The Adults - Nothing To Lose

Like a GOOD girl, I have been silent.  I have had nothing pleasant or engaging to say, and so I have said nothing.  Swallowed it all down.

Swallowed away the anger; the fear; the dark things we shouldn't bore others with let alone reveal about ourselves.

I have been pacing about the house; a short-tempered yo-yo.  Truth is, there is a lot about which I am not happy.

I read the blogs of so many wonderful women living lives I covet, and I have been inspired by them.  But I am so very far away from those lives.  However much they may have put a spring in my step; my world is small and closing in.

The world has moved on.  There was Japan.  Then Libya and the Ivory Coast, and twisters in the US.  But I can't move on.  I have nothing specific to complain about. I'm not grieving a death.  Our home is standing.  But there is loss - all around, tremendous loss.

And the reality is, we have years of such hideousness before us.  Everything that made this such a great place to live has gone, or is denied us.   Christchurch is one big suburb, with its ruptured streets, patched pipes and sewers, and precarious power supply; and no heart.

I lurch from hopelessness to illuminating the many, significant opportunities that a razed city presents.  I know it's manic.

And I'm aware I shouldn't bore people on my blog with my lamentations.  Who, really, wants to know?  I don't want to know.

But I need to.  I need to say what needs to be said.  It might get a little dark, a little strident.  I will have to throw off the shackles of my marketing mind that is screaming "blog suicide", and just get on with it.

I would like to say a special thank you to one of my followers, Tattieweasel. Tattie happened to read and comment on my March 19 blog.  It wasn't a post of note.  But it was the departure point for my dive into melancholy.  Somehow, the fact that Tattie commented was enough to pull me out of my self-imposed, turbulent silence.  

There's a newly released NZ song by Jon Toogood's collaboration The Adults that captures my mood perfectly with its slightly ominous, repressed tension.  It's got a punk vibe with the two-chord thing, but Ladi6 is no punk - she's pure Pacific hip-hop funskster - rockin'  it here with Shihad frontman Jon, and the distinctive Shane Carter.

It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea.

Christchurch in ruins

We have been hit by another horrifying earthquake.  The aftershocks continue and it is terrifying.

I cannot tell you how unbelievably scary it is in Christchurch right now.  People have died - I have heard unconfirmed reports of hundreds of deaths. So many are trapped in multi-story buildings.

The 6.3 magnitude quake was far more intense that September's 7.1 quake - just 5 kilometres underground, with an epicentre 10ks away from the CBD, at our port, Lyttleton.

We live between the CBD and Lyttleton.

The aftershocks are severe.  They are coming at a rate of 2 -3 per minute in this last hour.  I am undone.  I do not know how I will get through the night.

And we, again, are some of the lucky ones - with moderate damage to our property and effects, and no injuries.

End of an era

The Farmer is the only man I have dated twice - that's as in boyfriend/girlfriend, not dinner and a movie.  The first episode ended in tears (mine) after several months.  He had only recently returned from his OE in the UK and was charged with minding the family farm while his parents enjoyed their OE.  I had just completed my undergraduate degree and was a farm novice.

The second episode, some three years later, again lasted several months and ended in tears (his).  It was a low point in my life, and one for which I have never truly apologised; all the more agonising because the dear Farmer died in June 2009, just shy of his 41st birthday. 

During our second-time-around we moved to a little farm cottage owned by the Deans family; the First Family, as it were, of Canterbury's early European settlers, arriving in the 1840s from Scotland and farming at Riccarton Bush, Christchurch and Homebush, Coalgate.  The Farmer was managing one of the family's surviving sheep and cattle farms. 

Homebush Homestead
via The Press

Jim and Louise Deans run the home farm, Homebush, plus garden tours and their working-farm tourism business.  A bus-load of tourists would arrive Wednesdays (from memory), and observe the farm dogs working the sheep, the demonstration sheep shearing, and then partake of a full farmhouse afternoon tea and a stroll around the historic outbuildings, gift shop etc.  

Occasionally, The Farmer would be called upon to put his heading dogs through their paces and shear a sheep or two, to the absolute delight of the (mainly Japanese) tourists.  They adored the dogs; absolutely couldn't get enough of how clever they were. 

via http://www.homebushstables.co.nz/

Jim and Louise also kindly opened the homestead, a wonderful triple-brick house built more than 150 years ago, to viewing by appointment.  The house and grounds are of significant local and national historical interest, and more recently, the property was used in the filming of The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe, starring Tilda Swinton.

Photo: The Press

Sadly, Homebush was demolished in November 2010 after the 7.1 magnitude earthquake of September 4th rendered it uninhabitable.  (The quake's epicentre was just 10 minutes down the road at  Darfield.)  The central staircase collapsed and external walls were sheered off.  Because the earthquake struck at 4.35am, Jim and Louise were miraculously unharmed.

A still taken from aerial footage of Homebush
via New Zealand Herald

I'm sure The Farmer would have been saddened to see Homebush like this.  And even sadder to see it flattened. 

Louise Deans said the repair costs were simply prohibitive, despite being fully insured. What can you do? They have plans to use some of the bricks in their new home which, surely, must be a heart-wrenching process.

Harvest home

In a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall moment, Mr T suggested a plum harvest. Imagine, he said, gazing into the middle-distance.  

Harvesting is a rather romantic notion given we inhabit 632 square metres of suburban Christchurch.  Nevertheless, I can picture it: friends, ladders, children and animals underfoot, basket-loads of juicy red plums, and, most especially, the merry-making that follows.   

Picture lanterns suspended from the tree's canopy above,
with the house all lamp-lit and inviting in the background.

 Need to move the larger outside table from 'around the back' 
to here, to accommodate all those hard working harvesters, a.k.a 'friends'.

It was the complete embracing of the River Cottage ideal that lost me.  There was talk of annual harvests where we would serve produce from previous yields - plum wine, plum preserves, plum jam, plum pud - and not only during the January harvests, but also as gifts throughout the year.  And so began the packaging discussion, branding look and feel, conversion of yet more garage space for all things plum...

And this from the couple who get the man in to mow their peggy-squares of lawn. Needless to say, I am resigned to watching the plums fall.  

Fortunately, bees don't go for such angst.  They just get on with it. 

So lovely to have a colony (or two) of bumble bees take on our hidcote blue lavender this summer.  From mid-December they have come dawn 'til dusk every fine day.  The side path has been alive with the hum of their wings, and the boy-child has been fascinated and remarkably gentle.  (Three children, two adults, three cats, one dog and not one sting.)  

Given the plight of bees around the world, it is reassuring to see so many alive and well in our garden.  At times, the blue of the flowers has been almost obscured by gold-flecked black. (Unfortunately, I didn't think to photograph that wonder.)
  

But I notice the bumble bees are slowly leaving; fewer and fewer have arrived to go about their daily work in the past week.  Honey bees seem to be taking their place.  Perhaps it's indicative of bee hierarchy; the larger bumble bees get first dibs. Whatever the real reason, I'm just pleased our little patch has proved such rich pickings.