I Dreamed a Dream

Oh, wow! I can't wait!

Art Installation

I have been planning on making this artwork for some time, and yesterday I completed and hung it. I'm very happy with the result. The mantle needed something above it and I like the proportions. In years to come, I'm sure the pieces from my 'tea towel and staple gun' period will be demanding high prices in the auction rooms.

Nasty

I'm in a minority here, but I really don't like kiwifruit. I'll eat them if offered, but would not choose them over any other fruit. Strangely, I loved them as a child. Way back then, we called them Chinese Gooseberries. They were a seasonal fruit, enjoyed for a short fruiting season and then gone for another year. They tasted just fine, never got involved with pavlovas and were almost a treat. Now they are omnipresent. Huge heaps of them glower at me in the supermarket, most of them completely rock-hard and able to stay resolutely so for months on end, finally softening but often holding on to a gnarly white core - except for the few cunning ones that ripen within seconds of being placed in the fruit bowl, hidden by their harder buddies so they can quietly ooze out brown sticky goo onto the counter below.

Location, Location, Location

I teach at a fantastic school - brilliant staff, wonderful children and parents who are involved and supportive. I love being there, but should I step out the gate I'm in the heart of the Hutt. And step out I do, with my class, to take advantage of the location. Last week we had two great experiences.

At the Dowse, now sporting the new town square in front, we were taken through the 'Can You See What I See?' exhibit by the education staff. Then, using this book as the motivation ...

... the children completed amazing self-portraits in the style of Picasso. The education programmes offered at The Dowse are brilliant, and without the prohibitive cost of buses as a factor, our children are able to access lots of the exhibits very regularly. Early next term it's a Lynley Dodd one, so we shall start immersing ourselves in Hairy McClary and his chums in readiness.

We don't have a school hall, which in many ways is an advantage because we often make use of the local area to stage school events. It was a short walk to the Little Theatre to participate in a Rhythm Interactive drumming performance. It was learning at its best, totally hands-on and the kids just loved it. This group work with children and adults, and if you ever get a chance to experience one of their shows then take it. The Little Theatre is a much nicer venue than any school hall I've ever been in, with every child comfortably seated with an unobstructed view. The picture below is not taken there, but shows how the Rhythm Interactive set up the venue, already playing as the audience enter, take up the drums and join in.

Next week it's off to the Central Library. Location, location, location.

Hump Day

No, middle of the week 'hump day' - elevate your minds, gentle readers! The main thing is, from lunchtime today it was the start of the downhill run to the weekend. It really is a shame that my working days have to begin with waking up in the dark, dark of the morning. By eight o'clock I'm a veritable box of birds, but prior to that it's agony. So as much fun as my working week is - and it really is, great class, great colleagues - there is always the countdown to the next chance to wake naturally. I wish I was a 'morning ' person. It's quite unfair because I'm not a 'night' person either. I think I've always been an 'early afternoon' person. The world does not operate well for the early afternooners. We are a marginalised minority - the 'circadian rhythms challenged'.

RIP Robin Gibb

It was sad today to hear of Robin Gibb's death. I like the Bee Gees, especially their earlier stuff. New York Mining Disaster and this one, The First of May, are particular favourites.



I find death, at any age, tragic. They are gone, and will be missed whether they lived to 9 or 99. But I particularly feel for his Mum. I can't comprehend the level of grief she has had in having three of her sons die before her, and before their time.

RIP Robin Gibb - thanks for the music.

Serendipity

Today dawned still and clear so not a day for dressing gowns - just a couple of hours in bed with the Sunday paper then into action by 11 o'clock.

I won this lovely old fire screen on TradeMe some time ago. I had been watching it out of interest as it was such a luscious piece of oak and accidentally clicked the fixed price offer request option when it failed to receive any bids. The seller gave a price, well below the original start price, that was so ludicrously cheap I just couldn't pass it up. That was weeks ago. I feared all the stalling over pick up was due to seller's remorse and that they were hoping I would forget all about it. Today, at last, contact was made for a suitable time. I drove to Ngaio only to find no-one home, so decided to head back down Ngaio Gorge to Spotlight.

For the uninitiated, Spotlight is a shop dedicated to the domestic arts of sewing, decorating and the like. It is a ghastly place with haphazard displays and largely unmanned counters. The air is alive with dust and lint, so even before I touched any stock my black top almost instantly looked as if it had been doing the tango with a full box of tissues in its latest wash. This is a shop I normally avoid at all costs, but since I was so close I thought I might find some nice dressing gown material. No, I'm not sewing a new dressing gown. I have perfectly good one - but seldom get to enjoy it because Millie likes it too. I thought I might be able to make a cunning decoy and regain ownership. Purchase made, I headed back and picked up the fire screen - it really is a stunner.

To ensure Millie would use her new gift, I placed it in a spurned cat basket, popped this on a chair in the living room and told her firmly to keep off. She gave me the "What are you going to do about it?" look and settled in. Now ever since I took the TV off the wall bracket it has been lacking the stand. I disposed of the stand somewhere on moving day and could not find it again. The set has had to lean clumsily against the wall, an adequate but inelegant solution. Had I bothered to search properly, which has been a 'must do' for a while, it is unlikely I would ever have thought to look in a discarded cat basket, high up on a shelf in the garage. But that is where it was. So now, I have a dressing gown all to myself, Millie thinks she has asserted her right to rule and the TV is complete. All this is thanks to a TradeMe seller who was quite unable to compose a simple, coherent text - serendipity.

Recipe for a Perfect Day

To be indulged in infrequently, but particularly satisfying when weather in inclement (add copious heating as required)
1.    Sleep in
2.    Remain in dressing gown for entire day
3.    Indulge in a large dash of reality television - Come Dine With Me omnibus particularly tasty
4.    Have a long phone conversation with a dear, but not locally dwelling, friend
5.    Have other dear friends drop in unexpectedly (the sort who don't care that you are still in your dressing gown)
6.    Eat well and regularly throughout day
7.    Watch an excellent movie.  
8.    Re-arrange furniture
9.    Put furniture back in original configuration (optional)
10.  Anticipate one more sleep-in still to come

Cosy

I enjoy each season as it rolls round and that includes winter. Today it started to make its presence felt and outside it's decidedly cool this evening. How lovely it is to be cosy inside, curtains pulled in a snug warm room as the wind and rain continue outside.

In Stokes Valley, I heated the house with a woodburner. This is a deeply satisfying way to warm ones's home. Quite apart from the aesthetics - lets face it, there is nothing more lovely than flames dancing

- there are other joys to the woodburner. There's the fun of listening to others bemoan their crippling electricity bills while yours remain constantly low all year round. There is the deep satisfaction to be gained from the sight of your gloriously elegant stack of firewood.

Stacked firewood not only looks good, it smells good. There is the almost primal satisfaction in knowing you are provisioned for the big freeze to come.

This will be my second winter in Petone. While the house now boasts gorgeous fire surrounds, no flames will dance within. The heating here is gas - ghastly gas. An unappealing appliance that is all about the science of heating, with not a scrap of the art of it. It provides all the heating needed, as long as there isn't a power cut - how silly to have a non-electric fuel source entirely dependent on electricity to deliver its heat.

However, there is something to be said for arriving home, flicking a switch and having a warm room within a couple of minutes - and that's how it will have to be for quite a while to come until I can afford to put in a woodburner. 

Life-Long Learning

I enjoy visiting a select few other blogs. From there I sometimes 'surf' to other blogs and enjoy the glimpses into other people's lives and thoughts. Today there was a little add-on to a post of a particularly amusing blogger. He had attached the instructions for placing a hyperlink into one's blog. I'd been meaning to learn this and now I can. The link to a song dedicated to all those who work with teenagers is HERE and I stole the smug cat pic as well. A satisfying new skill at the end of a great day.

Bridge Club Bookings

The new passport is now scheduled to make an outing and whizz me through airport immigration with its clever little chip. Today the bookings have been made for a holiday in Sydney later in the year. By bookings I mean flights, accommodation and cat sitter. As well as meeting a recently discovered aunt (I have an intriguing and complicated family tree which my sister is cleverly revealing through her genealogy research), a climb of the Sydney Harbour Bridge is also a must-do on the itinerary. I belong to a rather exclusive Bridge Club, the focus of which is concerned with food, beverages and an occasional walk over a bridge or two. This year however, a challenge more fitting the name has been proposed. We eagerly anticipate a lovely souvenir picture similar to the one above to record our major outing for the year.

Jolly Hockey Sticks

As a child I was a reasonably voracious reader, and the works of Enid Blyton and Anthony Buckeridge particular favouites. For this reason, I felt I had a good working knowledge of the fun and adventures to be found in a British boarding school. Today, for the first time ever, I got a real glimpse into one - or at least, the New Zealand equivalent. I was at a course at St Patrick's College in Upper Hutt. This is a magnificent old school set in beautiful, established gardens. The autumn display from the oaks and other huge trees is stunning. The buildings themselves are two-storied brick and built in the grand style of times well past. Luckily for me, getting to the conference room entailed walking along huge corridors and to the upper levels, giving time to admire the architecture and the beautiful wooden detailing of the stairs, doors and windows. But the prize sight was through the open door of the infirmary - a line of empty beds, and a scene seemingly frozen in time and looking exactly as if Dick or Julian might suddenly appear in their dressing gowns with Matron in attendance.

If you have never read a Jennings book, I highly recommend them - I think I'll look out one tonight.

Nature Abhors a Vacuum

And so does Millie. This means house cleaning must be carried out with sensitivity and tactical planning to ensure the vacuum cleaner is never sighted or used in the same room as she is in. The whole house is now sparkling and the smell of Dettol wafts gently on the air. Let the weekend begin!