Deepest Bulgaria

In the depths of Bulgaria at present - way up in the hills. Had a swim in the Black Sea near Varna yesterday. Internet access is not easy but will reply to emails in time. Cruise boat is great - about 136 people on board. Great meals and lovely scenery along the Danube. Good tour guides with lots of history. We are enjoying the history and archaeology we have been hearing about and seeing in the museums. Great art gallery in Bucharest too - European art like El greco, Impressionists, Breugels etc . Great Rumanian sculpture by Brancusi.

Singapore

Had a good trip from Auckland with not much turbulence and good Asian food on Singapore Airlines. Our hotel room was rather small and basic and didnt even have a teabag, just coffee and milo and 1 small bottle of water. Had a full day walking round Singapore today. The temperature would have been well over 30 degrees. Started off in Little India looking through some of the shops with their brightly coloured silks and embroidered fabrics. The National Museum would have been the highlight - it was refurbished over 3 years and is state of the art, dimly lit and sparsely furnished. You walk around with headphones and screen where you can hear and read all about the various exhibits - not all that many of them, but lots to listen and learn about the history of Singapore, most of which I had forgotten.

Then walked the length of Orchard Rd stopping for dumplings, noodles, roast duck and rice at the Meridien foodhall, then down as far as Tangs. On the way back called into Istana, the presidential palace which was having an open day in honour of the National Day. Lovely lawn and treelined drive and an openair concert of Indian string music. Hundreds of Singaporeans were taking advantage of the occasion.
At the other end of Orchard Rd at another foodhall we had egg custard tarts and strong sweet coffee , before picking up our luggage and catching a cab to the airport where we are now awaiting our next 12 hr flight to Frankfurt.

Storm

Auckland has been lashed with wind and rain this weekend with power cuts, flooding and the rest, from Northland southwards. Our neighbour came over to tell us our power lines were arcing where they enter the house at the apex of our front gable, sending me into a panic. Rang Vector but they havent been round so far. Then rang Geoff who says the worst that can happen is that the power goes off, for which we are not really prepared. The wind seems to have died down a bit, though out west and in Rodney there are a lot of people without power.

Maori Language Week

Went to a Waiata session at work last Friday and learned to sing Manu rere (If I were a bird...) ,a hymn and another song. Another new experience - complete with actions - not as easy as it looks.

End of Year Party at Work

This was the final celebration of the end of the financial year. The theme was stars in their eyes - I just wore my ordinary clothes with a sparkly top and sparkly bag. As usual lots of yummy cold and hot food - finger food, seafood, mini quiches, oysters in bacon (I think), satays, skewered vegetables etc etc. The wine and bubby flowed freely, though I restrained myself until after the presentations to long-serving staff. Duly got my $300 worth of vouchers for Westfield shopping centres and am looking forward to spending them in due course. They handed round chocolates and truffles at the end of the evening for dessert - I have a new favourite - Feijoa chocolates - a white filling inside a big milk chocolate.

30th Anniversary Afternoon Tea at Work

Had a combined celebration/farewell with my colleague Anitha who is going back to India. We had three yummy cakes - I put in an order for an apple cake which was duly supplied, then there was a chocolate one, and Anitha bought a coffee walnut one. There were a lot of people from other departments who came to say goodbye to Anitha and congratulations to me. Being a modest person I had not invited people but did invite Alison Davis at the last minute, seeing we go back the farthest. It was a fun occasion though a bit sad for Anitha.

Waiheke

Went over to Waiheke last weekend in questionable weather, however did what I wanted to do ie pick up my Claudia Pond- Eyley print from the Community Art Gallery. Also went to the market on the Saturday morning - on the bus for the first time in ages and bought some tamarind chutney to take to Germany for Dieter's cousin who likes it a lot, as we do too. Hibernated inside by the fire for the rest of the weekend as the weather deteriorated. Got home OK - the sea was not even very rough.

A New Experience

Today was another new experience for me - I went to the gym for the first time ever. The specialist recommended gentle exercise a few months ago and this YMCA program at $5 a pop seemed to fit the bill. They worked out an individual program for me for today - Did about 8 -10 different things including biking for 12 minutes, stepping for several minutes on a sort of treadmill plus lifting various weights - 2 kg barbells, a 5 kg weight, a ball that weighed 2kg - what a surprise! Tomorrow I go to the first group session - warm-up exercises in a group of Never too Oldies , then work on this individual program which has been tailor-made for my weaknesses.

An Auspicious Day

Yesterday was my 30th anniversary in the library, which I duly marked by taking in a plum and almond cake from Rocket Kitchen, a box of Roses chocolates and some potato chips. Had been going to make a cake myself but this was less trouble and very very nice. The years have gone very quickly and I have worked with some great people, many of them still friends. I came from Takapuna Public Library, where I had been Cataloguer for two and a half years and before that Deputy Librarian of Hamilton Teachers College Library. This new job was that of Chief Cataloguer and our first priority as a team was to clear a considerable backlog which had accumulated over the months when the vacancy was unfilled. That was in the days of catalogue cards, which were photocopied, sorted and filed each week, a mammoth job. If my memory serves me right we filed cards in the different depts each morning before the library pened. Then there was a master catalogue,a union catalogue, shelf lists. I catalogued the AV material which was mainly LPs and maps in those days, official documents and other things, as well as developing strategies for getting as many books as possible through the section and getting rid of the backlog. We were a hardworking team. Alison Davis was a great support and the NZ and serials specialist. Parallel to our group of cataloguers there was a small team of people working to create short records for the Plessey circulation system. They filled out input forms with limited number of spaces for the few fields of information. Many of these entries are still in the catalogue today, others were expanded after the library went onto Dynix, most were replaced.

In 1983 I was the first person to go on maternity leave as it was called then. I had an inkling of how difficult it would be to combine motherhood and the workaday world on a fulltime basis so when the part time position of Music Cataloguer became vacant a few weeks before I was to leave work I was pleased to be able to be able to do this job when I returned from my six months off. It was a very happy six months and went all too fast. Sharyn Palmer with whom I had worked during an earlier stint in the music dept of the library returned as music cataloguer while I was away and stayed on afterwards. We shared this work and I did other cataloguing too.


Then came a dreaded review and Alison and I were shocked to find that we were affected and were to share a job in the Commerce, Science and Technology Dept on the ground floor. Our children were 7 years old and there were not the childcare options for before and after school care. I took one half of the job and Alison went to Remeura. It was quite an adjustment but we managed. I suppose I enjoyed the change in the long run. The material was familiar from having catalogued a lot of it and there were nice people there . I looked after the Statistics Collection. Louise, CJ and Sujatha were all colleagues in the 1990s.



CST and Social Sciences merged and then after the library was refurbished and extended we shifted upstairs to become Business and Sciences. There had been a competition to name the new department and one suggestion I liked was Suits and Sandals (Stephen Murphy's suggestion). We inherited a lot of New Zealand material from the New Zealand and Pacific Dept which morphed into A+ then ARC , Auckland Research Centre. I seem to remember doing a lot of work incorporating trhese books into our collection and adding copies to our basement holdings.



There was a period of relative stability then another dreaded review. Once again I was affected and found a new haven in the newly widened dept on the Ground Floor, Learning and Recreation. It was a happy time down there with a great boss, Juliana and I was grateful to have a new subject area in the arts and have the opportunity to be close to the music resources and fiction. In hindsight I was very lucky.



Five years later up a few of us went to the first floor to become members of the Information Services team, not without some heartache for some of us, as colleagues were left behind downstairs and others relocated to a fledgling Learning Services team. All's well that ends well however and we have all found a niche to our liking where our talents can be properly shared with our customers and other staff members. Happy days are here again with new team leader Heather with whom it is fun to work.



Ina couple of weeks we are having an end of year party. Another colleague, David Verran and I will be getting some vouchers ( a whole $300!) which is a very generous present from Auckland City. Iam looking forward to spending it at a Westfield shopping centre when I get back from my August sojourn , a cruise up the Danube from Bucharest to Nurnberg . I cashed in one of my superannuation schemes while it was worth something and have blown it on this trip.

Which reminds me of the time I set out on the second of my OEs, after spending 18 months at Auckland Public Library while finishing off my BA. So I actually started work at the library over 40 years ago. Phew. The first library photo I have was taken in the Pt Chevalier Library where I was Acting Branch Librarian for a few weeks. Then I started work in the Music Dept. Sharyn Palmer was already there and has been a lifelong friend and colleague. Alison Davis was a cataloguer at that time too and we saw her assiduously filing cards into the nonfiction catalogue . The lending non-fiction and music was all in one room and we more or less looked after the whole lot, Sharyn, Mrs Smith and I. This was on the ground floor of what is now the Art Gallery on the Wellesley St side. Anyway off I went after graduating on the Angelina Lauro for 4 weeks getting off at Bremen and travelling downto Wolfsburg where I had a job in the public library there (designed by Alvo Aalto). But that is another story.

Mid Winter

Have had the appropriate weather for such celebrations and have combined the two and used the opportunity to invite people round for coffee and cake , then dinner . Made a macaroon cake yesterday which was one of the family favourites in the fifities and sixties, prompted by a new recipe and cooking book which arrived in the library recently. The chapters on the thirties onwards written by family members make good reading and there are some interesting recipes. The four of us ventured forth into the cold after the mulled wine up to the food hall to sample Malaysian, Lao, Indian and, my favourite, Italian food (prawns and courgettes in a tomato cream sauce).

Murphy's law dictates that it is a beautiful crisp clear sunny winter's day so after our few chores we will be off to the North Shore for a walk along the beach , a look at the shops and library and a coffee somewhere.

Am reading the new Rita Angus biography which is superb, puctuated as it is with beautiful reproductions of her paintings, many of which are new to me.

Other bedtime reading is the Oliver Sachs book, Musicophilia which is all about the phenomenom of people hearing music all the time after suffering a seizure or some other kind of brain damage.

Library News

Nothing much has been happening on the home front apart from our weekend trips away to Orewa the last three weeks. Life at the library keeps me busy during the 3 days I am there. I have also been taking part in one of the classes offered by the Learning Services team of the Central Library before starting work on a Thursday afternoon. So far we have learnt how to transfer pictures from camera to computer, how to put them from there on to a CD , how to edit them and get rid of red eye and other such complaints! It is a free 3 week course of one hour a time, held on a week day and a Saturday for those who have more time on the weekend. A lot of our older regulars participate in these classes and I even fulfilled a useful role of blind leading the blind with my neighbour, Patrick, who had no camera or photos so practised with mine!

After that I have been going up to the free lunch time concerts on the second floor to unwind. The last two weeks have been students from Epsom Girls and St Mary's College. St Mary's now has David Hamilton, well-known NZ composer and conductor in charge of their choirs and they are very very good as they were in the past.

The library is getting a new website at the end of the month http://www.aucklandcitylibraries.com/ (Check out the before and after look). It will have a lot of new features - blogs, rss feeds, aquabrowser - a cloud of keywords you can choose to define your search topic more precisely, and lots of library and other lists librarians and the public can compile and share online. I went to some training on this last week too so I will be all geared up for the changes. We all did Web 2.0 training before Christmas over several weeks, learning all sorts of things that come naturally to the young like Facebook, blogs, the rss feeds and lots lots more. I am looking forward to the challenges ahead and challenges they will be.

Trotted up the road to Leys Institute Library today to look at the paper and return some magazines and took in a very interesting exhibition of old maps dating back to the subdivision of the area in the late 1800s. They had some framed prints of old Ponsonby villas too. I have some of these at home but haven't found the right bit of wall space to hang them yet.

Now to some anniversaries. I started work at Auckland Central Library 30 years ago on the 10 July 1978. I was Chierf Cataloguer for the next 5 years and inherited a big backlogwhich took many months to get rid of. It was still the days of catalogue cards and filing but the cataloguing was mainly original cataloging and very interesting. I did the cataloguing of sound recordings - still long playing records mainly, and maps.

Ten years before that I left my job as Intermediate Library Assistant in the Music Dept of the Central Library to go on the big OE. I had had a practice run a couple of years before that when I went to Germany for a year and did a bit of study at Saarbrucken University.

I had a job at Wolfsburg Public Library for 4 years with a short spell in the middle as an archives assistant at Hesse Radio. It was fun working in the German library - I looked after the hospital library for patients, wheeeling a trolley of books around the wards 3 or 4 times a week. I also looked after the Record Library which was only open 3 or 4 afternoons a week for a couple of hours each time, and later on a couple of small libraries, one attached to a primary school, the other in a shopping centre, both open only afternoons.

Of course all work and no play was not on the cards and Dieter and I did a lot of travelling every opportunity and hitched throught Germany a lot , then trained farther afield to Hungary, then Dieter got his licence and a nice orange VW Beetle and we went even further afield to Czechoslovakia, Finland, France and other places.

To finish on a library note, I came home in December 1972 and went to Library School in 1973.
My first job after that was at Hamilton Teacher's College Library where I was Deputy Librarian , then a couple of years later I went to Takapuna Library as Cataloguer where I stayed till July 1978!

Dieter's 70th Birthday

Well the birthday went off well; l took a couple of days to recover from it and then there was work Wednesday - Friday . Being a long weekend we went to Waiheke Saturday and Sunday and I just had Monday morning to make a dutch apple cake and a chocolate hazelnut cake. I was having my daily game of scrabble early afternoon when there was a ring at the front door - our first visitors who I thought couldn't come until 4pm were 1 1/2 hrs early.. That threw me . I had to do all the preparations - fancy tablecloths, get china out, make coffee etc. Another friend had suggested we meet that Monday so I invited her to join us which she did, then our goddaughter Jane emailed to say she was shifting to Karapiro to live with her parents so invited her so by that time I really was fluffing round . E came too of course. Roland is diabetic and brought a nice German yeast raisin loaf, and a fruit cake, both of which he could eat, so we had plenty of cake. Following that we celebrated with some Lindauer and feijoa wine. Some of us went to the Ponsonby foodhall for dinner afterwards so that made it a bit more of a celebration. Then on Wednesday night D and I went to AUT restaurant a deux and had a beautiful meal. I mentioned it was a birthday celebration and they brought his wedge of Mississippi Mud cake dessert out with 7 flaming candles and sang Happy Birthday which was quite unexpected. D was adamant he didn't want any fuss, and I couldnt have coped with doing a big gathering on my own anyway so it was just nice as it was. He got some phone calls and cards from Germany on the day and following day or two and I gave him a new backpack for taking stuff to Waiheke along with some other bits and pieces.

Old Surfdale houses and toi toi

Waiheke once again

Had a wonderful weekend at Waiheke our first for 3 months. Great hearing the birds and seeing all that lush greenness, seeing the sea and hearing the waves, walking along the beach and going to the Art Gallery up there. Am about to succomb to a painting, what the hell. More about that another day as I have to ring up tomorrow and hopefully it is still there. It will give me a lot of pleasure. Walked to the market on Saturday and then in other direction as far as the library in the other direction in the afternoon. 7km at least over the day. Mass the next morning at the ungodly hour of 9.15 but good for coffeeing afterwards. Home on the 4 pm boat after a modicum of gardening and a walk along Surfdale beach. Viva Waiheke!

The pictures are of boats on Surfdale Beach on Sunday afternoon, the view of the bach is from the neighbours place and that is our kitchen window. Our neighbour Mike sold and moved to the Mainland a couple of weeks ago, so we will have a new neighbour soon.

Shelter Exhibition

The Shelter installation was set up last Monday and Tuesday at Art Station. They assembled some scaffolding and then draped the blankets over the top and round each side just leaving a narrow entrance into the cavernous structure. The effect is magical. I went to the opening on Wednesday evening after work and caught sight of some of the blankets through the windows from the street. They look terrific. There was a big crowd at the opening, coming and going and exclaiming over the beauty of the blankets. There was a short speech by one of the Knitterati group outlining the progress of the project over the last year and then the women from the Red Cross spoke about how refugees appreciate such gifts, especially if they go to colder places like Hamilton where one of the women was from. Imbibed a couple of glasses of wine with the traditional cheesey accompaniements, to celebrate the occasion.

Today 6 days later was the first school visit, a group from a Mt Albert Kura Kaupapa, a Maori immersion school. It was a large group of about 30 with a few adults. They had a good look at the installation then had a short talk on the project and knitting, then were shown how to knit. I was helping do this and it was very rewarding when they finally got the knack of it. We are doing the same on Thursday, Saturday and next Tuesday and Thursday.

Mother's Day

I had a very pleasant Mothers Day - went to Mass at St Benedict's - a nice family Mass with all the mothers going up to the front at the end to get a special blessing with everybody in the congregation stretching out one arm in solidarity.
From there we went to the museum. Wandered through the Wintergarden, first looked at the exotic eggplants in shades of yellow and white , beautiful chrysanthemums, bromeliads and ferns. At the museum there was an interesting and moving exhibition of paintings by the present war artist, Matt Gauldie, realistic looking paintings and portraits of soldiers in Afghanistan, the Solomons and several depicting aspects of the trip of the Unknown warrior back to New Zealand and the ceremonies back here.
Home for lunch with some delicious flatbread from an Italian bakery off Ponsonby Road to go with the minestrone I made during the week. Time for a game of scrabble online before we headed off to a recorder recital in the Baptist Church in Jervois Road, not a church I recall being in before, a lovely old wooden church with blue columns flanking the altar. The music was great - Baroque mainly - Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann and others.
Elisabeth joined us for afternoon coffee and scones I made. Didn't get round to making the cake or biscuits I was planning but hey, there will be another occasion, Dieter's birthday to be precise, in a couple of weeks.
Didn't feel like cooking either so we all went off to the Food Hall where we had the Coco lamb, a Vietnamese lamb and pumpkin dish with coconut cream, not as nice as the Beef curry we had there last time.
So it has been an enjoyable day and hope you all had a Happy Mothers' Day too, one way or another.

More Photos from Matakana Trip

The hearts are decoupaged, many using old postage stamps.

The vessels on ther top sshelf of the next picture are decoupage on glass by Joy Bell from the Warkworth area. She rinses out them out with gold paint on the inside to create rather an opulent effect.

My new Morrison and James planter. I am standing with June Evans, my tenant and dressmaker extraordinaire from the front house at Orewa. She was been in Orewa for 10 years - 5 years in the little flat and 5 in the house.

Visit to Matakana and Weekend in Orewa

Friday was the Silverdale Historical Society trip to Matakana. Met up on the bus with a nice lady Dorothy, whom I met on the Bay of Islands trip last year. Her name reminded me that it is the anniversary of my Aunt Dorothy's death a few years ago.
It was a lovely day and not very much traffic on the road. Our first stop was the Honey Centre before you turn off to Warkworth. It was a little early in the morning to sample too many things but we did try the ginger honey . My favourite is still the plain old clover honey as it was, is and hopefully ever will be - nice and creamy and pale. They have a great variety of soaps and other confectionery too. From there we drove straight to Matakana in time for our visit to the new cinema with its ceiling of 30 000 paper roses. It does look rather nice. The film was Made of Honour all about the romance and very imminent wedding of an American girl to a Scotsman. It is averted by the "Maid" of Honour, the former playboy boyfriend of the bride-to-be, who is whisked away from the castle just in time to live happily ever after in America again. Lovely Scottish scenery which was the highlight for me.
From there it was across the road to one of the several eateries for lunch - a fetta and spinach quiche and a hot cup of coffee at one of the outdoor tables, very nice until a sudden shower sent everyone scurrying for hard-to-find cover. I found it in the general store where I bought a bottle of my current favourite wine - Lothlorien sparkling feijoa wine which we will enjoy on Mother's Day. Bought some lovely chicken and satay parcels for our evening meal at the wonderful deli with its succulent-looking meat cuts all on display in the window. Took in the op shop (no finds in its rather cramped interior, though they did have big white bowls outside for 50c each so things were priced right to sell) and galleries with beautiful glass, pottery and jewellery.
From there we went to another Country Market with crafts and art galleries and other activities, designed to appeal to children. There is also a weekly Farmers Market in the village on a Saturday which is very popular. Once back on the bus we continued on to Port Wells and Omaha to have a look around, then on to Morris and James Pottery for afternoon tea - a glass of feijoa and apple juice with a slice of yummy spicy apple and walnut cake with cream. Had a browse around the showroom where I bought a nice blue planter, which I have always wanted and will put one of my orchids in it.
Saturday we spent in Orewa visiting the Rotary Book Sale where I picked up a couple of Fiona Kidman books - one of her first novels, Mandarin summer set in Kerikeri where she grew up, and short stories, Mrs Dixon and friends. I am looking forward to reading them once I have read another book of hers I am reading, Ricochet baby.
Spent part of the late afternoon doing some pruning of the hydrangea bushes rescuing a few last blooms for a vase, and removing cape gooseberry bushes and spent dahlias from the driveway.
Reviewed the trip and day's activities over afternoon tea with my neighbour, Gladys before collapsing in a heap in front of the tv in the afternoon.

Home today to a wet miserable Auckland and a cold house. Escaped to the confines of St Lukes for a bout of retail therapy - 2 new blouses - and exchanged 10 jars of old outdated spices and herbs from my pantry for new ones at the Greggs mobile spice centre there this weekend. They have some tasy combinations which I chose - chilli and lime, dill and lemon to name a couple. Elisabeth will no doubt want some of them which she is welcome to have of course.

Called in to see good friend Marlene, seeing we were in the area and enjoyed a chat over tea and anzac biscuits . A visit to King's Plant Barn to get some orchid mix for this year's plants and some mesclun lettuce salad seed mix. I heard on a radio programme recently that Kings seed mix is one of the best and their mesclun is grown widely in Vietnam for the hotel and restaurant trade .

Still two more days of leisure which we will enjoy before the work-a-day world beckons on Wednesday. Arohanui!

NEWZ

Went to Knitterati this morning and this is the invite for the exhibition of blankets I have been talking about for several months. We met at one of our member's place in Grey Lynn, artist Jude Graveson. She makes art works out of handmade paper with impressions of native plants and flowers and sells them framed. She also makes sculptures using cow gut - the finished product looks like parchment. She has a very tidy compact studio in her garden where she makes the paper, dries it out under pressure and does her art. She is also a great textile artist. The others all have their own talents. We are sewing blankets together, a real cooperative project at this stage. A lot of people have been knitting squares and every week there are more to be incorporated into a blanket.

We had Anzac Day and the weekend at home as we will be away at Orewa next weekend. It was quiet with several walks in between showers , a visit to the food hall for Vietnamese and Italian food and some gardening. By Monday we were ready for a bit more activity so walked into town to the Art Gallery to look at the retrospective Lawrence Aberhart photographic exhibition. He is renowned for his black and white photographs of lodges, art deco and other quirky (unaesthetic buildings) as well as photographs of Northland churches, many of them in the Hokianga area. Had lunch in the Council cafetaria - chicken in pesto with veges for a $6.50 main and yummy morsels from the dessert bar to finish off the meal. Put me in a good mood for my afternoon's work.

Autumn

The evenings are getting cooler and darker, an intimation of things to come. We have been making the most of our days getting out and about up to Orewa this weekend.
I had a walk along the beach on my way to get some organic eggs for the week from the Farmers' Market.

Mass up there then home to feed the cat and do a bit of pruning and thinning out of the thicket outside our bedroom and all the rooms along that side of the house. D was rather reluctant to do so but obliged me in the end and it has made a bit of a difference. Hopefull;y they will come from the zoo's browse dept and pick the branches up for the animals. Some of the animals like parsley, rosemary and thyme so will trim our bushes and plants.

Went to a play by Sia Figiel "Where we once belonged." It i s all about growing up in Samoa, with all the double standards and undercurrents brought out into the open. I am rereading the book now.