Christchurch

Yesterday I flew from Auckland to Christchurch on my way to Kuala Lumpur and Chiangmai in northern Thailand where I will house sit for a friend for a month. No irksome task, but while in Christchurch for a few hours between planes, I was privileged to see something of how this brave city is coping with the results of two major earth quake events in the last twelve months.

DESTRUCTION                                                                                                    

A grand memorial arch stands strong over a broken bridge

Demolition in the city centre is more prevalent than restoration

Like giant Triffids or machines from War of the Worlds the destruction continues

The sympathetic can get no closer than this to the ruined cathedral

A brooding hobbit overlooks the ruins of the city centre

The competing zones - the red zone of destruction

and the green gardens of persevering new growth 

NEW LIFE

In the historic Botanical Gardens and in gardens throughout the stressed city, nature seems to consolingly offer the gentler side of her creative forces. Mighty old trees withstood the barrage of quakes and autumn leaves cheer with their colorful procession to a winter that will be followed a new spring.

The botanical gardens presents an entrance panorama that might 

well be from Kew gardens in the old country. 

Autumn colours soothe with their subtlety

An encouraging bough beckons us into the gardens

The  first shrub we come to welcomes us with a formal bouquet

A last leaf on one tree bids farewell

to a late newcomer on another

New and old leaves dispose themselves with Ikebana perfection

Nearby a Peace Bell reconciles with an old human foe

but peace on earth ..... in the earth ..... is what people seek in this city

As  new tremors shake the city that peace seems elusive

and  with no clear future yet in sight, brave citizens grope their way forward

As our plane carries us away from Christchurch and New Zealand snow mountains glisten.

Ascetic or Acerbic

It seems perfectly understandable that Greek Orthodox monks are regularly mistaken 

for terrorist leaders. Probably explains the thinning ranks in rock-cut monasteries.

The Rainbow delivers

Within minutes of the Courier delivering Prabhash and Desika's passports, complete

     with visas to complete his studies in New Zealand, I took this picture from our kitchen 

window. To be sure, doesn't every rainbow deliver a pot of gold. Into our trees too.

Short Memory

 Desika on our front deck acting up with a 60s wig Prabhash bought from a street stall

brought back memories of a real fighter Roberta Bobbi Sykes. Thank you Bobbi.

SHORT MEMORY

Conquistador of Mexico
The Zulu and the Navaho
The Belgians in the Congo, Short memory

Plantation in Virginia
The Raj in British India
The deadline in South Africa, Short memory

The story of El Salvador
The silence of Hiroshima
Destruction of Cambodia, short memory

Short memory, must have a, Short memory
Short memory, must have a, Short memory

The sight of hotels by the Nile,
The designated Hilton style
With running water specially bought, short memory

A smallish man Afghanistan
A watch dog in a nervous land
They're only there to lend a hand, short memory

The friendly five a dusty smile
Wake up in sweat at dead of night
And in the tents new rifles hey, short memory

Short memory, must have a, Short memory
Short memory, must have a, Short memory
(repeat)

If you read the history books you'll see the same things happen again and again
Repeat repeat short memory they've all got it
When are we going to play it again
Got a short, got a short, got a short, got a short
They've got a short must have a short they've got a short aah
Short memory, they've got a....

                                                                                      Midnight Oil

Autumnal Auckland

Auckland city centre from the fort on North head. Devonport in foreground.

Auckland Harbour Bridge from Birkenhead ferry wharf - evening.

Rangitoto volcanic cone from Maungawhau ( Mount Eden ) volcanic cone Auckland.

A plaque on Mount Eden expresses an attitude fading now in human beings everywhere except among the power elite of most corporations and nations. How telling the last phrase.

During the land taming period early 20th century city fathers created this delightful glass house in the Auckland Domain - the Wintergarden - to suspend the seasons for at least some flowers.

                                                                                                                                                              This mini Crystal Palace survived the Great Auckland exhibition of 1913 till today.

                                                                                                                                                               This Neoclassical dame fixes a funereal gaze on the Wintergarden pond. A marked contrast to the lively blooms inside the giant glasshouse that she is so balefully guarding.

The interior of the glasshouse dominated by a myriad of different types of Chrysanthemums.

It is an experience that explains why the Japanese Emperors made it their royal flower.

An indoor pond is graced with water lillies and overhung with carniverous blooms.

                                                                                                                                                                    The image of a white water bloom is reminiscent of a Chinese scroll painting.

Another scroll - Autumn from my bedroom window - the harbour beyond.

April at Home

April in Auckland seems to be a bit confused. As the Aussie bottle brush bursts into flower and bees , birds and butterflies swarm around the sticky blooms one could almost be forgiven for thinking that the Antipodeas is enjoying an English spring. A twenty foot radius around our house is suddenly alight with flowers and airborne life. I think its summer going out with a bang, but maybe its just my birthday celebrations. Thank you Aeotearoa.

                   When that Aprille with his showers sweet  
                   The drought of Marche hath pierced to the root,
                   And bathed every vein in such liquor,
                   Of which virtue engendred is the flower;
                   When the West Wind with his sweet breath         
                   Inspired has in every holt and heath 
                   The tender crops, and the young sun 
                   Has in the Ram his half course run,  
                   And small fowls makin' melody, 
                   That sleep all the night with open eye,        
                   So pricks him nature in her courage:  
                   Then folk long to go on pilgrimage.
                                             
                                                               Geoffrey Chaucer

A sea of Bottlebrush ( Callistemon) confronts our deck

A rocket launch

A star burst

A safe landing

Pink blooms on the driveway

making a bee line for the nectar

....... bathed every vein in such liquor

..... as such engendered is the flower

in the garden

in the house

.... good nature copies art   Oscar Wilde

And animal life appears in the house as a neighbouring cat begins to visit 

An April birthday at home ( note the Daisuke cat - no visitor but belongs here ) 

and abroad misplaced Arian enthusiasm wrecks another venture 

A Classical Interlude

During my most recent visit to the Auckland Art Gallery - Toi O Tamaki - I kept to the older chambers and corridors and found delight in what we once relegated to the shame bin of Victoriana and Neoclassical. I think my approach has a touch of the Surreal, fueled by the current exhibition Degas to Dali from the national galleries of Scotland.

A hint of De Chirico surely in this frozen moment on the wall of the old wing of the gallery.

Pallas Athena was a powerful Aries woman. I assume this from the sheep on her helmet.

While her artistic colleague Apollo would have been comfortable at an Oscar Wilde Soiree.

James Pyne's Genoa from the New Terrace 1862 might well be the poor man's Canaletto 

but I loved the detail, including the mini naval disaster

and the self referential glimpse of the artist at work in the corner.

Married by Walter Sadler 1896 is a lesson in body language that reveals the pathetic incompatability of a couple who should have stayed with their hobbies of reading and rose gardening instead of risking their happiness in what I suspect was an arranged marriage.

This Victorian bronze captures a very real and undernourished nineteenth 
century London street urchin not an Hellenic faun of the fourth century bc. 

This Romatic image of Milford Sound in the South Island was painted by John Perrett in 1895.

I found this 1847 Victorian lithograph by Stephen Ponsonby Peacocke online. It is of Sispara Peak in Kerala - a landmark on an important pass to the British Hillstation of Ootacamund. A copy of the print is nicely framed in our sitting room at 31A SISPARA PLACE, Beach Haven.