On the fringes and okay

I had the great pleasure of attending my second cousin's twenty-first birthday party last night and a.) getting to bed well before midnight and b.) feeling absolutely perfectly well in the morning after just one celebratory glass of wine.

This is not as I remember twenty-firsts.  Not at all.

I could blame the fact I drove the 40 minutes to her family's country house and was the responsible driver for the evening.  But the real reason has more to do with the fact I am exactly double my lovely second-cousin's age and my hot date was my eighty-year old Aunt, who also happens to be the birthday girl's grandmother.

I sat on the fringes with several silvered dames and had loads of fun, savoured the dinner and remembered it the next day, and found myself comfortably passe as troops of twenty-somethings filed through the sitting room and living room en route to... well, I don't know exactly.

We had a bit of a giggle about some of the boys, who were seriously out of their depth with the bevy of sophisticated beauties that barely concealed their disdain for said boys' ill-chosen quips.  They were trying so hard to be COOL and the girls were merciless.

There were some interesting moments when my cousin, the birthday girl's father, introduced me as his niece, and the birthday girl introduced me to another as her aunt.

I wonder, does my cousin think I'm immature?  Does my second cousin find me ancient?  What happened to 'cousin'?  Is the whole cousins thing really so fraught they both shied away from it, even though first and second cousins are relatively easy to identify, surely?  It's the extended mess of third and fourth cousins, and beyond, that confounds me.

Does anyone know?  Should we care? (I barely know my first cousins!)

Here's the lovely birthday girl as I think of her most, with her beloved horses - Danny above and Zorro below.

I am completely at the mercy of the old nag who walks me around on the very occasional horse-trek, so I find Miss D's horse-riding acumen seriously impressive.

Mr T used to ride, and quite well, but time and opportunity are against him.  And then there's the slight problem that he tends to over-excite them unintentionally. He has a similar effect on dog and cats.  Now that really doesn't bear thinking about.

Hiatus

I left the building.  Wasn't sure about coming back.  But here I am.  Not much has changed and yet, everything has changed.

Firstly, we have endured more than 7,000 aftershocks since 4 September 2010.  You become so used to them in a way, you don't always take the time to be good to yourself - to acknowledge the enormous impact it has had on our lives, that it continues to have on our lives.

On Monday 13 June we experienced a M5.7 aftershock around 1pm.  I rang the girls' school.  All fine.  More breakages, but everyone safe.  One hour later, a terrifying 6.3 hit - just like February 22.

Master S was asleep in his cot.  I could not run the short distance from the kitchen to his room without bouncing off the walls of the hallway and dodging flying objects.

You see the thing about all these damn quakes is, because we are on a bed of volcanic rock interspersed with marshland, when the ground breaks and rorts, it explodes with tremendous force.  So a relatively medium quake on the Richter scale (a 5 to a 6) is experienced as something much larger.  Ground acceleration is the key.  When the quakes come, the ground is moving at 2 x gravity both vertically and horizontally at the same time.  Depending on the expert quoted, this is globally unprecedented in terms of recorded data.  All I know is it makes for one hell of a ride.

And this one tapped into everyone's primal fear - that they get bigger.  

Miss E, our little five-year old, who is struggling with the aftershocks, was so scared by the 6.3, she wet herself at school, while assembled with the other children like sardines on the astro-turf evacuation point after the first jolt.  She was completely beside herself with fear and humiliation by the time Mr T arrived to sweep them up and home.

Although it has to be said, the school (all schools) are doing a magnificent job of caring for our children.  And of course many teachers have school-aged children of their own.  That they continue to put your child first in moments of absolute chaos is nothing short of amazing.  Gratitude seems entirely inadequate.

Unbelievably, our 100-year old house takes the strain, although the tell-tale signs are everywhere; like ladder-runs in a stocking, the ceiling and wall cracks have gone viral.  In some places, the house has shaken so violently, exterior paint has simply fallen off.

On the small side-board in the dining room is a collection of all the ornaments and photos etc. we have left.

This cupboard was (rather stupidly, as it happens) in the dining-room filled with stem-ware: champagne flutes, red and white wine glasses, shot glasses, sherry and port glasses - even amazing martini glasses gifted to my parents on their wedding day.  It fell over in February, smashing into the dining table.  Every single piece broke.  It has since been moved to the hallway and filled with the children's games and puzzles.

In some sort of desperate attempt to put things right, I have been working on the garden; re-landscaping an area off the front veranda to accommodate the bricks from our dismantled chimneys, and to create a new courtyard space for the family to enjoy.

Here's an indication of the new planting.  (The bricklaying is not finished, so I've concentrated on the new garden bed that went in Thursday.)  The buxus cones are surrounded by buxus hedging plants to make squares, and on the veranda side of the tucreum too.  The roses and lavendar in front of the bay window have just been pruned for winter. 

I cannot recommend Debbie Rimmer Landscape Design and Linda and Matt of Sprout Garden Services highly enough.  They understand the need to tend what you can, while the glaringly obvious waits for another day, when the shocks have abated.
 
There was other, more devastating news on Monday 13.  But that's for another post.  Tonight I'm off to my second cousin's 21st party.

Bed 'n breakfast

Stylist Charlotte Rust keeps it simple at her Auckland home with a loft bedroom over her kitchen.

Photo: Todd Selby, The Selby via Isaac Likes

With some sort of pulley system, she could raise the bar on lazy Sundays.  Love the light.  Love the ladder.

I bought an antique library ladder near Lumsden (south of Queenstown) once.  It was a fabulous and thrifty find.  Unfortunately, I left it behind in one of my flats because I was too disorganised to rescue it.  Even more unfortunately, the list of belongings sacrificed to disorganisation is very long.

There is something to be said for having left that phase.

Pick up

How was your day?

Good, thank you

Don't ask

Let's go

No, no, no

The time has come when I find such god-awful phrases as "end-of-life care" rolling off my tongue in hushed tones during conversations with too many of them and not enough of me.

I don't want to be here: watching another parent succumb to bloody cancer.  Not now.  Not again.  Not ever.  No.

Zambesi girl

The closest I've come to a sartorial love affair is with New Zealand's established designer label, Zambesi.

There was a time in the mid to late 1990s - a period that looks increasingly as if it might have been my hedonistic zenith - when Zambesi pieces were my staples.  I was single, on a career track, and financially independent.

I was so devoted to one particular boutique that carried Zambesi and other favourites Helen Cherry, Marilyn Sainty and NOMd, the owner would buy with me in mind.

It astonishes me now.

On a whim - it's been a while - I viewed Zambesi's  A/W 2011 collection online.  If I was in my 90s phase, I would have snapped these three up, no question. Zambesi has always had a distinctive look and collections flow into one another, but these pieces could almost have been plucked from my wardrobe back then.

(Photos: Zambesi, a/w 2011 runway via www.zambesi.co.nz)

The New Zealand design aesthetic has long been synonymous with a dark, utilitarian mood.  Edgy black and loads of it.   It's no longer the case, with a blossoming, diverse design scene, but I have struggled to broaden my palette - colour and direction - even if circumstances and desire dictate I no longer fill my wardrobe with Zambesi and NOMd etc. 

I still tend to look for clothes that best reflect (on my pared down budget) designer influences from fifteen years ago.  I think it's partly because it represents a time when I felt I had it going on.

But my tastes have evolved; a little less uncompromising, softer, more inclusive.  I adore Richard Moore's draped, feminine dress below.  (He showed at iD Dunedin Fashion Week earlier this month.)

                      Photo: Richard Moore dress via
                     iD Dunedin Fashion Week

   

Frankly, though, as much as I admire it, I simply couldn't wear it well for many reasons; not least of which, it's white.

Perhaps I should just embrace my anxiety about wearing colour or block white and the post-children fear of svelte clothes, and explode into a new style direction.  I'm thinking vintage Zandra Rhodes, seen here at iD Dunedin Fashion Week 2011 (private collection).

Photo: Vintage Zandra Rhodes via iD Dunedin Fashion Week

Then again, if I focus on confidence, maybe my lack of imagination will be considered a signature rather than a style rut.  Here's hoping.  

In the meantime, I think I will follow up on Zambesi's Shooboot.  Winter is coming.

April sun

The Avon River in the late afternoon, autumn light.  Ten metres to the left, six-foot aluminium fences ford the river, river banks and Cambridge Terrace.  But to the right...to the right there is this.

Punts outside the Antigua Boat Sheds (since 1882)
on the Avon River, Christchurch

The punts have just begun operating again on a reduced river loop.

Looking up towards the Antigua Boat Sheds
from the Hospital Bridge, Riverside 

The bridge is impassable, dressed with the ubiquitous fluorescent orange cones and temporary fencing.  But you would never know from here.

Looking from the Hospital Bridge off
Rolleston Avenue up-river through the
Botanical Gardens, Hagley Park

My mother's room in Christchurch Public Hospital's aptly named Riverside Block overlooks the Avon and Botanical Gardens; north-facing for all day sun.  

Fortunately, I had my phone with me to capture these, but it does have its limits.  I hope you get the idea.  Easter Sunday in Christchurch was a thing of beauty, with the promise of renewal.

(Although we have just had yet another aftershock - best not get ahead of myself!)

Happy Easter x