I've been back in the Secret Garden for a couple of months now.  After leaving my blog to its own devices for three months, I thought I'd dash off a welcome home post as soon as I arrived back. 

A traveller's round-up maybe

or good-to-be-back...

Really it was - and is - good to be back. 
A pity that in that first week home, the biggest gale in nearly 40 years blew any tranquility away. We were lucky here in the Secret Garden. We only suffered loss of power, ash-fall in the night and a few cast willow branches. Elsewhere, forestry lots were smashed to pieces or destroyed by wild fires, trees were uprooted, roads were closed, and cows went unmilked.
Then our friend, Gerald died, and it was hard to find joy in being back home. 

Two days ago we remembered losing Elwin, and I know that it's time to gather my strength again and celebrate what I do have, and what I can do.

Spring is here, early summer really, a match for the season that was blooming in England when I arrived at the beginning of June; the beginning of that remarkable heated summer... Now there's a tale to tell!


Double pink may, Crataegus laevigata 'Rosea Flore Pleno' (seedling grown)

Time for Autumn

It is the time of chrysanthemums in this North Canterbury Secret Garden. A single plant romps with gay abandon through the rose bushes along the verandah. No need for staking when there are handy rose bushes nearby.

Time for medlars too - if they take your fancy... Friend Jo found a crop in an old garden and we've Googled them, admired their rosehip forms, and yes, tasted them. There's no need for any laying out on sawdust. They just 'blet' quietly and within a few days, in a bowl on the kitchen bench - the skin changes from firm, to wrinkled and soft. If you can push yourself past the feeling that they are rotten fruit - I decided that they looked like spicy buns instead - medlars have a light apple flavour, with the gritty texture of cooked quince. But eating around the large seeds is fiddly and not very rewarding. I can understand why they are used in preserves instead of as a fresh-ish fruit. I'd still like to have a few trees here in the Secret Garden for their lovely flowers and foliage, so yes, I have saved some seed.

There has been time for celebrating Mothers

with Kitty's treat of a sun-filled breakfast tray to begin Mothers' Day,

and afternoon tea with my own mother.

It was time for someone to move house! 

This one - possibly a refugee from the Earthquake Red Zone - was parked in the village for nearly a fortnight. 

There was a time to wash and dry a new stash 
of pretty linen for my shop. 

It is time to look to the Future.

I found this silver ball at the same dump shop as the linen. 

The silver ball is for me, not my shop.

When I was a child in the 60s, one of these set on a pedestal, was a genteel garden ornament. I was enchanted by them.

They belonged with rose bushes in a row along each side of the path. 

They belonged with a white ceramic swan displayed on the front window sill.

Time passed and they became very uncool in my generation's eyes. 

That neat front garden ethic: it's almost gone now - replaced all along those suburban streets with 1.8 metre plank fences - for privacy of course.

But the ball, the ball... I have wanted one (or more) to float in the occasionally flowing ephemeral stream ever since Elwin and I placed our house to overlook it. 

How strange to have come across this one, streaked with paint and jammed into a cardboard box at the dump shop, at a time when I am constantly questioning where I belong and whether I should stay here. 

You're not finished here; remember to come back,

the ball is telling me as I fly off into Arabian Nights and Summer days.

Medlar  Mespilus germanica

Balance

Libby over at D-scribes has been writing about the robins nesting in her hedge. Over and over again, I am grateful, not to mention over-awed, by the wild-life that appears in my garden and around my house. Watching regulars and noticing new visitors, often feels like the greatest privilege in Life for me.



This stick insect appeared in our back porch a few days ago, probably forsaking the raspberry canes around the entrance as they loose their leaves. It's body is about three inches long and it is a native species. I have never seen them on trees or shrubs, so can't be sure if they are truly native to this area, or the offspring of some babies I released about ten years ago. They apparently like the rosaceous plants even though the rose family is not endemic to New Zealand. The trap, it seems, in having taken to an introduced plant species, is dealing with the deciduous nature of roses, raspberries, brambles et al. Come leaf-fall, they have to leave home and look for winter shelter elsewhere.



I had another go at photographing the bellbird. His shape makes a nice silhouette and his wing flashes are just visible in this photo. The bellbird seems like the fantail and tui, to have adapted well to modern gardens. They enjoy feeding on the flowers of the introduced eucalyptus, garden clematis, and ripe orchard fruits. And as I mentioned in my previous post, non-spider-proofed weather boards harbour a rich winter food source.  



These cats: they are not the best of friends, so this was a rare recent shot of acceptance if not companionship. They are both hunters. They hunt in this garden mercilessly. Aelfy, the black cat, is a mouser, which is a blessing. But he also catches skinks, ground-feeding birds and fledglings. Catkin, the tabby, who spent his first year fending for himself in the wild, is a big game hunter, though he seems less inclined to bring down hares, rabbits and poultry now that he has been neutered.  Somehow the bird population, continues to thrive in this garden of mainly introduced species. What I see is that the birds' strength is the scruffy places, the untrimmed, untamed, overgrown spinneys. Introduced gorse and hawthorn provided dense prickly havens, unappealing to cats, while the native pohuehue vine - which I curse endlessly - provides an impenetrable cat puzzle and good nesting sites. Untidy weedy overgrowth and old seed stems - that the good gardener learns to trim away - are full of insect life: good for the birds and bio-diversity in general. The lizards get half a chance in a weed bank too. 

With recent controversy over the place of cats in New Zealand, we could maybe give equal thought to how our human inclinations - affect the birds.


Gorse Ulex europeaus
Hawthorn Crataegus spp
Pohuehue, muehlenbeckia Muehelenbeckia australis

Postcard From Cairo

Well actually it was posted in Italy: it arrived this morning, a reminder that Keith and Barbara will be back to retrieve their bus in a few days time.
A whole month of Autumn days has passed since they parked their bus and flew off ...

Foggy mornings;

Rainy days; and for the first time early in April, I saw the garden's bellbird feeding within inches of my kitchen window. His mossy plumage with white wing flashes usually makes him hard to find high in the trees as he chimes his lovely call: "like small bells exquisitely tuned," according to Captain Cook. This little nectar feeder had been feasting on the late pears, but the end of supply and wet weather drove him down to hunt insects on spent perennial seed stalks, as well as using this potted tree to hunt weatherboard spiders from. So close at times I could see his beady black eyes, but never easy to photograph through wet glass.

After the rain there is always sunshine again, and a return to outdoor dining. 
Finding ourselves in Lyttelton on a warm sunny afternoon inclined us to ambling, eating ice creams and viewing the street art.

There hardly seems anything left of the commercial area of the port town

but the local community responded to the destruction caused by the ongoing earthquakes, with optimism and creativity. While there are shocking reminders of the damage at every turn, the town had a quiet energy about it - and no shortage of photographic subjects!

Back at home one of the joys of a moist autumn are the field mushrooms that pop up across the land. There are never enough at one picking for more than a slice of toast or two, but that makes them one of the season's prizes: to be cooked quickly with butter in a stainless steel pan, laid on good grainy toast with some fresh parsley and savoured for lunch.

Just as the mild, wet weather brings out the mushrooms, so it  makes the grass grow. I like to think that one more cut and it will be time to take the mowers in for their annual service.

But, with one month to go before I leave for an English summer I suspect this grass has a lot more growing to do before cold weather checks its growth.

Bellbird, Korimako, Makomako  Anthornis melanura

Looking for Good

It's nearly a month since I last blogged. Not that I don't think about it. But with a birthday to celebrate...

a music video to find props for ...

apple cordons to prune...

Dunedin Street stock to photograph...

and post!

not to mention finalising and awarding a memorial scholarship,

... there's neither the time nor mental energy for blogging. An unfortunate side effect of this is that I am not checking in on all my favourite blogs as regularly as I would like, nor have I been paying daily attention to my Comment feed.  

One post in particular has irked a reader and I suddenly realise the responsibility that goes with hosting an online forum - because enabling the Comment facility makes a blog a forum.  I am not prepared to let one individual rant, rave and publicly villify Father Jack or anyone else I have written about. Like anyone else I am quite capable of biased, unkind and intolerant thoughts. However, I choose not to express them on this site, hoping that visitors will appreciate the peace and reflection that they find here. For those visitors who cannot recognise and respect a haven when the see it, I will wield my censor's pen.

Thankfully, I am surrounded - and especially this past week - by wonderful people who love Life and are generous in their living of it. 

A wedding brought friends from around NZ and the World, together. 

Two guests, Keith and Barbara, have availed themselves of Lady Mondegreen's Secret Bus Stop, as they travel via the wedding to Cairo!

Welly Jewell Dyk, and his family lunched with us.

Handy Andy, worked hard here, ate up all last season's hazelnuts, and partied hard.

Acceptance, forgiveness, reflection, joy, and forward movement were all evident during the various gatherings, including the wedding itself, which brought old friends and  family together last week.

Jane and Gary, thank you for being such strong and uplifting focal points in all of our lives.

That strength will surely nourish your marriage.

Around Rotorua

So little time these days to honour Lady Mondegreen's Secret Garden: to make interesting blog posts ... and sad to have lost the ability to Comment on most of my favourite blogs.

But this morning - a real letter in the mail, with even more remarkably, photographic prints enclosed! Memories of a January holiday; of friends gathered together: was it really less than two months ago? Whatever, a letter in an envelope is always a treat to read. And just by chance, I had been out early and returned home with a delicious pain au chocolate for my breakfast. Reasons to relax for awhile and remember:

The pleasure of dancing with, and to the music of friends from around the country, and from around the World, during the NZ annual Morris Dancing Tour held this year, in and around Rotorua ...

The realisation that other tourists can provide as much novelty as the local sights ...

 which are spectacular, at every turn, from the Colonial grandeur of the Bath House in the Government Gardens 

to the remarkable harnessing of geothemal energy by the Wairekei Power Station, near Taupo.

Rotorua's tourist industry dates back to the 19th century, 

but the Amorangi Museum at Holden's Bay seems to be a well-guarded secret: a superb small enthusiast run heritage park, where curatorial excellence is combined with a trusting openess, to entice visitors into a disconcertingly familiar past. (Am I really that old?).

What a thrill to make a new friend - entirely as a result of this blog - and to go fishing with him.  

Ernie Skudder, the great-grandson of Thomas Skudder, who built my childhood home, runs a tourist fishing operation in Rotorua, and treated Kitty and me to a trip - a first for both of us - with impressive results.

Kitty caught most of those fish, while Ernie and I discussed his family and my house. 

Cooking the rainbow trout, became a social business that evening in the holiday park kitchen, as fellow-campers contributed onions and seasoning, and David rescued it from the barbecue. It was perfect, with plenty to go around all the helpers.

After a few more days sight-seeing, notably taking in the Wai-o-Tapu thermal reserve,

It was time to head home to the Secret Garden and Earthquake repairs.

Thanks for the photos David!


Breakfast china: Avondale Selection (Crown Lynn) 'Camelot'