Social Streets: Lessons from Europe and an Australian

In our travels, one feature of some northern cities really struck us as decidedly cool. On the inner streets of places such as York, Weymouth, Strasbourg, Colmar, and Amsterdam, cars shared the narrow streets with cyclists and pedestrians in a much more egalitarian way than they do here.

I am often struck by the attitude of Christchurch motorists to pedestrians and cyclists; motorists often seem to take the view that the car is at the top of an invisible hierarchy. Nowhere is this more irritating than in a mall car-park on a rainy day, when you jump out of the car, become a pedestrian, and have to wait for streams of cars to get out of your way - while the drivers cruise ditheringly past in the warmth and dryness of their vehicle.

Colmar

In marked contrast, on the streets of Strasbourg, cars are welcome, and pedestrians are too. (The biggest danger comes from cyclists whizzing through in the cycling lanes.) When you need to cross the road, you can do it quite quickly because the roads are narrow, and cars aren't streaming along double and triple lanes in traffic-light-controlled waves. Instead they are trickling through at a slow pace and keeping a watchful eye out for other street users. It gives a quite different vibe.

Ian and I were intrigued recently when NatRad's Simon Morton interviewed David Engwicht, an Australian expert in making cities safer and more social (https://www.creative-communities.com/). According to him, traditional planners strive to increase predictability when they plan streets, so they incorporate lots of features to control and instruct the street users - such as signs, barriers, lights, and so on. They regard these features as a means of making the street more safe. Engwicht maintains that far from making the street more safe, these features allow road users to abdicate their responsibility for looking out for other users, and create a false sense of security.

"Over-regulation of public space promises a level of predictability that cannot be delivered."

Amsterdam

"Risk is not a problem; readability of risk is the problem... planners must make the risk visible..."

Moreover, Engwicht argues that by focussing on movement of traffic and pedestrians, the planners relegate social and economic interactions - people stop communicating with each other and just follow the signals slavishly. Hans Monderman, a Dutch engineer, pioneered the concept of shared space in Europe. You have this space outside the shops and houses; you can choose whether to use it just for movement, or whether you regard it as an outdoor living room where social interaction is encouraged and supported.

"Risk and conflict are absolute core measures of the vitality of any space"

According to Engwicht, the evidence shows that average traffic speeds in these "living streets" drop by 50% - but traffic through-put drops by a much smaller amount, because the cars aren't impeded by constant controls.

Monderman said "My chief job is to put people in eye-contact with each other. They have to look each other in the eye and negotiate how they're going to move in the space". This describes exactly what we experienced and appreciated overseas.

It's also what we experience on Stuart Street at Lake Kaniere. This is a narrow bach-lined street that spends much of the year in splendid solitude, but when the holidays come around, the street throngs with walkers, dogs, cyclists, towel-wrapped children coming up from the lake, and four-wheel-drives towing boats of all sizes. There are no footpaths. Everyone moves slowly, and accommodates the needs of other users. Almost always, people wave and smile as they sidle past each other, or stop to talk. It's a place of movement and social interactions.



Looking up Stuart Street - cars,
people, dogs, you name it,
all pass each other happily

The local council has plans to double the width of this pleasant street, adding footpaths. We believe that these features will turn a quiet road into something that looks and feels like a main arterial route, encouraging drivers to increase their speeds and expect pedestrians to keep out of their way. We cannot see how this can ever improve safety or contribute positively to the social environment of Lake Kaniere.

Bookish Dreams

In March 1938, Arthur Ransome wrote the following to Helen Ferris (U.S Junior Literary Guild):

Libraries - and Guilds! - ought to be very careful lest they encourage the idea that books are like newspapers and muffins and herrings, to be served fresh and fresh. Any good book improves on rereading, and I believe that the reason why books meant so much to me when I was a small boy is that I didn't have too many, and those I did have I knew pretty well by heart. (From "Signalling from Mars, The Letters of  Arthur Ransome", Hugh Brogan 1997)

I have read all of the Swallows and Amazons books so many times that on the rare occasions when I sail on my own, I always hear Arthur Ransome's advice in my head. I can't say he made me a competent sailor but he certainly did make me feel that I could and should sail. And now that I have read his words to Ms Ferris, I feel entirely good about rereading good books, too.



An island on Windermere

Being such a fan of AR, only imagine my delight when Ian, George and I visited Lake Windermere in Cumbria, which formed part of the setting of several of The Books. (We only had a day there, and did not get to Coniston on this trip.) This was an unexpected treat that came about because Ian had organised for us to stay a night or two with his Cumbrian cousin Peter, his wife Lindsay and their lovely young'uns.

Once at Rio/Bowness, I was fairly desperate to be on the lake and with some control of the helm (albeit delegated - but I definitely didn't want to be a mere passenger in a steamer). This accorded with George's need to be driving something; anything. So we rented a small electric runabout and spent a happy hour or two scooting about the lake. It could nearly have been Kaniere - soft dark water and wooded islands - if one ignored Bowness and ancient ruins...  and boat-houses of course, which have sadly been removed from the Kaniere shore.

But, who wanted Kaniere? Not I - this was the realisation of a long-held dream - and yes, a highlight of UK trip 2012.

I'll never know why there was smoke drifting up from distant woods - but the plume pictured here will always mean charcoal burners to me!

The Altounyan red slippers

Emma's Best Day, Ever

Some time ago, I scored a copy of the Illustrated Pepys, by Robert Latham (it was a JI cast-off when they shed books in Christchurch). I've had great fun reading Sam's diary over the last few months. He was an interesting character who recorded his life and thoughts solely for himself - as he wasn't writing to please others, and never expected his diary to take on the very public life that it has, I don't feel inclined to judge him for his peccadilloes. Anyway, yesterday, we did the first part of a "Pepys Walk" through the east City of London. See the photos here as you read.

Spot the bobby

After breakfast at Carluccio's, we tubed to the start of our walk (via a brief stop at Oxford Circus to discover that Liberty doesn't open until 10:00 am). First up, George and I climbed the Monument (a memorial to the great Fire in 1666) - all 311 steps of it - then we all went in search of the church St Magnus the Martyr, where I managed to find the London bobby on the model of Old London Bridge.

Next on the walk was No. 13 Philpot Lane. It was fenced off for health and safety and the street was filled with blokes in hard hats, so we were struggling to locate the "smallest public sculpture in London", of two brown mice nibbling a piece of cheese. One of the workers (the elder of the two who spoke to us) wanted to know what we were looking for, so I told him the story. During construction of the building for spice merchants in 1862, they were apparently plagued by mice, so the builders added the little sculpture. He got quite interested, and wanted to let us inside the cordon but another (younger) chap wasn't 'aving a bar of it. Anyway, our new friend spotted  the sculpture first and pointed it out to us, and was rather tickled I think, because he had discovered something from us. Simple pleasures for all concerned!

St Dunstan's - the ruined church

I won't give a blow-by-blow account of the walk, although I definitely recommend visiting St Dunstan's in the East, which is the most gorgeous garden. Ever. We also visited All Hallows and the garden in Seething Lane. The last place I wanted to visit was St Olave's, where Mr and Mrs Pepys are buried, but it was bolted firmly shut, so that was that. We didn't feel very tempted to visit the Tower, which was possibly silly, but that can be a treat in store for another day. Or trip.

Incomparable Liberty

We tubed to Oxford Circus and parted company - ironically the lads went in search of shoes, although I'm the one that actually bought some. I really wanted freedom at Liberty's, pun intended. I spent a goodly amount of time there, wishing my mother was with me. I had lunch and then continued to wander, dazzled by the products but even more so by the building. Then I succumbed to the lure of a pair of Liberty "Strawberry Thief" Doc Martens. With both guilt and delight writ large on my face, I left Liberty to find that meanwhile the rain had started. I headed off with my purple parcels to Hanover Square, where I plodded around damply looking for Brook Street. Eventually I found it, but I walked straight past the Handel Museum, which is extremely missable, to Claridges and back again. The doorman at Claridges said as I passed the second time "I reckon I saw your twin a few minutes ago!". Ha ha, Cockney humour...

I finally found my way into the museum and spent a marvellous hour or so there. The house has very squeaky floors and wonky everything - I didn't feel entirely safe! But there's nothing wrong with a bit of adrenaline. It was incredible to be standing in Handel's composing room (where he wrote the Messiah) and bedroom. There were lots of paintings of his contemporaries, and several very old instruments too.Well worth the 6 quid, and another highlight in an already quite brightly lit day. On my way out, I asked the lovely chap at the desk where to find the nearest Tube station. I then followed his very clear instructions to the Bond Street station, went down the escalator, and then suddenly remembered this is the one we normally get out at - being the nearest station to our hotel, so there really wasn't much left to do but come back up the escalator and hope no-one was watching me blush!

After the day I've described, by the time we were all back at our room, you will understand when I say we were more than ready for a cup of tea and a lie-down. The only plans we had were very gentle ones, involving a simple assembled meal (Chicken Tonight - sorry Claudia) and a lot of lolling around.

While I was throwing said meal together, Ian got a text from cousin Katie saying that cousin James had tickets for us to the Paralympics opening ceremony! "We must GO!" said I, so we did. We gobbled down dinner and leapt on the Tube, meeting cousin James at Canary Wharf, then dashing back onto the Tube to Stratford. What an amazing experience. Some of our photos are here. George took so many that I have spent most of this evening culling them back. It seemed a little surreal to be seeing the Queen and fireworks and listening to Handel on a day when I had been visiting the Handel museum.

I am just very sorry that we left before Ian Dury's "Spasticus Autisticus" was performed - but we desperately wanted to beat the crowds to the Tube home. The fact that this music was chosen makes me very happy - how delighted Ian would have been - he was a Londoner, a punk, and a poet and "normal land" has taken a long time to hear his message. And as for the evening in general, "there ain't 'arf been some clever bastards" - simply unforgettable.

What a day!

The Times in London

Shaw's Corner

Goodness me, how time is flying by! I need to fast forward this blog, since I haven't been doing daily updates. On Sunday, EGI took the Tring Football to Verulanium Park and kicked it round. We were too early to view the Roman floor, but we walked and walked and ended up at the Courtyard cafe on George Street for lunch. In the afternoon, E went on an expedition with J and I to Shaw's Corner where we toured through GB's house and garden. We also visited the church and pub at Ayot St Laurence. Lovely! See the pics...

On Monday, J dropped EGI at the St Albans railway station with Immi's clear instructions to get off at Farringdon and take the Circle line to Piccadilly, then change to the Bakerloo line etc etc. Only problem was that we didn't know to press the button to open the train door at Farringdon, so on we were swept to whatever the next station is... Anyway, it wasn't too much of a drama - we made it to our hotel in the end, dropped our bags, and headed off in search of Sights. We are staying just off Baker St, and we wandered, all wide-eyed and innocent, down past Selfridges (I've labelled this "unknown building" in the photos, and am too lazy to change it) to Grosvenor Square.

By then I was starting to grizzle because I hate walking so much, so we decided to tackle the Boris Bikes. Three pounds for EGI for 24 hours, with no further charges if you dock your bike and take another within 30 minutes. We were a bit lucky because it was a bank 'oliday so there wasn't much traffic. The Boris Bikes are BRILLIANT! We zoomed off to Buckingham Palace, then stopped for a drink, then treddlied off to Westminster. I managed to make the lads wait while I nipped round the stunning Cathedral. Amazing how many RCs were in there actually praying or being reflective or whatever, not that I'm making comparisons with the C of E outfits, no certainly not.

Then we crossed the Thames at Vauxhall and I made the lads wait while touring the garden museum at Lambeth. I loved the 1719 plaque to the memory of Bryan Turbervile who "bequeath[ed]... a hundred pounds for ever to be laid out...for the putting out yearly two poor boys apprentices". There are a few conditions attached, including "none to be put to chimney-sweepers watermen or fishermen and no Roman Catholic to enjoy any benefit thereof".

After threading our way through the crowds near the London Eye we tubed back home and checked in to our little bedsit, where we are sharing a room. George has the most uncomfortable bed but we are doing our best to knacker him each day so he sleeps anyway.

On Tuesday, I didn't take many photos because my camera wasn't fully charged. We had a great day which included more Boris Bikes (although we had our troubles getting three, so Ian did a lot more walking than us - we biked slowly and he walked fast). We spent a lot of time in Hyde Park and Kensington, where GI had a second look at the Science and Natural History Museums while E went to the V&A and managed to scratch the surface. We lunched at L'Opera on Brompton Road and then spent a happy hour in Harrods, where we all discovered how the other 1% lives. That evening George stayed in - he longed for a little peace, a Tescos pizza, and time continuing his work learning C. So Ian and I scrubbed up slightly and walked to St Christopher's Place where we found a pleasant French bistro. Then we strolled through the Tuesday nightlife on Oxford Street, and wended our weary way home.

Coda: we had a little trouble operating the washing machine/dryer that evening, so when the fire alarm went off at 11:45 pm, waking the entire building, I dazedly thought it was my fault and ran around panicking and trying to figure out what to turn off. Someone finally made the siren stop, whereupon we all returned to our beds - Ian thinks it was probably set off by our hosts, smoking on the balcony...

A football? Try Tring!

Astute readers may remember that a certain person identified the need for a football in an earlier episode. Thus and therefore, on Saturday morning, after a coffee in town and the purchasing of some sublime olives from a local stallholder (the oily juice of which is being spread over Jeremy's laptop keyboard right now), there was a fruitless scouring of the St Albans shops for a football. Why cannot one buy a soccer ball in St A?

Later, after the usual milling around that always precedes expeditions involving more than one person, EGI and J set off for Waddesdon Manor, former home of Ferdinand de Rothschild. George was on a fact-finding mission, as he has been reading up about the Rothschilds; Ian and I were up for an adventure; and Jeremy was being a very gracious host. Unfortunately Immi wasn't feeling quite the thing, so she stayed home.

As we drove through the very pretty village of Tring en route to Waddeson, a terribly exciting thing happened. I saw a soccer ball in the window of a shop on the main street. We screamed to a halt and piled out, and sure enough the shop sold balls and there was a satisfactory result. Score! And on we went to Waddeson. Cop a load of this:

We descended through the woodland playground (5 stars, I wish I were a kid) to the Stables where we lunched and then visited the exhibition, which included works by Damien Hirst and Ai Wei Wei. See the Little Piggy here...

The front yard

Then we trudged back up to the house and admired the delightful prospect from the front before getting our free tickets (thanks NZHPT) to the inside. Words simply cannot describe the place. Or at least mine can't. I don't think the wealth of the Rothschilds can readily be understood by mere mortals. Unlike the landed gentry who have acquired treasures in various ways over the centuries, and also lost them, the family R had the fortune and the taste to set out and acquire treasures in a very deliberate way, and have had the good sense to keep 'em intact.

So... I don't think I can ever explain how it felt when, after exploring 45 rooms filled with the ultimate in prized objets, I was accosted by a very genteel volunteer who asked me if I would like to buy a raffle ticket. I'm still not sure if the funds being garnered by this enterprise are intended to pay the stamps for National Heritage in 2013 or purchase another Canaletto.

After the shock of the fundraising we went to the picturesque aviary and then shimmied back to the car for water and a sit-down. The village that Rothschild built is terribly cute, but for me the concept of building designer villages does grate a little. We headed off with the help of the Galaxy Note to Wing, where we visited the very special (yes, another very special) church of All Saints. I am such a sucker for very special Saxon churches.

I have to confess that by the time we arrived at the Ivanhoe Beacon I was dying for a pee and a vino. We looked at the lovely view, spared a brief thought for the Neolithic trudgers along the Ridgeway, and then scrambled back into the car and headed for home.

Back at B-'Ave (behave!!) we had another fab evening with sumptuous food and wine and intelligent company. Time is flitting by! Day 4 approacheth!

When you're jetlagged, go to Bedfordshire

So far, I have to say that we are having a dream trip, with minimal jetlag. Can I just take a second to give a hearty plug to the pedicure providers in the transit lounge at Changi? Their English was sketchy, and the DVD drama with real lions with dubbed-over voices was wrong in so many ways - but when you've been up for 20 hours and have the prospect of a 14 hour flight to go, the foot rub is bliss and the midnight-blue toenails very cheering. We all slept most of the second leg.

Jeremy picked us up at Heathrow and after second breakfast he departed for work. We (EGI - Emma, George, Ian) toddled into St Albans and prowled the high street in search of coffee and sights. The Boot is still there - anything with a roof that wonky at home would have been bowled for sure but England has no particular reason to worry about tottering brick parapets and undulating foundations.

Then we wandered on down through the heat to Verulam park, where George found all the open spaces overwhelmingly in need of a football. After a brief exploration, we met up with Jeremy again outside St Mike's and off we all went along classic English country lanes to the Holly Bush for a beaut lunch. Then J dropped us at Traffic where they foisted an A3 (4 door) Audi on us - it's a diesel that stalls in second if the revs are too low. This made for: a) fun at all the roundabouts on the way home, and b) a grumpy husband. However after a few turns about the Waitrose carpark Ian had fought the beast and established some kind of loose truce, while I bought the makings of this and that - Welsh lamb for tea (fairly bland, I thought) - but Ian crashed early and missed it.

Friday, EGI were up and off early to Bletchley Park. Bletchley Park is many things (think Seaview at Hokitika, or indeed any long-deserted mental asylum), but mainly it is a missed opportunity to offer decent coffee. No, actually I am being tremendously harsh; the coffee was unbelievable shite but it's a dead interesting place. The campus is large and spread out, and consists of many huts and bunkers in addition to the main, weird, Victorian building. Most of the outlying buildings are decaying - but the site retains a strong sense of the people who lived and worked there so intensely during the war.

Colossus Mark 2 - National Museum of Computing

We nearly left without seeing the Colossus; arguably the world's second general purpose programmable computer. Jeremy has just informed me, in sepulchral pseudo-Churchillian tones, that after WWII Churchill demanded the Colossus be destroyed. I have checked this on Wikipedia and apparently the great man commanded that the machine be broken down into pieces no bigger than a man's hand. However enough information survived in notebooks and heads for the machine to be rebuilt, and we saw it. I wish we had taken a photo of the hut that houses the National Museum of Computing - it's underwhelming in the extreme.

"Claudia" in bronze (15,000 pounds)

After lunch at the Old Green Man in Little Brickhill, we headed to Bedfordshire and Woburn Abbey, home to the Russells - D and D of Bedford. We shed the requisite 45 quid at the gate and drove in through the deer park. The house is lovely - millions of marble busts everywhere, and hundreds and hundreds of paintings. The vaults contained an astonishing collection of Sevres porcelain, silver, and gold, and a Rembrandt. After the house tour we wandered through the garden and goggled at the sculpture, some of which we liked.

Then home to Becketts Ave for dinner and the real business of this trip - spending time with our beloved family.

Jeremy introducing George to Linux

More photos here...

Photogeni-city

I've been seduced by Sydney once again. Generous, well-organised, well-resourced, comfortable Sydney.

It's hard, coming from Christchurch, not to be fearful of the bricks, especially when they are piled up 14 storeys high. Here is the view from our penthouse in Darling Harbour:

Looking straight down was not good.

From the woman who saw our confusion at the Central Station and stopped to help, to the Frenchman greeting us with a bonjour in his café in Abbotsford, the people were beaut. (Monsieur le café was a bit non-plussed by Claudia's readiness to parler. They don't often do that in Abbotsford...)

View from the Sydney Rowing Club. "Not that I'm an alcoholic", said the ferryman at King's Wharf, "but you can have a drink at the SRC and bolt back down to the jetty when you see the ferry on its way back from Parramatta." So true!

The funniest holiday moment was when we wandered up from Circular Quay and saw - and heard - the winos nestled semi-comfortably in a portico on the south side of George St having a vigorous debate about God knows what. Even when listening to Billy Connolly, I have never heard anyone use the word "fucking" so often and with so few breaths in-between. We passed on and around the corner, at which point Ian started replaying the Cosby wino sketch where Fat Albert comes and jumps on the wino. Unfortunately, Fat Albert was about 10 feet in front of us but Ian hadn't noticed - until I suggested we could just dial one up - at which point Ian finally looked up and instantaneously jumped out of his skin, did a u-turn without touching the ground, narrowly avoided stepping in front a bus, and took off purposefully and very hastily to the nearest pharmacy, where he seemed to hide for some time. George and Clauds and I followed slowly, crying with mirth. Fat Albert (a Sydney bus driver, although how he manages it I know not - think Mr Jackson supping honeydew through Mrs Tittlemouse' window...) seemed oblivious and we sincerely hope he was indeed spared the entire incident.

The next funniest moment - hmmm, tricky - was it when a pigeon pooped on Claudia on the Corso? surely not! - or was it before that, when we were having a seriously delicious lunch at a beach-front place at Manly and a mega-squillionaire seated near us was loudly discussing Christchurch's problems, his over-performing investment in Queenstown, his fillies and his investments that are about to mature with a couple of sycophantic lunch-pals that (as Ian pointed out) were probably his bankers? Neither was really funny; I merely mention them both to remind me of an otherwise very pleasant day.

After lunch we wandered down to the ocean baths and back again:

There is no doubt that Manly is a lovely spot. Having recently read Rob Mundle's "Bligh, Master Mariner" I was very mindful that this was ocean that Bligh had sailed and probably charted. The next day, when back at Darling Harbour, I asked at the Aussie National Maritime Museum for directions to the Bligh exhibit and was very surprised at the non-plussed facial expressions - I had (naively) thought that his connection with Sydney would be honoured at the ANMM - and perhaps it is - but the volunteer whom I interrogated looked completely blank. I did find a statue of Bligh at Circular Quay:

For me, a highlight of our stay was crawling over the Endeavour replica. George came with me, although it has to be said that his capacity for listening to volunteers is even less than mine, so he was difficult to keep up with. The crew of the James Craig (3-masted barque) did not appreciate George's free-roaming spirit (we prefer you to keep wiz ze tour group!!) so I lost him from that vessel very quickly.

Bank's berth on the Endeavour. I didn't ask whether he really shared his 2 sq m with that piece of furniture - the volunteers were earnest but I wasn't sure about their reliability on matters of fact.

The Endeavour was really wonderful. The submarine was interesting too, and cramped, but at least you could stand up in it.

More later - maybe...

100% pure - but not at the Jade Factory

A month ago, I took an Australian guest to the Jade Factory in Hokitika, because she wanted to take home a few small pieces of Godzone as presents for her family. The Jade Factory has a large showroom filled with greenstone objects and a public viewing area where local artisans carve and polish stone.

My friend was much taken with some small and pretty pieces carved into shapes such as koru and tiki, and branded "Mountain Jade". While she browsed the selection I chatted to the saleswoman, who mistakenly concluded I was a tour guide. I had a niggly doubt about the provenance of the stone, especially as much of it was labelled "genuine nephrite jade". When a shop feels the need to advertise genuineness, I find it unsettling.

Fiona had chosen a couple of pieces and I asked a younger member of the sales staff whether it was local pounamu. She wasn't sure, and went off to check. The answer when she returned was no - it is imported from China.

So - they import jade from China, carve it into Maori designs in the shop, and label it Mountain Jade - with the backbone of the South Island, the Southern Alps, visible from the shop, to add verisimilitude. Tourists, most of whom are delivered to the door by tour guides who have a cosy relationship with the shop, buy these pieces in the innocent belief that they are buying West Coast pounamu.

What a rip-off.

I asked the older saleswoman whether they had any New Zealand pounamu in affordable pieces. No, she said as she eyed me admiring the affordable rings and bracelets on the counter. Then she did that horrible thing people do when they assume you'll think the same way they do. She said, "It's the government's fault. They gave all the greenstone back to the Maoris." Boom-flash! I suddenly understood! I "thanked" the fraudster and took my friend straight along the road to the reasonably new Maori-owned and run cultural centre. I had not realised the significance of this place previously; however this day we went in and had a ball - talking to the saleswoman and choosing beautiful pieces which originated in the Arahura River valley. Oh we do import some, this woman explained. Sometimes we get some pounamu from Greymouth.

The Jade Factory in Hokitika is one of many such dubious tourist-tricking enterprises in New Zealand and we should not tolerate them polluting our country's brand with their lies of omission.

And here's some proof that people are being cheated. 

Picture snapped from http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Australia_and_Oceania/New_Zealand/South_Island/West_Coast/Hokitika-1884265/Shopping-Hokitika-TG-C-1.html

My Uncle Jim

One of the men I called uncle Jim was not my uncle: he was my Granny's second husband (my other uncle Jim was a bona fide uncle; Ma's bro). Jim and Granny were the only grandparents of mine that I met. This is what can happen when you're the youngest child of a youngest child, especially if both youngest were quite a lot younger than the rest of the crew!



Granny, me, Jim on the terrace at 641. Obviously pre the spider-bearing grape vine.

 Granny was pretty old when I was small, and I don't think she was particularly interested in me. I found her a bit scary. She was made of soft, crumpled material, and I found it unnerving, especially when she tore her leg open on the stile between her place and ours, and she bled all over the kitchen floor. Jim was younger, and beloved by us all, for all that he was a "step-grandpa". He and Granny lived on the farm, which we could get to by picking our way through our enormous vege garden and climbing over the stile. This was back in the day when Belfast was still pretty rural. The only bit of the farm that is still there is the long drive, full of enormous trees that I used to see out my bedroom window. It's a reserve now. I suppose the rabbit-shaped hole in the trees has long grown over and become something else.

This episode ended in me at home, lying in the middle of the sitting room, being watched by interested adults as my hives and swelling eyelids took over my body. I remember this clearly. Horses + Em = Not Good. Jim, however, wasn't to know!

Jim was cool, man. He was strong and kind and he loved my Granny, who had been so put upon by her first husband. I remember him trying to teach me Māori when I was 5. He gave me two Te Rangitahi primers (one red, one navy), both of  which I have subsequently managed to lose, and an LP with a booklet that we listened to together a few times. I don't remember our lessons being a startling success from a fluency point of view but I'm sure they helped to awaken my interest in languages. Also, I was always immensely proud of my bilingual step-grandpa who had grown up in the Hokianga and who loved and honoured his Māori friends and the simple rural way of life of his youth.



Andy, Paddy, GMP, Not Sure, me, Immi+Cress, Jeremy, Ma, Lester, Not Sure, Bart, Jim in a hat that I strongly suspect was a home-made present from Ma.

 Jim introduced the Hardings to hāngis; we thought we'd died and gone to heaven. He laid one for Jeremy's 21st at Fernhill, about a year after he and Immi were married, and another later on at Manuka Bay. I still vividly remember the excitement seeing the men digging the hole, then heating and placing the rocks; the smell of the wet sacks; the metal baskets laden with prepared food being deposited; and the extraordinary business of Covering Up Dinner with Turfs and Pouring Water Over. And then later, uncovering it all to discover a feast. Slow cooking plus stone grill - two very trendy methods combined into one marvellous, ancient practice!

I also remember Jim standing in the middle of an unsealed Tisch Place (it must have been after Granny had died and we were subdividing the farm), while I practised cycling around him in circles. He said I had to pass my "driver's licence".

Jim became ill when I was about 10 or 11, with a rare blood disease. He did not thrive under the care of the medical system, and became very unhappy. When he died, I didn't go to his funeral. I don't know why; the reasons are lost in the mist of time and I don't remember it bothering me much. I have no idea whether my siblings went or not. Now I am older, I realise that a funeral is often a time to find out a lot more about our friends. His send-off was at the church in Phillipstown, where I'm told they called him the White Māori and farewelled him with much love.

When I was small, and actually until I started writing this, I felt I had to explain that Jim wasn't my "real" grandfather. I'm now beginning to think that you should just appreciate the wonderful people in your life, regardless of how and why you know them. Thank you for the decent values you shared with me, uncle Jim, Grandpa. I honour you for them.