Wine is bottled poetry – Robert Louis Stevenson

Note: For some reason my blog appears with Pacific time as the header which is a day behind NZ time so I have decided to write the date in brackets if significant.

Tourism NZ has now labelled New Zealand ‘Middle-Earth’ so that’s fine though my father seems a little bewildered by the analogy and I don’t know what Captain Cook would have thought about it seeing he was convinced NZ was in the Southern Ocean.  This information we gleaned from reading The Press while waiting to see a nurse at Wairau Hospital to check my father’s pacemaker. I tried to explain but it’s a bit like trying to explain the Internet, Google and Smart phones.  Being interested in the share market he does get the success of a company like Apple.

   Since he had his stroke he doesn’t always remember about the pleasantries like ‘Good afternoon’, ‘thank you', and so on. The first thing he said to the nurse was that he had heard some upsetting news on the radio which he wanted her to confirm. It seems that if someone with a pacemaker is cremated the device can explode. She reassured him that the doctor would know so he wasn’t to worry. He has a plot already marked out at the Picton Cemetery alongside my mother so he really doesn’t need to be concerned.  He just thinks someone should have told him instead of being informed through the media.  ‘Well seeing you’re talking about it’, she said, ‘let me tell you that a pacemaker doesn’t prolong your life. When your ‘natural time comes to go’, it won’t stop you.’ Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to accompany him! My neighbour later told me that there is a doctor in Dunedin who has a museum of pacemakers and some get sent to him when they are removed.  Earlier ones she said were quite large.  I don’t think I’ll tell my father that.

The Hobbit

   One thing I really like is live television.  While I’m writing this (Wednesday 28 November), I’m half listening to TV One screening live from Wellington for the build up to The Hobbit movie, the red carpet, Tamati Coffey speaking elvish and sporting those ears and an interview with Peter Jackson (in red sneakers), Mark Hadlow and the Air NZ Boeing 777 aeroplane flying over Wellington decorated with hobbit images. Independent Booksellers’ Page and Blackmore (Nelson), recently posted on Facebook to remind everyone that it was first a book. I own a rather battered copy which belonged to my mother. Who’s your favourite hobbit and will you go to see it at the movies or wait for the DVD?

Artisan market

   The artisan market in the mall is attracting a lot of interest.  There was an article in the Marlborough Express yesterday. There’s furniture, carving, fabric work, weaving, photographs, books, cards, herb labels and jewellery. Great gifts for Christmas and the mall shop will be of interest to the tourists over summer.

Literary awards

   Congratulations to Leona Plaisier (mentioned in my last blog), who received a Local Hero’s medal last night (27 November), along with 5 others, from the Marlborough District Council. Also congratulations to Sam Hunt, Greg O'Brien and Albert Wendt for winning the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement (worth $60,000). The awards were established in 2003 when Helen Clark was Prime Minister and recognises writers of fiction, non-fiction and poetry who have made a significant contribution in these genres. This was the same year the USA invaded Iraq.
   In 2011 I went with a poet friend to hear Sam Hunt at Le Cafe in Picton. It was crowded and the audience really enjoyed the performance.  In the 1980s I lived in a house across the road from the inlet at Paremata where Sam Hunt resided in his boatshed.  I never met him though and only ever saw him giving poetry performances.

Sam Hunt

 

   A few days after the performance in Picton I was talking to someone who told me how she and her girlfriend used to fish in front of Sam Hunt’s boatshed at Paremata and she told me about all the bottles.  So I put the ideas and experience together and came up with the poem below. When I read it to a poetry group I belong to and reached line 10, one or two people admitted to being less than enthralled by the ‘familiar gravelly voice’.  Vive la difference!

 A Good Night

A crowded cafe,

impossible acoustics

chairs scraping on a tiled floor

audience fuelled by wine

merlot and a dash of lemonade

in the sav, a tall lean figure appears

he says, ‘you notice I’m wearing glasses,

first time I've seen the audience in 40 years.'

‘Steamy’, says Sam, to an expectant crowd

referring to the windows, he laughs

and recites in that familiar gravelly voice

interspersed with colourful language

F... and Shit and Christ—

the audience love it.
 

‘Where do poems come from’, he asks,

overheard snatches of conversation

lines drawn from years of experience

chance encounters, love affairs

he ends with a Hungarian lament

and three poems about Picton,

whaling, Cook Strait, and above all

friendship, we are desperate to touch him

to share a personal memory,

to connect, but we don’t get a chance

he disappears in a flash of legs

daddy-long-legs – on stilts.

But more fragile than before

thinks the girl who used to fish

in front of his boatshed at

Paremata, back then the bottles

told the story of a good night.

 

© Julie Kennedy, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We write to discover ourselves.

Grace Paley

 

Thank goodness for Steffan Browning of the Green Party. He is prepared to accept the petition from Leona Plaisier of Pelorus Sound opposing the expansion of salmon farms in the Marlborough Sounds by NZ King Salmon.  He says he will ensure that it is tabled in Parliament. About 11,000 people signed the petition, many of these online. Several National Party MPs who Leona approached earlier had refused to accept it and present it in Parliament. Thank goodness also for the Marlborough District Council who held firm to the belief that the current Marlborough Sounds resource management plan should be upheld despite Government’s thoughts to the contrary.

   Here in Picton and the Marlborough Sounds we might not have a major river to protect as they do elsewhere like on the East Coast (see November Forest and Bird magazine), but the waterways of the Sounds are our taonga (treasure). One prominent Picton family in the early 1900s had a seawater swimming pool at the bottom of the garden in the area where the Picton Marina is now and there were seawater swimming baths on Shelly Beach (opened in the 1880s, rebuilt 1911 and operated until the 1930s). The concrete remains can still be seen near the Queen Charlotte Yacht Club. With all the boats and shipping and possible pollution it is unlikely any local residents would want to swim there now (2012). Fortunately the Council is also concerned about this and is actively monitoring the water quality of various beaches and posting results on its website.

   A big congratulation to Shayne Olsen and Louise Bright, the owners of Lochmara Lodge Wildlife Recovery and Arts Centre for winning three awards at the Westpac Marlborough Chamber of Commerce awards, including the Supreme award (Marlborough Express, 19 November). If you are ever visiting Picton take the short boat trip over to Lochmara Bay or visit the lodge while walking the Queen Charlotte Track. This was the place where the concept of Eco Artists NZ was developed. It is a privilege to belong to this organisation and to be able to contribute to the support of the environment www.ecoartists.co.nz

   Last night I went to ‘Dickens’, a one-man show touring New Zealand and the world and Picton. What a performance, such a memory, such energy.  A full house and an appreciative audience. As my ‘temporary’ neighbour said it just goes to show if you bring a class act people will come. She recently went to hear Fiona Pears at Le Cafe, another excellent performer. She bought a DVD not just because of the music but because it had been recorded in Christchurch Cathedral, something that can never be repeated.

   Talking about performers the best of luck to Clara van Wel, one of 12 finalists in New Zealand’s Got Talent. A 15-year-old Marlborough College student she writes her own songs, impressed the judges early on, and has captured the hearts of many with her talent. “I just like words, words are cool, words are fun”, she says. She received some encouragement from the school’s librarian, Colleen Shipley, who is a member of the NZ Society of Authors Marlborough Writer’s group that I belong to. Clara has advice for other young people: “Never listen to anyone who tells you, you can’t do it”.

   Thanks to my other neighbour who has just left a small bag of kindling at my back door. It is still cold even though it’s November. Keeping warm takes up so much energy. And I wish my computer would get over its obsession with fragments! That’s the way I write. You would think it would have got used to it by now.

   Here’s a teaser from my book, a work in progress. I think I am getting near the end. The November weather seems fairly similar and all those gales and difficult sailing conditions mentioned by Cook don’t look good for the ferries moving to Cloudy Bay. It’s such a relief for passengers when they enter the calm waters of the Marlborough Sounds after the turbulence of Cook Strait. That’s usually when I head to the cafeteria.

From: Captain James Cook’s Journal

Voyage II, November 1773

Tuesday 2^nd.  Fresh gales with rain.  At 2pm passed Cape Campbell at the distance of one league, consequently entered the Strait with a fresh gale at south so we thought nothing of reaching Queen Charlottes  Our expectations were in vain, at 6 o’clock our favourable wind deserted us and was succeeded by one from the north which veered to the NW and increased to a fresh gale. We were at this time off Clowdy Bay [Cloudy Bay], we spent the night plying. Our tacks were disadvantageous and we lost more on the ebb tide than we had gained on the flood.

[Ref: The Journals of Captain James Cook, Voyage II: The Voyage of Resolution and Adventure, 1772-1775, edited by J C Beaglehole].

Note: Cook named the Sound, Queen Charlottes Sound, after the wife of King George III of England. It is now known as Queen Charlotte Sound. Also sometimes Cook writes ‘Clowdy Bay’ and sometimes ‘Cloudy Bay’ as it is now referred to.

 

 

A writer is someone who writes – John Braine

I have just been to a weekend Writers’ Retreat at Mt Richmond estate. It’s an old forestry camp that was converted four years ago into a cafe and motel complex by an English family. Each unit has a name like ‘Charlotte’ instead of a number like 27. They even had a grater so I could grate apple for my muesli.  The food was superb with gluten free and vegan options and the spa was very relaxing.  It reminded me of a writing weekend I went to many years ago with Michael King. He bought in various speakers to give advice like Christine Cole Catley. She told a story, I don’t know if it was then or maybe much later, about Michael King’s mother.  Apparently she used to ring him up and say ‘Are you busy Michael,  or just writing?’

   The ‘just’ says it all. People don’t seem to consider writing as work. I wonder why because it certainly requires concentration and sacrifice. There are so many other things you could be doing but for some of us if you haven’t put pen to paper or typed words into a computer, life doesn’t feel quite right.

   I have also joined a co-operative. A group of Marlborough artisans have got together and rented out a vacant shop in Mariners Mall in Picton opposite the entrance to Fresh Choice. The market is open seven days a week from 10am to 4pm. This is such a great initiative. You should have seen the number of people in there today. On the first day two of my father’s books about Ngakuta Bay sold and also one of my historic Picton postcards. The woman who bought it said, ‘I love post offices’. She was especially pleased to see the historical notes I had put on the back saying when the old Picton Post Office was demolished (1991).  She said that she and her husband had been trying to remember ‘just the other day’.  I am thinking of producing a postcard of Captain Cook standing on the beach at Ship Cove conversing with local Maori.  The image is out of copyright and available from National Library archives in Wellington.

   What a worrying report on an earthquake in Wellington — barges and helicopters as the only method of transport!  I have to go to Wellington in February for a Katherine Mansfield conference. A sculpture of KM is to be unveiled in Lambton Quay while the conference is on.  

  On Thursday evening we have our monthly Writers' meeting in Blenheim. Those of us who have been published are to talk about our experience. We also have to write 100 words on: 'If you've got it, flaunt it.' Also looking forward to an evening at the Gillan Gallery where winners of the inaugural Blenheim Bookworld short story competition will be announced. Then on Monday there’s a Charles Dickens evening, a visiting one-man show, at the Picton Little Theatre. So November is turning out to be a very literary month.

 

 

Every morning at nine o’clock I sit down and await my muse. If she hasn’t shown up by five past I start without her. Tchaikovsky

A big week.  A Kiwi jockey came second in the Melbourne Cup, Barack Obama has been re-elected in the USA, and this weekend there is a Writers’ Retreat at Mt Richmond Estate near the Rai Valley, Garden Marlborough and the Marlborough A & P Show.

   This weekend I am going to a Writers' Retreat at Richmond Estate near the Rai Valley township. Yesterday I picked up a carton full of books to take with me containing the journals of Captain Cook edited by Beaglehole, four large volumes and a series of charts drawn on the voyages.  I have interloaned the Journals twice before but have never seen the charts. I will be working on the Second Voyage during the retreat as Cook visited Ship Cove three times on that voyage and so there are a lot more journal entries to be transcribed.

   On 12 November until February 2013 there will be an artisans’ market in Mariners Mall in Picton. I am taking part with some local books for sale and also some cards that I have produced.  Also Reflections, an anthology published by Picton Poets in 2012 will be for sale. The idea is for this to be a cooperative venture with two volunteers on each day.  There is a charge for each artist to cover the rent but no commission on sales.

   This will be the first time since Garden Marlborough began that I have missed it because I opted to go to a Writers' Retreat instead.  I usually attend a workshop or a lecture or go on a garden tour (by bus), but most of all I enjoy walking around the market seeing all the stalls in Seymour Square on Sunday.  So many stalls filled with items to do with gardening, jazz music playing and the smell of coffee and food wafting in the air. This garden fete would be one of the highlights of living in Marlborough.

    I don't know what's happened to the weather, it’s so cold usually in November we can turn off the heating and stop lighting the fire, but not this year.  It takes so much energy keeping warm.  I remember when we were at school at Labour Weekend we had to put away our winter uniform and start wearing our summer uniform.  Many of us continued to follow this regime but not this year.

   This afternoon I’ve been invited to an open day at the Picton Visitor Information Centre (i-SITE).  This is for tourist operators in Marlborough and I offer heritage walks for cruise ship passengers. Congratulations to Rachel Holland at Picton i-SITE.  Also congratulations to the Edwin Fox committee who were joint runners-up in the Heritage and Environment category in the Trust Power Community Awards and also to the Picton Maritime Festival committee who won in the Arts and Culture category. These awards are in their 12^th year and acknowledge the work of volunteers and organisations in Marlborough. Next year we should consider nominating the Marlborough Writers’ committee. The group meets monthly and is a sub branch of the Top of the South Branch of the NZ Society of Authors (PEN NZ Inc).

 

 

 

Be   humble for you are made of Earth. Be noble for you are made of stars - Serbian proverb quoted on Word-a-Day.

I’m late posting (usually Tuesdays), because I have had a few days in Nelson. My favourites: a studio at Tahuna Holiday Park overlooking the estuary and a tree in front of the unit exactly like the one from the movie Tree of Life and most of all walking on Tahunanui Beach. As it was midweek I visited the Farmers’ Market on a Wednesday afternoon at Fashion Island where I was tempted by flowers, olives and heritage plants. Usually I like to visit Nelson in the weekend so I can walk around the Saturday market. Later I visited the Suter Art Gallery to see the current exhibition and was inspired by a series of paintings showing colourful figures moving in space, blurring into each other with indistinguishable features.

   I always like to take my time driving home slowly. I called in to have a coffee at the Forrester’s Cafe right on the border of Nelson and Marlborough province. I wanted to check out the gluten free and vegan options as I am going to a Writers’ Retreat there next weekend. Do look out for the cafe and stop for a rest. They suggested I write to Council to reinstate the sign that tells you where the boundary is. At present the structure is still there but it is covered in graffiti. The road signs are all in excellent condition, on some bends it’s recommended you only do 25 kph!

   I love browsing in Havelock, home to green lip mussels. Sadly the Maori craft shop has closed. I always looked forward to touching the huge white bird just inside the doorway, sculpted by Clem Mellish. The business has been replaced by a shop selling outdoor motors and sporting goods.

   I arrived home to admire all my roses blooming after the half bucket of sheep pellets I gave them in September: Mutabilis, Gruss an Aachen, Fruhlingsgold, Katherine Mansfield and Sally Holmes, Souvenir de la Malmaison and Anais Segalas, a cerise-purple rose brought out by early settlers and found on old graves in cemeteries. I have previously mentioned Cecile Brunner used by the ‘Picton flower ladies’ for posies for Cruise ship passengers. Sadly I also read news on Facebook of a friend who had broken her leg while on a mission of good.

NZ King Salmon decision

   The decision on NZ King Salmon farms has been postponed until 22 February 2013. In relation to this today on ‘This Way Up’, I heard a radio interview and the term ‘surfenomics’. What is the value of things like a surf wave or a coastline or a walk on a wonderful beach? How much revenue/cash does the natural resource generate? How much would people be willing to pay to keep it if it was under threat or could be harmed? These are the same questions that have been raised in relation to the salmon farms issue. The government thinks it will be of value as more jobs will be created (cash). People feel their properties could be devalued (cash). Tourists might decide not to visit the Sounds and go elsewhere (cash). The main thing for me is altering the environment, a coastline that has been like this for centuries is under threat from a proposed built environment. How much would Marlborough people and other New Zealanders who own property in the Sounds or value holidaying here or even Tourism organisations be prepared to pay to maintain the natural beauty of the area for future generations? 

Marine reserves in the Ross Sea - talks fail

It was only recently when I went to a talk organised by Forest and Bird in Marlborough that I learnt about the number of countries involved in Antarctica. 24 countries and the European Union are members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). This organisation met in Hobart to discuss a proposal by New Zealand and the United States to set up marine reserves in the Ross Sea area which included creating a ‘special research zone’. Unfortunately after two weeks the talks have failed. Russia, China and the Ukraine were concerned about the fishing restrictions.

Literary matters

The Library Association (LIANZA), wants people to lobby their MPs to keep NZ libraries free. The relevant Bill is scheduled for 7 November. You can support the association at http://www.facebook.com/KeepPublicLibrariesFree and The Yellow Birds is a haunting war story set in Iraq told in spare poetic prose.

  

 

You don’t choose a life, you live a life.

The quotation is from The Way, a film about a small group of people searching for meaning in their lives who ‘connect’ while on a pilgrimage in northern Spain.  Martin Sheen plays a man who has lost his son in an accident while he was on a pilgrimage.  He decides to do the same pilgrimage himself, the Camino de Santiago, to cope with the loss and to try and make sense of his son’s death.  In the process he encounters challenges faced by several others making the journey and together they find a sense of community.  The film is written and directed by Emilio Estevez, Martin Sheen’s son (in real life), who incidentally got inspiration to write the script, especially the dialogue, while working in his vineyard.  His fiancée and his parents thought he had gone slightly crazy when he started digging up the front garden to plant grapes. Those of us who live in Marlborough would understand his behaviour.

Pacific migration research

   Recent findings by University of Otago researchers in Marlborough have given insight into Pacific migration patterns. They studied the DNA of four Rangitane iwi buried at the Wairau Bar over 700 years ago. Their study of the mitochondrial DNA showed they came from ‘a variety of backgrounds rather than from a tight knit family group’.  Future research on DNA from other Pacific countries may provide more information about Polynesian migration to New Zealand.

Inaugural Reeves lecture

   Did you hear the first Reeves lecture? This lecture was initiated to honour Sir Paul Reeves who has Marlborough connections. The talk was first given in August and broadcast on Radio NZ National at 6.05pm on Monday night (22 October). Historian, Dame Anne Salmond, gave the inaugural lecture.  It wasn’t mentioned but the story I like is about the swarm of bees that flew into St John in the Wilderness Church at Koromiko while he was being christened. This church also has associations with Katherine Mansfield.  When she was visiting Picton in her youth she would sometimes accompany John Greensill, a lay preacher, and travel with him in a horse and gig from Picton to the little wooden church at Koromiko. The church is on State Highway 1 on the RHS of the road as you are driving towards Blenheim. You can stop and have a look at an Historic Places Trust plaque set on a stone in the grounds.  It is possible to see inside the historic church. There is an iron grille on the interior door but you can look through and see the pews and a giant clam shell used for christenings.

 Against the Current documentary

   The documentary I mentioned last time, Against the Current, will be screening in Marlborough next year. A November screening is scheduled for Dunedin.

 

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)