Yesterday I paid a brief visit to my former place of employment (delicately put - no?). After some jolly staffroom socialising I went down to disturb a member of my own department at his marking, sitting in his mercifully empty classroom. We talked of how things were going, and I remembered the awful accumulation of marking that English teachers especially have to cope with at this time of year. No sooner have you finished one lot than you have to do reports for a quite different year group - and that's when you realise that you haven't had time to look at their work in months, because they're not sitting SQA exams and have had to be prioritised some way down the pile. So you pull out their folders and wade in desperation through perhaps three finished essays, all on different topics, and try to note down their progress as you go. Then you do the reports.
And by the time that's done you have - let's say - the Standard Grade prelim it's been decided to resit. Thirty assorted essays, some a page of pencil scrawl, some carefully-crafted and three pages long, some merely .... long. And totally unpunctuated.
If you actually paused to think about this, you'd lose the will to live. The only way to cope is to take each task as it comes, and view the completion of each as a small triumph. You must *never* think of the next bundle of work. Never. And that's what I've done for the past 23 years. Now that I don't have to do it any more, and, more importantly, have stepped far enough back to see what the job entails, I'm amazed. All that important work being done by intelligent people who have to work like automatons.
Notice that I haven't mentioned teaching here. Compared with the paperwork, teaching is fun. But I know that today there were only two demands on my time, one of which was the ironing mountain . The rest of the day I've pleased myself. And I've remembered how, from the age of 5, I've been aware of the pressures on people who were not allowed to stay at home with Mummy any more. Do you think if we thought about life at the age of 5 we'd never make it?
The snow is very wet underfoot today, but in the woods it is still beautiful. The trees, however, are like war-wounded, their limbs ripped from their trunks by the weight of Sunday's fall. Some of our usual paths are shut, with terse little notices saying "dangerous trees". Now there's a concept I did enjoy thinking about!
Oh - and the title is part of another quotation. In the absence of my dear friend Edgar, who *always* recognised my quotes, I'm looking for someone else to win the virtual Mars Bar. Clue: it's an important one!
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Monday, March 13, 2006
Shrinking world
The world seemed a wee bit smaller today with a phonecall from one of our new friends in New Zealand. As I remarked at the time, it was possible to hear the Kiwi voice without even being the one holding the phone. At the same time, I'm growing aware of how many people from the most unexpected quarters have been following my travel blog - and really pleased that several of them have been getting in touch.
A fellow-blogger wonders today if blogging is becoming too fashionable for serious Christian communication, because he belives that "Christian faith is at its prophetic best when it is both unfashionable and counter-cultural." But my recent experience has persuaded me that this kind of communication, allowing anyone to formulate ideas or simply to reflect on their life as they live it, is too valuable for anyone with an important message to ignore. There has been such a sense of sharing and appreciation expressed via this blog and the comments I've had over the past month that I feel I want everyone to be able to benefit from such a forum.
Today the snow has nearly all gone from the coastal areas, though the hills and glens are still white. I forgot my camera this afternoon or you would have seen a wonderfully bovril-coloured burn, hugely swollen by melting snow, thundering down the Bishop's Glen. Once more, as in Bendigo, I am thrown back on words.
Bovril. Gallons of it.
A fellow-blogger wonders today if blogging is becoming too fashionable for serious Christian communication, because he belives that "Christian faith is at its prophetic best when it is both unfashionable and counter-cultural." But my recent experience has persuaded me that this kind of communication, allowing anyone to formulate ideas or simply to reflect on their life as they live it, is too valuable for anyone with an important message to ignore. There has been such a sense of sharing and appreciation expressed via this blog and the comments I've had over the past month that I feel I want everyone to be able to benefit from such a forum.
Today the snow has nearly all gone from the coastal areas, though the hills and glens are still white. I forgot my camera this afternoon or you would have seen a wonderfully bovril-coloured burn, hugely swollen by melting snow, thundering down the Bishop's Glen. Once more, as in Bendigo, I am thrown back on words.
Bovril. Gallons of it.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Spring, huh?
I reckon we came home too soon. I mean - my wee daffies are all bent under a mound of snow and half of Scotland seems to have shut down: no papers in the shop by lunchtime, roads blocked by skidded lorries and bigger mounds of snow - I ask you.
Anyway, for my new friends in New Zealand, this is the view from our wee church after the Eucharist this morning. There were only five in the congregation, and we'd all had to walk varying distances to get there. Quite apart from the perilous steepness of the driveway, the church site is at the back of the town, up a hill and away from the sea. And to cap it all, the weight of snow brought down a tree right across the driveway, demolishing the phone line on the way. So from sitting in church in a thin dress a fortnight ago -and having tea on the grass outside afterwards - I found myself shivering in the choir stalls ( we abandoned the nave) in wet trousers and fur-lined boots, and having tea in the Rectory while resolutely hugging a radiator. We remembered New Zealand, however, in our prayers, and all the friends we've made there.
Update on the jet-lag: thanks to the aforementioned affliction, I was able to take some interesting shots of the snowfall at 5am. It is very cold hanging out of the window under such circumstances, but one must suffer for one's art. You can see them on flickr
And now we wait to see if the snow will clear sufficiently for us to enjoy the dinner-date we have planned. Otherwise I'll be cooking.
Again.
Anyway, for my new friends in New Zealand, this is the view from our wee church after the Eucharist this morning. There were only five in the congregation, and we'd all had to walk varying distances to get there. Quite apart from the perilous steepness of the driveway, the church site is at the back of the town, up a hill and away from the sea. And to cap it all, the weight of snow brought down a tree right across the driveway, demolishing the phone line on the way. So from sitting in church in a thin dress a fortnight ago -and having tea on the grass outside afterwards - I found myself shivering in the choir stalls ( we abandoned the nave) in wet trousers and fur-lined boots, and having tea in the Rectory while resolutely hugging a radiator. We remembered New Zealand, however, in our prayers, and all the friends we've made there.
Update on the jet-lag: thanks to the aforementioned affliction, I was able to take some interesting shots of the snowfall at 5am. It is very cold hanging out of the window under such circumstances, but one must suffer for one's art. You can see them on flickr
And now we wait to see if the snow will clear sufficiently for us to enjoy the dinner-date we have planned. Otherwise I'll be cooking.
Again.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Jet-lagged!
Ok, purists - I know this isn't a jet plane; it was some wee turbo-prop job with about four steps down to the ground and the wings obligingly above the fuselage so's we could see the view - but it's a lovely view and worth sharing. And I want to talk about the interesting effects of long-haul flying. If anyone out there has any explanation of the phenomenon, I'd be glad to hear from them ....
First off - it wasn't nearly so bad going out. We landed for the last time at teatime in NZ, and though we didn't really feel like tea, we had some and went to bed at quite a normal time. next afternoon, for about an hour, I felt very peculiar, but it passed and I put the slightly broken nights down to the heat and the unfamiliar bed.
But now ... well, much, much more pronounced symptoms. Apart from the stupor of my first night at home, I haven't had an unbroken night. I waken at 2am thinking it must be time to get up. I sleep shallowly, with silly dreams (last night a plane crashed on the coal pier, for instance, and the debris destroyed my roof). This morning I got up before 7am because it felt absurd to pretend to sleep when I could be doing something else. But come 3pm, I feel dizzy with exhaustion - as if, in fact, it was 4am. So far I haven't really given in to this - a trip to the supermarket was today's antidote. Hmmm.
It also interests me how after a month I'm unfamiliar with my own kitchen. I reach for things where they were in Edgar's instead of the places I've had them for years. And in the supermarket I was looking for the fabby orange juice that seemed stuffed with actual oranges. It wasn't there.
And I miss the sun. In fact, it's damned cold and miserable. I'm not used to it any more.
And it gets dark too early.
First off - it wasn't nearly so bad going out. We landed for the last time at teatime in NZ, and though we didn't really feel like tea, we had some and went to bed at quite a normal time. next afternoon, for about an hour, I felt very peculiar, but it passed and I put the slightly broken nights down to the heat and the unfamiliar bed.
But now ... well, much, much more pronounced symptoms. Apart from the stupor of my first night at home, I haven't had an unbroken night. I waken at 2am thinking it must be time to get up. I sleep shallowly, with silly dreams (last night a plane crashed on the coal pier, for instance, and the debris destroyed my roof). This morning I got up before 7am because it felt absurd to pretend to sleep when I could be doing something else. But come 3pm, I feel dizzy with exhaustion - as if, in fact, it was 4am. So far I haven't really given in to this - a trip to the supermarket was today's antidote. Hmmm.
It also interests me how after a month I'm unfamiliar with my own kitchen. I reach for things where they were in Edgar's instead of the places I've had them for years. And in the supermarket I was looking for the fabby orange juice that seemed stuffed with actual oranges. It wasn't there.
And I miss the sun. In fact, it's damned cold and miserable. I'm not used to it any more.
And it gets dark too early.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Furthermore ....
Since we came home, people have asked us what we remember most vividly about our visit to NZ. I'd have to say that for me it was the space. For a start, there are only 4.1 million people in the country, 1.5 million of whom apparently live in Auckland. New Zealand has a land area slightly greater than the UK. Most of the walks we took, we met no-one. We saw few cars away from the main roads - and even they were peaceful. (They also made the Argyll roads feel like a test bed for rugged suspensions). There were a few busier areas - our hike to the glacier had us meet people on the path and at the top, and Queenstown was much busier than we'd become used to - but if we stayed in Central Otago it was possible to imagine that this was indeed the desert parts of it resembled.
With that came the space to think. After a week, I no longer felt the need to read "holiday fiction", and was able instead to finish the more demanding and inspirational book I had taken with me. I was able to reflect at length on what was happening around me, and to put it in context. Any demands being made on me were short-term and practical; there was no juggling of commitments and no feeling that I ought to be doing something else.
So: resolution from that? To try to do what needs doing and can be done, and to leave the rest. To take time to consider my surroundings and avoid being where I don't want to be. To avoid cluttering up my mind and my life with inessentials and rubbish. And above all, to appreciate the people whom life has given me, and to make sure they know it.
And maybe I'll get back to New Zealand some day!
With that came the space to think. After a week, I no longer felt the need to read "holiday fiction", and was able instead to finish the more demanding and inspirational book I had taken with me. I was able to reflect at length on what was happening around me, and to put it in context. Any demands being made on me were short-term and practical; there was no juggling of commitments and no feeling that I ought to be doing something else.
So: resolution from that? To try to do what needs doing and can be done, and to leave the rest. To take time to consider my surroundings and avoid being where I don't want to be. To avoid cluttering up my mind and my life with inessentials and rubbish. And above all, to appreciate the people whom life has given me, and to make sure they know it.
And maybe I'll get back to New Zealand some day!
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Edgar
Just after I posted my last entry, I had a phone call from New Zealand to tell me that our friend Edgar, with whom we had been staying, had died peacefully, surrounded by his family. Although he was ill throughout the period of our stay with him, it was his prime concern that we should have a good holiday, and my blog reflects the excellence of our stay there. As his health declined, he seemed even more determined that this should not impinge on our activities, and so it was not until our return from the trip to Rob Roy glacier that he went to hospital for the last time.
Edgar Pacey was a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church, serving in the dioceses of Glasgow and Galloway and Argyll and The Isles. He was a man of immense learning and down to earth realism. For many years he was a full-time teacher in Glasgow schools, and talked often of his time in Penilee. His last work in Scotland was to hold together the congregation of his own Holy Trinity Church in Dunoon during a long vacancy. When he emigrated to New Zealand to be with his family, his church family missed him sorely.
He came home from hospital last Friday. On Saturday evening his family held a party. A wonderful party where the teenage grandchildren laughed and joked and everyone had a dram – including Edgar. When we left, it was with the sense of a man serene and confident in the love that surrounded him and the God to whom he was going. It was an exemplary and inspiring end. He died fifteen hours after we arrived home.
I count myself fortunate beyond words that he was my friend. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
Edgar Pacey was a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church, serving in the dioceses of Glasgow and Galloway and Argyll and The Isles. He was a man of immense learning and down to earth realism. For many years he was a full-time teacher in Glasgow schools, and talked often of his time in Penilee. His last work in Scotland was to hold together the congregation of his own Holy Trinity Church in Dunoon during a long vacancy. When he emigrated to New Zealand to be with his family, his church family missed him sorely.
He came home from hospital last Friday. On Saturday evening his family held a party. A wonderful party where the teenage grandchildren laughed and joked and everyone had a dram – including Edgar. When we left, it was with the sense of a man serene and confident in the love that surrounded him and the God to whom he was going. It was an exemplary and inspiring end. He died fifteen hours after we arrived home.
I count myself fortunate beyond words that he was my friend. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Home again, home again..
...hippity hop. Well, no - not much hopping after 37 hours of air travel. Much bouncing around the sky after taking off from Frankton - all these mountains make for interesting updraughts - but collected myself sufficiently to take a few pix.
And the rest of the journey? Well. The Indian Ocean is very big. So is Australia. And it was dark all the way across both - we landed in Sydney in a spectacular orange sunset and didn't see daylight again till we were leaving Dubai. That's about 16 hours of darkness, and they didn't fly past. There was a strange niff in the plane too - we fear one of our fellow-travellers either had travelled too far already or had unpleasant feet. Anyway, there was no escape. I'll not go into the details of the effect of this - except to say that much of the food they kept giving us went untouched.
The flight from Dubai to Glasgow was a joy. Bigger plane, less crowded, bright sunshine. In between bouts of drooling sleep, we were able to look down on Iran (big, dun-coloured, ridgey, lots of snow in the north), bits of the Caspian sea, the Crimea (yes - that's the Black Sea), Poland (still snowy) and a wee bit of Denmark (also snowy). Northern Europe strikes me as such a busy place after New Zealand - and after the deserted appearance of much of Iran too. The airport at Christchurch even seemed busy after the peace we've enjoyed.
Today it is raining in Dunoon. It feels cold. But there is much going on and in two hours we leave for Oban. Don't ask why. Just let's hope we don't fall into drooling sleep before we arrive.
And the rest of the journey? Well. The Indian Ocean is very big. So is Australia. And it was dark all the way across both - we landed in Sydney in a spectacular orange sunset and didn't see daylight again till we were leaving Dubai. That's about 16 hours of darkness, and they didn't fly past. There was a strange niff in the plane too - we fear one of our fellow-travellers either had travelled too far already or had unpleasant feet. Anyway, there was no escape. I'll not go into the details of the effect of this - except to say that much of the food they kept giving us went untouched.
The flight from Dubai to Glasgow was a joy. Bigger plane, less crowded, bright sunshine. In between bouts of drooling sleep, we were able to look down on Iran (big, dun-coloured, ridgey, lots of snow in the north), bits of the Caspian sea, the Crimea (yes - that's the Black Sea), Poland (still snowy) and a wee bit of Denmark (also snowy). Northern Europe strikes me as such a busy place after New Zealand - and after the deserted appearance of much of Iran too. The airport at Christchurch even seemed busy after the peace we've enjoyed.
Today it is raining in Dunoon. It feels cold. But there is much going on and in two hours we leave for Oban. Don't ask why. Just let's hope we don't fall into drooling sleep before we arrive.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Goodbye.
It's time to shut down Edgar's PC - time to finish packing - time to sleep before the 36 hour journey home (no overnight stops on this trip). We've had a very full day, which we began with a visit to a gathering of Cursillistas from the Dunedin diocese and ended with a wonderful family party.
We've made friends here - one aspect which makes me think life could be good in this part of the world. We've had a wonderful holiday - our kind of holiday, where we could walk for hours and see no-one and where no-one stared if we were dressed like tramps - or at least a pair of eccentrics. People have been unfailingly kind and welcoming, generous with invitations and absurd things like a car for the duration. In fact, so enamoured am I of the Bighorn that I fear I shall never again want to drive around in an ordinary car.
And now we've made our farewells and are about to head back to the snow. Tonight the stars are amazing - and I think I've at last seen the Southern Cross. The Milky way is right over the garden, and Orion is still upside-down.
And the water runs down the plughole anti-clockwise. What way does it go at home?
I've never checked.
We've made friends here - one aspect which makes me think life could be good in this part of the world. We've had a wonderful holiday - our kind of holiday, where we could walk for hours and see no-one and where no-one stared if we were dressed like tramps - or at least a pair of eccentrics. People have been unfailingly kind and welcoming, generous with invitations and absurd things like a car for the duration. In fact, so enamoured am I of the Bighorn that I fear I shall never again want to drive around in an ordinary car.
And now we've made our farewells and are about to head back to the snow. Tonight the stars are amazing - and I think I've at last seen the Southern Cross. The Milky way is right over the garden, and Orion is still upside-down.
And the water runs down the plughole anti-clockwise. What way does it go at home?
I've never checked.
Friday, March 03, 2006
Distant Ophir
There were no quinquiremes, of Nineveh or anywhere else, come to that, but today we were in Ophir, once the most populous mining town in the area but today .... well, shut. People obviously live there, and the post office, still in the original building, is open for business in the mornings, but we saw not a soul. Two dogs, happily behind a wire fence, went demented with excitement at the sight of us walking down the middle of the main street - we felt once more like characters in a Western.
The eerie quality was enhanced by the howling (literally) gale, which had us shivering despite the bright sunshine. The south-east wind comes straight from the Antarctic with nothing to deflect or warm it up, and it was giving it laldy this afternoon. Even in the morning it was pretty dramatic - there's a pic over on flickr showing what it did to Lake Dunstan. We had a walk later - a couple or so miles on the Otago rail trail near Ophir, where it winds through country that seemed positively biblical. There was snow on the Pisa range, though the nearest hills, the aptly named Raggedy Range, were the more usual dust colour.
Another first today: I saw a field full of alpacas. My cup is full.
The eerie quality was enhanced by the howling (literally) gale, which had us shivering despite the bright sunshine. The south-east wind comes straight from the Antarctic with nothing to deflect or warm it up, and it was giving it laldy this afternoon. Even in the morning it was pretty dramatic - there's a pic over on flickr showing what it did to Lake Dunstan. We had a walk later - a couple or so miles on the Otago rail trail near Ophir, where it winds through country that seemed positively biblical. There was snow on the Pisa range, though the nearest hills, the aptly named Raggedy Range, were the more usual dust colour.
Another first today: I saw a field full of alpacas. My cup is full.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Blast from the past
At Wanaka, the area which provided the backdrop for several LotR scenes, there is a museum of fighting aircraft, the Wanaka Warbirds. Today was so grey and chilly we decided to spend the morning in a draughty aircraft hangar, and ended up standing riveted for an age on an even draughtier airfield watching this wonderful plane.
And listening to it - for one of the well-documented features of the WW2 Spitfire was the amazing growl of its Rolls Royce Merlin engine (I know - you never realised I had this laddish background knowledge, born of years of reading boys' books). I spotted a bloke heading out of the hangar towards the Spitfire with a flying helmet in his hands, and we followed him. He was strapped in - the same solicitude you see in old war movies - by the mechanic; a fire truck appeared and hovered encouragingly; there was much slow-mo turning of the engine - someone shouted "dead as the dodo" - and then suddenly a great roar and puffs of smoke and that was it. Off he taxied, belted down the runway - we'd all run like four asterisks over the carpark to be in the right place - and took off, circling around against the backdrop of the incredible mountains. Later he landed - and we were the only spectators. I even recorded the sound on my phone (I can't believe I was carrying on like this). It was rerr.
Later we thawed out in a great "Soul Food Cafe" in Wanaka, and went for what turned out to be an idyllic walk along the lakeshore. Now we've come home and lit the woodburning stove in the house - we never thought we'd get doing that! It heats the whole house on a big log - we're on our third now. Outside, it smells like incense.
But I can't see how we could fit either a woodburning stove or a Spitfire into our usual existence - or even the 4x4 Isuzu with thermonuclear protection. Life *will* seem dull!
And listening to it - for one of the well-documented features of the WW2 Spitfire was the amazing growl of its Rolls Royce Merlin engine (I know - you never realised I had this laddish background knowledge, born of years of reading boys' books). I spotted a bloke heading out of the hangar towards the Spitfire with a flying helmet in his hands, and we followed him. He was strapped in - the same solicitude you see in old war movies - by the mechanic; a fire truck appeared and hovered encouragingly; there was much slow-mo turning of the engine - someone shouted "dead as the dodo" - and then suddenly a great roar and puffs of smoke and that was it. Off he taxied, belted down the runway - we'd all run like four asterisks over the carpark to be in the right place - and took off, circling around against the backdrop of the incredible mountains. Later he landed - and we were the only spectators. I even recorded the sound on my phone (I can't believe I was carrying on like this). It was rerr.
Later we thawed out in a great "Soul Food Cafe" in Wanaka, and went for what turned out to be an idyllic walk along the lakeshore. Now we've come home and lit the woodburning stove in the house - we never thought we'd get doing that! It heats the whole house on a big log - we're on our third now. Outside, it smells like incense.
But I can't see how we could fit either a woodburning stove or a Spitfire into our usual existence - or even the 4x4 Isuzu with thermonuclear protection. Life *will* seem dull!
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Ash Wednesday - early!
Today being Ash Wednesday, it seems appropriate to begin with a pic of the inside of St Andrew's (Anglican) church, where we were this morning, observing the day about 20 hours ahead of our home congregation, who tend to do this in the evening! We were able to thank Roy, who told us about the hike we did yesterday - not in this pic as he's sitting in a corner talking about it to John.
Today, we felt, was quite like a slightly changeable summer's day at home - sudden showers kept the temperature down, and we had fleeces on (with shorts!) for part of our walk along the Clutha River this afternoon. We needed my pal Di with us today to look at the wee birds - they looked like female chaffinches until they suddenly stuck their tails up in a wonderful fan. This gave them a gliding, dipping flight, and they cavorted among the willows in pairs, cheeping in an excited manner. Actually I think they were discussing us - they seemed interested, and not at all timid.
As I write, the smell of curry is gradually filling the house - a suitable dinner for a cooler evening! Perhaps autumn is on the way here - the trees are turning and the rowans heavy in the garden. Time for us wee birds to head north again.
Today, we felt, was quite like a slightly changeable summer's day at home - sudden showers kept the temperature down, and we had fleeces on (with shorts!) for part of our walk along the Clutha River this afternoon. We needed my pal Di with us today to look at the wee birds - they looked like female chaffinches until they suddenly stuck their tails up in a wonderful fan. This gave them a gliding, dipping flight, and they cavorted among the willows in pairs, cheeping in an excited manner. Actually I think they were discussing us - they seemed interested, and not at all timid.
As I write, the smell of curry is gradually filling the house - a suitable dinner for a cooler evening! Perhaps autumn is on the way here - the trees are turning and the rowans heavy in the garden. Time for us wee birds to head north again.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Wow.
What a day! The pic tells it all, I think - a cloudless, brilliant day spent in the Alpine surroundings of the Mount Aspiring National Park. From the moment we drove past the sign warning that this was a back country road of variable conditions it was a terrific adventure - the six fords on the road, the suspension bridge over the West Matukituki river, the 3oo metre climb through dense birch forest with the glacier-green river pounding below ... and then we came out into a clear alpine meadow and saw this!
We had just taken off our packs when a great thundering sound from above us announced an avalanche, which we were able to watch as it gathered momentum and swept down the face opposite us in the bright sun. All the time the roar of the tens of waterfalls from the ice was like a bizarre traffic sound in the wilderness, overlaid by the raucus squawks of the skeas flying overhead. It was hypnotic, sitting staring at the ice above, the tumbled seracs a sort of greenish colour with grey moraine material at their base - and hard to stop taking photos, despite the sun's position above the mountain. This was Rob Roy Peak (2606m) and the glacier is Rob Roy Glacier.
As we drove home - harrying car and caravan drivers as we bashed along in the 4x4 - there was still not a cloud. The forecast is for much colder weather, but today was perfect. If we do nothing else on this holiday, I'll be content.
And my feet are killing me!
We had just taken off our packs when a great thundering sound from above us announced an avalanche, which we were able to watch as it gathered momentum and swept down the face opposite us in the bright sun. All the time the roar of the tens of waterfalls from the ice was like a bizarre traffic sound in the wilderness, overlaid by the raucus squawks of the skeas flying overhead. It was hypnotic, sitting staring at the ice above, the tumbled seracs a sort of greenish colour with grey moraine material at their base - and hard to stop taking photos, despite the sun's position above the mountain. This was Rob Roy Peak (2606m) and the glacier is Rob Roy Glacier.
As we drove home - harrying car and caravan drivers as we bashed along in the 4x4 - there was still not a cloud. The forecast is for much colder weather, but today was perfect. If we do nothing else on this holiday, I'll be content.
And my feet are killing me!
Monday, February 27, 2006
The Gathering Storm ...
There. Isn't that a dramatic title for a day which took us to the site of the Tower of Orthanc? And for all my gentle readers who have been consumed with envy at the thought of us walking through sunlit desert, the news that today we were well and truly soaked, in the middle of a huge beech wood near the place which was Lothlorien. As I write, the rain is pelting down outside, and a short time ago we had lightening and loud thunder - and I have to tell you that Cromwell on a dreich evening looks much like Dunoon!
And as for feeling at home - the site of Orthanc (see my flickr photos for a shot)is near a town called Glenorchy, where we had the best sandwiches ever and where the streets have names like Mull Road, Oban Road and - yes - Argyll Street. Miles from anywhere too.
In the course of the day we crossed another very swingy suspension bridge - the ground bounced about for some time after that - herded sheep with our car, and saw helicopters fighting a large bush fire in the Kawaru gorge. I've learned, by the way, that the Kawaru River - see Friday's blog - was the River Anduin in the first LotR movie.
One last thing. The roadkill here is quite upsetting. Possums are quite large and fat and very furry looking. They make a mess on the road. I wish they'd learn some road sense. That's all.
And as for feeling at home - the site of Orthanc (see my flickr photos for a shot)is near a town called Glenorchy, where we had the best sandwiches ever and where the streets have names like Mull Road, Oban Road and - yes - Argyll Street. Miles from anywhere too.
In the course of the day we crossed another very swingy suspension bridge - the ground bounced about for some time after that - herded sheep with our car, and saw helicopters fighting a large bush fire in the Kawaru gorge. I've learned, by the way, that the Kawaru River - see Friday's blog - was the River Anduin in the first LotR movie.
One last thing. The roadkill here is quite upsetting. Possums are quite large and fat and very furry looking. They make a mess on the road. I wish they'd learn some road sense. That's all.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Dam spectacular
Caught this view of the Clyde dam this evening after a great meal out at the Post Office in Clyde - pic on Flickr. It's such a brilliantly clear evening - and growing deliciously cool - that the sky was still quite light when I took this (no flash) After blogging this, I'm going outside with a southern hemisphere star chart to identify a few constellations - I've been marvelling at the Milky Way ever since the moon diminished and stopped lighting up the whole sky. I've never seen so many stars - the sky looks somehow jagged with them.
Interesting sermon in St Andrew's this morning - the priest talked about epiphanies such as when you suddenly hear a Bell Bird - and of course we heard our fist Bell bird on Friday and so her point was well made for us. I think the chance of epiphany is considerable here - though it could just be that such a change from our normality would tend to create a certain receptivity in us. Certainly I feel a great deal more alive than I did a month ago!
There seemed to be a conspiracy this morning to persuade us to return - among the farewells after our last Sunday service were several suggestions that we should make this a regular visit. It's very tempting: this is a wonderful place to spend our winter and we already feel very much at home.
They'd need to do something about the telly, though!
Interesting sermon in St Andrew's this morning - the priest talked about epiphanies such as when you suddenly hear a Bell Bird - and of course we heard our fist Bell bird on Friday and so her point was well made for us. I think the chance of epiphany is considerable here - though it could just be that such a change from our normality would tend to create a certain receptivity in us. Certainly I feel a great deal more alive than I did a month ago!
There seemed to be a conspiracy this morning to persuade us to return - among the farewells after our last Sunday service were several suggestions that we should make this a regular visit. It's very tempting: this is a wonderful place to spend our winter and we already feel very much at home.
They'd need to do something about the telly, though!
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Wandered
Today we got a bit lost. Well no - the trail got lost. We're using a wee book of local walks by someone who reputedly has lived here for 30 years, but we have a sneaking suspicion that he is now living out his twilight years in a rest home far away and has concocted the walks from memory. (He does say in his intro "the publisher and author hold no responsibility for any accident or misfortune that may occur during [the book's] use".)
Ok - we didn't have an accident or even a misfortune. The trail simply vanished in a sea of dust where apparently the local yoof go to wreck their (or someone else's) old cars. But we did see some lovely sights along the way - not the least this old rail bridge, now the start of a rail trail for walkers and cyclists. There was another wonderful bridge over the Manuherikia River - made me feel a bit Harrison Fordish as I swayed my way over it. We crossed a bit of open ground called "Linger and Die" - apparently and aborted deep lead mining venture which filled with water at a depth of 10 metres. We never made it up to the clock on the hill above Alexandra, but took some pix of the town as we staggered back to the car.
Actually it was in Alex that we suddenly felt very far from home. It's about 33k from Cromwell, where we now feel quite settled. But this silent town under the bright sun .. the signs were creaking in the breeze like a Western, so that we expected some gunslinger to step out into the street at any moment. You'll see the pix on Flickr, and I may post some more tomorrow.
Today was a day of startling brilliance. The sky had barely a cloud throughout and the sun was fierce. Any movement along the trail raised a puff of dust. I find it hard to thing that in just over a week we'll be in the green-ness of home.
To say nothing of the rain.....
Ok - we didn't have an accident or even a misfortune. The trail simply vanished in a sea of dust where apparently the local yoof go to wreck their (or someone else's) old cars. But we did see some lovely sights along the way - not the least this old rail bridge, now the start of a rail trail for walkers and cyclists. There was another wonderful bridge over the Manuherikia River - made me feel a bit Harrison Fordish as I swayed my way over it. We crossed a bit of open ground called "Linger and Die" - apparently and aborted deep lead mining venture which filled with water at a depth of 10 metres. We never made it up to the clock on the hill above Alexandra, but took some pix of the town as we staggered back to the car.
Actually it was in Alex that we suddenly felt very far from home. It's about 33k from Cromwell, where we now feel quite settled. But this silent town under the bright sun .. the signs were creaking in the breeze like a Western, so that we expected some gunslinger to step out into the street at any moment. You'll see the pix on Flickr, and I may post some more tomorrow.
Today was a day of startling brilliance. The sky had barely a cloud throughout and the sun was fierce. Any movement along the trail raised a puff of dust. I find it hard to thing that in just over a week we'll be in the green-ness of home.
To say nothing of the rain.....
Friday, February 24, 2006
Roaring Meg
According to legend, Roaring Meg was named after a red-haired barmaid who kept a hotel on the creek at this point, but it's more likely just the turbulent water flow which inspired the name of this torrent in the Kawarau River. We climbed up into the hills on the right of the gorge today - if you live in Dunoon, think Holy Trinity drive for almost two hours. This took us to a height of about 3,000', through forest and then above the treeline among thorn bushes and tiny briar roses, which were apparently introduced by the miners for a bit of colour and then spread wildly, rather like the rabbits they brought in for cheap food!
There are more pix of the dramatic road on Flickr, but what we couldn't reproduce was the wonderful birdsong we heard as we approached the upper limit of the trees. Friends later identified what we described as the Bell bird. Whatever it was, it had a glorious alto voice and sang a sixth, a third and then a perfect fourth - a bit Mahlerian, we thought. It was accompanied by a chorus of more ordinary, higher birdsong, and was sheer joy. We stood listening for ages till growing hunger pushed us on to find a good place to sit.
We finished the day welcomed once more into a New Zealand home for a meal and wide-ranging conversation with two local Cursillistas. It makes the difference between being a tourist and being a visitor, and we love it.
There are more pix of the dramatic road on Flickr, but what we couldn't reproduce was the wonderful birdsong we heard as we approached the upper limit of the trees. Friends later identified what we described as the Bell bird. Whatever it was, it had a glorious alto voice and sang a sixth, a third and then a perfect fourth - a bit Mahlerian, we thought. It was accompanied by a chorus of more ordinary, higher birdsong, and was sheer joy. We stood listening for ages till growing hunger pushed us on to find a good place to sit.
We finished the day welcomed once more into a New Zealand home for a meal and wide-ranging conversation with two local Cursillistas. It makes the difference between being a tourist and being a visitor, and we love it.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Arrowtown
Visited Arrowtown today - a deliberately preserved mining town which still manages to look old despite the proliferation of tourist shops and tearooms (both kinda nice, actually). The town is noteworthy for the remains of the buildings used by the Chinese miners who were encouraged to come to New Zealand to work the goldmines and who tended to keep themselves apart from the other miners for reasons which today became very apparent.
On one of the information boards in the Chinese quarter we saw a facsimile of a local newspaper from the 1870s which referred to the Chinese in terms which (a)I cannot bring myself to reproduce here and (b)showed that at the time the Chinese were regarded as being a subhuman species whose habits were a source of disgust and fear. I don't know what habits the writer referred to, but I was interested in the shock I felt reading this in the bright sunlight beneath the trees. I couldn't help wondering what the group of Chinese tourists just behind of us thought of it - if indeed they could read it. I hoped they couldn't.
In fairness to 21st century Kiwis, I have to point out that the New Zealand Government has in recent years apologised for the treatment of Chinese migrant workers, many of whom had faced incredible hardship to make the journey here - hardship made bearable only by the hardship of the lives they were already living as peasant farmers in China.
Clicking on this photo will take you to other pics of the tiny huts they lived in - one of them seemed to have been wallpapered in old copies of newspapers. Now THERE'S an idea for all the old copies of TheGuardian piled up at The Blethers .....
On one of the information boards in the Chinese quarter we saw a facsimile of a local newspaper from the 1870s which referred to the Chinese in terms which (a)I cannot bring myself to reproduce here and (b)showed that at the time the Chinese were regarded as being a subhuman species whose habits were a source of disgust and fear. I don't know what habits the writer referred to, but I was interested in the shock I felt reading this in the bright sunlight beneath the trees. I couldn't help wondering what the group of Chinese tourists just behind of us thought of it - if indeed they could read it. I hoped they couldn't.
In fairness to 21st century Kiwis, I have to point out that the New Zealand Government has in recent years apologised for the treatment of Chinese migrant workers, many of whom had faced incredible hardship to make the journey here - hardship made bearable only by the hardship of the lives they were already living as peasant farmers in China.
Clicking on this photo will take you to other pics of the tiny huts they lived in - one of them seemed to have been wallpapered in old copies of newspapers. Now THERE'S an idea for all the old copies of TheGuardian piled up at The Blethers .....
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Looking on the grape ...
...and they were indeed red: Pinot Noir grapes growing in the Red Tractor vineyard on the road between Cromwell and Wanaka. Grant took us for a wander down the rows of vines, pruning, removing burned fruit which looked like raisins - what happens when the temperatures hit 40 degrees - and reconnecting an irrigation hose which had come adrift.
Viniculture is relatively new to this area - the last ten years have seen a huge growth in the number of vineyards. The process is more or less hydroponic, using water pumped from boreholes to a water table which rose when Lake Dunstan was created. Sometimes nutrients are added to the water by a pump, and we saw how important the supply of water is - where a trickle hole had become blocked, there would be a withered vine with shrivelled fruit. We learned that some growers will give fruit which has dried out "the JC treatment" which involves soaking the fruit overnight in water till it regains its size. You can work out the "JC" connection.
This afternoon I returned to the mineworkings at Bendigo - with my camera. You can see the results by clicking through to Flickr on today's pic. We walked from Welshtown to Logantown via the Aurora battery site - a wonderful walk through Manuka shrubs and thorn bushes, several of which were concealing lethal mineshafts. Rabbits were everywhere, skittering over the dry earth as we approached. The wind was strong enough to be cooling and the views were to die for. A great hike.
Tonight it is chilly - the wind has moved to the South and the forecast is for showers - and temperatures tonight of 5 degrees. Just like summer hols in Scotland!
Viniculture is relatively new to this area - the last ten years have seen a huge growth in the number of vineyards. The process is more or less hydroponic, using water pumped from boreholes to a water table which rose when Lake Dunstan was created. Sometimes nutrients are added to the water by a pump, and we saw how important the supply of water is - where a trickle hole had become blocked, there would be a withered vine with shrivelled fruit. We learned that some growers will give fruit which has dried out "the JC treatment" which involves soaking the fruit overnight in water till it regains its size. You can work out the "JC" connection.
This afternoon I returned to the mineworkings at Bendigo - with my camera. You can see the results by clicking through to Flickr on today's pic. We walked from Welshtown to Logantown via the Aurora battery site - a wonderful walk through Manuka shrubs and thorn bushes, several of which were concealing lethal mineshafts. Rabbits were everywhere, skittering over the dry earth as we approached. The wind was strong enough to be cooling and the views were to die for. A great hike.
Tonight it is chilly - the wind has moved to the South and the forecast is for showers - and temperatures tonight of 5 degrees. Just like summer hols in Scotland!
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Crown of Thorns
I've deliberately chosen this striking picture to illustrate what occurred to me today. When I came upon it in the hills yesterday it took me a long moment to realise that what I saw as a life-size crown of thorns was in fact the stem of the flower, dead and curled round on itself. But the fact that I saw it as I did perhaps reflects some of the wilderness experience which has set me thinking properly again.
Since I retired in June I've read nothing at all serious, and have been so busy-busy that I feel I've neglected thought and meditation in favour of action. Here, I've rediscovered space - mental space and physical space. The TV is so poor and so broken by advertising that I have not the slightest desire to watch it. There is time to go to bed early - and there is time to read. I've been reading Ivan Mann's thoughtful book "A Double Thirst" on our response to suffering, and I've been allowing the silence to soak into me and still all surface thought. The results are exciting and challenging.
However, at the same time I'm aware of the woman in the next-door house. She plays loud pop music all the time she's at home. The endless repetition of the pounding beat is maddening. Her dog barks a lot. It's as if the silent hills and the noise of crickets in the long dead grass beyond the garden are perhaps too much for her. I'm very aware of this essentially northern European culture sitting in the middle of this sparsely-populated land, where the buzzards swoop over the empty hills and the thorn bushes tear at the intruder. This neighbour shuts out the silence with electronic rhythm.
We've lost much of this silence. True, you can walk all afternoon in Argyll and see no-one, just as you can here. But the sense of being alone in the desert takes me back to a time and a place I never knew - and yet a place which is familiar and necessary.
There are more usual photos on Flickr - you can see them be clicking on the one shown here. But this one is special.
Since I retired in June I've read nothing at all serious, and have been so busy-busy that I feel I've neglected thought and meditation in favour of action. Here, I've rediscovered space - mental space and physical space. The TV is so poor and so broken by advertising that I have not the slightest desire to watch it. There is time to go to bed early - and there is time to read. I've been reading Ivan Mann's thoughtful book "A Double Thirst" on our response to suffering, and I've been allowing the silence to soak into me and still all surface thought. The results are exciting and challenging.
However, at the same time I'm aware of the woman in the next-door house. She plays loud pop music all the time she's at home. The endless repetition of the pounding beat is maddening. Her dog barks a lot. It's as if the silent hills and the noise of crickets in the long dead grass beyond the garden are perhaps too much for her. I'm very aware of this essentially northern European culture sitting in the middle of this sparsely-populated land, where the buzzards swoop over the empty hills and the thorn bushes tear at the intruder. This neighbour shuts out the silence with electronic rhythm.
We've lost much of this silence. True, you can walk all afternoon in Argyll and see no-one, just as you can here. But the sense of being alone in the desert takes me back to a time and a place I never knew - and yet a place which is familiar and necessary.
There are more usual photos on Flickr - you can see them be clicking on the one shown here. But this one is special.
Monday, February 20, 2006
A wilderness walk
Today we were all too aware of why a 4x4 is a good idea here. We drove up the Nevis Road - a grit road, one of the highest vehicle roads in NZ at 3,000' - and then walked through the high wilderness of the hills behind Bannockburn to a place called Duffer's Saddle, where the Carrick Race begins its downward journey to the fields far below.
The first thing we noticed was the drop in temperature. At 10.30am it was already warm in Cromwell, but at 3,000' a chill wind had us in our cagoules as soon as we left the vehicle. But the landscape was immense - literally and figuratively speaking. The grit road and the dusty tracks were lonely ribbons over featureless scrub for mile after folded mile, punctuated erratically by massive tors any of which could have stood in for Weathertop in the LotR movie. We scrambled up to one and found our legs bleeding from the attentions of the lethal jaggy plants I've already photographed - they were ubiquitous.
The views all around were tremendous; I've chosen to blog this one of a distant view of Mount Difficulty (1285m) because it sounds like something out of Pilgrim's Progress. We were the pilgrims today - and we made it home just ahead of the rain!
The first thing we noticed was the drop in temperature. At 10.30am it was already warm in Cromwell, but at 3,000' a chill wind had us in our cagoules as soon as we left the vehicle. But the landscape was immense - literally and figuratively speaking. The grit road and the dusty tracks were lonely ribbons over featureless scrub for mile after folded mile, punctuated erratically by massive tors any of which could have stood in for Weathertop in the LotR movie. We scrambled up to one and found our legs bleeding from the attentions of the lethal jaggy plants I've already photographed - they were ubiquitous.
The views all around were tremendous; I've chosen to blog this one of a distant view of Mount Difficulty (1285m) because it sounds like something out of Pilgrim's Progress. We were the pilgrims today - and we made it home just ahead of the rain!
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Lazy summer Sunday
No pounding round goldmines today, but a very peaceful, civilised day which began with church at 9am (actually that's not really civilised: why do we need to be at church quite so early?) We met a lady who had actually visited Dunoon - her antecedents were in Greenock.
Later - and you can see the pix by clicking on this one and going to Flickr - we visited the fantastic house which Hilary and Alan are building nearby - concrete blocks and huge logs of wood holding up the roof instead of the more usual squared-off joists. As John said, a bungalow - but now as we know it! This huge one-level house is curved in such a way as to present interesting vistas from one room to the next - I'm looking forward to seeing the photos of the finished article.
Thence to a BBQ nearby - if you can call two whole spit-roasted chickens along with sausages, burgers and venison a BBQ. If I had a patio like that - complete with the new bamboo blinds to diffuse the sinking sun - I'd never cook inside the whole summer. Life here seems so much simpler than when you have to take your blackened sausages indoors when the heavens open - a climate made for outdoor eating.
Apparently the evening wind is known locally as "The Dunstan Doctor". It makes the nights bearable - and the early mornings are deliciously cool and fragrant.
Must get up early tomorrow!
Later - and you can see the pix by clicking on this one and going to Flickr - we visited the fantastic house which Hilary and Alan are building nearby - concrete blocks and huge logs of wood holding up the roof instead of the more usual squared-off joists. As John said, a bungalow - but now as we know it! This huge one-level house is curved in such a way as to present interesting vistas from one room to the next - I'm looking forward to seeing the photos of the finished article.
Thence to a BBQ nearby - if you can call two whole spit-roasted chickens along with sausages, burgers and venison a BBQ. If I had a patio like that - complete with the new bamboo blinds to diffuse the sinking sun - I'd never cook inside the whole summer. Life here seems so much simpler than when you have to take your blackened sausages indoors when the heavens open - a climate made for outdoor eating.
Apparently the evening wind is known locally as "The Dunstan Doctor". It makes the nights bearable - and the early mornings are deliciously cool and fragrant.
Must get up early tomorrow!
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Ostriches!
I may have seen an ostrich before - in a zoo, perhaps - but to see a whole herd (flock? I shall call them a peck till someone informs me of the correct collective noun) pecking away beside the state highway was something else! Today I also encountered the closest thing to midges outside Scotland - I think they were sandflies, and they were black instead of grey and stripey, but the effect was very similar and we left!
Today became very warm indeed, so I was glad when the six o'clock gusts of wind began. Apparently this is why they grow such excellent Pinot Noir here - the hot days and chilly nights. We walked past a vineyard today and were deeved by the noise coming from - we discovered - small speakers hidden among the vines: the most dreadful cacophony of chirrups, screams and the noise my dial-up modem used to make when trying to connect to the Internet!
We assumed that this was to scare off birds; it certainly drove us away. Think of this over your next glass!
And another thing: Cromwell on a Saturday afternoon makes Dunoon seem like the hub of the universe. Everything closes except for the supermarket. The streets are empty. You can't get a coffee after 4pm. I suppose what I'm comparing it with is a resort somewhere warm like Crete or Spain, where they'd have a siesta and then open up again. Here it's as if the Sabbath descends early. And there are adverts every 7 minutes on the TV -all three channels.
I'm enjoying my book!
Today became very warm indeed, so I was glad when the six o'clock gusts of wind began. Apparently this is why they grow such excellent Pinot Noir here - the hot days and chilly nights. We walked past a vineyard today and were deeved by the noise coming from - we discovered - small speakers hidden among the vines: the most dreadful cacophony of chirrups, screams and the noise my dial-up modem used to make when trying to connect to the Internet!
We assumed that this was to scare off birds; it certainly drove us away. Think of this over your next glass!
And another thing: Cromwell on a Saturday afternoon makes Dunoon seem like the hub of the universe. Everything closes except for the supermarket. The streets are empty. You can't get a coffee after 4pm. I suppose what I'm comparing it with is a resort somewhere warm like Crete or Spain, where they'd have a siesta and then open up again. Here it's as if the Sabbath descends early. And there are adverts every 7 minutes on the TV -all three channels.
I'm enjoying my book!
Friday, February 17, 2006
The sea, the sea ...
...the Pacific Ocean, to be precise. We were in Dunedin today, and this beach is on the outskirts of this city in which the street names seem all to come from Edinburgh - there's even a Spottiswoode Street! By the time we reached the beach, there was quite a breeze blowing from the South-West, which actually made it feel more like a summer day in Dunbar, and the sea itself was c-o-l-d. The surfers were all in full wetsuits and kept disappearing worryingly from view.
The journey to Dunedin took about two and a half hours and took us through an amazing variety of scenery - including Roxburgh, a township in an area which looked much more familiar than the barren, baked hills of Cromwell. We saw fields which had actually been improved by having open-cast gold mining carried out in them; by the time the mining was over and the land restored the old boggy fields were fertile and green.
I learned the other day that Cromwell is the furthest from the sea of any town in New Zealand. It was good to smell the salt today - but I'm glad we're here in this hot, dry corner. Chilly sea air can wait another two weeks, thanks!
The journey to Dunedin took about two and a half hours and took us through an amazing variety of scenery - including Roxburgh, a township in an area which looked much more familiar than the barren, baked hills of Cromwell. We saw fields which had actually been improved by having open-cast gold mining carried out in them; by the time the mining was over and the land restored the old boggy fields were fertile and green.
I learned the other day that Cromwell is the furthest from the sea of any town in New Zealand. It was good to smell the salt today - but I'm glad we're here in this hot, dry corner. Chilly sea air can wait another two weeks, thanks!
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Woe, thrice woe and Bendigo
Good title, eh? The Woe arises because today I went out without my
camera - we had the steam camera with us, but that doesn't let me show where we went. I took this one of the house when we returned.
We visited another gold-mining site, Bendigo, above Lake Dunstan. You might wonder what the attraction is - wandering through arid hills and avoiding falling down mineshafts under a baking sun - and lacking pictorial evidence I feel a thousand-word blog isn't really on. I'll try to convey what we saw.
The hillside is like a desert at this time of year. The only vegetation is Manuka shrub - think a thyme bush, with the same size of leaves and flowers (white), only up to 12 feet tall. Full of bees. There are a few thorn bushes as well. And there's dust, and there are stones, and cushions of dry, pale lichen. And more stones - heaped where the miners stashed them when they dug them from the ground, or built into the walls of their tiny cottages and around their claims. All around this hill are unfenced mineshafts, giving an impression of desperate activity to reach gold at any cost. Some of the shafts are tiny - just wide enough to take a man. The gold was there, right enough - good deposits in some places, just enough to make some money in others. Several mines closed after a few years, leaving the remains of stampers - the buildings where the rock was pulverised before the gold could be retrieved.
But the most extraordinary thing for us was the silence. At times it seemed total - and then a single bird would call and we would realise how alone we were. Among the manuka which still flowered there were hundreds of bees, but where it was dried out, nothing. And we saw not a soul - in this place where a hundred years ago 500 men, women and children lived and toiled.
And that's why we enjoyed it so much. When I was a child, if we saw another family within a hundred yards of us on the beach, we said "it's seething", and that attitude must have stuck. Can't bear being a tourist with other tourists. Here in Cromwell we feel we're the only visitors in miles. Great!
We visited another gold-mining site, Bendigo, above Lake Dunstan. You might wonder what the attraction is - wandering through arid hills and avoiding falling down mineshafts under a baking sun - and lacking pictorial evidence I feel a thousand-word blog isn't really on. I'll try to convey what we saw.
The hillside is like a desert at this time of year. The only vegetation is Manuka shrub - think a thyme bush, with the same size of leaves and flowers (white), only up to 12 feet tall. Full of bees. There are a few thorn bushes as well. And there's dust, and there are stones, and cushions of dry, pale lichen. And more stones - heaped where the miners stashed them when they dug them from the ground, or built into the walls of their tiny cottages and around their claims. All around this hill are unfenced mineshafts, giving an impression of desperate activity to reach gold at any cost. Some of the shafts are tiny - just wide enough to take a man. The gold was there, right enough - good deposits in some places, just enough to make some money in others. Several mines closed after a few years, leaving the remains of stampers - the buildings where the rock was pulverised before the gold could be retrieved.
But the most extraordinary thing for us was the silence. At times it seemed total - and then a single bird would call and we would realise how alone we were. Among the manuka which still flowered there were hundreds of bees, but where it was dried out, nothing. And we saw not a soul - in this place where a hundred years ago 500 men, women and children lived and toiled.
And that's why we enjoyed it so much. When I was a child, if we saw another family within a hundred yards of us on the beach, we said "it's seething", and that attitude must have stuck. Can't bear being a tourist with other tourists. Here in Cromwell we feel we're the only visitors in miles. Great!
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Tea and ginger
A wee domestic moment. At home, we often end a walk with a cup of tea and some crystallised ginger - they go really well together. We managed to buy the ginger yesterday at the fruit stall, so we ended today with tea on the patio, in perfect temperatures. I even wrote postcards for the unblogged - if you're reading this you'll not be getting one!
If you click on this pic, you'll get to see what we did today, visiting Wanaka, an hour's drive away. We climbed a hill (of course) that was actually a roche moutonnee, left a strange shape by the movement of ice. From there we could see the snow-topped mountains of Mount Aspiring National Park - and look down on the growing town of Wanaka. All the houses are *so* different from what we're used to - tin roofs an' that - but everyone seems to have so much space, and houses appear to have everything needed for the life here.
And I've discovered what they call the infamous Cillit Bang here. It's called "Easy-off Bam". Isn't that wonderful? With the usual connotations (in the West of Scotland anyway) of the word "bam" it takes on a wealth of meaninglessness. In fact there are several things where you think you're looking at a familiar label and find it's different - like Marmite, which is My Mate here cos there's already a Marmite with a different label and meat in it.
And that's it for today - except that I drove the Bighorn home from Wanaka today at 100 kph (the speed limit). And we got here.
If you click on this pic, you'll get to see what we did today, visiting Wanaka, an hour's drive away. We climbed a hill (of course) that was actually a roche moutonnee, left a strange shape by the movement of ice. From there we could see the snow-topped mountains of Mount Aspiring National Park - and look down on the growing town of Wanaka. All the houses are *so* different from what we're used to - tin roofs an' that - but everyone seems to have so much space, and houses appear to have everything needed for the life here.
And I've discovered what they call the infamous Cillit Bang here. It's called "Easy-off Bam". Isn't that wonderful? With the usual connotations (in the West of Scotland anyway) of the word "bam" it takes on a wealth of meaninglessness. In fact there are several things where you think you're looking at a familiar label and find it's different - like Marmite, which is My Mate here cos there's already a Marmite with a different label and meat in it.
And that's it for today - except that I drove the Bighorn home from Wanaka today at 100 kph (the speed limit). And we got here.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
After the rain ...
It rained today. Real rain, which made you wet if you stood under it. As a result, we decided to go shopping for fruit. Cromwell is THE fruit-growing area in NZ, and there are many roadside fruit stalls selling the products of the orchards around them. This one was amazing - and the cherries I've just eaten were the biggest I've ever seen. The plums were pretty spectacular too - we had a couple to round off dinner. Dinner, incidentally, was Elephant fish. I fried it in a mix of butter and olive oil, with a little garlic. The nice lady in The New World (your LOCAL store - no overseas interests) told me it was "a bit like shark". So there you are. It was jolly good anyway.
And after the rain? Well, we saw this bit of blue sky beyond Bannockburn and pointed our Bighorn in that direction. The road ended in a grit track, so we parked and walked into the sunshine. I don't think anyone ever walks on that road. The cows all stopped what they were doing (ruminating, I suppose)and came to look at us. Some of them commented, quite loudly, on our passing. John said he felt like Jack Nicholson at the Oscars. The strange sheep had a bit of a gander too (they're strange because they are greyish, with stripey-looking fleece, long legs and quite round heads). It grew warm again; there were no cars, it was silent apart from the sound of water in narrow channels running through these amazingly green fields which changed abruptly to brown scrubby desert on the hills above. (I think the water must be doing the limestone thing of draining through the hill ground and emerging at the ends of the rock strata - or something)
As we did this, I reflected how this is my idea of visiting a new country. People will ask if we toured, if we saw the big sights, if we visited North Island. Fancy going all that way just to walk up a country road at the end of a wet day. But to me, this *is* the country. I feel I know the smells, the vegetation, the amazing trees, the dry hills. The birds sound exotic. This is how people live here. It's like going back to '50s Britain in some ways - the friendly girls serving in the shop, the passing farmer waving from his 4x4, the old-fashioned clothes shop in Alexandria - and to me that's strangely reassuring.
And now I feel a nectarine moment coming on ....
And after the rain? Well, we saw this bit of blue sky beyond Bannockburn and pointed our Bighorn in that direction. The road ended in a grit track, so we parked and walked into the sunshine. I don't think anyone ever walks on that road. The cows all stopped what they were doing (ruminating, I suppose)and came to look at us. Some of them commented, quite loudly, on our passing. John said he felt like Jack Nicholson at the Oscars. The strange sheep had a bit of a gander too (they're strange because they are greyish, with stripey-looking fleece, long legs and quite round heads). It grew warm again; there were no cars, it was silent apart from the sound of water in narrow channels running through these amazingly green fields which changed abruptly to brown scrubby desert on the hills above. (I think the water must be doing the limestone thing of draining through the hill ground and emerging at the ends of the rock strata - or something)
As we did this, I reflected how this is my idea of visiting a new country. People will ask if we toured, if we saw the big sights, if we visited North Island. Fancy going all that way just to walk up a country road at the end of a wet day. But to me, this *is* the country. I feel I know the smells, the vegetation, the amazing trees, the dry hills. The birds sound exotic. This is how people live here. It's like going back to '50s Britain in some ways - the friendly girls serving in the shop, the passing farmer waving from his 4x4, the old-fashioned clothes shop in Alexandria - and to me that's strangely reassuring.
And now I feel a nectarine moment coming on ....
Monday, February 13, 2006
Not just round the block!
The photo here shows the kind of terrain we visited today - high above Lake Wakatipu. The mountain is Ben Lomond - 1748m - set back from the lakeside town of Queenstown. I didn't take to the town - far too busy with tourists (like us!) in a way that Cromwell is not. However, once we left the gondola which scooshed us up the first part of the hillside, we found ourselves in just our kind of country - a wee path, wonderful golden grasses, grasshoppers making guiro noises and jumping on our hats, and this mountain. The mountains look so young compared to ours in Scotland - none of the jaggy bits have been weathered off yet: just look at the outlines of these gullies.
Another thing I've noticed: the moon last night was brighter than I've ever seen before - almost enough to dazzle. Presumably something to do with the clarity of the air here - the stars are pretty spectacular too, and the sun is seriously fierce.
And I've just been terrified by a strange insect on the floor of the study ... this is not like blogging in Dunoon!
Another thing I've noticed: the moon last night was brighter than I've ever seen before - almost enough to dazzle. Presumably something to do with the clarity of the air here - the stars are pretty spectacular too, and the sun is seriously fierce.
And I've just been terrified by a strange insect on the floor of the study ... this is not like blogging in Dunoon!
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Gold in them thar hills ...
Visited my first gold digging today, under a very Lord of the Rings sky (see pic). Bannockburn Sluicings is an extraordinary place where hydraulic sluicing to extract the gold from gravel has left a gorge of fantastic cliffs and gullies. The various races down which the water poured apparently defined the limits of the miners' claims.
We saw a cave where a rabbiter had lived, in among the debris from the sluicing, and the ruined cottage where one David Stewart (no relation!) had lived when he controlled the reservoir which supplied the precious water used in washing out the gold. Apparently a row broke out when it was proposed to recycle the water - the men paying for it thought they paid for the water itself, rather than merely the use of it.
We also walked among the pear trees of a deserted orchard, in the shade of three huge Scots pines. And all the time the warm wind blew the golden, dusty grass in tussocks and dried the sweat on our skin as soon as it formed. The rain, when it came, lasted ten seconds, as if someone had flicked water at us as we passed. A shower, Jim, but not as we know it!
We saw a cave where a rabbiter had lived, in among the debris from the sluicing, and the ruined cottage where one David Stewart (no relation!) had lived when he controlled the reservoir which supplied the precious water used in washing out the gold. Apparently a row broke out when it was proposed to recycle the water - the men paying for it thought they paid for the water itself, rather than merely the use of it.
We also walked among the pear trees of a deserted orchard, in the shade of three huge Scots pines. And all the time the warm wind blew the golden, dusty grass in tussocks and dried the sweat on our skin as soon as it formed. The rain, when it came, lasted ten seconds, as if someone had flicked water at us as we passed. A shower, Jim, but not as we know it!
Friday, February 10, 2006
It's a hard life ...
These buildings came from the old town of Cromwell, resited when the new dam flooded the town and created Lake Dunstan. Great coffee, by the way! As you can see in the photo, we've made the transition to summer with remarkable ease (even if it is 28 degrees). I've even made the transition to using a PC (thanks, Edgar!) instead of my beloved Mac, and you can blame any typos (I've spotted a few already) on the fact that I don't yet know how to edit them on it.
And for the culturally savvy among you - I keep thinking about R.S.Thomas when I look at Lake Dunstan...
And for the culturally savvy among you - I keep thinking about R.S.Thomas when I look at Lake Dunstan...
Dubai stopover....
Dubai, from the little we saw of it, is an extraordinary place. We arrived at midnight - all these Glasgow voices, wee Glasgow types, in among the tall Arabs in white with the red and white headgear, or more ornately-draped affairs looking as if they might be held in place by hair gel. We had about 4 hours' sleep there, in the Millenium Hotel, before being wheeched back to the airport. The photo shows the main concourse past the duty-free shops, quite the biggest I've seen. There are tall palm trees with lights woudn round them, and people from everywhere you could imagine.
Thirteen hours after leaving Dubai, we were in Sydney. We'd had darkness from about 5pm Dubai time, and 6 hours later it was dawn over Eastern Australia.In Sydney I had my hand luggage searched and a nailfile removed - though I'd already flown halfway round the globe with it and hadn't aroused a flicker of interest. In Christchurch, New Zealand - three hours and another Bruce Willis movie later - I had to remove my hiking boots from my case for inspection in case there was any deadly Scottish mud on them. (There wasn't - we'd scrubbed them to such an extent that I was actually complimented on them)Everyone in the whole laborious process of entering NZ was incredibly friendly, however, which made it bearable. Just.
Thirteen hours after leaving Dubai, we were in Sydney. We'd had darkness from about 5pm Dubai time, and 6 hours later it was dawn over Eastern Australia.In Sydney I had my hand luggage searched and a nailfile removed - though I'd already flown halfway round the globe with it and hadn't aroused a flicker of interest. In Christchurch, New Zealand - three hours and another Bruce Willis movie later - I had to remove my hiking boots from my case for inspection in case there was any deadly Scottish mud on them. (There wasn't - we'd scrubbed them to such an extent that I was actually complimented on them)Everyone in the whole laborious process of entering NZ was incredibly friendly, however, which made it bearable. Just.
Engine & snowfields
This was the first pic I took on our New Zealand trip. The engine of this Boeing 777 is as big as the fuselage of the planes we usually go on hols in. Below us stretched miles and miles of frozen Poland/Ukraine/other inhospitable-looking places. Amazing!I've just been Skyped by Ewan, just off to work as I prepare to eat curry - another disorientating incident.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Blogging upside-down
Well that's what I feel like - though it could just be the jet lag! What a lo-o-o-ng flight to get here (here is New Zealand) - over the miles of snow in Poland and Ukraine (I think!), then the incredible sight of Dubai from the air; the almost more incredible sight of Dubai airport the next morning; the enormity of the Indian Ocean and the eternity of Austalia (I was getting tired by then); the strange meal served between Sydney (where I was relieved of a nail file which no-one in Glasgow or Dubai seemed to care about)and Christchurch; the last bouncy flight in a turbo-prop down to Queenstown ....
They are mega fussy in NZ about what you bring with you. Food, seeds, nuts - and mud. Yes, mud. I had to unpack my hiking boots and show the nice man how clean they were. (They were too - John scrubbed the soles for me) He *was* a nice man; I was simply stressed about not missing the connection.
And now we're here. I've seen the sun move across the sky in the wrong direction, and I've just seen Orion upside down. That's why I feel upside down too. But if I manage something with my photos and my host's laptop I'll blog a pic or two. Right now I'm for my bed - and it's lunchtime in the UK. Wow.
They are mega fussy in NZ about what you bring with you. Food, seeds, nuts - and mud. Yes, mud. I had to unpack my hiking boots and show the nice man how clean they were. (They were too - John scrubbed the soles for me) He *was* a nice man; I was simply stressed about not missing the connection.
And now we're here. I've seen the sun move across the sky in the wrong direction, and I've just seen Orion upside down. That's why I feel upside down too. But if I manage something with my photos and my host's laptop I'll blog a pic or two. Right now I'm for my bed - and it's lunchtime in the UK. Wow.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
High-flying herons
I think Spring might happen - what a great day! At the moment the sky is the most wonderful pink colour behind our house, though the North-eastern view from the front is grey and misty once more. It's been sunny all afternoon, and for the first time I discovered the heronry in Kilmun Arboretum. Usually we drive past the enormously tall trees, but today the car park area was closed off and we had to leave the car in the road below and walk up.
I thought at first there was a dog yelping on the hillside above us, but a quick phonecall to the more bird-savvy Di established that this raucous noise came from a heron, somewhere high above us among the trees. Sure enough, one appeared, circled lazily, and returned to cover. But later, as we came down again, there was the most hellish din from another stand of conifers as a visiting heron from the left of the path was chased off a treetop by a resident of the right-hand side. It was amazing to see these two huge birds flapping about in such an unlikely fashion - and just as extraodinary to watch the victor return to perch triumphant on the swaying top branches of the disputed tree.
I didn't have my camera - it's sitting with the other NZ-bound gubbins in case I forget it. Damn.
I thought at first there was a dog yelping on the hillside above us, but a quick phonecall to the more bird-savvy Di established that this raucous noise came from a heron, somewhere high above us among the trees. Sure enough, one appeared, circled lazily, and returned to cover. But later, as we came down again, there was the most hellish din from another stand of conifers as a visiting heron from the left of the path was chased off a treetop by a resident of the right-hand side. It was amazing to see these two huge birds flapping about in such an unlikely fashion - and just as extraodinary to watch the victor return to perch triumphant on the swaying top branches of the disputed tree.
I didn't have my camera - it's sitting with the other NZ-bound gubbins in case I forget it. Damn.
Friday, February 03, 2006
New Blog on the Block
I'm delighted to find that I still have some effect on my former pupils, and to announce the arrival on the blogging scene of Duffy, who put up with me for - I think - 4 years of English classes plus the surpervision of an out-of-school Higher English course. He wasn't exactly one of the disaffected, but you'll see from his response to the previous post that he learned how to stop worrying and love textual analysis! I'm linking here because I ran into trouble trying to add any more links to my sidebar - is there a limit on Blogger to the number of items you can list?
I was also thinking how good it would be - in an anarchic sort of a way - if there was an ongoing open blog by the class I abandoned halfway through Standard Grade (that's what it feels like). I could add my tuppenceworth - and express scepticism, perhaps, at some of the policies currently in favour? Maybe not. After all, we all like to be able to close the door and be Superteacher, don't we?
I was also thinking how good it would be - in an anarchic sort of a way - if there was an ongoing open blog by the class I abandoned halfway through Standard Grade (that's what it feels like). I could add my tuppenceworth - and express scepticism, perhaps, at some of the policies currently in favour? Maybe not. After all, we all like to be able to close the door and be Superteacher, don't we?
Thursday, February 02, 2006
The Teaching of Literature
Been teaching this afternoon - not in school, but my private pupil who comes in at 4pm for tuition. I was reflecting on how easy it is for me still to slip back into Standard Grade Critical Essay mode - and also what a long time it took me to arrive at this stage, where everything seems clear, when I know just what to look for in a piece of literature and - just as important - how to communicate that effectively to a tired adolescent.
I had been teaching for several years before I knew, for example, what to do with a short story. Poems were a bit different, because you could spend more time simply decoding them. But what could you do with a story other than read it? Actually, it was my increasing interest in poetry, brought about, I think, by the introduction of Critical Analysis into the Higher Exam, that sharpened my skills in the study of prose. Certainly over the last 15 years of my career I came to believe that if I could show my pupils how a poem worked, so that they could "do it for themselves" with any poem, then they would be better able to tackle any part of the English syllabus at any level. Even Higher Interp. papers became less mysterious when the pupils saw that all these questions were just another facet of the same process. It was one of the most rewarding aspects of the job to see a class wrangling over what the writer was *actually* meaning when he/she wrote something - especially when the class consisted of mixed ability S3 boys with a reputation for trouble-making.
And of course I can now see that blogging would fit into this sort of activity very well, as I proposed in an earlier post. But part of me would miss the buzz of overhearing the voices and the unmistakable and authentic note of enthusiasm for a subject that too often produces groans or indifference.
And a last thought: when I returned to teaching after 8 years of being a full-time Earth Mother, I found the English Department full of brightly-covered paperback anthologies, and far too many poems and extracts that frankly were not worth spending time on - let along the weeks proposed by the new rage for "units". I still think there is a tendency in some quarters to teach pap instead of "real" literature, especially to younger pupils. I don't know how teachers can be bothered - because I don't see how anyone can work up any enthusiasm for second-rate writing. And if the teacher ain't enthusiastic, there's little hope for the weans!
And now - back to the packing .......
I had been teaching for several years before I knew, for example, what to do with a short story. Poems were a bit different, because you could spend more time simply decoding them. But what could you do with a story other than read it? Actually, it was my increasing interest in poetry, brought about, I think, by the introduction of Critical Analysis into the Higher Exam, that sharpened my skills in the study of prose. Certainly over the last 15 years of my career I came to believe that if I could show my pupils how a poem worked, so that they could "do it for themselves" with any poem, then they would be better able to tackle any part of the English syllabus at any level. Even Higher Interp. papers became less mysterious when the pupils saw that all these questions were just another facet of the same process. It was one of the most rewarding aspects of the job to see a class wrangling over what the writer was *actually* meaning when he/she wrote something - especially when the class consisted of mixed ability S3 boys with a reputation for trouble-making.
And of course I can now see that blogging would fit into this sort of activity very well, as I proposed in an earlier post. But part of me would miss the buzz of overhearing the voices and the unmistakable and authentic note of enthusiasm for a subject that too often produces groans or indifference.
And a last thought: when I returned to teaching after 8 years of being a full-time Earth Mother, I found the English Department full of brightly-covered paperback anthologies, and far too many poems and extracts that frankly were not worth spending time on - let along the weeks proposed by the new rage for "units". I still think there is a tendency in some quarters to teach pap instead of "real" literature, especially to younger pupils. I don't know how teachers can be bothered - because I don't see how anyone can work up any enthusiasm for second-rate writing. And if the teacher ain't enthusiastic, there's little hope for the weans!
And now - back to the packing .......
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Somer is a-cumin in ...
...though there's nary a cuckoo to be heard through the freezing fog currently sitting over the Firth. How strange it feels, therefore, to be looking out and packing summer clothes - shorts, even, and thin T shirts. At the moment I'm finding it hard to believe that in a week or so I shall be in New Zealand, where the temperature for the past few days has apparently been in the 30s. (Actually, a week from now I shall be in the air somewhere - or maybe wandering dazedly around an airport in Sydney: I'm having great difficulty getting my head round the time zone thingy.)
My hope is that I shall be able to continue blogging from Edgar's computer - even if he *does* have a PC instead of a Mac :-0 - provided I remember my little black book with all my user names and stuff. I might even manage to post a few photos. But I love the fact that I'll be able to Skype, and to pick up my mail as usual. We may be killing the planet - but isn't technology wonderful?
My hope is that I shall be able to continue blogging from Edgar's computer - even if he *does* have a PC instead of a Mac :-0 - provided I remember my little black book with all my user names and stuff. I might even manage to post a few photos. But I love the fact that I'll be able to Skype, and to pick up my mail as usual. We may be killing the planet - but isn't technology wonderful?
Monday, January 30, 2006
Multiplying - or trying to
Actually, this is not about going forth and not really about making converts; it's about keeping bums on seats in this wee Piskie church. There was a new family - mother, father, two weans - in church this morning. The parents, Anglicans originally from England, loved the service. They've been involved in the C of S which is nearer their house in an effort to keep their family in church circles - Sunday School and the like - but they miss the Anglican service. So they were happy, and hope to return when their commitments elsewhere permit.
However, I sensed that the two children (12 and 8) were less than ecstatic. The building is pretty baltic at this time of year despite our best efforts, and as they are the first children to darken the door on several years there are no child-centered activities to get them out of at least part of the service. I remember being twelve. That was two years after my parents had allowed me to give up Sunday School and church after moving house. This seemed a good move to me!
So what now? Obviously a church in which I have felt young for over 30 years is not going to survive without new blood - but I would contend that it's not actually chidren we need to attract; it's younger adults who happen to reproduce. Their children will grow up and leave the area, as did ours, but they are just as likely to stay on as not.
When we had a choir the children who sang in it tended to be of no real church affiliation - they were there for the music. A few were confirmed, but, bright as they were, they went off to Uni and that was that. Their parents might come to hear them on special occasions - but not often.
I reckon I'm of the "come and see" school of thought on this. If people want what we have, that's all that's needed. If not, then no amount of tub-thumping is going to change their minds. But I'd like to hear from anyone with a better idea. Just remember: average Sunday congregation = 15-20.
Average age: late 50s.
The music is great. And we do incense on high days!
However, I sensed that the two children (12 and 8) were less than ecstatic. The building is pretty baltic at this time of year despite our best efforts, and as they are the first children to darken the door on several years there are no child-centered activities to get them out of at least part of the service. I remember being twelve. That was two years after my parents had allowed me to give up Sunday School and church after moving house. This seemed a good move to me!
So what now? Obviously a church in which I have felt young for over 30 years is not going to survive without new blood - but I would contend that it's not actually chidren we need to attract; it's younger adults who happen to reproduce. Their children will grow up and leave the area, as did ours, but they are just as likely to stay on as not.
When we had a choir the children who sang in it tended to be of no real church affiliation - they were there for the music. A few were confirmed, but, bright as they were, they went off to Uni and that was that. Their parents might come to hear them on special occasions - but not often.
I reckon I'm of the "come and see" school of thought on this. If people want what we have, that's all that's needed. If not, then no amount of tub-thumping is going to change their minds. But I'd like to hear from anyone with a better idea. Just remember: average Sunday congregation = 15-20.
Average age: late 50s.
The music is great. And we do incense on high days!
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Bucolic Rambling
Had a perfect sort of day today - the kind of day when you can actually say, as it is happening, "I am happy. This is good." And yet it was incredibly calm. No wild excitement; the only expense that of splendid fish and chips in the bar of the Colintraive Hotel - oh, and a glass of rather pleasant red vino. We drove there for lunch with a friend who hopped over on the ferry from Bute (it takes all of two minutes); we talked; we put more logs on the fire; we observed that heat does not in fact pass through former MSPs (Mike Russell was sitting between us and the flames). We then walked briskly for over an hour along the shore road, the Kyles of Bute on our right glassy under a grey sky. Eider ducks made their Frankie Howerd noises as we approached and a heron flapped laboriously off over the water.
On two occasions dogs galloped wildly towards us only to bark and wag their tails, and the few people we saw - an old man on the road, an elderly couple in their garden - greeted us as if they'd been waiting all day for our arrival. At one point on the road we tried to walk without breathing - a tractor was spreading muck with joyous abandon and the smell was overpowering. For some reason this struck me as hilarious. By the time we returned to the car we'd walked for over two hours and it was growing dark.
When I read over the above I think of the other lives we lead - singing, travelling, meeting interesting people - and the life we used to lead, shut in a school with a thousand people where the fact that it was in the middle of lovely countryside made precious little difference to daily existence. Compared with all that, today sounds dull. It wasn't. Maybe this ties in with what I was reflecting on yesterday: we can in fact be happy with relatively little (I'm having to be cautious here - we used a car to get there, and it took 30 minutes' driving time each way) and perhaps all we need is to identify what is important. Or is that only possible retrospectively?
On two occasions dogs galloped wildly towards us only to bark and wag their tails, and the few people we saw - an old man on the road, an elderly couple in their garden - greeted us as if they'd been waiting all day for our arrival. At one point on the road we tried to walk without breathing - a tractor was spreading muck with joyous abandon and the smell was overpowering. For some reason this struck me as hilarious. By the time we returned to the car we'd walked for over two hours and it was growing dark.
When I read over the above I think of the other lives we lead - singing, travelling, meeting interesting people - and the life we used to lead, shut in a school with a thousand people where the fact that it was in the middle of lovely countryside made precious little difference to daily existence. Compared with all that, today sounds dull. It wasn't. Maybe this ties in with what I was reflecting on yesterday: we can in fact be happy with relatively little (I'm having to be cautious here - we used a car to get there, and it took 30 minutes' driving time each way) and perhaps all we need is to identify what is important. Or is that only possible retrospectively?
Friday, January 27, 2006
The Rich Young Man and the comfortable blogger
I meant to post this last night, but all my Bloggers had vanished so I went to bed and read a BOOK instead! …
How do we cope with the idea of selling all we have and giving to the poor? Can we in fact do this sort of thing in our time and place?
From this the discerning might gather I’ve been at Bible study. I find these challenging moments stick like a burr and require further thought. There is sometimes a longing for a greater simplicity in life – but I think life for us is so beset with the civilisation whose benefits we enjoy that giving everything away would merely lead to its dissolution. And then someone would have to step in and bale us out – no?
Complete single-mindedness is surely simpler when life is whittled down to basics. Look at the hero of Polanski’s film “The Pianist”. He seemed most able to focus on surviving when he’d lost everything – home, parents, siblings, dignity, a piano to play. His music survived in his head and he concentrated on staying alive.
Conclusion for tonight: don’t let possessions matter. Use them, but don’t worry about them. Focus on what is important – to do that I need enough. Just that.
And enough includes my laptop!
How do we cope with the idea of selling all we have and giving to the poor? Can we in fact do this sort of thing in our time and place?
From this the discerning might gather I’ve been at Bible study. I find these challenging moments stick like a burr and require further thought. There is sometimes a longing for a greater simplicity in life – but I think life for us is so beset with the civilisation whose benefits we enjoy that giving everything away would merely lead to its dissolution. And then someone would have to step in and bale us out – no?
Complete single-mindedness is surely simpler when life is whittled down to basics. Look at the hero of Polanski’s film “The Pianist”. He seemed most able to focus on surviving when he’d lost everything – home, parents, siblings, dignity, a piano to play. His music survived in his head and he concentrated on staying alive.
Conclusion for tonight: don’t let possessions matter. Use them, but don’t worry about them. Focus on what is important – to do that I need enough. Just that.
And enough includes my laptop!
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Mindless me, clever them
Is this fun?
I found it on a cool site here after looking at Mousing Around - you just change the URL to your own name or whatever. All I have the brains for tonight anyway!
I found it on a cool site here after looking at Mousing Around - you just change the URL to your own name or whatever. All I have the brains for tonight anyway!
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Charismatic bloggers?
I've been trying today to put forward a strong case for blogging as a tool in the dissemination of adult lay education in the church - especially in scattered rural/island communities. I may have over-stated my case, in fact - get a bit loud when I'm enthusiastic. But one of the points I made was that the community one builds overcomes the anonymity, up to a point, of faceless people at their keyboards; I don't "know" the people I encounter on this blog, not in the conventional sense, but feel increasingly at home sharing info and ideas with them.
However, I want to check on a further hunch: To what extent is our response to a blog post influenced by what we already know of the blogger? If, for example, the blogger is also known as a charismatic lecturer, trusted because of what they say/do in person, do we read their stuff with an increased sympathy and awareness? (I suspect the answer is "yes") And does that fact, if it is so, actually enhance the usefulness of the process, in that you can, as it were, take the speaker home with you and refer to their words at you leisure, or see what he/she has to say on other topics - and you're interested in their opinions on anything because you trust them already and feel they can help you?
If the answer to all this is in fact "yes"(which I believe) I have to say that I'd find it a great luxury to be able to test my ideas on a regular basis with someone whose ideas/learning/insights/experience I respect; in fact, I'd enjoy being a student again without the hassle of going over the water to Uni! This is the aspect I'm trying to represent - but I feel I'm bleating in a very wide open space right now. If you think schools are slow to use technology imaginatively, try a community of adults who think a mobile phone is a stage too far, or to be used only in dire emergency. And then there are the folk who refuse to have anything to do with computers .....
Courage, mon brave - le diable est mort! [Again - a prize (maybe a Mars bar??) to the first person to recognise the book this quote is from. Very much from the pre-computer age]
However, I want to check on a further hunch: To what extent is our response to a blog post influenced by what we already know of the blogger? If, for example, the blogger is also known as a charismatic lecturer, trusted because of what they say/do in person, do we read their stuff with an increased sympathy and awareness? (I suspect the answer is "yes") And does that fact, if it is so, actually enhance the usefulness of the process, in that you can, as it were, take the speaker home with you and refer to their words at you leisure, or see what he/she has to say on other topics - and you're interested in their opinions on anything because you trust them already and feel they can help you?
If the answer to all this is in fact "yes"(which I believe) I have to say that I'd find it a great luxury to be able to test my ideas on a regular basis with someone whose ideas/learning/insights/experience I respect; in fact, I'd enjoy being a student again without the hassle of going over the water to Uni! This is the aspect I'm trying to represent - but I feel I'm bleating in a very wide open space right now. If you think schools are slow to use technology imaginatively, try a community of adults who think a mobile phone is a stage too far, or to be used only in dire emergency. And then there are the folk who refuse to have anything to do with computers .....
Courage, mon brave - le diable est mort! [Again - a prize (maybe a Mars bar??) to the first person to recognise the book this quote is from. Very much from the pre-computer age]
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Retail Rage
I dipped a toe into the world of High street techno retail today when I visited Edinburgh. I wanted a pair of comfy earphones for my beautiful new iPod nano - having nano ears I actually find the usual tiny in-ear jobs excruciatingly painful. As every second person under a certain age appears to walk about plugged into their music, I was sure I'd find what I needed.
Now, I perhaps should have heeded Neil's recent post when he commented
"Dixons - surely a definition of hell, with some strident beep echoing round the store every ten seconds and a weary collection of merchandise - was utterly useless (Can anyone tell me how, exactly, Dixons prospers? Parent company DSG International announces interim results on January 18, and I'll be very interested to see if - in today's testing high street environment - they show any signs of suffering from the dire, dire shopping experience they offer)." -
but it was raining and time was of the essence and I didn't. And so I schlepped into Dixon's in Princes Street.
I had found some of the over-ear thingys I sought, from a rather tiny variety, when I was assailed (though that's rather a strong word for the half-hearted interaction it describes) by a youth in a uniform wondering if he could help. Actually, it appeared not. Every question I asked, he peered vainly at the packaging to see if the answer was to be found there. No, there were no more models available - only this wee row I was looking at. As I succumbed and indicated I'd take the ones I first thought of, he half-heartedly gave me a bit of paper with a number on it - to give to the cashier. Apparently this would earn him Brownie points, or something.
The check-out girl had a bit more going for her. To cut a longish story short, she directed me to the row of other makes further up the shop, and I managed to find a pair which I can now reveal work a treat. But if shops will insist on employing the dull-witted and the ignorant, is it too much to ask that they be kept away from the customers until they have had at least an orientation course? Maybe the boy was an impersonator? Probably not. Anyway, I'm afraid I shopped him. Number 40, your time's up.
Now, I perhaps should have heeded Neil's recent post when he commented
"Dixons - surely a definition of hell, with some strident beep echoing round the store every ten seconds and a weary collection of merchandise - was utterly useless (Can anyone tell me how, exactly, Dixons prospers? Parent company DSG International announces interim results on January 18, and I'll be very interested to see if - in today's testing high street environment - they show any signs of suffering from the dire, dire shopping experience they offer)." -
but it was raining and time was of the essence and I didn't. And so I schlepped into Dixon's in Princes Street.
I had found some of the over-ear thingys I sought, from a rather tiny variety, when I was assailed (though that's rather a strong word for the half-hearted interaction it describes) by a youth in a uniform wondering if he could help. Actually, it appeared not. Every question I asked, he peered vainly at the packaging to see if the answer was to be found there. No, there were no more models available - only this wee row I was looking at. As I succumbed and indicated I'd take the ones I first thought of, he half-heartedly gave me a bit of paper with a number on it - to give to the cashier. Apparently this would earn him Brownie points, or something.
The check-out girl had a bit more going for her. To cut a longish story short, she directed me to the row of other makes further up the shop, and I managed to find a pair which I can now reveal work a treat. But if shops will insist on employing the dull-witted and the ignorant, is it too much to ask that they be kept away from the customers until they have had at least an orientation course? Maybe the boy was an impersonator? Probably not. Anyway, I'm afraid I shopped him. Number 40, your time's up.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
If only .....
Oh dear. I really shouldn't read all these edublogs - and I shouldn't take private pupils either. Why not? Because I start enthusing about things I'd like to do in the classroom (as well as bemoaning what people still do in the name of education). I hope some digital natives take the time to read what I'm about to write - because I want to know if they see it as a Good Idea.
If I were back in my old room, even if the laptops at my disposal *were* the nasty little PCs we had, and even *if* our every move was monitered by the dastardly IGear, this is what I see. Topic: let's take Shakespeare. Julius Caesar (my hapless pupil is doing this just now). We've studied the play and now we have to get our heads round the mistakes made by Brutus so that we can write a thoughtful critical essay on the subject.
Now at this point I might well have used Group Discussion to help them share ideas. Good for the assessment of Group Talk - but less good for the retaining of ideas shared *unless* the groups get some quick-witted soul to write notes on flip chart paper. It's also quite noisy.
But what if I, at my laptop, kicked off a blog entry with the question - and perhaps a starter prompt? Now everyone in the room, each at his/her laptop or sharing between two, thinks about my starter. Perhaps they blog a quick response. Perhaps they ask a question. Everyone has to click the "refresh" button each time, say, they put something in. I suppose they could do it to command if need be. The online discussion continues till the end of the period.
At this point, normally, great chunks of what has been said are lost, supplanted by something fascinating like ... oh, let's say some demanding mathematical problem. By the time the pupils have to write that all-important piece for their Standard Grade folio, they can only remember vague snatches. "Miss - what did you say ...". But Miss has forgotten, because she says so much in a day and besides, she's not Miss, she's Mrs and she's finding senile decay creeping in.
But if it is all on the blog ....it'll all still be there! And they can access it in the Library, at home, in the class a week, a month later - when they need it for the essay, or for the redraft, or months later when they're scrabbling to make a good folio, having just realised how important it is. And the teacher would not have to rummage in the Record of Work :-( for the original question to put on the SQA label, and the pupils wouldn't need to ask, or borrow the jotter of the better-prepared sucker sitting next to them. Brilliant!
There's only one problem. I never did this. And now, I probably never will. Bum.
If I were back in my old room, even if the laptops at my disposal *were* the nasty little PCs we had, and even *if* our every move was monitered by the dastardly IGear, this is what I see. Topic: let's take Shakespeare. Julius Caesar (my hapless pupil is doing this just now). We've studied the play and now we have to get our heads round the mistakes made by Brutus so that we can write a thoughtful critical essay on the subject.
Now at this point I might well have used Group Discussion to help them share ideas. Good for the assessment of Group Talk - but less good for the retaining of ideas shared *unless* the groups get some quick-witted soul to write notes on flip chart paper. It's also quite noisy.
But what if I, at my laptop, kicked off a blog entry with the question - and perhaps a starter prompt? Now everyone in the room, each at his/her laptop or sharing between two, thinks about my starter. Perhaps they blog a quick response. Perhaps they ask a question. Everyone has to click the "refresh" button each time, say, they put something in. I suppose they could do it to command if need be. The online discussion continues till the end of the period.
At this point, normally, great chunks of what has been said are lost, supplanted by something fascinating like ... oh, let's say some demanding mathematical problem. By the time the pupils have to write that all-important piece for their Standard Grade folio, they can only remember vague snatches. "Miss - what did you say ...". But Miss has forgotten, because she says so much in a day and besides, she's not Miss, she's Mrs and she's finding senile decay creeping in.
But if it is all on the blog ....it'll all still be there! And they can access it in the Library, at home, in the class a week, a month later - when they need it for the essay, or for the redraft, or months later when they're scrabbling to make a good folio, having just realised how important it is. And the teacher would not have to rummage in the Record of Work :-( for the original question to put on the SQA label, and the pupils wouldn't need to ask, or borrow the jotter of the better-prepared sucker sitting next to them. Brilliant!
There's only one problem. I never did this. And now, I probably never will. Bum.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Early signs ...
Having read about Ewan's gig at Jordanhill, I couldn't help remembering how, at the age of 13, he was asked to deliver an in-service course to the staff of Dunoon Grammar School on the use of the new Mac computers which had recently arrived. The most memorable incident at this was the moment when he rescued the PT of Learning Support who was holding the mouse against the side of the monitor in an attempt to do something with it. Apparently she found him a sympathetic instructor.
On the back of this success, he subsequently produced a series of idiot's guides to Macs (pictured), which he then sold - I believe at 50p a throw - to his teachers. Years later they were still turning up in drawers - even after the advent of the PCs which took over in latter years. :-(
We should have guessed where he'd end up!
BTW - the photo was *not* part of the Guide - but it *is* contemporary!
On the back of this success, he subsequently produced a series of idiot's guides to Macs (pictured), which he then sold - I believe at 50p a throw - to his teachers. Years later they were still turning up in drawers - even after the advent of the PCs which took over in latter years. :-(
We should have guessed where he'd end up!
BTW - the photo was *not* part of the Guide - but it *is* contemporary!
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Blogs and nosey Mum
On a recent post the rather anonymous Jimmy :-) made this comment about blogs - a term with which he was till recently unfamiliar:" A diary someone would keep if they still lived at home and had a very nosey Mum." I loved this - and it made me think about the activity (again!)
I recently commented myself on a blog post which seemed to me worthy of mild criticism. I hope what I said wasn't unkind - though I was clear in my mind that it was a point worth making. When I returned to the blog next day to see if I'd stirred anything, I found the post had vanished altogether. Maybe that was a Good Thing. Maybe I was being the "very nosey Mum". So what effect does the awareness of such a Mum create? If we know what we write will be read - and potentially read by a wide range of people who may not care about *our* feelings - do we then practise self-moderation so that we will not be ashamed later of what we have written today?
Seems to me this could have implications in the classroom - if we can get this idea into pupils' heads then all this apparent worry about moderation might become less acute. (No it won't. What planet am I living on? :-l)
I recently commented myself on a blog post which seemed to me worthy of mild criticism. I hope what I said wasn't unkind - though I was clear in my mind that it was a point worth making. When I returned to the blog next day to see if I'd stirred anything, I found the post had vanished altogether. Maybe that was a Good Thing. Maybe I was being the "very nosey Mum". So what effect does the awareness of such a Mum create? If we know what we write will be read - and potentially read by a wide range of people who may not care about *our* feelings - do we then practise self-moderation so that we will not be ashamed later of what we have written today?
Seems to me this could have implications in the classroom - if we can get this idea into pupils' heads then all this apparent worry about moderation might become less acute. (No it won't. What planet am I living on? :-l)
Friday, January 13, 2006
January weather
Having posted pics that make Dunoon look idyllic, I feel honour-bound to be honest. This is lunchtime in January. Quite the brightest it's been all day. Actually, yesterday was more dramatically awful - the spray obscured the largish building on the left at high tide - but I'm beginning to realise how easy it is to be a complete slob on days like this. It's so dark first thing that there seems little reason to open an eye, let alone actually DO anything.
To be fair to me, I have been out for food. I am clothed, and in my right mind (up to a point). I have reported on yesterday's Bible Study group findings to my Bishop via email. I have made a loaf and am now going to eat it. I have also read all the blogs I look at - and been interested by at least one blogevent. But it's hideously easy to be seduced by what I'm doing right now and forget the less enjoyable/more demanding tasks which await me. Like the big report on churches and terrorism that I'm supposed to have finished summarising. Or the more housewifely task of taking up a pair of trousers - which I've put off for two months already. They're lightweight, summer trousers - and I'll be needing them in a month.
It's summer in New Zealand. And I'll be there. Cheers!
To be fair to me, I have been out for food. I am clothed, and in my right mind (up to a point). I have reported on yesterday's Bible Study group findings to my Bishop via email. I have made a loaf and am now going to eat it. I have also read all the blogs I look at - and been interested by at least one blogevent. But it's hideously easy to be seduced by what I'm doing right now and forget the less enjoyable/more demanding tasks which await me. Like the big report on churches and terrorism that I'm supposed to have finished summarising. Or the more housewifely task of taking up a pair of trousers - which I've put off for two months already. They're lightweight, summer trousers - and I'll be needing them in a month.
It's summer in New Zealand. And I'll be there. Cheers!
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Colour blind
Mr Blethers has just been taking the New Year bottles to the recycling. On this gale-shredded morning, he had an interesting encounter with the recycling operatives, whom I used to call "rubbish men", in my old, non-pc days. He was, in fact, reprimanded for being on the point of posting a green bottle into a brown bin.
And this revealed the difficulty posed by such a well-run site for someone who is as colour-blind as the afore-mentioned Mr B. Clear bottles - nae problem. But we rarely drink anything from a clear glass bottle - our preferred tipple comes in either green or brown glass. The receptacles for recycling them are also, logically, green and brown respectively. But Mr B cannot distinguish between these colours. Apparently he often stands musing over a bottle, holding it up to compare it with the bin into which he is about to chuck it. Sometimes he can feel the eyes of other denizens of the recycling world on his back. Today he was nobbled. How many green bottles have gone the way of the brown on a gloomy evening?
I shudder to think. But even more I shudder at the prospect of having to take over the bottle-binning.
And this revealed the difficulty posed by such a well-run site for someone who is as colour-blind as the afore-mentioned Mr B. Clear bottles - nae problem. But we rarely drink anything from a clear glass bottle - our preferred tipple comes in either green or brown glass. The receptacles for recycling them are also, logically, green and brown respectively. But Mr B cannot distinguish between these colours. Apparently he often stands musing over a bottle, holding it up to compare it with the bin into which he is about to chuck it. Sometimes he can feel the eyes of other denizens of the recycling world on his back. Today he was nobbled. How many green bottles have gone the way of the brown on a gloomy evening?
I shudder to think. But even more I shudder at the prospect of having to take over the bottle-binning.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Change and decay ...
This photo of a mosaic in Herculaneum is an amazing example of something not decaying over a period of 2,000 years - it's an incredibly vivid piece of artwork. But I'm thinking right now about teeth. Do we outlive our teeth in Western society? Come to that, do we in fact outlive our joints and all? Do science and nutrition keep us alive only to be mocked by the failure of our bits?
Garn. Sad, the effect of sitting in the dentist's waiting for emergency treatment occasioned by yet another filling failure.
Garn. Sad, the effect of sitting in the dentist's waiting for emergency treatment occasioned by yet another filling failure.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Still asking ....
A recent visitor to this site, Jon, made some kind remarks about blethers and commented on my post "Why the Kirk?" as raising interesting questions. But I didn't really ask them rhetorically; I really want to hear what the "hymn sandwich" diet does to help the average worshipper achieve a sense of communion in the normal dreich Sunday when there are few sparks from the pulpit and no sharing in the eucharist to look forward to.
David also had some interesting comments, but I still cannot grasp how the whole structure of the C of S service assists "active" prayer - you're sitting down, you're not actually saying anything, you don't know what the minister will say next so you can hardly meditate on his words and you can't really shut him out - or can you? (I'm using male examples only for the sake of brevity)
Come on, guys - you obviously have more to share than you have so far.
David also had some interesting comments, but I still cannot grasp how the whole structure of the C of S service assists "active" prayer - you're sitting down, you're not actually saying anything, you don't know what the minister will say next so you can hardly meditate on his words and you can't really shut him out - or can you? (I'm using male examples only for the sake of brevity)
Come on, guys - you obviously have more to share than you have so far.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Myth vs. Reality
Watched "Troy" last night, courtesey of Ewan's present of two months of movies. Great - all that leaping and balletic heroism. But it made me think about Achilles and my previous image of this particular hero. I never read The Iliad in Greek - not *that* well-educated - but I *did* study parts of Virgil's Aeneid in Latin, including Book 2: "Infandum, regina, iubes renovare dolorem ...". From that, I had this idea of Achilles as almost super-human. Hector too, come to that, but with more pathos. Let's just say that Achilles cast a long shadow, and all the more so for being a fairly shadowy hero. Now, Brad Pitt's Achilles was all young man - muscles, brooding looks, sex appeal - and not at all shadowy. And to me, he was the less for our being shown him in his very human humanity.
And today is the feast of the Epiphany. The shadowy Magi enter the frame, leave their gifts and go home by another route. I know their symbolism - their story told by Matthew the Jewish writer to show how the Christ came for the Gentiles, just as the Gentile Luke told of the (Jewish) poor shepherds to represent the Jewish people. Symbols, and all the better for being mysterious. I don't want to know details - or even if there was any chance that they actually existed. This doesn't matter - because of the intrinsic truth of the symbolism.
Somehow, to me, these two examples are linked. What am I trying to say? Do we reduce everything nowadays to the ordinary and the comprehensible? Do we seek to make everything we touch familiar, ordinary, human? Do we refuse to have mysteries any longer?
I'll stick with a bit of mystery. Happy Epiphany!
And today is the feast of the Epiphany. The shadowy Magi enter the frame, leave their gifts and go home by another route. I know their symbolism - their story told by Matthew the Jewish writer to show how the Christ came for the Gentiles, just as the Gentile Luke told of the (Jewish) poor shepherds to represent the Jewish people. Symbols, and all the better for being mysterious. I don't want to know details - or even if there was any chance that they actually existed. This doesn't matter - because of the intrinsic truth of the symbolism.
Somehow, to me, these two examples are linked. What am I trying to say? Do we reduce everything nowadays to the ordinary and the comprehensible? Do we seek to make everything we touch familiar, ordinary, human? Do we refuse to have mysteries any longer?
I'll stick with a bit of mystery. Happy Epiphany!
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Why the Kirk?
This is a deeply unfashionable subject, but it's my blog and I want to raise it:
What do people find in Church of Scotland services? Why do they go? Presumably they are Christians - but what sustenance does the service give them? If a congregation is fortunate enough to have a gifted and thoughtful preacher as their minister, then they will at least be stimulated and perhaps moved by the sermon, but other than that? Bellow five hymns, sit passively through several extempore prayers - the quality of which again will depend on the ability of the incumbent - and that's it. Unless, of course, it's one of the infrequent communion services.
I was brought up in the Kirk. One of my great-uncles was a minister. I went till my early teens and then had had enough. I'd still be unchurched, 50 years on, if that was all that was available. I was reminded of it today when an acquaintance was bemoaning the dreadful sermon he'd had to suffer - all 20 minutes of it - on Christmas Eve. He no longer goes to church on a regular basis because it is so boring.
Sermons in the Scottish Episcopal church - to which I belong - are not the central part of the liturgy. The Eucharist is. The prayers are well-written and familiar enough to provide a vehicle for meditation. With or without music, the service can be beautiful. The celebrant can be a wonderful preacher - but it doesn't matter so much. There is movement, congregational participation and silence. There is a sense of "other" - it is not mundane.
And there are so few of us that we all know one another. Not entirely a good thing, as we're lumbered with a lovely but scabby building to maintain. But I'd love to hear from someone out there who can tell me why I'm arrogant, self-satisfied or just plain wrong about all this.
What do people find in Church of Scotland services? Why do they go? Presumably they are Christians - but what sustenance does the service give them? If a congregation is fortunate enough to have a gifted and thoughtful preacher as their minister, then they will at least be stimulated and perhaps moved by the sermon, but other than that? Bellow five hymns, sit passively through several extempore prayers - the quality of which again will depend on the ability of the incumbent - and that's it. Unless, of course, it's one of the infrequent communion services.
I was brought up in the Kirk. One of my great-uncles was a minister. I went till my early teens and then had had enough. I'd still be unchurched, 50 years on, if that was all that was available. I was reminded of it today when an acquaintance was bemoaning the dreadful sermon he'd had to suffer - all 20 minutes of it - on Christmas Eve. He no longer goes to church on a regular basis because it is so boring.
Sermons in the Scottish Episcopal church - to which I belong - are not the central part of the liturgy. The Eucharist is. The prayers are well-written and familiar enough to provide a vehicle for meditation. With or without music, the service can be beautiful. The celebrant can be a wonderful preacher - but it doesn't matter so much. There is movement, congregational participation and silence. There is a sense of "other" - it is not mundane.
And there are so few of us that we all know one another. Not entirely a good thing, as we're lumbered with a lovely but scabby building to maintain. But I'd love to hear from someone out there who can tell me why I'm arrogant, self-satisfied or just plain wrong about all this.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Table Talk
One of the major topics covered in the conversations over the past two evenings of eating and socialising was that of blogging. I don't recall that I brought it up - although recollection is somewhat muddied. But what strikes me when I reflect is that I have been labouring under the delusion that blogging was a much more widely-accepted tool than it seems to be (a delusion probably fostered by my early introduction to the genre through family contacts).
The contention seemed to be that blogging was essentially fairly narcissistic, hierarchical (in that one person controlled each blog and everyone else commented) and limited in its uses. I know that this has been covered, probably ad nauseam, in other places, but this is me working it out for myself. And that's where my personal use of the medium comes in. I have always liked to think onto paper - so much so that when I was teaching I once found a carefully-argued paper on the subject of homework which I couldn't remember submitting to anyone - until I realised I'd written it for myself. So for me, this is an extension of that exercise - and maybe someone else will read this, and think "boring old fart", and pass on.
As for the notion of hierarchy: I have a feeling that as blogging has turned out to be so wonderfully easy technologically speaking, the only hierarchy involved is a much wider one - the ready access to and use of the internet. Otherwise it's surely a hierarchy of willingness - the desire to experiment, to share, to bring new interest to the old skills that English teachers like me have always tried to hammer into their pupils. After all, every Standard Grade pupil in the land has to write two essays - one factual/discursive and one creative/personal - and it's pain and grief for many of them.
There are no hard facts involved in this kind of communication. Just opinion, comment, sharing of experiences - and the expression of all this in a style the writer can be satisfied with. So maybe the big thing is that the blogger - beyond the kid stage - enjoys the exercise of crafting a piece of writing which creates a persona, explores ideas as they arrive and reaches a few others who may want to indulge in the dinner-table talk we started two nights ago.
So: are there bloggers out there for whom the act of writing is a chore? the kind of person who, say, excels at maths but hates writing an essay? (I'm heading back to the classroom here) What does that kind of person write about, if he/she exists? Answers, not on a postcard, please, but in my comment box!
The contention seemed to be that blogging was essentially fairly narcissistic, hierarchical (in that one person controlled each blog and everyone else commented) and limited in its uses. I know that this has been covered, probably ad nauseam, in other places, but this is me working it out for myself. And that's where my personal use of the medium comes in. I have always liked to think onto paper - so much so that when I was teaching I once found a carefully-argued paper on the subject of homework which I couldn't remember submitting to anyone - until I realised I'd written it for myself. So for me, this is an extension of that exercise - and maybe someone else will read this, and think "boring old fart", and pass on.
As for the notion of hierarchy: I have a feeling that as blogging has turned out to be so wonderfully easy technologically speaking, the only hierarchy involved is a much wider one - the ready access to and use of the internet. Otherwise it's surely a hierarchy of willingness - the desire to experiment, to share, to bring new interest to the old skills that English teachers like me have always tried to hammer into their pupils. After all, every Standard Grade pupil in the land has to write two essays - one factual/discursive and one creative/personal - and it's pain and grief for many of them.
There are no hard facts involved in this kind of communication. Just opinion, comment, sharing of experiences - and the expression of all this in a style the writer can be satisfied with. So maybe the big thing is that the blogger - beyond the kid stage - enjoys the exercise of crafting a piece of writing which creates a persona, explores ideas as they arrive and reaches a few others who may want to indulge in the dinner-table talk we started two nights ago.
So: are there bloggers out there for whom the act of writing is a chore? the kind of person who, say, excels at maths but hates writing an essay? (I'm heading back to the classroom here) What does that kind of person write about, if he/she exists? Answers, not on a postcard, please, but in my comment box!
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Seven things I had to do before lunch .....
In the early hours of this morning, reeling from a surfeit of bubbly, I read that David had tagged me to join in this. Foolishly, I commented that I would when my head felt better - so here we go. I won't be making a habit of it, though.
Seven things to do before I die
Seven things I cannot do
Seven things that attract me to my spouse
Seven things I say most often
Seven books (or series) I love
Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would watch over and over if I had the time)
Seven people I want to join in, too.
1 Seven things to do before I die
Visit Rome; visit Athens; visit Palestine/Israel; make a second traverse of the Aonach Eagach; have someone else publish my poetry; sing Tomkins’ “When David Heard” (first alto) again, preferably with my friends; play the violin again.
2 Seven things I cannot do
Make a good scone; Sudoku; crosswords; sail in a swell without feeling deathly; eat cream; survive shellfish; resist a challenge.
3 Seven things that attract me to my spouse
He might read this; he can play the music from a film when we get home and it sounds just like the original; he’s amusing; he makes good opportunities for me to sing; we still have things to talk about; he’s clever; he’s still in good shape.
4 Seven things I say most often
John – often accompanied by an exclamation mark; have you read my blog?; was that sharp?; a four-letter unladylike Anglo-Saxon word used as an expletive; another four-letter word meaning excrement; no; I’ll just have another half glass.
5 Seven books (or series) I love
Lord of the Rings; Peter Abelard; The Human Factor; His Dark Materials trilogy; Pompeii; the Starbridge series.
6 Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would watch over and over if I had the time)
The three Godfather films; Scent of a Woman; First Contact (Star Trek); The X-Men; LotR ( I know – three films, but one book, really)
7 Seven people I want to join in, too
Di, Don, Neil; Ewan (no pressure!); John; Rob; Edgar
And I don’t think I can be bothered putting in all these links – though this is not one of the things I actually cannot do.
And I've done some of them.
Seven things to do before I die
Seven things I cannot do
Seven things that attract me to my spouse
Seven things I say most often
Seven books (or series) I love
Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would watch over and over if I had the time)
Seven people I want to join in, too.
1 Seven things to do before I die
Visit Rome; visit Athens; visit Palestine/Israel; make a second traverse of the Aonach Eagach; have someone else publish my poetry; sing Tomkins’ “When David Heard” (first alto) again, preferably with my friends; play the violin again.
2 Seven things I cannot do
Make a good scone; Sudoku; crosswords; sail in a swell without feeling deathly; eat cream; survive shellfish; resist a challenge.
3 Seven things that attract me to my spouse
He might read this; he can play the music from a film when we get home and it sounds just like the original; he’s amusing; he makes good opportunities for me to sing; we still have things to talk about; he’s clever; he’s still in good shape.
4 Seven things I say most often
John – often accompanied by an exclamation mark; have you read my blog?; was that sharp?; a four-letter unladylike Anglo-Saxon word used as an expletive; another four-letter word meaning excrement; no; I’ll just have another half glass.
5 Seven books (or series) I love
Lord of the Rings; Peter Abelard; The Human Factor; His Dark Materials trilogy; Pompeii; the Starbridge series.
6 Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would watch over and over if I had the time)
The three Godfather films; Scent of a Woman; First Contact (Star Trek); The X-Men; LotR ( I know – three films, but one book, really)
7 Seven people I want to join in, too
Di, Don, Neil; Ewan (no pressure!); John; Rob; Edgar
And I don’t think I can be bothered putting in all these links – though this is not one of the things I actually cannot do.
And I've done some of them.
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