Afternoon Accoutrements

I’m not much of a shopper, but I go weak at the sight of anything to do with tea or coffee. I have an eclectic collection of milk jugs, tea pots, caffetiere, stove pots to make Turkish coffee, trays, tray cloths, tea strainers – you name it.

When visiting Hong Kong recently, I found two amazing steel gauze “thingies” to go into the lid of a tea pot, so that you can make the tea with real leaves, at the delightful price of $2 each. In the same shop on Nathan Rd I found a tiny brown stoneware teapot, almost too small for one cup. I suspect it had just arrived from China, as the manager of the shop was still unpacking a box of them on the floor. They were wrapped in a local newspaper; humble beginnings with a price tag to match, $4.

Today, I came home from a local charity shop with a milk jug from an Irish pottery. It is decorated with fruit and each fruit is named in French – don’t ask. This is the same place I have bought a selection of blue pottery cannisters to store a variety of fruit and green teas. I have a coffee tin from Israel, a large yellow tea pot from California decorated with a black cat, a 6 cup pot in the shape of a green aga stove, another in the shape of a white bee hive, and a brass desert coffee pot from Bahrain. This is not including the four day to day tea pots (one cup) and cupboard full of mugs and cups.

When I finally put my feet up in that great tea room in the sky, someone is going to have a lot of sorting out to do!

Leaving Marlborough Sounds behind

Minutes later, we were blessed with rain, fog and rainbows, all at the same time.

Marlborough Sounds

Autumn colours

Sailing through Marlborough Sounds

Riwaka Wharf

Post boxes at Riwaka

Note, the hanging basket adorning the box on the right!

Husband's worst excuse ever

Me: "I can see you went to great lengths to make the bed in my absence" (of three nights)
Husband: "But I didn't want to disturb the teddies!"

I am SO sure...........

National Alpaca Day May 3rd

For those of you who associate New Zealand with sheep, I have news. We have about 20 million sheep fewer than we used to. The animal which has the high added value, and valuable fleece, is the Alpaca. On a modest block of land you could fit approximately 6 cows. If you have 15 acres you could home 50 alpaca.
They have a gentle nature and are inquisitive, not to mention cute and cuddly.
My husband knows that I want to keep them, but we only have .3 acre of land, enough for just one fluffy bundle, and they have to be kept in pairs.
I am working on it, and wearing down his resistance. I keep reminding him, I don't ask for jewellery or expensive clothes/holidays /nights at the opera.........
The photo is of an alpaca belonging to some friends of ours. Enjoy!

'Tis the season

Yesterday, winter arrived. By the time I headed to bed, wrapped in a huge fleecy kimono, I had noted those winter "signposts" around the house:
1) The mobile oil-filled radiator was re-instated in the living room (aka The White Heat Emitting God, or WHEG).
2) Two cats worshipping at the WHEG, one with his front paws stretched underneath it
3) Winter crafts strewn on the sofa - patchwork and knitting
4) Supplies of home made soup in the freezer
5) Large supplies of porridge oats offloaded from the weekly shop

I also wore three layers of clothing in the house during the day.

The forecast for ANZAC weekend is not good, and I am sailing to the S. Island. There could be photographic posts when I get back of the high seas in the Cook Straits.

5000th visitor

Welcome to the visitor from Doncaster, England, who was visitor number 5000.

I realise that on this site you can't comment unless you are signed up with google, but I would love to know who my visitors are. If you have a minute to introduce yourselves, please contact me at wpnz@swissmail.org.

Thank you.

Welcome to Country 71

Vanuatu.....
Thanks for visiting - I'm guessing J & V?

Stuff on Walls Hong Kong

I love the mixture of the airconditioners, banner advertising a gallery, bi lingual street name and road marking. There is a story in there somewhere......

Stuff on walls

Whilst walking through Whitehall in London recently, on the way to a meeting, I came across this plaque. It made me feel quite "homesick".

Funky Sunflowers Hong Kong

Flower Market Hong Kong

Mists and mellow fruitfulness

This morning I woke up to fog - quite rare here. It had a wonderful effect on all the spiders webs attached to our balcony, dripping them with dew. It was the first time I had seen this in the five years I have lived here. I was suddenly extremely homesick for an English autumn, with leaves to kick and soft focus days, damp smells and piles of fallen chestnuts. I also seriously pine for trees bare of leaves and the promise of winter.

Today, by contrast, after the fog had lifted, we were able to have a long walk by a still ocean in glorious sunshine. So I really can't complain.

Back from the North

Thanks for stopping by. I have had little opportunity to write during our trip to the UK, but here are some photos.

The Owl and the Pussycat

Lindisfarne - Holy Island

Berwick on Tweed Cafe Society

China Roses

Hong Kong Flower Market

Chag Sameach

This year my husband and I will be "passing over" Passover. We start at 4am tomorrow, flying to Amsterdam then Hong Kong. Then onwards to Auckland and then to our final destination.

For the first time in our five years of marriage, we won't be celebrating Pesach with friends.

Wishing all our friends a wonderful Passover and for those who are celebrating Easter this weekend, a wonderful holiday to you too.

Struggling with identity

For the last two days, I have been doing a very serious walk down memory lane. I was visiting the village I lived in for the first ten years of my life and a second village where my father, grandfather and great grand father grew up.
Memories were almost drowning me they came so high, fast and wide. I left the UK nearly 18 years ago, and today I was taken aback by the emotional pull the village had on me. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to settle again in the area. I'm not sure why I feel the need to be there so badly. I don't know anyone in my grandparents village, and have only one aunt in my home village. I suspect being a wanderer for so long, I have been dying for familiarity and roots.
I hope I can resettle again in NZ.