Corner of foreign land that is forever Kiwi - an ANZAC story. NZ Herald, 26 April

Our Prime Minister, John Key, visited this town in France yesterday, on the day we remember our soldiers who fell in distant countries in war time.

The town is a small one: Le Quesnoy, in the north of France, where every year Anzac Day is celebrated by the citizens, the descendants of those who lived here on November 4, 1918, when the New Zealand Rifle Brigade liberated the town from four years of German control.

The New Zealanders went up over the ramparts of the ancient fortified town, on ladders they liberated from the fire station, it is thought, and added to with bits of sticks from the surrounding forested area.

It is a story of derring do, and good old Kiwi DIY, and the Le Quesnoyans have never forgotten.

There are two streets named New Zealand, and one after the All Blacks.

The Prime Minister said: "I want to say what a wonderful and New Zealand-friendly town Le Quesnoy is. Because I was walking down the main street before and I noticed that you had named an avenue after the All Blacks, and even we haven't done that."

There is much excitement in Le Quesnoy on the last Sunday of every April: the day Anzac Day is celebrated.

There is a strange and enduring connection between the people of this little town and an event that happened almost a hundred years ago.

'We marched down Avenue Nouvelle Zealandie, through an ancient gateway, and then we were on New Zealand soil - a gift of thanks from the town to us. Then we arrived at the New Zealand memorial, high on the rampart walls.'

THE STORY OF LE QUESNOY, 1918

* New Zealand sent 100,000 of its 243,000 men of military age to defend the British Empire during the Great War of 1914-1918.

* From April 1916 until the Armistice on November 11, 1918, the New Zealanders fought as a Dominion Division of the British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium.

* In early 1918, the NZ Division was away from the frontline retraining and reinforcing losses after the late-1917 campaigns, and from the Passchendaele campaign in particular.

* When the German army commenced its Spring Offensive of March 1918, the allied forces were heavily mauled and gaps appeared in the Allied Front. NZ soldiers moved to plug a gap and helped halt the German army by April 5.

* The final offensive to drive Germany from France and Belgium began in July 1918. By early November, NZ infantry, including the 3rd NZ (Rifle) Infantry Brigade, known as the Rifle Brigade, were positioned in front of Le Quesnoy.

* On the day of the liberation of Le Quesnoy ( November 4, 1918), because of the civilian population, the artillery shelling was contained in front of the town ramparts. Two of three NZ infantry brigades surrounded the town by 9am and the Rifle Brigade defeated German soldiers who had occupied the town for most of the war.

* The operation resulted in the capture of 700 German prisoners and involved firing 300 flaming oil drums at the town walls to create a smokescreen. NZ soldiers entered the town by scaling ladders set against the ancient walls.

Arrgh - was this really fashionable??

This ad appeared in our newspapers around 1985. Note the skin tight shorts, and long socks. Its hard to imagine that the men really dressed like that, reminds me more of the '70's.

A Blaze of Colour

I have just spent a few days away at the beach. We have had a good amount of rainfall in the last few weeks, the hibiscus and bottlebrush have responded in their dramatic fashion and rewarded us with a wonderful blaze of colour.

You are probably getting bored with all the flower pics, but they are too beautiful to keep to myself!

Autumn fruit - apples, kiwifruit, nashis.....and feijoas!

We have a variety of fruit that ripen in the autumn growing either at home or out on our orchard which is a few miles out of town.

We have two varieties of apple - Golden Delicious and Gala, nashi pears, kiwifruit - (just 14 acres), figs, and....... feijoas.

Oh I love feijoas. They have a tropical taste, a little like guava, a little like pineapple, and are very aromatic. In fact, at the moment we have a bag of them in the pantry and you can smell them throughout the house! A tangy fruity smell. How I wish I could send some to you all.

They are about as big as a kiwifruit, and you eat them in the same way, cut them in half and scoop the fruit out with a teaspoon.

However they are not a fruit that everyone likes. I am the only one in our family who eats them. The trees are prolific bearers and it is common to see bags of them on a stand outside houses usually $2 a bag. A tree bears more than a household could possibly eat!

They can be used in cooking - I have made feijoa muffins.And I sometimes cook them and have them on breakfast cereal or make desserts - feijoa crumble with ice cream.

Did I mention that I love feijoas!!!!

Some Autumn colour

These beautiful daisies always add some cheer to the garden just when all the other summer flowers are past their best.

They are Japanese Anenomes.

Another example of Kiwi humour

This email is doing the rounds at the moment. There is a grain of truth in many of these statements.

Title - Pearls from Christchurch.

You know you're from Christchurch when...


*Geonet / ChristchurchQuakeMap is your homepage
*The rest of the country offers you a place to stay
*“Munted” and “buggered” are official technical terms
*You go 'pfffff' when Wellington has a 4.5 earthquake that's 40km deep
*You see a nice park in another city and think it would make a good evacuation point
*You sleep in one suburb, shower in another and collect water from yet another
*When you drive on the right side of the road and no one thinks it's wrong
*You are happy two Policemen came for a visit
*When your bike becomes your best friend
*You think it's fine for a soldier to be stationed at the end of your street
*You see armoured vehicles driving down the road
*It’s normal to greet people with “do you need a shower?”
*A bucket of sh*t is no longer that old car you drive
*Instead of rushing to the clothes line to get clothes in when it rains, you put dirty washing on the line in the hope that it will rain enough to clean them
*Going to Wellington to escape earthquakes makes sense
*Your doctor recommends having a few stiff drinks before bed to help you sleep
*You know how to start and refuel a generator
*You have tied the pantry, liquor cabinet and all the cupboard doors closed and it's not to keep kids out
*You prefer to sit under the table instead of at it
*You think electronics that have "shock proof" should say to which earthquake magnitude
*You know and actually understand the terms and conditions of your House and Contents insurance policies
*You can see irony in claims about houses made of “permanent materials”
*Your en-suite has a vege garden, dog kennel and grass
*Your teenagers are only too happy to sleep in the same room as their parents
*You stop using the term “built like a brick sh*t house”
*Dressing up to "head into town" means putting on a hi-viz vest, hard hat and boots
*Discussing toilet habits with total strangers is an everyday norm
*Wee boys don't get excited when they see (another) digger or a dozer - but all the adults in the street cheer wildly
*Voluntarily staying in Timaru for five days seems like a good idea
*You know what that extra gear lever on your 4X4 is for
*Metservice includes a graph for dust
*You have dust mask tan lines
*You can use the term "liquefaction" in everyday casual conversation, even your 3-year old can
*When a massive group of students appears in your street, you feel overwhelmed with gratitude instead calling the Police. What’s more, the students leave the street in better condition than when they arrived
*The answer to where anything is ... it’s on the floor
*You smile at strangers and greet people like you’re one big family