snow and tulips
The previously mentioned snow in Porirua has enabled the previously not terribly flowery tulips to flower!
Von Tempsky’s in the garden
Von Tempsky and the man the creator of this piece (Frank Thwaites?) calls Rewi but I reckon must be Titokowaru is in the garden, so it must be getting close to summer.
The weather has been appalling and I won’t dwell on it except to say it made coming home bloody difficult. But now the tomatoes are in (did I plant enough to get eating ones and relish ones?) the eggplants and courgettes are in (aha melanzanes dishes coming up) and at last I started pulling out the puha that infested the garden.
So, now it’s time to think about swanning around in the Cooks, planning for the Wellington Arts Festival, possible Opera at Verona, teaching in Greece, dancing in Brisbane, NZ National Opera and oh yes, all those significant birthdays. 1950 and 1960 certainly were years for producing some outstanding people.
OK…………better get some rest in.
I note that there have been several searches and links to being a cripple…does that mean I should expand on that theme then?????
Autumnal thoughts
It’s remarkable how the changing seasons change our thought patterns and we turn to those poets we have loved, like WB.
The Falling of the Leaves
AUTUMN is over the long leaves that love us,
And over the mice in the barley sheaves;
Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,
And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.
The hour of the waning of love has beset us,
And weary and worn are our sad souls now;
Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us,
With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.
William Butler Yeats
Or Seferis and his poems of nostalgia.
“if I’m sorry it’s a private matter
like the feeling for things so simple
that, as they say, one’s passed beyond them”.
It’s a time for red wine and fires and the satisfaction of knowing that the tomatoes are done, the grapes are gone, the cupboards are full of apple sauces and relishes, the olives are yet to be picked and preserved. The trees are cut, the wood is ready and the garden has been put to bed to sleep until spring.
It’s a time to wonder again about the world: what is happening in Palestine now that the news no longer shrieks to us? How is the world? Is there a recession or not? And how will we and our friends cope?
To watch the rain sweep across the hills and to remember the past good things of summer. A time to attend to those unwritten essays and papers and to plan for new ideas. To maybe embark on that project that has been lying in wait for my body to stay calm enough and not need to move in the sunshine.
A time to be content in the memories and comfort of our surroundings.
Autumn
I love autumn as much as I love summer…the garden is full of tomatoes, apples and the favourite black peaches…. 
Today’s wet and autumnal day is perfect for making apple sauce and tomato relish. I seem to have been overenthusiastic about the tomatoes this year and am planning the Edmond’s relish recipe that my mother Eileen used. I did try it last week and the result can only be described as execrable – overdid the salt. So today it’s off to the library for more recipes and another ‘go’. May still revert to Edmond’s. Perhaps Kapaikai can help out? The apples are ready for picking and have made one batch of apple sauce to go with winter pork.
The black peaches (see above) are delicious and I’m pleased to see that spraying them regularly with copper solution certainly helped with more fruit, more leaves and less leaf curl. Last year I had a measly three (all of which were eaten by someone, not me) and this year I’ve had about 20.
The one I ate this morning was black and lush – this one is a little underdone yet…but still good!
Ah it’s good to be home. It’s good to get into the garden. And of course to keep me in the kitchen mood…..Leonard, Antony (of course) and a selection of Neopolitan songs a good and dear friend sent me. Ciao bella
Is Xmas really so fabulous?
Welly weather has gone wet but the garden has produced a lot of stuff…found the first courgette today.
The flaxes are superb and attracting the tuis (at 5.am)
FlaxFlower
It’s four years since Lyn died
Lyn
Although to be fair there are a few engagements and catch ups for next week which’ll be grand and of course the Xmas barbie will be wonderful and a chance to catch up with the wandering nephew….and we are not doing presents but sigh….think I’ve got the pre-Xmas blurchs. Today one of my closest friends ( well an executor of my will anyway) left Welly for Auckland.
AND the consultant today tells me that the foot may never heal and that we have pretty much had our 300 days of possibility. Looks like sticks in Italy.
Ah well at least I can drive and the garden is looking so good we are holding a birthday party in it this weekend…
Just have to get thru Xmas….sigh.
A few bits and pieces
to round off the week.
This morning I was looking in the cupboard for something and found a lot of shoes…some of them very nice and some of them bought to wear after the operation. So I think the next plan is to wear those shoes.
And the plan after that is to walk properly so that when I am in England, Italy and Greece I’ll be able to climb hills, walk into theatres and around museums. Although the back-up plan is to go to one place and stay there, taking train and bus trips around. Which sounds pretty good to me. I guess a report on being a semi-cripple in Italy will be forthcoming. I hope they sort the strife in Thailand before my plane lands there. And Mumbai. How awful but Fisky would see the connections with what the West is doing and the troubles in Afghanistan and the latest events in India. When people feel desperate they do desperate things.
Meanwhile the garden is flourishing and the native walkway taking shape – at least there has been some clearance of old rubbish! The raised garden is a great success as I am able to wander out to cut my spinach/salad plants and sit on the seat weeding while supping the wine. Very satisfactory.
And the sun just keeps on shining! Wellington has been superb: soft evenings at Lyall Bay, calm clear waters of Pauatahanui in the morning or the harbour on other days. The hills opposite my window are brown and dry and the sunsets…superb. It’s been sunny, hot, still – fabulous. As they say “Ya can’t beat Welly on a Good Day” 
You are best to read these images as they are: I did not crop them so enlarged they are not so great. Sorry. I see some people have been browsing.
Von Tempsky has a home
the beans are in, the sun shone all weekend and there was no wind! The voyagers are safely home too. I drove to the gym by myself today (and drove yesterday with chatty (thank you) companions).
I wonder how the (sustainable) gardeners in H town are doing! Things sound pretty rural in north Canterbury, and the same in Taranak!
Garden
For those of you reading this to keep up with the garden (thanks for comments) here’s the latest.
For those of you more mechanically inclined, car is now parked in one of the parking spots but not the right one…..drove it today with instructor. Problem is, it reminds me of riding a horse (I know I know – ‘horse power’). It’s that sense that it has a lot of power and as soon as I let it out of the stable it wants to go……and as I have discovered it does (go).
Nicotine helps. (sadly). Thanks very much for supportive comments.
For those of you with a literary or world-wide awareness frame of mind I have just ‘done’ Algeria in Fisk’s book. Man oh man. I read, last year The Harbour (can’t find the link to tell you more) and that alerted me to the story of Algeria. Don’t know what to say. I still don’t understand the whole story but feel sickened that those kinds of things can happen to people and that anyone who knows about it doesn’t want to do/can’t anything. Colonial powers have a lot to answer for …but we knew that.
(a bit later) onto the Kuwaiti war now…..All that cynicism we had about ‘embedded journalists’ (not Fisky of course) – we were right.
So that’s a happy thought then, eh?
Wellington does have wind
Ah the equinoctal gales……….must be time I got a car……thanks to the young woman who helped me across the supermarket car park……
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_LaAkAyoz0
And at the end of the day – the wind has gone (got a bit fraught there in cripple territory) and this has happened to my garden…gosh!
Garden
There you go
Was meaning to write a post along the lines of “Lizzie says Paris has a lot of steps” in view of this cripple-y theme (if getting stiff in the joints counts) but here you go….look at this.
Wonders of digital cameras and email eh?
There you go
