Rangiwewehi

This one is for Chrissy!

Cabbage Tree - Ti Rakau

This is one of my favourite native trees - the Cabbage tree (Cordyline australis), often found on roadsides and in swampy places through out New Zealand.

It can grow up to 15 m tall, first as a single stem then branches out to have many crowns.
It has attractive bunches of creamy white flowers in the spring.

Cabbage trees were a valuable food source for the Maori people and sometimes the early settlers, and the new shoots bear a resemblance in taste to cabbbage hence the name!

Where's our Food!

Pied shags (a type of cormorant) waiting for tasty morsels to swim by.

My Morning Walk- a dedication

Its is seven years ago this month (April 2001) since we lived through a parents nightmare - a child on the other side of the world seriously ill.

Within 36 hours of hearing the news I was on a plane heading to California where our child (number 3) was living and working.

It was an extremely traumatic and stressful time for all of us. My husband arrived for 10 days to give support during the operation and hospital stay and I stayed on to help with convalescence. There were complications, another operation was needed, and the recovery was slow and far from straight forward.

I had to negotiate my way around a totally foreign health system, cope with medical terminology, numerous doctors and specialists appointments, and drive on the wrong side of the road!!

Hair. raising.

I was there for 12 weeks in all.

Late in 2000 I had met, quite by chance, some American tourists who were visiting our city. When we talked we discovered that they lived in the same suburb as Number three! The world is indeed a small place.

As they were leaving, the woman gave me her card and said that if I was ever in their neighbourhood, or if my child needed help, to call her. Little did I realise that only a few months later I would be seeing her again.

A few days after my arrival I did call her, and she lived literally five minutes walk away from our apartment. I was invited around to her house, and she invited me to join her walking group. Most mornings at 7am she would be outside to meet me and we joined the group for our walk along the beach path. They followed a pathway along a beautiful Californian beach, sometimes there were dolphins playing out in the waves.

As I walked, I walked and talked away my stress.

They helped me negotiate and understand their health systems, gave me support when things were not so good and included me in their every day life. I went off to a book club meeting, farmers markets, breakfasts on the pier, luncheons, and participated in general hilarity as we all piled into a vintage convertible car for a photo shoot. I was introduced to margaritas and mexican food.

Slowly my child improved, made a good recovery and was able to resume work. I was made redundant and able to return home.

I will never ever forget those American people who opened their lives to me, a virtual stranger. I can't thank them enough.

We still keep in touch and I visited them again a year later, this time in happier circumstances.

This post is dedicated to them - I think of them often as I go on my morning walk and wish they could walk along with me.

Baby foot

I bought this at a craft fair , it is meant to be a paper weight. It is so cute - the foot is the size of a baby's foot.

Flower for the day

This is a King Protea flower, complete with resident bee.

The flowers measure around 30cm (12 - 14 inches) across so are one of the largest in the garden. They are beautiful. Bees find them very attractive also and there are often lots of bees buried deep in the middle of the flowers.

My friend

Isn't he/she cute? I have just come inside after an hour or two out in the garden and felt that awful feeling when something is crawling around your neck.

It was this little traveller - a praying mantis. Probably a female actually as she looks as if she will soon be laying her egg case. It is a real nuisance when they lay their egg case inside the house, the curtains are a favourite place, as they leave a mark that is nigh on impossible to get out.

Treasures

Here are some more 'treasures' on the walls of our 'bach'. They are useful as well are decorative. Made of painted metal.

The birds are natives - a fantail and three pukekos, and the lizard is a green gecko.

Well known Kiwiana items

• All Blacks — national Rugby Union team.
• Black Singlet — worn by many farmers, shearers as well as representative athletes.
• Buzzy Bee — wooden child's toy.
• Chocolate fish — confection of marshmallow covered in chocolate, in the shape of a fish.
• Claytons — originally a non alcoholic spirit, advertised as The drink you have when you're not having a drink, that did not gain market acceptance; now refers to any form of inferior substitute. This term is primarily used among those generations old enough to remember the original drink.
• Edmonds 'Sure to Rise' Baking Powder, the distinctive Edmonds factory (demolished in the late 1980s), and the Edmonds Cookbook.
• Footrot Flats — popular cartoon strip by Murray Ball.
• Gumboots, calf length rubber boots (also known as the Wellington boot or wellie.)
• Hei-tiki — Māori neck pendant. Tourist variety in green plastic are the definitively tasteless depths of kiwiana.
• Jandals — beach footwear with a bit of sole but very little else. AKA flip-flops (USA), thongs (Australia).
• Kiwi — native bird; its stylised image or shape frequently appears on things associated with New Zealand.
• Kiwifruit — fruit from a vine originating in China but selectively bred by New Zealand horticulturalists to obtain egg-sized fruit with green or gold flesh. In New Zealand it was originally called "Chinese gooseberry".
• L&P — Lemon & Paeroa, a popular soft drink.
• Marmite - a dark and salty spread made from yeast extract, similar to Vegemite. New Zealand Marmite is distinct from British Marmite, in taste and recipe. Marmite is made in New Zealand, as opposed to Vegemite, which is made in Australia.(Much Debated, the packaging shows it as the other way around)
• Paua — the polished shell of the native paua (abalone) shellfish, turned into jewelery and souvenirs. Once considered kitsch, it is starting to regain its popularity.
• Pavlova — a light and fluffy meringue dessert named after the ballet dancer, Anna Pavlova
• Silver fern — native plant; its stylised image or shape is displayed by many of the national sports teams.
• Stubbies — a particular brand of walk shorts that were popular in the 70's. Always seemed to be a size too small for the wearer but were beloved by men from many walks of life.
• Tip-Top ice cream.
• Watties tomato sauce.

(List taken from Wikipedia.)

'Kiwiana'

Kiwiana - a definition (wikipedia)

Items of kiwiana are generally those which are either unique to or particularly common to New Zealand, particularly from the early and mid twentieth century. Although the term is sometimes used to describe any and all New Zealand icons, it is more commonly used to describe pop culture items such as toys or branded foods. A few more serious national icons have become kiwiana through heavy use in advertising and the souvenir industry. These include the kiwi and the hei-tiki. Kiwiana is generally seen as a form of kitsch.

These photos are of a few items that adorn the walls of our 'bach' (pronounced 'batch' - a beach house or holiday house).

They have a more Pacific Island theme perhaps than a NZ one as turtles are not generally found in our waters.

I made the large mosiac turtle - a little amateurish, one of my first attempts at mosiacs. But he looks good on the wall!