NZ King Salmon is proposing the creation of nine more salmon farms in the Marlborough Sounds. Submissions are currently being heard by a Board of Inquiry set up by the Environmental Protection Authority.  Hearings could take up to eight weeks. Opinion is divided on this.  Some people are opposed. They really care about the possible effects on the environment like pollution of the water and visual pollution. In fact 40 boats took part in a protest flotilla on Saturday. This was covered by TV One and print media.

   Earlier this year I went on a Dolphin Watch tour with visiting relatives. We called into Ruakaka Bay to view the salmon farm.  It seemed like a great enterprise but there was only one farm.  The seals basking in the sun looked happy. Then we went on to Motuara Island, a bird sanctuary and of course the place where Captain James Cook claimed sovereignty.  I dignified this inlet with the name of Queen Charlottes Sound [Now Queen Charlotte Sound], and took formal possession of it and the adjacent lands in the name and for the use of his Majesty.  As Cook hadn’t yet circumnavigated New Zealand he was probably unsure of exactly what land area he was claiming in the name of King George III. 

   With my visitors I climbed up to the top of the viewing platform on Motuara Island where you can get a panoramic view of the places mentioned by Cook.  On a clear day you can see Te-Ika-a-Maui, the North Island.  I read somewhere that ‘the fish of Maui’ could also have been a reference to the tail of the constellation, Scorpio, which resembles a fish hook.  The legendary Maui and other Polynesian explorers might have used this as a navigational tool to find New Zealand.

   I am currently working on a book outlining Cook’s time in the outer Marlborough Sounds.  He spent over 100 days at Ship Cove in the 1770s and it became his favourite anchorage to allow his men to rest, and to repair and provision the ships. In his Journal entries he describes the landscape, the weather, daily life and makes detailed observations of resident Maori.

   The main purpose of my book is to enable visitors to stand on the beach at Ship Cove or on the summit of Motuara Island or on the deck of a Cruise ship and read in Cook’s words what he thought, the problems he faced.  I am adapting the text for the modern reader. The way technology is going I think this will make a great ebook. It will be so much easier for the reader with digital referencing rather than having masses of footnotes or endnotes.  There could even be a children’s version with a treasure map.

   Like the great scholar and historian John Beaglehole said:

   It is I think worthwhile sometimes to stand upon the spot where a great man stood and to look upon things – hills and the sea – that he looked upon ... We can see him perhaps, walking up this beach, and hear the voices of his men, we can take pride in reflecting that it was through him that our history became part of the history of the world.

   Getting back to the proposed salmon farms it is essential to balance the economic benefit to the Marlborough/Nelson region like the creation of new jobs (which the government is keen on), with the long-term environmental effects. What would Cook have thought about it? With the use of a seine net and the help of skilled Maori fishermen he was able to easily catch enough fish to feed the entire ships’ company.

Who can foresee the future? What kind of legacy are we going to leave for generations to come?  Let’s hope the Board's decision is the right one.

 

 

Over the weekend mowers were in action and neighbours were water blasting their driveway and it feels like summer is not that far away though heavy rain is being forecast for the South Island in October. And today is cold. I saw two bumblebees yesterday so hopefully they will pollinate my broad beans which have lots of flowers on them.

   Poetry is the theme this week.  Did you see the article in the Sunday Star Times (24 September, A 12) about Bill Manhire? His advice to writers is to ‘Read, read, read’ (unlike some others who say: ‘Write, write, write’). Why he has an AA sign saying ‘Katherine Mansfield Birthplace’ behind him is never mentioned!

   He is quoted as saying that he’s retiring as Director of Victoria University’s Institute of Modern letters (IML), to become ‘a proper writer’.  Damien Wilkins will take over as Director. Bill Manhire has a new book out, Selected Poems (Victoria University Press). The article made me dip into my copy of What to call your Child (Godwit, 1999).  A number of the poems are based on Manhire’s experience in Antarctica. My copy is number 673 of a limited hardback edition of 1500.  ‘Visiting Mr Shackleton’ was a poem that confirmed it was OK to write Found Poetry, a form we all had a go at. I loved the way he used phrases from a visitors' book.

    There’s also a villanelle about a lucky Lotto shop.  Interesting because we mentioned this form at our last poetry meeting when one of our group had written a poem based on this form.  Another well known poem, though not in the book,  is ‘Erebus Voices’, the poem he wrote in 2004 for Sir Ed Hillary to read at the service to commemorate the 25^th anniversary of the Erebus disaster in Antarctica.

   Manhire talks about a ‘Wizard of Oz’ syndrome that is common to artists. You want the work to be ‘big and booming and occupying the whole world, but you’re just the little person behind the curtain, crossing out this word and putting in a better word.’ He doesn’t believe in inspiration, just hard work. That reminds me of the quote I put on the Picton Poets’ Facebook page a while ago.

     Bill Manhire acknowledges that in New Zealand poetry is important for ceremonial occasions like weddings and funerals but not so much in daily life whereas in other cultures it is very important to people’s lives.  In the introduction to Reflections we said that for Picton Poets poetry is ‘central to our lives helping us to convey our vision of life in this place we call home.’ Maybe looking back that statement was a bit esoteric but it seemed right at the time (Reflections, Picton Poets an anthology, (Prisma Print, 2011).

In October Bill Manhire will be at the Frankfurt Book Fair http://buchmesse.de/en

 

 

 

If I knew where the good songs come from, I’d go there more often.

– Leonard Cohen

 

I was tweeting about how there has been a change of stand for the New Zealand Society of Authors at the Frankfurt Book Fair to allow better access for New Zealand authors and now I have a German airline following my tweets!
   I know I said I was going to write more about 9/11 but today I want to tell you about something more inspiring. It is an initiative from Marlborough school students.  In 2010 Springlands School had the idea of creating a Taylor River Writers' Walk.  So far there are three poems engraved on granite plaques set on huge rocks along the riverbank.  The idea of the project was part of the school’s environmental education programme.  Students wanted to remind people to look after the river as it is special. Other schools plan to be involved in future.
    A third poem has been recently unveiled. The poem, a combined effort by three Mayfield School pupils, begins:

The Taylor River flows through Te Waiharakeke,

glistening in the sunshine,

drifting with the wind,

peaceful ...

 

   Another initiative from school students can be seen in Nelson.  Tahunanui Primary School’s Room 12 students decided to honour well known author Maurice Gee by placing a plaque on a seat at the start of the path leading up to the centre of New Zealand. The plaque reads ‘Bide a wee’ and was inspired after the students read one of Maurice Gee’s books The World around the Corner. Two of the characters meet at a seat which has a plaque with the words ‘Bide a wee’ on it. The students were disappointed to find there was no plaque on the seat as featured in the book. They wrote to the editor of the Nelson Mail and in response the Nelson City Council provided a plaque. This plaque complements the one on a chair on the banks of the Maitai River put in place by the Top of the South Branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors in May 2011. 

   The Taylor River Writers’ Walk and the new plaque for Maurice Gee will be welcome additions to the Top of the South Literary Trail scheduled to be released as a brochure or website or both in 2013.
    My mother told me once that my great-grandmother of Scottish origin used to say things like ‘Bide a wee’ meaning ‘Stay a while’, and used the word ‘bairn’ instead of child. She was also told not to ask questions so we missed out on a lot of family history. I can’t remember the phrase she used to get my mother to stop being so inquisitive but strangely enough I can still hear my mother’s voice in my head as she told me about it.

 

Sources:

Leonard Cohen quote from:  The Exercise Book: Creative writing exercises from Victoria University's Institute of Modern Letters edited by Bill Manhire, Ken Duncum, Chris Price and Damien Wilkins, Victoria University Press 2011, reprinted 2012.

 

Information about Maurice Gee plaque from NZSA Top of the South e-newsletter 14 September 2012.

Article about the Taylor River Walk: The Marlborough Express, Friday 24 August 2012

It’s eleven years since 9/11 and the destruction of the twin towers in downtown Manhattan in New York and yet it all feels so recent.

   I was in the kitchen helping my daughter get ready for school when I heard the news on the radio. I rushed to turn on the television and watched the images as they were replayed over and over again. First one plane and then another flying into the buildings, a plume of smoke rising, people running in the street and finally the buildings collapsing one after the other all in the space of about two hours. My immediate thought was if this can happen in New York then we are also at risk in New Zealand. I told my daughter she wasn’t going to school that day. I don’t know why I said that, the world suddenly seemed an unsafe place.

   On television we saw the firemen and those first on the scene going into the buildings to help and wondered if they would ever come out again. One woman passed a fireman on the stairs going up as she was coming down. She said: ‘He had such a nice face’.  Along with others I wrote an opinion piece for the Marlborough Express which was published. I talked about remembering to stop and smell the roses. It seems a bit trite now but it certainly gave us a feeling of community and of trying to spend more time with family and friends.

   Days later in the supermarket my daughter started crying and I asked her why. She said they were playing the same sad music they played on television when the Twin Towers were hit.

   A name started to surface as to who could be responsible, Osama bin Laden and an organisation called Al Quaeda. The President of the United States at the time, George Bush, retaliated by announcing the ‘War on Terror’ and invaded Afghanistan with the support of Britain. There was talk of Iraq having ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’. Again I watched the bombing attacks on television and felt sympathy for civilians in another country.

   Osama bin Laden was eventually found in May 2011 and killed. Many believed the world would now be safer but conflict still continues in Afghanistan and elsewhere. It took a long time to decide on a fitting memorial for those who died on 9/11. A decade after the event the public could finally visit the site that had been referred to as ‘Ground Zero’ to view a National September 11 Memorial. The design enables people to walk past swamp oaks and lawns to the centre where the Twin Towers once stood. Here there are two huge pools set in the ground on the exact footprint of the original 110-storey buildings with waterfalls cascading down over granite. Around the pools are etched the names of the nearly 3000 people who were killed on 11 September 2001 in the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and on United Airlines Flight 93. There are also the names of the six people killed in the World Trade Centre bombing in 1993.  A museum is also planned for the site.

   The architect who designed the memorial, Michael Arad said in an interview that he wanted to create a place of 'quiet reflection' in the city and the sound of the water allows this to happen drowning out trucks and other city noises. With the creation of two voids, both with waterfalls and where the pools never fill and the water vanishes underground, he wanted to represent what is no longer here and yet in some way it still is. A tree which stood in front of one of the tower buildings survived the destruction, was removed from the site, nurtured back to life and replanted on the memorial site. It is the first tree to flower in spring, weeks ahead of all the others, a symbol of hope, and people have their photographs taken in front of it.

    As a result of 9/11 security was tightened at airports around the world, anti-terrorist measures were put in place and in Picton we lost access to the main shipping wharf.

We had a great Writers’ meeting on Monday night. The group is supportive and the feedback was carefully thought out and well received. There were five of us which is a good number and the convener says we don’t want more than eight. If a group is too large it is impossible for everyone to read their work and receive feedback – if you want to get home before midnight.  

    On Tuesday I helped with the Picton Museum stall at the stadium in Blenheim. We were promoting books about Marlborough that the museum has for sale and also the proposed museum whaling extension. Ron Perano parked the replica whale boat Swiftsure outside the Stadium, that’s the boat that was invited to take part in the Queen’s Jubilee pageant on the river Thames in June this year. It will be one of the boats housed in the extension wing. The other is the whale chaser Cachalot. Submissions to Council for support of the extension close on 12 September. More on this another time

   I imagine everyone remembers where they were when they heard Princess Diana had been killed in a tunnel in Paris. It’s hard to believe it was 15 years ago. I was standing in the kitchen when the phone rang with the news. When John F Kennedy (no relation) was assassinated I was in bed in my dormitory at boarding school. When the twin towers were destroyed I was in the kitchen helping my daughter get ready to go to school.  More on this next week.  For some reason I cannot recall where I was when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. Surely this was the most significant event of all?  And of course the famous words:  ‘One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’  

   In winter I make vegetarian lasagne. My favourite recipe is in Rowan Bishop’s vegetarian cook book.  I buy Orgran  gluten free pasta sheets.  (See the Orgran website www.orgran.com ).  I use my favourite vegetable, eggplant or aubergine plus pumpkin and anything else in season that I feel like adding and spinach from the garden.  First I make a home-made tomato sauce with a red onion and a can of tomatoes and I use pizza thyme for seasoning as it survives the winter well in the herb wheel and broad leaf parsley.  Then I make a white sauce using rice flour instead of wheat flour. I use Blue River sheep milk feta for the topping and rice crumbs for a bit of crunch and bake the lasagne at 180 degrees for about 35 minutes.  I have also discovered a new vegetable, a cross between a brussels sprout and kale and the florets are very sweet. They are best if you cut them in half before stir frying or you can add them to a slow cooker recipe towards the end of cooking. The only thing I don’t like is that they come packaged in a plastic container.

   I am going to a quiz show this evening being organised as part of Adult Learners’ week. Hopefully the questions won’t be too taxing. We have a team of six so it should be fun. 

 

 

What a weekend in Picton.  Even though the weather was not great the welcome for Olympic gold medallist Joseph Sullivan went ahead on the Picton Foreshore. He arrived by water sitting in the bow of an old quadruple scull skiff and received a great welcome from the crowd. He made a speech, signed autographs and had his photograph taken with his fans. The Mayor referred to him as 'Marlborough's greatest sportsman'. Now there's going to be a road named after him down by Endeavour Park next to Queen Charlotte College.  Also there is a big sign as you enter Nelson Square.

I had to spend some time on Monday sorting out access to the Internet and my email because I have a free McAfee security suite with Telecom which I have had for quite a long time. McAfee updated the service last Saturday and for some reason some customers at different times were affected.  Anyway after talking to a very helpful Telecom representative and being transferred to McAfee somewhere in the world, maybe in the USA, I had to uninstall the McAfee Security Suite and then download it again which went OK until I entered my password. For some reason I had to change my password for McAfee though my old password still works fine for Telecom and Xtramail.  It makes you realize how much we rely on communication by email and being able to access the news and other information on the Internet, not to mention our Picton Poets’ group on Facebook and being able to write this weekly blog and occasional tweet.

I have never understood why Marlborough misses out on all the film festival films. I remember the excitement when I lived in Wellington of not being entirely sure that you had picked the right films – the ones everyone else talked about later. And why did ‘The Door’ with Helen Mirren vanish so quickly from the movie theatre in Blenheim? I was still trying to find out about the statement ‘content may disturb’ when it disappeared.  Anyway ‘Hope Springs’ with Meryl Streep looks like it could be a film worth going to and the ‘Well Digger’s Daughter’.  I caught up with ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ on DVD in the weekend. I really like Bill Nighy and of course Judy Dench was superb (and how come these famous names aren’t in my Microsoft Word vocabulary and are all underlined in red so I have to make time to right click and add them?).

Our local Picton Cinema has some good art house films too but you often find yourself as an audience of one or two and the seats aren’t very comfortable though the two small theatres are well heated. I am not quite sure why Picton people don’t support this initiative though they do support films shown at a group screening like for the Kaipupu Point Mainland Society, local churches and so on.

 

                                                                                                                                                                        

                                                                                                                                                             

    On Sunday 26 August at 1pm on the Picton Foreshore the people of Marlborough will be welcoming home Joseph Sullivan, 2012 Olympic gold medallist.  It takes dedication and commitment to achieve at such a high level.  

   On Picton Harbour we also see young sailors in their small yachts like optimists and lasers competing with the hope of future success.  Congratulations also to Declan and Taylor Burn and other young sailors from the Queen Charlotte Yacht Club. With its lovely natural harbour and easy access to the Marlborough Sounds it's not surprising that champions like this are produced.

   It’s also good to hear from the Prime Minister, John Key, that our troops could be out of Afghanistan by April 2013. They have done a good job helping with the reconstruction in Bamiyan Province but now it appears New Zealanders may be being targeted in the war zone. The latest three deaths were on Sunday 20 August (NZ time), and included a woman NZ soldier. They were travelling in a Humvee, the last in a convoy of four transporting another soldier to hospital. The three were killed instantly by a roadside bomb. This brings to ten the number of NZ soldiers killed in Afghanistan to date.

   What’s this about New Zealanders not reading NZ fiction? (Sunday Star Times, 20 August, Arts Focus A 13). In my opinion they are reading it. Look at all the Book Clubs around the country and the Writers and Readers Festivals. What I think is more likely is that people are getting NZ fiction out of their local library (along with novels by overseas authors), and buying non-fiction so the publishers respond accordingly. Library issues of fiction are much greater than for non-fiction according to statistics from my local library.

   Congratulations to Craig Potton publishers for winning the 2012 NZ Book of the Year award in the NZ Post Book Awards.  New Zealand’s Native Trees is a beautiful book and the photography is outstanding. Did you know that kohekohe mentioned in a recent Marlborough Express article about a planned 1080 drop at Ship Cove is also called NZ mahogany and in the South Island is restricted to the Marlborough Sounds and Golden Bay?