There I was a mere two weeks ago thinking that summer had come to an abrupt end. Plummeting temperatures, grey days and rain had me thinking that a dreadful cold spring, followed by a less than memorable summer was about to end with an early descent into autumn. Maybe I should have guessed that it was merely some unkind anti-Taranaki power that wanted to convince thousands of out of towners who descended upon our city for Womad, along with hundreds of international performers, that we have a brilliant venue but weather that is less than kind. The fact that it was just as bad everywhere else will have escaped most visitors. Continue reading →

London daughter’s field of work is public relations and communications and she was groaning last week at “Eat a British Chicken Week” (referred to by her as “Oh my goodness bird flu has knocked the poultry industry hard what can we do about it week”). Plumbing new depths of contrived PR, she felt. Continue reading →

Australian based daughter had been home this week and burst out laughing when the TV weather here started talking about the lack of rain. “Oh no,” she cried, “no rain since February the sixth.” Where she lives in Canberra, there is no grass left, no lawns. Residents have given up even the pretence of a lawn and front yard after yard is being laid in bark chip. Unfortunately the bark chip comes in a wide palette of colours. Maybe the green dyed bark is meant to look like lush lawn from the air? But I am not sure about the red bark. We asked her if the dyes ran or were colour fast. She pointed out that it doesn’t rain so she doesn’t know the answer. Mature European trees and wattles are dying and even half grown eucalyptus have succumbed to the dry. Continue reading →

It would be fair to say this week that I am married to a disappointed man. Some ingrate of a garden visitor has stolen his paris seed. Probably ninety nine out of a hundred visitors wouldn’t even recognise his prized paris polyphylla as a rare delight, let alone think to help themselves to the seed which he had carefully pollinated and was watching ripen. Sadly the one in a hundred who was capable of recognising it was also the one in several thousand who would be mean enough to steal this treasure. Continue reading →

We have been pondering entertainment and music in open gardens. This came about because our local Waitara garden trail was held last weekend. A true community venture, run on the goodwill and hard work of the organisers and the garden openers, this not-for-profit event brings out several hundred people to enjoy themselves over the two day period and entertainment is sometimes part of the package.

I must admit we only got to visit one garden ourselves but music played a large part. Being somewhat purist in our approach, we have steered well clear of the entertainment factor in our own garden. Mark is of the view that he would much rather visitors came to enjoy the garden than to treat it more as a venue for entertainment. But we were really interested in the impact of music in the garden we visited. The owners were playing carefully chosen, contemporary instrumental music which was loud enough to create an ambience on arrival but not so intrusive as to dominate. In the spirit of a fun afternoon, it certainly added to the atmosphere and gave a sense of being where something was happening. Continue reading →