Frankfurt Book Fair

The Frankfurt Book Fair is over for another year.  On Saturday (Friday night, Frankfurt time), Kim Hill interviewed people like the architect who designed the NZ pavilion and various authors and publishers.  The programme was recorded in four separate parts and you can hear a repeat broadcast on the Radio NZ website.  From all reports the fair was a success and the interactive screens in the NZ pavilion looked impressive from what I saw on TV. Apparently NZ has now been asked to be the Guest of Honour at the Taipei Book Festival.

Salmon Farms Update

   The Environmental Protection Authority Board of Inquiry has asked for a three-month extension because of the number of submissions received (1293), and the length of time the inquiry has taken (eight weeks instead of five).  Board Chairman Judge Whiting said the Board needs more time to make a decision. This was originally due to be made by 31 December. If Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson agrees this could mean it will be 22 February 2013 before a decision is made. Look out for Against the Current, a documentary about environmental concerns in the Marlborough Sounds. And how did a disused salmon farm pontoon float down the Pelorus River and end up in the Havelock marina this week?

Coast Watchers' Memorial

   Isn’t it interesting that it has taken so long – 70 years – to commemorate the  17 NZ Coast watchers who were killed on Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati), during WW2.  A ceremony was held and a wreath laid here in NZ in their honour yesterday, 15 October, the day they were killed in 1942, and NZ Post is funding a memorial wall in Wellington. I think one of the men was from Picton. According to some information I have read he took a tuxedo to war!  I often tell visitors on my foreshore heritage walk about these men, mostly Post and Telegraph radio operators, who were sent to the Pacific Islands to report on enemy movements.  The scow Echo which sits on the hard in Picton Harbour (eastern side opposite Edwin Fox), was involved in the war in the Pacific and spent a lot of time supplying Coast watchers with items such as radio batteries. She also rescued downed US airmen. See: theprow.co.nz for more details about the Echo. My uncle, Graeme McKay, spent time in the New Hebrides during the war and my mother said he wasn’t the same person when he returned.

Garden

   After all the wind and rain it is a lovely sunny day today and one of the first roses of the season, Fruhlingsgold, a pale yellow rose, is blooming on the pergola. The erlicheer daffodils have finished which is just as well because they would have all been blown over.  My Meyer lemon tree has died in its second year so I don’t know if it was frost or poor drainage.  I guess I will have to plant another so I can make lemon cordial. Bev McConnell has written a book about her garden, Ayrlies, in Whitford, recognised as a garden of international significance.  The book, Ayrlies: My story, my garden, has just been published.  

Recommended reads:

Fiction:

Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (UK author). Also Wolf Hall, an earlier book by the  same author

The Forrests by Emily Perkins (NZ)

Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks (US)

Non-fiction:

The Meeting Place:  Maori and Pakeha Encounters 1642 to 1840 by Vincent O’Malley (NZ)