The view from the deck at Eden's Edge Backpacker Lodge, Motueka, S. Island
Monday, 2 November 2009
Friday, 30 October 2009
Mysterious Marlborough Sounds
The journey from Wellington to Picton on the S. Island is one of the most breathtaking sea journeys I have ever taken. This is the mouth of the Marlborough Sounds, which are actually fjords.
From the Naked Bus
We have a marvellous cheap bus service in NZ called "The Naked Bus". I travelled recently from Picton to Nelson with them, through the vineyards. This was taken from the window.
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Rambles through the past
Today, for some odd reason, I was reminded of the curtains I had in my bedroom as a child. They were white fibreglass with the most delicate pink sweet peas scattered all over them. The overall effect was artistic, but totally useless for blocking out light. When they were pulled along the rails they crackled and glistened.
Sweet peas were always a feature in our house during the season, because grandpa had a huge vegetable garden, and growing sweet peas of every hue was his chief delight (next to being a grower of prize dahlias and rhubarb).
But I digress. It was the pink flutter of the fibreglass curtains that mesmerised me as a child. The design was so French and otherworldly, that it was as if an alien had landed in our small village and taken refuge in the back bedroom of our small bungalow.
The rest of the bedroom furniture was eclectic. The twin beds were narrow and the bed heads always rattled when I did somersaults up and down the mallow mattresses. The pink quilt bedspreads were given to my mother by a lady she had met when she and dad were on honeymoon (in romantic Litchfield).
When I was seven, my dad built me a small white wardrobe and a chest of three drawers. A four foot trestle top rested on a beading on the side of the wardrobe and on the top of the chest off drawers, making a dressing table top of sorts. Here my collection of foreign dolls were lined up in regimental rows.
As you see, the curtains were really out of place. They deserved Edwardian French windows opening onto a conservatory, or a red brick loft conversion scattered with painters easels and bohemian sofas.
So, they remain a mystery. How did such aristocracy adopt our ordinary little family? Had they been mis-delivered to our home by an elegant furnishing shop in nearby York? Maybe I was a changeling and maybe they were my dowry. I will never know.
Sweet peas were always a feature in our house during the season, because grandpa had a huge vegetable garden, and growing sweet peas of every hue was his chief delight (next to being a grower of prize dahlias and rhubarb).
But I digress. It was the pink flutter of the fibreglass curtains that mesmerised me as a child. The design was so French and otherworldly, that it was as if an alien had landed in our small village and taken refuge in the back bedroom of our small bungalow.
The rest of the bedroom furniture was eclectic. The twin beds were narrow and the bed heads always rattled when I did somersaults up and down the mallow mattresses. The pink quilt bedspreads were given to my mother by a lady she had met when she and dad were on honeymoon (in romantic Litchfield).
When I was seven, my dad built me a small white wardrobe and a chest of three drawers. A four foot trestle top rested on a beading on the side of the wardrobe and on the top of the chest off drawers, making a dressing table top of sorts. Here my collection of foreign dolls were lined up in regimental rows.
As you see, the curtains were really out of place. They deserved Edwardian French windows opening onto a conservatory, or a red brick loft conversion scattered with painters easels and bohemian sofas.
So, they remain a mystery. How did such aristocracy adopt our ordinary little family? Had they been mis-delivered to our home by an elegant furnishing shop in nearby York? Maybe I was a changeling and maybe they were my dowry. I will never know.
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