershock hit] they would have been put at a great risk of serious injury or worse."

"We are also mindful that since December 23, the context of our decision making has changed given the further deterioration of the building and the risk of further seismic events, according to the geotechnical experts."

This is a picture which we took (as you can see) at the end of December 2010 - before the 'big' one hit - sad to think that the square will never be the same again. The cathedral has been one of  'the' icons of Christchurch for over a hundred years so it's hard to imagine how they are going to handle it's demolition and how decisions will be made about what eventually will stand on this site.

Dis al!