RIP Florence Akins

I would have loved to meet Flo Akins: New Zealand's - possibly the World's - oldest Morris Dancer: until today that is.  She celebrated her 105th birthday in March this year, with Nelson Morris in attendance. Their Squire, Steve Rule, rang me to let me know that she died this morning.

A quick dip into the annals of the NZ publication English Folklore Dance and Song*, reveals her interest in the crafting of instruments as well as her musical and dancing ability during the years that she was an active member of the New Zealand Society for English Folk Dancing.

Another dip - this time into Google (the link above is to the Christchurch Art Gallery blog) - placed Flo soundly in the Christchurch and Nelson artistic scene alongside fellow dancers and musicians such as Francis Shurrock, Leo Bensemann, William Allen and Caroline Oliver.

This artistic trail lead me back to my own book shelf, and The Arts and Crafts Movement in New Zealand where Florence's accomplishments as student, teacher and artist/craftwoman are detailed.  Her writing conveys a sense of interest in people as much as her observation of her surroundings, though I haven't come across her own words in the EFDS magazines. But there are regular references to her talent.

From Rangiora Morris man, Courtney Archer, comes an account of her playing the pipe and tabor. For me that sums up her approach to life, because for those of you who are unfamiliar with pipe and tabor - it's like rubbing your head and patting your tummy at the same time. Flo strikes me as a woman who was always up to a challenge.

*English Folklore Dance and Song was edited between 1938 and 1944 by John Oliver. It not  only provides an account of New Zealand's English Folk Dance scene but a poignant record of the effect that War in Europe was having on NZ. 

Holiday Round Up

What with getting my Drama Queens 

to the stage door on time  

Kitty as Cinderella's Stepmother

and cleaning up after the mice:

stepping warily through a zombie movie

in the making ...

 oh, and fitting in a holiday outing to Gore Bay,

 Banded Dotterel nesting, Gore Bay, NZ

Seaside planting, Gore Bay

it's a surprise to realise that my garden has been getting on quite well without me.

Grand designs may be a thing of the past but little efforts I had forgotten I'd made, 

flourish in delightful ways, and greet me on waking.

Sixty: Reasons to Visit Wellington

Of course I didn't go to Wellington just to look at the tulips.

Two weeks ago now, Andy turned Sixty. 

Even on his birthday he can't help being Handy;  

here is my first attempt at a birthday portrait - Andy at the kitchen sink after breakfast.

There were plenty of distractions though, as there always are in a city so doubly blessed with natural beauty and cultural extravagance.

Henry Moore's Bronze Form is a jewel in the Arts crown.

I am always enchanted by the enclave of Arts and Crafts gardeners' buildings in the Botanic Gardens;

and the little gazebo set beside water at the edge of indigenous woodland.

In the children's playground an old tree stump has been given new life

Catching up with friends in the city I finally placed an enigmatic façade; 

I used to admire this Art Deco detailing from Elwin's desk on the sixth floor of DeLoitte House. I could never work out where it stood in the street scape until this recent visit. It stands on the corner of Brandon and Featherston Streets.

Another handsome building in Brandon Street is this one, with its decorative metal panels.

Metal of a different ilk featured in Stainless (by Judy Darragh), an installation at the Dowse Art Museum. The stainless steel kitchenware is just visible in Andy's reflective photo. Something about the concentric discs and Andy's stance with his pocket camera, as well as the rectangular, reflected frame brings to mind a photographer using a twin lens reflex camera. 

There's some kind of resonance there with the era of popularity for that type of camera alongside a sixtieth birthday.

And what of that elusive birthday portrait? 

Really this is it in my eyes.

Happy Birthday Handy Andy.

Tulip Time

What has happened to the tulips here?
I suspect they have been wrenched and unsettled like so many other creatures in this quake ravaged province. It seems quite believable that bulbs, naturalised in the ground, could be stressed and disrupted by constant seismic activity. Last spring - the daffodil blades came through but were very shy with their flowers; they seem to be back to normal this spring. But a prize group of red tulips that has moved about with me for nearly twenty years, surviving naturalisation and re-planting, has sent up one single specimen this year. The photograph, taken in another part of the garden, shows a very stunted 'Apeldoorn' tulip. This could be a result of competition with a cabbage tree rather than earthquake stress.

In Wellington a fortnight ago, I glutted on the annual display of tulips in the Botanic Garden . . .

Varieties are chosen to provide display throughout Spring. The dwarf 'Pinocchio' tulips below were already going over, though they still looked striking, and the interplanting of forget-me-nots will continue to colour the bed until the whole area is replanted sometime in November.

'Daydream' tulips, inter-planted with matching calendulas, were full of sunshine but just beginning to flop,

while some varieties still held their promise furled tight.

This subtle mixture of pink toned flowers was my favourite planting.

But this Van Eeden mixture was my lesson for the day.

Close up it was just a motley collection of colours and types - the sort that hold no appeal for me at all, when presented in packs of five, or even ten, on department store racks.  

From a distance though, and en masse, this was fabulous with the tall pink variety floating in the light while the shorter varieties gave depth and texture to the vision.

Imagine, I think to myself, planting great swathes of my own special tulip mixture across the open reaches of the Secret Garden, utilising the contours of the land and defining the copses.

And then the Nor' Westers would come, hot-breathed, just at bud burst...

Oh you spoilsport, Lady Mondegreen. I will just have to make do with little sheltered groups of supermarket five packs that don't even come with proper names.

Cabbage tree, ti kauka, Torquay palm Cordyline australis

Tulip spp

Forget-me-nots  Myosotis hortensis vars.

Calendula, pot marigold  Calendula officinalis vars.

Lucky 13

A pink and blue Dawn and Kitty knows it was especially for her. My youngest child becomes a teenager today, as my eldest steps into the sky on a red-eye flight to Wellington: soaring away to possible futures.  We cross the Ashley Bridge at 6.20 am and marvel as the sun casts low shadows off greywacke pebbles and marches the bridge, on long, long legs, towards the mountains. Surreal. Kitty sits with her sister in the back of the van, opening her presents and reading the labels out for me. There are squeals of delight. What a relief.

And then Bryony is gone; gone too quickly - without a proper goodbye - for three days of work experience in the textile and costume department of our national museum.

Kitty and I breakfast in the airport on pain au chocolat and coffee, and are back in time for school at 8.30. It feels like a full day already. But of course there are more treats, messages, friends and gestures of celebration...

including a visit to see Grandma.

"This is the best birthday I've ever had", says Kitty.
I'm sure she has said that before, but the highlights of a day seem to take on special significance when it's your birthday and there were plenty of highlights for Kitty today.

For the Future

I cannot quite believe that I have planted a tree in my garden. 
I have planted many trees in the past and even before I became a professional gardener, I planted them here with my father. But since Elwin and I bought this land two years ago, I have planted nothing for the Future.  Dealing with the Present took all of my energy.
But now, the sap is rising and a tree raised from seed is overdue for transplanting from its tub. Ten years ago I sowed the seed of five haws from a young pink may in the garden. First I crushed the fruit and mixed the pulp with gritty sand before putting it inside a plastic bag at the back of the fridge. In the spring I potted the mess into a sand and fine bark mix and left it in a cool, shaded place. The following spring - 2003 - the seed germinated and from it I have raised three trees. This one is the most vigorous specimen and flowered years ahead of the other two: frothy double white blooms on arching stems. 

Last year's double white may in front of parent Crataegus laevigata 'Rosea Flore Plena'

I have enjoyed the three trees in their tubs outside the kitchen window, not just for their blossom, but because the secretive garden birds visit them, not knowing that I am watching from very close quarters. While Andy was here a couple of weeks ago, he began the unwieldy business of shifting this tree. 

Continued rain and boggy ground hindered progress, but I finished the job last week. Wrenching the tree from its old laundry tub was time consuming and difficult. Roots had grown through the plug hole, but even the fine ones had to be teased free. Once I had released the roots, the root ball was not as big as it should have been for a healthy transplant.

Hopefully the high ground water will encourage new root growth.

I dug a round hole three times the width of the anticipated root ball, and as deep as I could go (the topsoil here is two spade spits deep). I kept the turfs separate for placing upside down at the bottom of the hole. As they decay they will provide nutrients for the young tree. I raised the base of the hole so that the tree would sit with its old planting level just below ground level. Then I mixed the clayey subsoil with loose topsoil and filled in the rest of the hole. Although conventional wisdom implores the home gardener not to bring the subsoil to the surface, here I have noticed how it provides a moisture retentive medium during summer drought.

And this is as far as I got before I had to begin the after-school drama run.


Pink may, double pink hawthorn,  Crataegus laevigata 'Rosea Flore Pleno.'
Midland may, double white hawthorn  Crataegus laevigata 'Plena'

And who won the 'Latitude' magazine from my second anniversary post ? I didn't quite get the cascade of writerly prose that I was hoping for but Cindy from Just North of Wiarton and South of the Checkerboard is the winner!

Annual Report 2012

ASHLEY COMMUNITY CHURCH

The Church of St Simon and St Jude

CHAIRMAN’S REPORT  2011-2012
(AGM held at Ashley School on Tuesday 28 August)

Jeneane and the Ashley Community Church.  Northern Outlook photo by Geoff Mein.

If  2011 was a challenge to the Committee, 2012 has felt like treading water as long term post-earthquake effects come into play. The uncertainty over our insurance status has felt particularly debilitating and I must acknowledge Richard Heal’s tenacity, as he made sure that the Church Property Trustees kept The Ashley Community Church in their sights.

No 39 Canterbury St, Ashley.

Looking back however, I can see the joyful occasions that reaffirm the value of the Church in this community.  There was a supportive, well written article by Geoff Mein in the Northern Outlook, we hosted a Village Garage Sale in the Church grounds, 

Committee member David Ayers serves tea and cake.

and although I was overseas at Christmas time, I received many complimentary remarks from members of the public, about the annual Carol service, and particularly David and Marilyn Ayers’ role in it.  Two days later their granddaughter Imogen, was baptised in the Church by Reverend Crauford Murray. I have to say too, that although our working bee morning teas don’t attract the broader community, Joan Shivas’ baking and a sense of achievement always feel joyful to me.

A working bee morning tea.

General maintenance has included Graeme Harris’ work on the overflowing rainwater tank, and the generous donation including delivery, of a trailer load of soil by an Ashley resident. We are grateful to our neighbour for continuing to cut our common hawthorn hedge. Thanks to our small pool of mowers: which includes Richard Heal, the Witbrocks and Jeneane Hobby.

Installation of the returned windows is still a work in progress as Graham Stewart continues to recover and restore earthquake damaged glass around Canterbury.  The gaping walls in the back of the Church are a dilemma tangled around the September 2010 and continuing earthquakes: is it or isn’t it earthquake damage? Is it too late to claim on insurance if it is?

Insurance - the long unknown. In May of this year, The Church Property Trustees had finally been able to secure cover with Lloyds of London after Ansvar withdrew its cover following the February 2011 earthquake.  However, the premiums have increased to a point where many active churches with parish incomes are questioning how they can maintain their property. With our very limited income this is a question we must be prepared to address.

Father Jack and Julia Witbrock continue to use the Church for Eastern Orthodox worship and their annual contribution is our chief source of income.

Although David Ayers is still committed to Captaining the Waimakariri District Council through difficult times, he has recently been able to return to our committee table – making up for his earlier absence with large helpings of cake and biscuits – and at our last meeting had made important progress over the long-standing issue of dissolving the Trust. This, with the intention of transferring its duties to the Incorporated Society.

A typical committee meeting around Jeneane's kitchen table.

We are sorry that Richard Heal is standing down as our Secretary Treasurer. He came to the position without any background experience of the Church last year, and has worked hard to understand the Committee’s history as well as the Church’s. He has also willingly put in time on maintenance.

This also means that we need to find a new Secretary/treasurer.

Many things, particularly the insurance issue, are working against effective management. At this stage I personally feel that it may be time to question the function and viability of the Ashley Community Church. 

Distractions.