Trikes and Tulips
The trike photo I took because I’m staying in a home inhabited by a 2 year old.
In this case the trike is from Japan but it makes me want to hit the toy shops here immediately. Or are what we buy subtly different. I suspect so. Definitely would be more likely.
But on a deeper level, it may not be about toys at all. Here is a photo that I took in Invercargill a couple of months ago.
about 2 months ago. It seems congruent.
The sounds that this one makes are quite appealing. I’d like to see if I
could get it operating well as I’ve been practising my piano at home quite diligently.
One problem is that the instructions on this one
are verbal and in Japanese. Not that the written ones on it make
any more sense to me either although I do have help on hand.
Bit hampered right now as the batteries have gone
flat, and I go back to New Plymouth tomorrow. I think that I might
have to ask Santa for one of these. Still, I don’t think that I will book
Carnegie Hall just yet.
On My Feet Again
Am recovering from my illness and now back on to working on putting a
book together. Tomorrow I travel to Auckland for a meeting with the
publishers to discuss various details such as design.
Here is a wall at my New Plymouth studio, where I am beginning to orchestrate the
selection of images to be included.
Cook Strait Ferry and The 100 Day Cough
The top photo shows my MacBook, and various other items, as we headed out from
Picton into the open water, described on that day as ‘moderate’ I am pleased to
report. Any stronger than that and I would have had my head over the rail, the sea beckoning for my breakfast. I am not a good sailor. Usually I am the first
Last Tuesday I caught the 10 a.m. sailing from Picton to Wellington. At 1.30 pm I drove up the exit ramp onto Wellington’s artery north and pulled into my New Plymouth driveway at 6 pm.
All the way home and a few days before that I was suffering from sore throat, voice loss, and a bark like a dog. I will spare you theclose-up photos of what I bought up except to say that it was green and oyster like. Although I must admit there was a teeny voice in me that said make big Cibachrome prints of these. They could be impressive.
As soon as I arrived home I crashed onto my bed, beached, for several days my travel bags sat there spewing out shirts socks and other sundries.
The only photographs that I wanted to take were of this famous duo. Sorry about the hills etc.
After two nights in Christchurch spending time
with family, I continued my journey north, taking a break
a couple of hours later at Kaikoura. The rock
formations in that area are very photogenic not that
I have so far managed to find an image that I wanted to
retain. This was a quick snap which will give me
an idea of these remarkable formations
look like when I photograph them. Sometimes I have
to photograph something in order for me to see
what it looks like when I photograph it.
Tonight I am in a motel in Picton. I’d like to spend more time
exploring this area but I am becoming anxious to reach home,
and I’m taking a ferry to Wellington in the morning.
Another time perhaps.
As I mentioned in a previous posting my four month residency
in Invercargill has ended and now I am, in stages, driving back to
my house and studio in New Plymouth.
I decided rather than taking the usual route via Dunedin,
and then up the coast to Christchurch, that I would take a more
inland direction, over Lindis Pass, through Twizel. For someone who has spent
most of my life in the North Island, this is startling country.
There is miles of dry brown landscape with barely a speck of green. It’s a
long way from the rain forest that I know so well.
I returned to State Highway 1 just north of Timaru and
continued to Christchurch from there.
I haven’t managed to take many photos on this journey, just
don’t seem to have come across many objects that caught
my eye, and on other occasions, saw something but was too
caught up in traffic to stop, or in too much of a hurry to make the
next destination. Here is one building that I did stop for.
Here is my car enjoying the view over the hills surrounding
Alexandra. Parts of Central Otago are classed as semi-arid
and are the nearest that New Zealand has to desert.
This region regularly records the highest and the lowest
temperatures in the country. The day that I took these photos
it was 33 degrees C.
In Southland, on islands off Invercargill, it is a big tradition among the Ngai Tahu, no-one else allowed, to pull the chicks of
the Sooty Shearwater which they call Titi, out of their burrows and
eat them, after cooking that is. Thousands of them are taken every year.
Two nights ago I tried them for the first time in my life. They
were delicious and I was surprised.
