iceberg watch

On Sunday, we drove off to the top of Mt. Cargill--en famille. This was Tessa's third attempt at seeing an iceberg but the first for the rest of us. It was a bright, sunny day with no wind. Mt Cargill is around 936 meters high which means you can see for around/at least eighty miles or so. Life never is as simple as one thinks. In this case, that means there were ideal conditions, a crowd of other potential viewers but a wee bit of haze towards the horizon...just enough to obscure the view!

This post is has one message. If you are checking it out tomorrow, Thursday (Friday for us), google the Otago Daily Times. A special section was advertised containing photos of the iceberg. (I believe these views will be free on the day the paper is published but require signing up and paying if you wish to examine their archives.)

Good luck with this...

Iceberg madness--still frozen in the grip of the quest…

we hope to see one today or tomorrow…Tess has already tried twice

today’s paper says that berg watchers are still queuing up. More than 10 days since the icebergs were first spotted off the Otago coast, the berg spotting craze shows no signs of letting up. With some of the icebergs believed to be drifting very slowly, about 400m an hour, they may be around for a few days yet. People are paying $830 to fly from Queenstown to Dunedin where they then hop on a helicopter for viewing from up close. The paper shows a diagram of where to go (on land) to take a look. On a clear day one can see 120km from Mt Cargill—just outside Dunedin, which puts the icebergs within viewing distance. (For more info the ODT says consult maps.gns.cre.nz/website/iceberg/ for daily updates)

from yesterday’s paper: “Cold water poured on couple’s iceberg wedding plan”

A Dunedin couple’s plan to get married on an iceberg has hit stormy waters. The couple planned to board a helicopter accompanied by a marriage celebrant, land on an iceberg off the Otago coast and get hitched on a floating piece of the Antarctic. But the helicopter pilot said it was too dangerous and Internal Affairs has cast doubt on the legality of the planned union. The woman getting married had been negotiating with a women’s magazine and declined further comment...Ice was falling off the icebergs constantly and it was difficult to find a safe place to land…In the eyes of the law, the couple might also be on thin ice. Internal Affairs spokeswoman blah-blah said people had to be within 12 nautical miles of the coast to be married legally. The icebergs are at least double that distance from land. Ms. Blah-blah said that captains of ships sometimes married people at sea but obviously, there was no captain of an iceberg…

those floating mountains of ice are not unlike the static mountains of lav paper now stored in our storage cupboard. Our first purchases of lav paper as newcomers to Waikikamukau were rather chaste--on the order of 4 rolls in a package. I thought this had something to do with the fact that we are living in such a ‘green’ country--literally and figuratively. This notion was dispelled by the discovery of 8 packs…almost like home. The lowest price supermarket on the flats in S. Dunedin happens to be (no surprise) in the part of town where the population is densest and where the car dealerships are clustered. Pak ‘n Save as it’s called (where you bag your own groceries once they are tallied) displays its wares in the large boxes they are shipped in. It is so down-market that its carriages are called trolleys rather than trundles. Big towers of the featured bargains surround you at the entrance of this establishment. A couple of days ago, imagine my amazement when I spotted lav paper there, wrapped 18 in a pack. I thought that the price was four of those packs for NZ$ 5.23! Looking at the slip at home, it became apparent that was the price for each 18 unit. Well, 72 rolls of toilet paper for 19.99 (it ended up somehow) is not that bad…i guess

The 24 hour markets that dot Dunedin are called Tip Top’s. These are termed dairies or creameries (milk might cost around $5 rather than $3.25 at Pak 'n save)…Tip Tip itself is a brand of ice cream and ice cream products that happens to have its 50 anniversary this year. ‘Stop for a cone—only 10 cents, this week only’. Tip Top ads were apparently always very cute and launched the career of Rachel Hunter as a child actor, for instance. The local Tip Top also sells a variety of hot foods: meat sausages, crumbled hoki, etc. and biltong—“tastes just like in South Africa”

And this last snippet…filed under ‘flies’ in the lexicon of my life are the house fly and the horse fly. Oh sure, I know black flies, deer flies, bottle flies(?), no-see-ums, gnats, the famous Jimmy crack corn blue-tailed fly, but the basic default fly for me is the house fly. When Summer used to arrive in Northampton, Tessa would say with an air of hysteria: “there’s a blow-fly!’, as if we were suddenly in grave danger. Okay, it is now apparent that there is such a thing as a blow-fly. Seeing is believing. (Knowlege is Power. The early bird catches the worm...don't get me started...) Wim complained the other morning that he had been bothered by a wasp buzzing around as he was drifting off to dreamland the night before. Tessa posited the blow-fly as the miscreant. Low and behold, yesterday there was a thick bodied very loud, aesthetically unpleasing fly in OUR bedroom. My response was automatic. I am now an experienced blow-fly annihilator. Actually, at the moment, there is a second one here in the sun room. It was within reach a moment ago but perhaps read the future on my screen…excuse me as i sign off and go into stalk mode…

Well, it’s been a quiet week in Waikikamukau

where all the women are strong…and apt to correct your sleep habits. The blogging process, in my personal experience, often begins when the blogger is lying awake in bed wondering if a natural need awoke the sleeper (for instance, necessary micturation) or whether one’s sleep was being improved. (It’s a good time to draw a few thoughts together and sketch out a sentence or two.) One’s sleeping is improved or corrected—the second being the path to the first—by one's being nudged, ever so gently at first but then with increasing firmness. This may lead to the sleeper rolling over into a position where snoring ceases for a period, or, just as easily, to a wakeful period of an hour or two. Lying awake this morning, wondering why sleep had left me, I could only wonder if I had failed the improvement process. There was some light in the room. I had been awake for a while listening to various bird calls and realized that it was already dawn—the alarm clock read 5:40 AM!

Saturday night was the first performance of ‘Giselle’. After three days of rehearsals, Tessa was in the pit as concertmaster for the Southern Sinfonia accompanying the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Wim, Lily and yours truly did some serious tube time while she was working, catching the Simpsons and then So You Think You Can Dance. The young’ins then tried some new moves and were tucked away, inspired and happy. My mindless entertainment continued with Sin City—a black epic (cartoon/movie) with story by Frank Miller. A little of something for everyone.

On Sunday we exhausted our store maple syrup supply with the blueberry buckwheat pancake/egg/bacon breakfast. Lily opined that if they had a show called So You Think You Can Cook Pancakes that I would definitely be a winner. Typical Lily thoughtful sweetness! Lily’s invitation to a birthday party supplied something different for Sunday’s dance card. Her party was at an ice skating rink. Willem and I could not resist the lure and ended up skating too. It was great fun! In the meantime, equipped with binoculars, Tessa went off to find high ground whence she might spot an iceberg! (She tried again today, again without success, but we hear there’s another massive one on the way…). There have been beautiful photos in the paper of the frozen visitors. Sunday was capped with a second ‘Giselle’ performance. Wim, Lily and I sat in the Dress Circle and mom played away in the pit. It was a treat (at least for the audience).

Like the sleep business, the topic of climate returns for renewed scrutiny. Two ice events in one day reminds me that it is clear from some blog feedback just how difficult it has been to convey our everyday climate and temperature, and that this effort has not totally succeeded. True, Spring is in full swing. Most rhododendrons have finished blooming, the fuchsia have come and gone and the roses, among other things, are blooming like nobody’s business. Flower gardens are looking most attractive. Because it is never below freezing here in Dunedin, the trees and flowers that grow all year long are thriving on the new intensity of the sun. Even still, most days the air is generally somewhere between chilly and cool. When I arise to begin the tea ceremony, to a long-sleeved flannel top, I add a corduroy shirt, a thick sweater, a warm vest, underpants, long-underwear and lined trousers, socks and slippers. It is true that I have ventured out in shorts 3 or 4 times. (Guy Fawkes day for instance, was warm and in the high 70’s all day.) About three days ago, I took a walk in shorts but by 4 PM it was very chilly and damp and the layers had to be piled on again. There have only been a handful of mornings when it was not necessary to combat the chill in the kitchen by turning on the electric oil heater. We’ll let you know when and if summer really takes control of the climate in a way familiar to us New Englanders. We are hard put to prepare for a summer Christmas. It is strange to see X-mas sales advertised on the same page of the paper along side hay fever nostrums.

(And, what about Thanksgiving?)

the day in Waikikamukau

starts with yours truly arising for the tea ceremony. This begins with a visit to the kitchen. The electric kettle (220 volts is useful for creating hot water in seconds) is set in motion and the brew concocted. Our current recipe is two bags of Bell's ('‘Feel alive!'’), two slightly heaping tablespoons of Dilmah loose tea ('‘Finely balanced richness, flavour strength & aroma for the perfect tea'’--no comma between '‘flavour' and '‘strength'’ is correct) and one bag of Twinings of London (the name says it all, apparently) Earl Grey. Two large steaming mugs of tea with milk are then transported upstairs for sipping by brewer and newly awakened sleeper. We draw the curtains, sit in bed and contemplate the view and the wood pigeons breakfasting on the really yummy young leaves in full view. Wim and Lily are apt to trickle in for a morning snuggle and the day has begun.

Today the temperature was 33 degrees in the morning, a hair above freezing. Hail was forecast for yesterday. Guy Fawkes Day on the weekend, by contrast, was about 80 all day. We all know the New England saw, if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes. A Dunedin native told me today that what they say here is: Dunedin has all four seasons, sometimes in the same day.

Willem news: 3 weeks ago Wim'’s Level 7 group went for a two night overnight stay camp--Camp Berwick is a couple hours drive from here. He had a terrific time. He greatly enjoyed archery, absailing and shooting an air rifle. (The teacher reportedly said "“We've got a dead-eye Yank over here"”) One of his prizes was a second in target shooting. The story that will enter family yore though was his 'solo'’. All the boys had to sit out on groundsheets in the woods on their own ('solo') in total silence, for half an hour last thing in the day. Apparently, Wim heard a possum sniffing around--they breathe very loudly, like an asthmatic with adenoids and a bad sinus condition. We asked Willem if he called for help--he said that was against the rules. "So what DID you do?" "“Well, I was scared so I rolled over and went to sleep" was the reply (played 'possum).…This Tuesday night, he had another sleepover with his class, this one in the Museum. He is quite the old hand now although the parents worry. Will he lose his stuff? Will his retainer get stepped on? Will his glasses survive? Everything turned out well--although yesterday his glasses got smashed in dodge ball (NZ$ 275 for replacements!)

Lily'’s school is having a track meet. We think it might involve other schools. This meet was originally scheduled for Wednesday but then postponed until Friday because of rain on Tuesday night. The parents will sit in the stands and the students need to have dry ground for sitting on in the infield. Lily says that she is second fastest in her class so she has high hopes of doing well in the foot race department. She might also be doing some sort of jumping. Her instructions read thusly:
We need to bring the following for the Sports
Sunhat/Sunblock
Small Morning Tea for school
Large Morning Tea for Sports
Big Lunch
Plenty to drink
Come in Tracksuits

Another omitted outing was family attendance at the RR bash. The Dunedin Railway Station, the most photographed building in New Zealand and one of the 100 must see structures in the world, celebrated its 100th birthday on Oct. 18th. We heard a brass band, speeches, a cannon and tonnes of steam engine train whistles. Train spotters were on hand from all around the world. We studied the old engines and took a train ride behind one of these beasts. It was all tremendously exciting and historic. The open air farmer's market being in an adjacent parking lot, we finally got to peruse this too. It had a Noho aspect but we are not accustomed to seeing homemade liquors and fresh beer being offered on Saturday mornings in a PC world. We fell for the venison salami, a smoked brie and the cheese curd (!!!**#@!)

The acclimating is in full swing...…

Guy Fawkes

You know you are a stranger in a strange land when fireworks start exploding and you know not why. About a week ago, we began hearing sporadic explosions starting at sundown--which now occurs around 8:40 PM. Were students mounting a protest to the proposed lowering of the drinking age currently being bandied about or were police attempting to crack down on their wild behavior? (Residents of the city and their uniformed finest seem to have found it upsetting when large mobs of unruly students burn couches in the street. This is the latest fad the wild things perpetrate.) Each night the sharp reports grow in number and were plentiful enough last night to provide a visual entertainment from our back deck as interesting, sparkly do-dabbies rose and burst in the dark sky!

Fireworks are legal in Waikikamukau. The ads in the paper offer mixed packages of fireworks (firecrackers to me) with various goodies included for every budget from $5.98 to $299.99. The pressure has been on to make the purchases from Wim for days. “Look at this, for $39.95 you can get two of these ones that cost $22.95 each!” Today we will make the purchase, probably in the $10-$20 range. I think we think that the real Guy Fawkes Day is Sunday the 5th but that most people will be setting off their packages tonight.

Yesterday Willem misspelled one of his words. No Friday fish for him. He wrote an ‘e’ where an ‘i’ should have been in ‘obsequious’. He now starts over—you must spell all 12 words correctly three weeks in a row to earn the fish. Some of the other words on the list: guillotine, heterogeneous, silhouette, architrave (?) and slummocky (not in our dictionary). Having won 2nd place in his own class for his speech on why you shouldn’t smoke, Wim competed with the Level 7 and 8 classes yesterday. He said his legs and arms were trembling but it sounds as if he enjoyed making the speech. He had made a little cigarette out of paper and puffed through it producing a convincing cloud of talcum powder smoke. One of the hit speeches was about the psychology involved in choices made when one plays ‘rock, paper, scissors’.

Lily and Willem just noticed that they are four levels apart in school rather than three (their age differential). This happened because Willem was pushed forward a bit, which meant he did not have to go to primary school for one year then switch schools again, and Lily is now one of the older girls in her level rather than one of the youngest. This gives her time to work on her writing (penmanship) and to learn her multiplication tables. She has her own list of spelling words (note UK spellings): analise, fiery, apologise, microphone, criticize, typhoon, horizon, fragile, diameter, realize, digestion, describe, violent, confine and society.

Imagine what your newcomer, the stranger in the ‘states’ makes of Halloween. Well, we can report that NZ does not subscribe to the zany craziness that echoes ancient medieval celebrations. (Trick or Treat what?) Our Halloween consisted of Tess taking Wim and Lily downtown and giving them each five dollars to spend. This replaced the candy buy-back program of the Noho era where excess Trick ‘n Treat candy was bought from the kids. The cousins later appeared for a joint pizza dinner. To this point, we had eschewed what was billed as the best local pizza establishment: Hell’s Pizza. Their Halloween blandishments however, made us bite. With the four young cousins in varying degrees of costume, the dessert pizzas (what a concept) at Hell’s Pizza were free. Before the sugar from the dessert pizzas hit, Wim got a little weepy remembering the previous year’s Trick ‘n Treating with his close friends but we did have a pretty good ex-pat ‘go of it’. (local talk)

The fact that this blog has become more sporadic reflects several things. More time practicing for one thing. Your writer lived without a domiciled instrument for at least five months and is enjoying a dream come true now. Also this week, some screen-time was spent setting up a new website for the violin/piano duo that Tessa and I have, La Belle Alliance. The results of these efforts to date can be viewed at:

http://web.mac.com/labellealliance

Last weekend, the duo (meaning children were left at home) went to see/hear Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Princess Ida”. (The Princess is a new acquaintance and we like her and her singing.) It was a hoot.

On Sunday, we visited the Aquarium, en famille. Before going in, we picnicked in a field outside—the car park--with curious sheep eyeing us. The aquarium was just great. An outdoor pool was filled with small sharks, cod and stingrays…very fascinating in an hypnotic way. Inside was a small touching pool where one can feel all types of shells, mollusks, crabs, starfish and other amazing things. We then had a private lecture (no other visitors happened to be around) by the guide who had been explaining the life in the touchy pool. Much of this was about the Maori ways, how they fished and their reverence for life. She then took us with her to help collect shells and crabs from the beach. Now, it was feeding time for the small squid housed in a different tank. We watched as the squid smelled the crab. It detects odor with 60% of its ‘body’. The squid tracks the crab down with ruthless efficiency, hugs the crab and drills a hole through the carapace with its beak. It then empties the contents of its (the squid’s) stomach into the crab. In a half-hour, the squid sucks in the tasty digested crab. (the free associative part of my brain is attempting to reflect on the lovely hours spent with Gigi’s (my grandmother’s--or was it Aunt Florence’s subscription) Readers’ Digest. Certainly there was a sinister, life and death element to all that digesting too…) (Was Clare Booth Luce a good person?)

and finally, a few culture notes: the ‘Uni’ default footwear, flip-flops, are termed jandals. Lily tells me that tic-tac-toe is called X’s and O’s (ex-es and oh’s). The shops or markets--store’ is reserved for the big-box establishments--actually do have onions, garlic and mushrooms for cooking! (My introduction to Kiwi cooking happens to have been on the bland side of the spectrum.) The orange juice one drinks for breakfast reminds me of the Jaffe canned orange juice from Israel available in the upscale markets in Budapest c. 1972. My guess is that the average Kiwi who has not been abroad is unable to dream of Tropicana but perhaps that’s not fair. Yesterday, Tessa discovered a cilantro plant in a shop and brought it home to use in a tasty Vietnamese soup. This is very important because my ability to live without this herb (pronounce the ‘h’ in this word if you want to be understood D U) is not something that should be put to the test.

enough for now. equipped with three boxes of matches, a "tee" for holding explodable paraphernalia and our box of same, we 'will be away' soon to join Wim's cohorts (guys). be well and don't forget to write...