Mother

I wrote this prose in 1982, when I was 14 or 15. For the mild amusement of my siblings, who are pictured in this page as they were 5 years before I arrived on the scene, I will retype it here without any of the adjustments I might like to make (not many, in truth), in lieu of a fresh blog:

Mother, with the tellers of coarse jokes. 1962

Mothers are fascinating really. I actually love my mother, and I'm sure she loves me. I take great pleasure in just observing her - for example, it's sweet seeing her and Dad together - I mean, they've been married for nearly thirty years and Dad has been clicking his false teeth for at least ten of those years, but Mum still seems to be fond of him.

What I really love doing is watching Mother when my elder brothers get together. They tell rather coarse jokes* and Mother sits in the corner trying to look stern and doing her best not to laugh. It's surprising how Mum changes when the older family is at home. I think she has given up trying to make them all respectable citizens, because they have left home. Unfortunately, when I am the only child at home, Mum thinks there is still hope. (There isn't.)

I don't know whether all mothers get soft in their old age; it's hard to tell. Sometimes I believe mum is getting positively modern, but it is a hard idea to get used to. She is thoroughly suspicious of new-fangled gadgets, or so she says, but it's my belief that if left in a "model" kitchen complete with a Ralta Kitchen Wizz, Mother would have a ball. Sometimes she almost plucks up the courage to buy a dishwasher (apart from me) but then - the fatal question - where will I put it? Of course no-one can ever answer... and so it goes on.

Mother can be extremely witty sometimes, frequently through no fault of her own. For example - Mother brought a very nice and hugely overpriced raincoat for herself. One rainy day I met her in town - she was wearing her old and tatty raincoat!! So I asked, foolishly, "Why aren't you wearing your new raincoat?"

Mum replied, "Good heavens, dear, I wouldn't take it out in weather like this!"

Well, I ask you. What sort of logic is that?

* phone me. I haven't forgotten them...

Life of Pi-wakawaka

Where Piwakawaka was meant to be
on Wednesday morning

Call her a gin palace, party island, floating lounge, or whatever, Piwakawaka is in disgrace after parting with her mooring the night after a somewhat stormy New Year's Day. OK, it was very very stormy, but Pi was certainly not authorised to take what Ian had judged to be a perfectly splendid mooring and break it.

The first we knew of this was the following morning. We had woken several times to rain, hail and wind in the night, so as soon as it was light Ian did a visual check from the verandah to make sure Pi was still at the mooring. She wasn't visible, so he jumped in the car and set off. I can only imagine how he must have felt when he got down to Hans Bay and there was no sign of her anywhere. (Sick, he says.)

We leapt into action and spent the next hour or two searching through the gusts and torrents, up and down the eastern side of the lake (where we expected and hoped to see her). The lake was too dangerous to take the jet boat out, so we had to wait until the late afternoon for a brief lull. Two boats set out to look for our errant miss, and they sighted her on a rocky western shore. Ian's frustration and misery when our jet boat overheated 200 metres from Pi was slightly mitigated by knowing that the pontoon boat hadn't turned turtle and sunk in the deepest part of the lake. He was smart to have taken a mate with another boat who could give him a tow.



 Hedley and Tim preparing her for the trip across the lake

Alex delivering lunch

Next day, kind friends helped on the salvage operation. Getting her off the rocks, and making sure that she would float, was a major piece of work. The local farmer (Pete) and mechanic (Harry) were both incredibly generous with salvage equipment, and the team was ingenious and persistent, with many hours spent labouring in the cold water. As soon as she was floating, albeit wonkily, the wind came up and the decision had to be made to start for the eastern shore, wind or no wind.


Damaged, but safe in Pete's paddock

The nearest landing point with vehicle access was the farm, and there was great relief that they made it, cold and tired. George and I arrived just in time to see Pete and Sean attach the mooring rope to the Massey Ferg and pull Pi out of the water and into a paddock, where she rested for a couple of days.




Man plus machine equals
bloody marvellous

On a very hot Sunday afternoon, it was time to return to the paddock and find a way to get Pi back onto her trailer. Pete and Sean and the tractor were there, and after a couple of false starts they had her safely in position and ready for a slow drive back via the Kokatahi valley.

It goes without saying that we have several people to thank and there will be one hell of a recommissioning party!


Postscript:



Waggling the tiller to get across the bay

Several spiders were startled this week to find Cormorant at sea again after several years under the verandah. A stiff nor'wester and mild temperatures encouraged us to go sailing. Ian took XTC out for the first time and found that this 16 foot catamaran is more fun than the 14-footer when you're a big chap.

As usual I managed to get myself tangled in Cormorant's main sheet at least twice but had some good sailing, tacking up to Canoe Cove and then running back with a successful gybe into Hans Bay and a tidy sail back to the beach. Sadly I forgot the mast was still up when I towed Cormorant into the tree tunnel next to the bach, so my feeling of general awesomeness was short-lived. The incident gives a whole new spin on grief and half-masts...

Our photographer (Claudia) was shore-based so there are no
pictures of us travelling at astonishing speed once we cleared the islands

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!