Busy Monday

Started the week with a very busy programme of events - out of the house at 9.30 am on the Knitterati trip to Papakura and back home at 9.30pm after bowls. Met a friend for lunch at Glen Innes, preceded by a fossick around the excellent Hospice op shop and went to the Celebration Choir session after that.

The purpose of the Knitterati trip was to knit in public on the

train and visit an exhibition, Living Halls, in Papakura featuring Memorial Halls built in New Zealand towns and cities after the First and Second World Wars. There were about 240 of them and the exhibition featured about 50 painted by artists from the town concerned. There was also an exhibition of the old plans found in the Archives. The curator happened to be there and it was good hearing about the halls first hand.

Am all inspired to do some patchwork again, having sorted out some patches over Easter for a small project, probably an oven cloth for one of my friends. I like to listen to music in the afternoon and do somthing useful at the same time and this fills the bill. Malkovitch liked my big butler's tray of arranged patches and plonked himself down gingerly, mussing them up somewhat. The pictures are of some of my first oven cloths from way back in the 70s or 80s.

Easter on the Island

Another happy Easter spent at the bach on Waiheke Island, doing the usual churchy and Waiheke things. Attended the Good Friday ceremony and Easter Sunday Mass at St Peter's, both of which had an influx of families with children which made a pleasant change. On the Saturday made the usual trek to the Ostend Market, also jam-packed with holidaymakers. Stocked up on Herb Spread, a delicious pesto-type concoction of herbs and even a notion of lavender and calendula , and Tamarind Chutney, made by Jenny's Kitchen, also a strong favourite. Braved the supermarket for the more mundane purchases to complete the shopping for our roast chicken with prune and bacon stuffing Easter dinner the next day, which we shared with good friend Fr. who was staying with us for the weekend, along with a neighbour-from-across-the-road. Monday had a visit for the day from another friend and took her for a long walk from Surfdale to Blackpool and back via Little Oneroa, followed by lunch at the bach, and then a whirlwind visit to the art gallery in Oneroa to look at the small paintings exhibition. Fr took the middle picture of Oneroa Beach on New Years Day this year. The boats were all moored on the other side of the island at Easter as it was quite rough and windy. She also took the photo of the bach from the front garden then and e-mailed them to me today, so here they are for you to see.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to you and yours. For the first time in many years I have made some hot cross buns which are going to prove overnight. They were easy to make . Put on my chef's jacket to be all hygienic and was transported back in time to when I did the professional cooking courses at AUT a few years ago. I have Patisserie Stage I and II , Certificate in Basic Cookery and Certicate in Professional Cookery to my name. I was going to do up the old villa in Herne Bay and take in guests but that has plan has fallen by the wayside and Elisabeth is happily ensconced there with flatmate Tim. Still hope to remodel the house to bring it into the 21st century as far as kitchen and bathroom is concerned. Our architect will hopefully get round to doing the plans soon, as the time will be right in a few months when E finishes her studies.

The guava harvest continues. I have made guava jelly and prepared and frozen more juice for conversion to jelly later in the year. Dieter has taken several containers each week to a downtown gelateria which they have been using to make the most delicious gelato.

Have been enjoying the last of the summer sun by getting out and about round Ponsonby. Saw this house yesterday with its quicky sculptures of Southpark and others in Dedwood Terrace.

Historical Society Visit to Huia and Cornwallis

Auckland for a change.

Spent the weekend at home seeing I had been at Waiheke all week and had been invited by good friend Carolyn to attend a fundraising garden party at Fernhall, a lovely old villa in Gillies Avenue. Persuaded Dieter to come too for company. It is a centre which offers development courses for girls and young women and they were on hand to speak about their experiences, show people around and serve afternoon tea. We sipped punch and enjoyed harp music too and I was suitably impressed by the place.

Today was more leisurely though we went down to have some icecream at Giapo. This is the place where Dieter has been taking many kilos of guavas off our tree in exchange for gelato vouchers. He has over $100 worth so far. Had a most delicious feijoa and tiramisu cone.

Went to a concert in the Town Hall by the Auckland Youth Symphony Orchestra after that seeing we stumbled upon it after getting off the bus to go and get our icecream. It was very enjoyable - a sorrowful lament, punctuated by tubular bell ringing for Benjamin Britten by the Estonian composer Part, then a Mozart piano concerto, followed by Tschaikovsky's Symphony no 5.

Brain Day

Yesterday I went to some very interesting lectures at the university on the brain and the beneficial affect on it of various things like exercise. The first one was Fit body, fit brain by Prof Winston Wybrow who informed us the brain shrinks 5% each decade from the age of 40, affecting things like some types of memory the older you get. The easiest way of fulfilling the continual requirement of the brain for energy (blood flow and oxygen) is by exercising and becoming fit. This way you can increase the blood flow to the brain by 17%. It creates new connections and new cells in the brain. This put 10 years back on to your life so why wouldn't you do it.

Research (the nurses study of l8,000) found that higher levels of physical activity were associated with better cognitive performance and there was a 20% less risk of impairment. In another study of men they found that walking more than 2 miles a day decreases the risk of dementia.

Doing aerobic as well as weight and strength exercise gave the the most benefical results especialy if carried out for 45 minutes a session as opposed to 20 minutes.

Older people from 55-80y can benefit from this with the largest gains made by the 66-70 year olds. High-fitness brains were more efficient, low-fitness brains were more conflicted and dithery. So moral of the story is keep active and fit and get the cognitive benefit of it as ;long as you can.

The next lecture I went to was entitled Being human: the science of memory, consciousness and personality and dealt with the evolution of the brain over time, how it has got bigger , relative to body size. Especially the frontal lobes have got bigger. There are a couple orucial genes out of a total of 22,500 we have in our bodies which either are efficient or non-efficent breakdowners of dopamine, and this MetMet gene is the gene that is implicated in Parkinson's , as opposed to the ValVal one which isn't.

The Celebration Choir performed again to an appreciative audience, showing what music can achieve even when people are sufferering considerable impairment after strokes or have other neurological conditions like Parkinson's.

Prof. Suzanne Purdy gave an interesting lecture after that on The language of music; research on speech and song. She said that brain disease affects the auditory system and speech impairment. Singing out loud activates both parts of the brain and regular choral sining in particular has a number of significant benefits for sustained psychological wellbeing and cognitive benefits as well as being good for one's attention, social support and mood. Singing might even improve a neurologial problem, even active listening to song and music being beneficial too, teh so-called Mozart effect. So there's hope for everyone!

I finished off the day by looking at the various stands of the various interest groups and came away feeling contented with my lot in life. What with the Never too old programme at the YMCA and the Celebration Choir I am maintaining optimum brain fitness of one sort or the other.

Islington Bay on Rangitoto Island

The middle photo was taken on Motutapu Island which has undulating grassy slopes in contrast to Rangitoto's basalt.

Waitemata Harbour

These photos were taken on our Historical Society trip to Islington Bay where Rangitoto is connected to Motutapu Island by causeway. These are photos leaving the confines of the Harbour passing Devonport, North Head and looking back to the Harbour Bridge and Auckland.

Auntie Mollie

Went to a funeral yesterday of a long lost aunt and caught up with cousins Merilyn and Terry, Ian and Wayne, and Stuart's wife Janet. Helen and I stayed with Stuart and Janet on one of our hitching trips to the Dunedin capping week in the 1960s.

Terry boarded with our family at 199 Jervois Rd when he came to Auckland to start an apprenticeship as a mechanic with the Post Office.

Mollie had been in a resthome for over 20 years at Pakuranga , close to one of her sons. She was a cousin of my father and aunt Dorothy. Their mothers were sisters, Eva and Flora McLachlan from Christchurch. She was born Mollie Stuart in 1916 so she was 94. I suppose I last saw her at Auntie Dorothy's funeral (d. 6 May, 2000 at the age of 92) and before that about 30 years ago, at my father's funeral in 1977.

She grew up in Coalgate where her parents had a trucking business, marrying coal miner Fred Mitchell in her early 20s.

They shifted around a bit, ending up at a coal mine in the King Country for several years where I recall our family visiting them in our Morris Minor. We had a bach at National Park where we used to go in the August holidays for skiing at Mt Ruapehu.

Then they shifted to Rotowaro near Huntly, then Mollie shifted to Huntly after Fred died and from there to Pakuranga in 1990. She was a prolific letter writer and Dorothy kept in touch with her in this way. They were favourite cousins. It is a shame our families lost contact but I hope to see cousins Terry and Merilyn again.

Peaches and Preserves

Spent the afternoon making peach chutney with some of the Golden Queen peaches from our Ponsonby tree,then made some picalilli with some cucumbers and celery I had been given a few days ago. Sorted out some nice vintage jars to put it in.

This week I decided to sort out some of my vintage preserving jars for disposal as I don't think I will be doing much preserving anymore. Anyway I still have a few of the ordinary Agee Utility and Special jars I can use.

Crown Lynn

Went out to New Lynn on a little expedition today and took in the excellent Crown Lynn display at the New Lynn Public Library, near Lynmall. Marvelled at the great variety of designs many of which I remember from my youth when there was a Crown Lynn shop in Ponsonby. I never kept any of it but my mother had a few pieces, which E has added to her expanding collection. Thought I might as well sell a vase I had, on Trademe and it was only up for a few minutes before being snaffled up this evening, by a collector I presume. Still have another vase which belonged to Aunt D which I will keep, a posy bowl with koru design similar to one my mother had, and a plate in the Ponui design. Auckland Museum has a good display of Crown Lynn in its decorative arts gallery too.

These Were a Few of my Favourite Things

until I sold them on Trademe, as part of my ongoing streamlining project.
The plate was a Royal Doulton Syren and had belonged to my Aunt Dorothy. I used it off and on but not often.

The little picture was of Ward Beach in Canterbury and was done by W E Richardson, the brother of her friend Agnes in the 1950s or 1960s. It was bought back by a grandson of the artist.

The brown coffee pot was done by Auckland potter, Peter Holmes in the 1960s. We gave it to our mother for a birthday present. Nowadays I just use a smaller brown pot I got in Germany, from the same pottery that the big rum pot came from. I made a rum pot on a few occasions - you start with rum, adding berries such as strawberries, raspberries, cherries, blackcurrants etc as they ripen, along with a measure of sugar, and morte rum to cover. At the end of the berry and fruit season it is left to mature over the autumn and early winter to be savoured in a little glass with a spoon to fish the berries out with, or over icecream in a bowl. Yum.

Getting Crafty

This is a picture of 2 little girls at the Parnell Rose Festival late last year where Knitterati had a stall. They were very keen to have a flower each and I made them one and they helped choose and sew the button on. They were a bit apprehensive of the safety pin at the back but agreed to have them pinned to their sleeve instead of to the front of their clothing.

The beanies in the lower picture are on their way to newborn Ben Henry. Knitterati are participating in an art event as part of the Auckland Festival and I have been in training and practising the pattern. The event is called Knit Bright, at Art Station on 12 March, Saturday from 6pm-midnight. We will be creating beanies for newborns , for the project of the same name already in existence. People can come along and knit too with us, and there will be another artist , Niki Hastings-McFall doing her collective art installation at the same time.

Headland Sculpture

Went on this sculpture walk on Anniversary Weekend and accomplished the 2.5km walk in a couple of hours, approaching it from Matiatia, a steady climb up the hill, just a little muddy in places after the big storm on the Friday evening.

Garden

The past few weeks have seen our landscape gardener, Tony working in our backyard when not called away on other maintenance jobs. Thankfully it has all come together especially when I viewed his before and after photos. It just remains for us to do some planting - mainly edibles seeing it is our back/kitchen garden. Hopefully it will be somewhere where we get round to sitting out in, seeing as all the work has been already done for us.