Labour Weekend

Time to plant your tomato plants outdoors... if you live in Rangiora. But if you live on the other side of the River, here in Ashley Bank, beware: the frosts can bite till Guy Fawkes date. Wait till then to plant hardy Moneymaker, Russian Red, and other cool-climate, short season varieties like Black Krim.

Time too for the Northern A and P Association Show, and what better photo to open the fair with, than a view from the Rangiora Showgrounds, across the Ashley River willow plantings to the Ashley Downs in the middle distance. On a clear day you can see Mt Grey, but today, it remained shrouded. You must imagine it - centre stage, filling the page.

A fair for a rural farming community: machinery for the farmers, fairground rides for the townsfolk.

There were displays of horse flesh,

art...

produce...

                         and floral skill.

There was something for everyone:

and food of all descriptions.

And of course there was livestock:

and animal by-products...

There were also vehicles of every description:

(showing their true colours)

and wouldn't this one be nice to take us home at the end of the day.

You haven't mentioned the Rugby, remarks Lady Mondegreen, as I bring Labour Weekend to a close.

Oh, I never mention the Rugby, but I shall make an exception this once.

How could I not enjoy the Carnival atmosphere that has prevailed in this country for the last six weeks?  How could I not enjoy being employed to dance for England at the Christchurch Fanzone? How could I not enjoy meeting travelling fans from around the World? How could I not enjoy all the flags a-flying from cars (and jeeps) everywhere - admittedly with an All Black dominance? What a great way to learn your flags of the world!  And yes I understand that the final game was frustrating, but not understanding much else, I was entranced by the haunting karakia calling our men onto the field; by the tears on grown men's faces as their respective anthems were sung, by the veiled provocation of the haka.  Then the despair of injury and lost opportunity on both sides, and the exultation of the Whitebaiter, brought in from his nets, to kick the winning goal. I enjoyed very much, the voluptuous pronunciation by the commentator, of the French players' names, as well as his mellifluous ease with our Pacific Island names. I enjoyed the tenderness of Bernard Lapasset, IRB Chairman, towards both the injured Frenchmen and the New Zealanders, as he presented their medals. I enjoyed it all. My first rugby game and I was gripped.

Another Farewell

Pippa Anders

14 June 1953 - 14 October 2011

Too lovely, too young, but gone just the same.

With a hand-made funeral...

and a lifetime of family and friends gathered at St Aidan's-down-the-road, for a secular ceremony.

We celebrated Pippa's life with a party, which she had helped plan.  It was too easy to imagine her sitting, just along the row in this particular concert, smiling with delight at the easy joy that crested the sorrow:

at her husband, Geoff, fussing with the microphone;

at her son Sam's handiwork - her splendid hand-built coffin;

at her beautiful daughters, Anna and Emily, managing to calm adored grand-children, while giving heart-breaking speeches;

at her mother and brothers re-calling family life from Fontainebleau to Christchurch;

at the heady harmonies of various acapella singers and folk accustomed to singing together  -

Amazing Grace, Nights in White Satin, and negro spirituals accompanied by the New Brighton Ukelele group.

There was food of course, an astounding quantity of baking and sandwiches, whatever people could bring.

There was the opportunity to write on the coffin lid

(as we had done with Elwin's)

And eventually, time to close the coffin.

All the family had a hand at hammering it closed.

A strange time this for me, so close to the anniversary of Elwin's death - to loose a friend who came into my life, and was part of his set, at the same time as he did.  I realise I have reached that phase of life where the funerals I will attend now, will more and more often be the funerals of my friends and peers.

For the dancing, for the sharing, for being with me at Bryony's birth, for being Kitty's god-mother (we never quite came up with a secular name for that role did we), for all those festival cuppas, for your loveliness and support this past year, for everything thankyou Pippa.

St Frideswide's Day

Extract from Beansetting

a novel in progress

by

J.D.Hobby

Frida cradled Aelfgar’s head in her lap, nursing her burden of guilt at this course of events. It began with a night of love: she’d done it before.  It was easy enough when the visitors had been entertained in her father’s great hall at Beamdune, where the mead had flowed and she, the princess royal, had joined with some honoured guest in leading the dance; easy to follow desire into a byre or out into the Bush.  The envoys knew their place, and the edlings and their warriors knew her destiny.  Some of them came again, but nobody pressed her for marriage. Frida used mistletoe to guard against pregnancy, even as she oversaw the building of her priory and prepared for a life of chastity. Then Aelfgar came out of the West, full of hope:  hope of gaining time for Briton - territory even - with a Mercian-Saxon marriage. Aelfgar was small and dark and adamant… desirable: easy to love for a night in the flush of early summer.  But he had returned, in love with Frida and the idea of peace; bearing gifts for his new queen and promises for her father.  She, loving his smile at least, had weakened in her resolve not to receive him.  In the early morning though, Frida had touched her lips to his sleeping brow, caressed his black locks as they spread across her pillow and gone from Beamdune before he woke.  She had gone, regardless of the dangers beyond the Bush, towards her priory at Oxenaforda where two rivers provided some protection from attack, but the low marshy reaches that curved around the great sweep of the Temis gave access to the site.  Aelfgar, hampered by diplomacy as well as uncertainty about the route to Oxenaforda, left as soon as he could in pursuit of his princess.  She was resting, late in the afternoon and towards the end of her journey, in a swineherd’s cote, when the herdsman called from his vantage point amongst the pigs, to announce a horseman approaching.  Frida gathered up her cloak and staff and leaving a gift of beeswax candles with the swine wife, she slipped away under the eaves of the oak wood, hoping to evade her suitor. Withdrawing into leaf dapple and a tangle of undergrowth she watched Aelfgar blunder by on horseback; heard him urge his steed on as he reached clearer ground; heard a deer startle and Aelfgar scream with agony; heard his horse bolt… Dear God, let him be alright, she prayed.  He was lying curled on his side with his knees drawn up and his hands clutching his face sobbing her name. 

“Hush, I’m here,” she soothed, as she knelt and eased his hands away from his face. 

“Ah Frida, forgive me, forgive me. This is my punishment.” He searched for her face with unseeing eyes, both of them closed and already puffing up from the lash of a bough.

“I’m sorry too, I’ve led you a merry chase, and now I must care for you.  But” she added, “I will not marry you. Come” and she raised him up and placed her staff in his hand.  “Lean on me.  There is a place we can be while I tend your wounds.”
             And she led him to the hovel that had been the nun, Margaretha’s; she who had lived out her earthly life tending the chapel at Thornbyrig, and administering the healing waters of her holy well to pilgrims.  When Aelfgar was lying comfortably - grimacing from the fall from his horse now as much as the smarting blow to his eyes - Frida took her staff and began searching the undergrowth around the chapel with it. Aelfgar could not see her clearing away the brambles and snowberry but he did hear the splash and her cry of satisfaction, as she plunged her staff into the uncovered spring. He gasped at the cold as she bathed his eyes with a strip of her shift dipped in the spring water. 

“I think that you are just bruised. You will see again. You have not been struck blind for my sins,” she soothed.

Seeing Red

Holiday time,

and another of Dale Hartley-Brown's productions

hits the stage.

She has built up, over the years a pool of talent,

that she now draws on to produce

both her senior and junior shows.

Dale's graduate and current senior students

enjoy working across the board in stage-production,

directing and choreography, sound, lighting, crewing,

set-design, wardrobe and make-up.

Oh yes; they sing, dance and act too!

And now a rising crop is putting on a musical version of

Little Red Riding Hood...

Like her big sister, in the last production

(Alice! An Adventure inWonderland ),

Kitty indulges in shameless self-promotion:

during the costumed Street-Walk;

during a radio interview with Madeleine Wesselingh,

- the show's director -

at local radio station, Compass FM;

and also in a CTV interview in Christchurch.

Then after a final dress rehearsal under the watchful eyes

of the production team,

which includes big sister Bryony Jamison as joint vocal coach

(with Tess Stephen), Tegan Patrick, Madeleine,

and Ciaran Searle at the sound desk,

(able technician he, but even more able

Shakespearean actor,

surely destined for the Royal Shakespeare Company).

the season begins,

the musical numbers roll...

And Kitty sings her heart out.

Then today, after six shows, it's all over.
Hard to let go: of the buzz of it all, the children's excitement,
the teenagers' easy competence,
the social buzz of friends and neighbours filling the theatre
with generosity and delight in one another's children.
And Kitty, yes I am proud of her performance.
On stage for most of the show, she managed to maintain her character with conviction: bubbly, cheerful, dreamy...
I am full of admiration for her acting and singing ability.
But - she has walked on the fly walk
and high above the auditorium,
and I can see already,
that the technical side of theatre production has her in it's thrall.

Promise

... Of a new Day,

And day lilies to come...

... Of tulip time

and broad beans, like them or not.

Of apples - summer crisp

with their perfect pairing

Pears.

Of  scented quince and stained glass jelly to brighten Winter days.

All this promise - and more - revealed over the last fortnight.

The Master Craftsman

What happens to the windows when a Colonial province's      Neo-Gothic foundations crumble?

Fragments from St Luke's Church, Avonside, Christchurch

Graham Stewart of Stewart Stained Glass is a glass conservator extraordinaire, but his routine work of restoring this country's stained glass heritage has been put on hold while he and his staff salvage and assess windows shattered in Canterbury over the past year.

Since February, Graham and his sons have been rescuing windows and glass - often furtively - and making storage boxes for the remnants.

This week students from Unlimited Secondary School's Rangiora Hub, visited Graham's studio in Loburn.

The Earthquake salvage work has two distinct phases. When the February Earthquake happened, Graham was already working painstakingly on windows from the Church of the Holy Innocents at Mt Peel Station in Mid Canterbury.  These had fallen and smashed during the September 4th Earthquake.  The Acland family lovingly collected as many fragments as possible and Graham describes receiving them in a sheet, handed over as though in a shroud.

Using a computer Graham enlarged archival transparency images of the windows to full size, then traced the outlines of the design.  These became his templates for working on the ultimate jigsaw puzzle. The shards sit just as we place jigsaw pieces aside until they make sense.

 

But there is no quick step, with lead-came, to a finished window. Much of the glass is too damaged to re-use and this is where Graham's artistry comes in.

The angels faces above, are reproductions in Grahams' own hand, but details may have to be re-done many times as colour matching cannot be guaranteed till the final firing.

Painted glass segments await firing.

When the windows are eventually returned to the Church of the Holy Innocents they will not be what they were. There will be glued fragments, bonded pieces, and reproduced images - a visible reminder of the Earthquake.  Whether Graham has realised this I'm not sure, but his own stamp as an artist is going with these windows into the future. 

Following the earthquake on Febrary 22nd this year, Graham, who had recently finished restoring the rose window in Christ Church Cathedral, recognised the need to rescue windows from Christchurch's stricken buildings.  Above, windows, including some crafted in the studios of Morris and Co in England, were retrieved in sound condition from St Mary's Church in Merivale.

However the strictures around entry and recovery in Christchurch's Red Zone condemned the Cathedral's rose window and other heritage treasures to eventual destruction in the June 13th Earthquake.

Remnants of the Provincial Chambers - Canterbury's first seat of Government - lie in the workshop amongst pre-Earthquake projects.  The gothic window seen through its frame, will return to the Ashley Church of St Simon and St Jude, and an example of modern painted glass shows to the right... and below.

Graham's artwork lines the walls and ledges: His drawings including Christ comforting Mary Magdalene...

And numerous pieces of commissioned and personal work.

But Graham does not work alone.  His sons, Vic and Ren almost paid the ultimate price for the family business, when they were buried in St John's Church in Latimer Square after the June 13th Earthquake.  When Graham speaks with tiredness about the slim rewards that come from working in hardhats in demolition conditions, I sense that the day he had to dig his own children out of the rubble strained his dedication.  However his sons are still his helpmates, and I suspect provide valuable extra muscle, as well as being the next generation of craftsmen.

Another assistant is Carmen Schill, a gifted German glass painter who is helping Graham with the re-painting of the Holy Innocents windows.

Her interpretation of the Stewart family crest above, glows jewel-like, and if the visitor has not already felt that they are in a medieval workshop, this is surely the final persuasion.

This detail shows the background arabesque, which Carmen applies with a goose quill. But behind her precision is a sense of humour...

The legend she has used is eqivalent to the English saying, People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

Graham showed us some of his stored German glass, pieces just as they were cut from the glassblower's cylinder.  I get the feeling that these are part of a hoard that Graham will never bring himself to cut into.

Amongst the students' questions, were wonderings about his favourite aspect of his work:, his favourite period, his favourite art style. But although Graham explained that this all came from an early love of figure drawing and particularly the Pre-Raphaelite style, his passion for every aspect of stained glass comes across in his quiet delivery.  His technical expertise is as evident as his artistic skill; the Medieval guildsman, using Victorian equipment embraces computer technology here in his rural studio at the foot of Mt Grey.

Not forgetting that the windows that Graham restores or conserves are a part of this country's history, I asked James to stand beside his ancestor's image: seven generations seperate Bishop Harper (Christchurch's first bishop) and Bryony's classmate.  And is it really a surprise to learn that Bishop Harper's daughter married into the Acland family of Mt Peel?  The sheep station where the Church of the Holy Innocents was built?

What better way to finish this epic post, than to show a finished section of window, the glass set into its shiny new lead came, recycled from the original lead work, and glowing with Hope.