Friday, November 12, 2010

NZ HOLIDAY

There is an open road, mountains in the background.

They are ready to go.


Got the maps: the rental is loaded (to the gunnels!).




Have a quick drink,



and slap on the sun cream.



And away we go!

OAMARU

We arrived here as a stop en route to Christchurch on South Island, mainly to see blue penguins shuffling tiredly up the beach to their nesting boxes in late evening, after a hard day fishing out at sea. Not the brightest of birds on the planet but tough spirited, with distinctive personalities.

But I digress. This town was settled relatively early by the British in the 1860s and became very prosperous very quickly because there was a fertile and flat hinterland, and an adequate harbour. Unusually for NZ at the time there was little woodland to build houses with but there was plentiful limestone which is relatively soft to cut and shape. This enabled them to build large, prestigious buildings in the centre of town. It had a reputation in the 1880s as the "best built and most mortgaged town in Australasia".This boom was based on grain exports and this was added to when gold was found. It was very soon bounding with young men with money to burn. Inevitably excessive drinking, fighting and prostitution followed.

During the good times the town spread widely across the flat surrounds and an impressive botanical garden from those times still flourishes.

By the 1880s the gold had run out and world grain prices had plummeted. Bust followed boom, leaving many of the stone buildings as empty hulks.

One relic of the time is that the centre of town still has a defined no-drinking boundary.

In modern times the stone buildings are occupied by an eclectic mix of second hand shops, junk shops and an art movement called Steampunk. The latter is about creating objects that the Victorians might have built had they the technology of today. It is very tongue-in-cheek but very stimulating in its imagination. We visited a gallery and rarely have I seen so many appreciative and chuckling visitors. Art and humour, a rare combination.

The Wikipedia entry shows that many distinguished NZers were brought up in Oamaru, most of them in the arts or literary fields.






We walked round the top of a viewing point, and a commemoration plate there had this modest but touching poem harking back to the earlier settler years:

To the memory of all ....seafarers who have sailed from the port and lost their lives:

There are no roses on a sailor's grave

nor wreaths upon the storm-tossed waves.

No last post from the Royals Band,

Just shipmates there floating alone.

The only tributes are the seagulls' sweeps

and the tear drops as a loved one weeps.

NEW ZEALAND a personal view


NZ is a small and isolated country, more than 1000 miles from Australia and more than 20 hours flying time from the UK. It has a population of 4 million, compared with 60 million in the UK and 21m in Australia and yet it's land mass is 10% larger than the UK's. A fault line passes through South Island and there is evidence all over of earthquake and volcanic activity in geologically recent times. As a result much of the land is strongly hilly or mountainous, and very picturesque. Towns are generally small and often several hours' drive apart.

From both a geological and human aspect NZ is a young country. Maoris first came from other islands in the Pacific Ocean in small and different groups about 1000 years ago. Whalers and sealers started the British settlement late in the 18th century and, later, settlers farmed or searched for gold. It's key economic activities now are farming and tourism. The weather is more changeable than Britain's but our experience was of copious sunshine.

It was the first nation to give women the vote.


Curiosities I found were:

Kiwis are very open with other people, even British strangers, a pleasant trait....except when they are ahead of you in a queue!

Service in shops and eateries is generally excellent even though tips are not expected – perhaps pay is fair?

I have seen recent statistics suggesting that NZ is one of the most content nations in the world, and very well educated (from the Economist).

Clothing – often shapeless and black, with occasional touches of grey or white. A cartoonist's delight!

Despite the plentiful active outdoor jobs TV adverts suggest that there is an obesity problem (e.g. 1 in 4 Maoris). And that women obsess about facial lines.

Their loo paper (in motels etc.) wouldn't qualify for rolled cigarettes in the UK.

Craghopper clothing is sold here as Kiwi style but we never saw it in the NZ shops!

We found few book shops, and these were small presumably because books are very expensive e.g £20 for a best selling paperback. What does this say for average literacy?

We saw very few churches and these were almost all small.

Monday, June 14, 2010

THE GRUFFALO

Hello everyone. It's Miss Chief here again!
Unfortunately Aggi is becoming very lazy in updating his blog but the good news is that he has let me have a go again.
I was telling Becca recently all about the
Gruffalo















He is a very scary animal - large, furry and with most ferocious looking teeth. When I first saw him on telly I thought that he was a nasty monster.













And so did Becca!









However there is little mouse with a voice very like James Corden's who reminds me of me. He is small but verrrry smart!




He usually gets the better of the Gruffalo by being cleverer than him - even though he is much, much smaller than the Gruffalo.








So I told Becca about this and she was very pleased.

We now like to watch DVDs of the Gruffalo or get
Mum or Dad to read books about him knowing that we will get the last laugh.


Ha, Ha, Ha!

(PS This is much more interesting than the stuff Aggi rambles on about!)

Thursday, September 17, 2009

REPORT from CHIEF MISS


Actually some people call me Miss Chief, but I can't think why.











My Mummy had a big bump on her tummy but it has gone away and at the same time she got a new doll she called Becca that had a squashed face and no eyes. She loves washing it when she could be playing with me!
















I have taken Nanny out for walks a lot recently but she needs help with steering the stroller so that Teddy does not get upset.






















Amongst my hobbies I like dressing up and have exquisite taste in clothes. I am also a dab hand in making things with sand.































One of my favourite pasttimes is eating, and Mummy's food always tastes best, particularly when I sit on her knee and she puts her new doll away.






















I am pretty good at stepping stones and such
but was quite surprised when Daddy and I heard a man blowing down a hollow tree trunk making rude noises. Daddy calls it a didgeridoo. I think it is a dodgy don't.


























Sydney is a very sunny place but the downside is that it suffers from drought. I like to keep a check on the water supply to make sure I can have my daily bath.




















Daddy sometimes takes me to the park and throws me round which I love and the exercise helps him to get to sleep early. I also help him to wake up early but he is not so much fun in the morning.











Meanwhile Becca has grown eyes and cries more than me. Her face now looks lifelike. She also has a nice velvety head. What a strange doll!

I expect I will send another report after Christmas when we have gone to see Nanny, Aggi, Gorgon and Diana.

Gosh I am feeling peckish again.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

INFORMAL AIR TRAVEL

This a picture of Gibraltar airport looking towards it's Spanish "twin" town of La Linea. The grey horizontal strip is the landing strip, and there is a road crossing it with cars and pedestrians on it.

OK, relax. When a plane lands or is due to take off the road is closed so no-one gets knocked down. One of the buildings to the right of the road is the building housing check-in, customs, immigration, departure gate, cafe and duty free shop. The building is not big and so it is quite compact.

When our plane arrived there we exited by the back of the plane, moved through immigration and customs carrying our hand luggage and there was Ellie waiting for us. And then we walked with her past Spanish immigration and customs. Twenty minutes later we arrived at her flat - no taxi, bus car or any other form of transport needed.

When we left we walked from the Gate to the plane. The last time I did this was some years ago at City Airport.

Going back a lot more years the picture below is of me arriving at Zanzibar airport after my second ever flight. The plane is a Rapide, and yes it was a bi-plane. We and our baggage had to be weighed before the flight so that a clerk could work out a sitting plan for passengers and a loading plan for baggage that balanced the plane fore and aft, starboard and port. No calculator needed or available then. (I have read that some approximate balancing of passenger weights still takes place based on average weights for a man and a woman. That is why in a half empty plane passengers are spread out in the - computer calculated - seating allocation.)

You can see some baggage on the ground and and a schoolgirl stepping down behind me.

I hadn't mastered the art of packing then and so I am carrying my hat in my right hand and some shoes wrapped in a my blazer with help of my left hand. My Dad took the photo. Immigration and customs were very informal then.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009


Our twenty month old grandaughter has inspired me to kick the blog back into life following very unscientific observation. Her favourite words in roughly declining order of use include:

Mummy, Daddy
No!
More -
as in food
Mine - as in lots of things
Biccy
toast

Ta
Uh, oh! - I/you have dropped something
Yay! - Mum is to blame for this one
Look at that!
- and this one!
Up, down

Maccapacca, Daisy - if you don't know those you are watching the wrong TV progs
Worta, worta
- as in the drink, the sea or a swimming pool
Car, boat, 'plane
Jump, splash
Oc, oc -
get me out of this whatever, but quickly
Nanny, Aggi -
the latter refers to me, Gramps!

Animals are a separate category:
dickit - chicken as in wild ones in Hawaii
turtle, turtle
pocock - i.e. peacock
doggie
birdy
cat
fish
lizard

She obviously has a keen intellect, is well travelled and has a strong sense of what is good for her.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

CLASSIC CAR SHOW


Here we were again but the cars were quite different from those we saw two years ago (see 2006 post under same heading). The Bentley was my favourite car as even then it had electric everything - windows, seat adjustment, mirrors etc.

Below it this American built car was imported from New South Wales and was beautifully appointed for a dry climate. There were two seats open to the air in front of the picnic basket in which the kids could scream their heads off without disturbing the serenity of their parents.

The bluish coloured car had some contextual dummy food on a tray which was amusing if unhealthy looking.
The green MG had novel architecture revealing the foot well as well as the engine compartment when the bonnet was lifted up. Very spartan.
But not as much as the stripped down cockpit of the red vintage racing car, which was one of the first to reach 100 mph.
The brownish interior with the leather seats is part of the opulence of the car shown above with the picnic basket and al fresco rear seats.

And what is this ?? A steering wheel with loads of audio controls and no dials? Must be crazy. And look at the bodywork, open to the weather, low to the ground, one seat only, no boot. Has the name Lewis Hamilton on it. Must be a nutter.