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Vineyard, Upper Moutere, S. Island, NZ

Days in Arabia

Images scanned from slides, taken in Oman, Qatar and the UAE. The camel photo and spring cleaning the minaret are begging for captions. Anyone want to try?

Who's that pretty kit on that iMac screen?

It's me! It's me! My goodness I'm so gorgeous!

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Miniatures exhibition, Lower Hutt, Welllington

Lamps and candles of Northland

A week in Northland - lighting up through history

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Dusk, old Muscat

Pickles and other pictures of domestic bliss

When I picture my mum, I always picture her in one of two places, in front of the sewing machine, or making food in the kitchen. Because Dad had an allotment of land from the council, we always had fresh vegetables, and before mum got a deep freeze, she pickled and jammed for an army.
Today I made my FIRST pickled cabbage. I LOVE cabbage and potatoes and suspect that somewhere in my ancestry, I have Eastern European blood. I also swoon at the smell of cooking mushrooms. My bookshelves are also full of Tolstoy, Chekov and the works of Lenin, but that is another story.

So, here I am proudly trumpeting my cabbage artistry - and thank you Bonne Maman Jam and Rose's Marmalade for your cute jars. The vinegar is laced with pepper, cinnamon quills, pimento, chilli, cassia, ginger and coriander.

The other picture of domestic bliss is our spice girl Cumin and "kitten" Ruppin, snoozing side by side. This happened last night, and was a first. For two months we have wondered if these two would ever get used to one another, let alone actually LIKE each other. It seems that Entente has finally become Cordiale.

Sigh, pickles and purring cats, what a happy day.

Shabbat Shalom

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       Food at Wharepuke, Kerikeri. The large bird outside the window was a pizza oven.

Hundertwasser @ Kawakawa

If you have ever visited Vienna, you will have seen some of Friedensreich Hundertwasser's buildings. They are colourful, weird and out of a similar "stable" as Gaudi - the difference being that Hundertwasser's buildings were finished.

What is rarely known about Hundertwasser is that he lived for the last 25 years of his life in New Zealand, on a farm which he bought in the early 1970's. He became an NZ citizen in 1986 and declared a "Living Treasure" in 1990. His final architectural project was in Kawakawa. I know, you haven't heard of it. It is a tiny mining town in the Northland region of NZ. The project was the public toilets. Here are a few photos.