Pages

Monday, January 27, 2014

Tuesday Poem: The Kinds of Feelings that Happen on Summer Beaches

I spotted this poetry poster from the Phantom Billstickers in town the other day. It seemed appropriate for the season.


This is actually a song lyric. The artist Lawrence Arabia is the musical guise of James Milne.

If the words are a bit hard to make out from my photo, you can find a performance on Youtube. I have no idea how to embed this, sorry. I will try and find out, and edit the post later.

For more Tuesday Poems, visit the main hub site. This week, there is a poem by Christchurch poet Helen Jacobs, with links to other Tuesday Poem bloggers in the sidebar.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

More Street Art


Another in the series of large murals that have appeared around the city as part of the Rise Street Art Festival. This is just a part of a larger mural, I was rather taken by the slightly demented looking seagulls.

Thursday, January 09, 2014

Rise Street Art Festival

I am on a mission to locate and photograph all the murals in the city as shown on the map for the Rise Street Art Festival. Here are a couple to be going on with.



There are plenty of blank walls in the city that need brightening up!

Sunday, January 05, 2014

The Word for the Year

It's an internet thing ... or so it seems ... choosing a word for the year. I was a bit dubious about it, but in 2011 I decided to give it a go, and chose "open".

This wasn't quite what I had in mind..

So I abandoned the whole idea, and was wondering whether to try again this year, and thinking maybe not, when the word "move" popped into my head. After moving house, and being aware that more exercise would be a good thing, and wanting to move on in various ways, it seemed appropriate. Only not the earth, OK? We would like to be done with the earth moving around here.

Images from my walk of a few days back. I headed for a park which is based on a disused quarry, and walked along the track that goes up to the top and around the quarry area, with fantastic views from the top.




(For those of you in the US, I hope the blue sky will make you feel a bit warmer).

Wednesday, January 01, 2014

A New Year and a New Start


So here we are in our new home (we have been here just over a month now) looking out at the view of the city with approximately two tall buildings remaining. That's counting only the ones that go past the horizon. There are a few medium ones, as well. And a lot of cranes. At least we are getting to the stage where some of the cranes are putting buildings up instead of tearing them down. (I zoomed in to take the photo above, otherwise the buildings would be just dots in the centre of the photo).

Leaving our previous house of twenty nine years was a long story. I didn't really want to. After all EQC (the government earthquake insurance organisation which covers the first $100,000 of damage) and/or our insurance company were going to fix it for us, eventually. And yes, when they did, we would have to find somewhere temporary to live for several months. So we would have to move twice - everything would have to be moved out for repairs, then moved back in. Shifting here was a huge effort, but it only had to be done once. And while there are things I miss - like being able to walk about two blocks to the shop if we ran out of milk or eggs - I am enjoying the change of scenery, and the beautiful garden,far more than I expected. Perhaps it is really true that "a change is as good as a holiday".

Of course, we still have about a million boxes left to unpack...

Still, the kitchen is sorted, my little sewing room/office is sorted, more or less, and I finally feel ready to move on and have a year that isn't just about sorting out housing issues. (We looked at seventy houses in our search).

Happy New Year to everyone. Dare I say I hope to blog here more regularly this year? It seems very appropriate that this is my one thousandth post.