Waiheke Again

Always something new to see or do, or old familiar things to experience yet again.

It was a dry but nippy weekend but the bach was cosy once the woodburner had been lit on the Saturday evening.

 May is NZ Music Month and there was a performance by the Hip Op- eration, a hip hop group of Waiheke oldies, aged from 68 to 95, who were performing in the library courtyard, a lovely open-air performance space.

Investigated the Community Art Gallery and discovered the annual small piece exhibition was on. Lots of lovely paintings by some of my favourite local artists - Gwen Rutter,(blue hydrangeas )Katie Tringle-Legge ( plums, and other fruit) and Danielle Fillion ( seascapes) 

The lower painting is the original one by Jan Nigro that hung in the gallery foyer for many many years.  It has been joined by two others garnered from other public buildings where they have had their day.

As usual the craft shop is full of tempting beautiful pieces which I resisted.

Down the road after that to pick up a pie at Waiheke Fruit and Vege, a seafood one for moi which was absolutely delicious.

Did the usual clean up at the bach Sunday afternoon but managed a walk along the beach too and enjoyed the ferry trip home past Rangitoto.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is drawing to a gentle end after an energetic start with participation in the annual 5 and 10 km walk or run organised by the YMCA round the leafy streets of Epsom close to Cornwall Park.  Several hundred women took part from 5 years old to 92.  There were 6 of us from the Never2Old program and good friend Marlene who has been on the walk 2 or 3 times before with me.

Caught up on the news of the previous few weeks since we saw one another and enjoyed a more leisurely walk than the others! Sat in the Autumn sun and had a coffee and muffin while waiting for the presentation of prizes to the various winners and hoped for one of the spot prizes or main prize of a trip for two to Sydney,  but it was not to be for any of our group.

Was tired after that and was pleased D had prepared a nice salad to go with the ham and cheese croissants for lunch. 

Eli  was there for lunch bringing me some Lindt strawberry chocolates, a Metro and a NZ House and Garden magazine and along with Dieter's lovely bunch of flowers it was just perfect.

I hadn't got round to baking that elusive cake so enjoyed a bought lemon and almond loaf from up the road for afternoon tea.  The chicken casserole is bubbling in the oven and so the day has ended.   

Up in the air and back down to earth.

Ok

Work has started on the worst house in the best street, or at least one of them, in Herne Bay.

The historic villa dates back to the 1870s the architect thinks, judging from the old weatherboards.  The old totara piles have been removed, the lean-to at the back and the verandas have been demolished to make way for a big studio room with ensuite, new kitchen, dining and sitting plus double garage and storage.  This will take several months but at least 16 weeks.

  Week 3 is drawing to a close and they tell me the house has been lowered on to its new piles. Next they will create a temporary bathroom in the new bathroom space and a kitchenette so that Eli and Tim can move back in. 

Have paid big bill no. 1.

Iconic

60s artworks by Jan Nigro hanging in the Waiheke Community Art Gallery  along with the original  one which I will photograph and add next time I go there.  

Bayswater and Back

Yesterday was a lovely congenial day out with three good friends  and a change from Waiheke and Orewa for us.  First of all we went on a different smaller  ferry  which  leaves from behind the Devonport Ferry and there were just a few people going over at 10.10am.

 A bus meets the boat and leaves quite smartly once stragglers like us have disembarked. Sue galopped on ahead to make sure he didn't leave before we got there. I think we were the only passengers.  I think it is mainly a ferry and bus service  for commuters and shoppers who leave their cars at the carpark there or get the bus.   

There is a lovely peaceful marina there but unfortunately I was fumbling around with my iPhone and didn't react quickly enough with my photo taking. Unfortunately they are in reverse order for some reason, starting with a colourful Massey University, Albany Campus  graduation procession in Takapuna which we watched before getting the bus home.  

Anyway The  bus we got from the ferry wound its way through Bayswater with its nice tidy streets of houses, many of them navy houses, and we made our first stop in Belmont at a delightful cafe, Little and Friday, for coffee and donuts, cinnamon ones, or the traditional jam and cream ones. They make them and other cafe food, quiches and other goodies for their two cafes at this site which is in a block of three  former suburban shops.  You can watch them making pies, donuts and pastries through the old shop windows.  

We sat outside at a long trestle table in the Autumn sun, enjoying our coffee, missed the next bus and got the following one on to Takapuna.

Walked along the beach but didn't go for a swim,  just had a paddle through the water which was refreshing enough.  After that lunched back on Hurstmere Rd at one of the several cafes dotted along it before busing back over the Harbour Bridge to Victoria Park and from there on the Link to Ponsonby. All in all a lovely day.

Sent from my iPad

Giapo, artisan icecream maker

Today we delivered  the last few kilos of plump dark red guavas from our prolific guava tree to be turned into NZ Garden icecream.  It is a sorbet mixture of beetroot, guava, mint and passionfruit flavours and comes in a tub with a slice of beetroot as a cap and this in turn is piled high with edible micro greens and marigold petals. Yum! Just a little difficult to eat but is delicious.

Giapo was there in his trendy glasses and shook our hands mournfully, bemoaning the fact that that was the end of them for this year.  I didn't even keep any of them back for guava jelly for us this  time.  

Queen St was a buzz with interesting looking people, great to observe, while waiting for the Orange Link from Wellesley St. It is usually a long wait, but this afternoon, sitting in the sun with our icecream vouchers for a few ice creams in return for our labour of love, in retrospect,picking these fruits off the ground"didn't seem quite so onerous.  

St Mary's Rd

I am very familiar with St Mary's Rd, first as a schoolgirl in the late 1950s and early 60s on my way to school at St Mary's College.those were the days of Panama hats, beige gloves and stockings, satchels and suitcases. 

Later in the 1970s I lived there for the best part of 1978 before shifting upon marriage to our own little cottage in Clarence St.

Things have changed over  the  decades.  The Ponsonby Fire Station,after being empty for many years became a succession of upmarket restaurants and, on the Saturday morning I took this photo, it seemed to be a buzzing cafe now, crowded with people enjoying its ambience.  I look forward to going to the library again soon, getting a fresh supply of reading material and trying out the coffee across the  road.

Further along The road close to the old Post Office is this old building with its quirky frontage and suspended verandah,and its neighbour.

At which point my iPhone ran out of power. Will have to wander down the road and get some more photos on my next visit to the library and list them too in a separate post. 

Mangawhai

These two photos were taken in the wonderful new Managawhai Museum which we visited with the Historical Society we belong to. This was our first bus trip for a year or two and we received a warm welcome from the others.  

First stop was the Honey Centre near Warkworth for morning tea - delicious blueberry and apple muffins warm  from the oven and strong hot coffee. There was honey for sale but somehow left it a bit late to buy any. 

The museum was next on the agenda with plenty of time to look at the exhibits, the natural history of the area, early Maori and Pakeha  settlement over the decades with lots of artefacts and family treasures.  There was an old tram converted  into a bach with forties and fifties furnishings and utensils which brought back a few memories of similar things.

After lunch at  the Deli , one of several cafes in the village,  a delicious Turkish bread roll with chicken, bacon and onion jam and good  hot coffee we drove out to the Mangawhai Heads with a spectacular surf beach and lush green scenery some of which I tried to capture through the bus window.

 

The highlight of the afternoon was the visit to Bennett's Chocolate Factory where we watched a video of how the delectable chocolates are made and were treated to a tasting of two different chocolates, a dark chocolate one with a smooth flowing salty caramel filling  ( they use local seawater for the salty taste!) and another,  a tangy lemon cream in a milk chocolate cup.  They also make fluffy fruit-flavoured marshmallow and we tasted a delicately -flavoured fluffy passionfruit one.  

They make tempting feijoa chocolates , the green ones in this mouthwatering display, and cakes of feijoa chocolate one of which Dieter bought for me.  Yum!  

Easter goodies.

A drive around the back roads to the main road and afternoon tea at the Dome Valley cafe completed the day trip and we were back in Orewa in time for a quick walk along the beach before rain set in for the evening.

The following  day the sun was shining again and friend, Frances offered to drive us on another outing to Snell's Beach where she has kith and kin living.  After visiting and meeting several generations of them at her sisters place, 9 people altogether, we went to the lovely Mahurangi East Library for a browse, on to a cafe for a blt bagel,and a nice hot coffee in a salmon pink cup. 

A walk in the sun along Snell's Beach walkway parallel to the beach completed the day trip in a most agreeable way.  Back  to Orewa via the short stretch of scenic motorway and out in the early evening to collect takeaway roast lamb dinners made for  another full day.

Made the most of Sunday too, going to the Orewa Farmer's Market for vegetables and free-range eggs before Mass, picking up ciabatta walnut rolls  and salad ingredients from the supermarket for our lunch on the way home. 

 Tidied up and cleaned the bach in the afternoon as it is being let to someone who needs a place for a few weeks.  It looked lovely and I am already looking forward to going up again ourselves in a couple of months. We just might go up by bus once or twice  for a few hours during the day while the tenant is at work as  that is the arrangement and would give us the chance to do a bit in the garden.  

The oak tree has shed its leaves profusely, the hydrangeas in their red and green autumn shades need cutting back and the hedge will need trimming.  But that is now a job for a gardener with the right kind of electric hedgeclippers, thank goodness, not us!

Sent from my iPhone

Easter Island

Which for us is always Waiheke Island. This year with the good weather and jazz festival on it seemed to be busier than usual with buses, streets and cafes full of people . Apart from Mass on Easter Sunday and coffee and pains au raisin afterwards at the local French cafe in Surfdale spent most of time at the bach in Surfdale or down at the local beach with,occasional forays by bus in to Oneroa to replenish food supplies.

Our visitor from Germany  D's nephew, Klaus who spent a couple of days over there with us the previous week had carried some heavier provisions over for us which was good. Enjoyed a roast chicken with prune and thyme stuffing  and a bottle of rose Lindauer for our Easter meal.

Good friend Pamela visited on Easter Sunday and i enjoyed  her vivacious company and her scrabble playing expertise.

The pathway to the house was covered in feijoas on our arrival , small tart ones this year due to the lack of rain over summer and the strong winds connected with a cyclone elsewhere which brought a lot of them down. Scooped a couple of small jars full of juicy flesh for the freezer to make plum and feijoa jam with and gorged ourselves  on the rest over the weekend until their place was taken by chocolate and more chocolate from Easter Sunday onwards. 

Still have my cute little Ferraro hazelnut chocolate bunny to break open but not for a wee while. 

The good weather has continued and with the late morning tide being just right for a swim we packed a picnic lunch quickly and drove to Sentinel Rd  for a dip in the sea and lunch under the shade of a spreading pohutukawa tree.

With daylight saving over the days are noticeably shorter and it is good to make the most of them.

This is the road from Blackpool to Surfdale.

Autumn

The guava season is in full swing and I have made one batch of jelly with the first ones to leave the tree. The rest will go to Giapo in return for his wonderful icecream.

Bays and Beaches

LO

Matiatia from the Waiheke ferry.

Orewa Beach 

Shells left by the tide on Orewa beach one glorious Sunday morning recently. It is just a five minute walk to the Farmers Market to pick up some walnut bread for lunch and some fruity French pastries for morning tea.  From there to the library which like quite a few Auckland libraries is open Sundays.

This is Sentinel Rd beach in Herne Bay where we have swum and picnicked the  last two days as the high tide has been late morning.  There is a steep flight of over 100 steps which adds to the exercise.  

Summertime

And the living was easy! The past two months have slipped by enjoyably with most weekends spent on Waiheke or up at Orewa.  These were ideal environments for D to recuperate after that pre-Christmas spell in hospital.

 It was very hot and dry in January and we are still waiting for a decent drop of rain to fill the water tank on the island.  Have swum at Surfdale Beach mainly though did have an ebullient swim at the more turbulent surf at Onetangi once, succeeding in getting myself bowled over by waves a couple of times!

Friends visited for the day a couple of times and with them we extended our range of usual activities, going to Rocky Bay, the Ostend Market, the museum and a long walk around Blackpool to the flash new library which is a delight, being open 7 days a week.

Good friend E from Perth was over for a couple of weeks and we spent the three weekends away on the island and up at Orewa, enjoying that pleasurable environment after not having the use of the house up there for getting on for three years. 

I bought myself an iPhone before Christmas and have still to work out how to transfer photos from there to my blog via my iPad Air or my laptop all of which are relatively new pieces of technology with their challenging elements.  

When everything gets to o much for me there is always a spot of jam therapy.  There was an abundance of plums at Waiheke this year and they are now relegated to the freezer there , stewed and some bags of frozen whole ones for jam making or stewing later in the year.  Made some plum and feijoa jam recently which turned out well.  Also a batch of marmelade.  

Christmas comings and goings on

I am rather tired but it's a pleasant type of weariness after everything is over.  Dieter came home for good on Christmas Eve.  His smile and happiness on hearing that was to be at the family group meeting on Tuesday was a joy to behold.  He had been led to believe it may only be leave for a night and a day.

We had our first visitors half an hour after he got home, my nephew and his wife, so he didn't get time to adjust really.  It is only today that things are "normal" again and I will be taking some time out to cosset myself too.  

Eli came on Christmas Eve for our celebratory Christmas meal, along with good friend Pamela. 

Eli gave us a wonderful book Tangata whenua an illustrated Maori history which I had been going to buy as well and made a special trip to the Woman's Bookshop on Wednesday morning to do so but for some reason didn't. Just as well.  

He was not up to going to Mass on Christmas Day so I got a taxi down with Kerry from the gym who had wanted to go to the Cathedral at 11 too, and left him with some trepidation to put the dinner in the oven. However it was me who burnt the carrots later on while trying to multitask. I quickly rinsed them and cooked some frozen peas to mix with them to mask any residual smokiness! 

Used all my special China for the meal - Meissen I hadn't used for years and another lovely blue and white dish for the strawberries plus a nice Christmas cloth and it was most enjoyable and having company too was nice.  Christmas tea of cold turkey roll, ham and salad for just the two of us was also very nice.

Tonight Eli is coming for dinner which I will concoct out of leftovers, though I think as I am trifled out I may serve a little Christmas pudding which has a whole candied clementine in the middle from Nosh for our dessert.  

Not sure if we will get to the island.  Certainly not today and will see what tomorrow brings as the upheaval of carting food etc over is something I find too daunting to contemplate.  Maybe an evening trip involving just breakfast and lunch the next day would be less of a hassle. 

Thanks to friends and family for your support when the going got tough over the 7 weeks. Looking forward to 2015 in the hope that it will be a more memorable year than 2014. Arohanui.

Christmas Cookery

Started off by making some lemon honey to give away as  gifts.  Good friend Sue gave me some lemons recently which need using up and this is a good way to do so.  I picked up a little book of Christmas cooking by Alison Holst recently and decided to use these recipes on the whole this year and not waste time trolling through my folders of recipe clippings looking for other options.  

Next on the list was a pineapple Christmas cake. It got a bit dark around the edges but I have cut the burnt bits off and the cake itself is moist and  tasty.

Made a new type of pastry with sour cream in it and thought I would use it for my little Christmas mince tarts.  It turned out to be more of a puff pastry so I'll make another batch later with some proper shortcrust pastry.  I made the fruit mince myself from that little book too.  It is made in the food processor and has Apple in it too so it is not so dark and strong-tasting as the bought stuff is.

Last but not least I made some Spekulatius cookies this morning from my old Dr Oetker cookbook I got when I first went to Germany all those years ago.  

Out and About

It is that time of the year when everybody wants to meet one more time before Christmas.  Met up with a friend for coffee in a cafe in one of the high-rise towers down the bottom of town .  There were two big cruise ships in town, dwarfing the ferry and old ferry building edifices, so quaint in comparison.

Another day I went with some friends to a Parnell cafe in an old villa in Brighton Rd and from there to the Rose Gardens, lovely as always. 

Waiheke Mid-Week

What with D in hospital I decided to have a bit of respite over on Waiheke in between visiting him and carrying on with my normal activities.  He has had ongoing digestive problems, trouble with  swollen feet and also is feeling depressed, now the main problem.  They say he will be home well before Christmas.  

I like the weekday atmosphere on the island.

This is the lovely scene that greets you on entering Matiatia Harbour. 

Bought myself a Monet jigsaw puzzle for a couple of dollars at the op shop and repaired to Solar cafe to catch up on my emails over a flat white and an apricot and vanilla muffin, crammed full of apricot bits I might add.

The garden at Solar is full of colour and greenery, but also featuresitems from yesteryear like this old pedal car. 

The deli pictured below has organic fruit and vege as well as delicious Turkish bread made on the island which we often buy. Next to it is a lovely craft shop of local arts.and crafts.