Saturday 20 August 2022

Seven day difference

What a difference a week makes.

The seven days since these two photos were taken have been nothing like that day, last Sunday.  For me staying warm and dry at home listening to the rain on the roof and not looking outside much, it's just been a bit cold and dreary.  But for thousands of Kiwis in the Far North and south of the North Island and the west and north of the South Island it's been a time of nightmares with thousands forced to evacuate their homes to escape floods and the associated dangers of landslides, fallen trees, etc.

 Early morning


 Just around the corner, a bit further up the Whangarei Harbour at One Tree Point

I've spent the week preparing for Christmas, hand making gifts.  Yes, you heard me correctly, I'm fired up for the festive season.   My creative juices were ignited (can you ignite a juice?) the minute I heard my little Brazilian grand-daughter will be here for Christmas.  Well, not immediately, I spent days in a happy daze first.  Children and Christmas are inextricably linked. Christmas without little children is like the night sky without the stars.  Still lovely but with less twinkle.

Monday 8 August 2022

Whare Tapu Taonga

On Friday I went to town to have a look at the Whare Tapu Taonga exhibitiion which I'd read about in the local paper.  Even with my limited knowledge of the Maori language I know Whare means house, Tapu is sacred and Taonga is treasure or anything highly prized, a pretty good description of a church.

https://whangareiartmuseum.co.nz/ 

Anyone who has known me for a while knows that for years I've had a love affair with the small, old wooden churches of the north where I live.  So it was a thrill to see an exhibition of black and white photos of these churches by Laurence Aberhart, using an antique Korona view camera, last commercially manufactured in the 1930s.  I was particularly pleased to notice that some of my favourite churches have been lovingly restored and cared for since Mr Aberhart's visit. 

An example of that is the Ripeka Tapu Church, sitting right beside the Hokianga Harbour at Rangi Point, Waiparera on its northern edge. It was the first Anglican church to be built in the Hokianga in the 1870s. 


 photo by Laurence Aberhart
 
When GB and I visited it had just had a fresh coat of paint and was a very welcome sight after a long drive on a rough road.
 
It was badly in need of attention inside but it's humble wooden walls and ceilings really appealed to me.  Perhaps it was the light from the lovely windows that added a special glow.
 



 

 

 


 

 


 

 

 

Monday 1 August 2022

Psalm of Life

You know how something gets into your head and just won't go away?  It's so annoying.  I sometimes think it's worse if it's a tune.  No, I used to think it was worse if it was a tune.  Now I know there is nothing as annoying as a few words which keep repeating when you know they aren't right but that they mean something.  Or would mean something if you could just get it right.

It started after I'd had a very late night watching the cycling at the Commonwealth Games.  After laying in bed for a few minutes after I woke the following morning, not really wanting to get out of bed, telling myself I couldn't stay there all, then arguing with myself that I could if I so chose but probably shouldn't.  And who would care anyway?  Whose business was it but my own?  I finally said to myself, "OK, then, let's be up and doing."  Then thought, "No, that's not right.  But what should it be?"  Those few words annoyed me for two days.  Every time I went to do anything I'd tell myself to "Let's be up and doing."

Finally I handed the question over to Mr Google who, it turns out, can be quite reluctant to provide you with good information when you feed him  rubbish to start with.  Or rubbish with which to start, I'm not feeling argumentative.

I finally found it as a line in Wordsworth's 'Psalm of Life', but am unconvinced that's where I got it from because I swear I've never heard of that poem, let alone read it.  The only work I associate with Wordsworth is the 'Wreck of the Hesperus' and then only because that is something we used to say as children about ourselves or someone else who looked a bit dishevelled.  The nuns must have reasoned that if were going to use that term, then we should know where it came from.  That totally took away any satisfaction we had in using such a descriptive phrase.  I'm pretty sure we didn't study Wordsworth in any depth.

So, I read the poem and have re-read it many time over the past couple of days and have fallen in love with the correct words.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
   With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
   Learn to labor and to wait.
 
And in particular, this verse.

Lives of great men all remind us
   We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
   Footprints on the sands of time.
 
Footprints on the sands of time.  Love that.