Visiting family, friends and old haunts

Wow, a historical tour of places I've been and people I've loved and places I've loved and people I've been!  Today I'm in Corona del Mar where I lived while married to Knox. I'm visiting my friend Kathy and we walked through the lovely Sherman Library and Gardens where we worked when we met.It is a gorgeous, perfectly manicured 2 city-block big botanical display garden with a superb succulent section, colour area, tropical plastic houses and a herb garden. It was a pleasure to do my horticulture internship there so many years ago when I studied at Orange Coast College.

It is 5.30pm here, wine o'clock, and one hour from skyping into my ukulele class with Bob and the Flaming Ukes of Waipu.Gotta go.

Time flies when you're having tsunami warnings!

Gosh, there's a whole lotta shaking going on down under, but this sunrise was still.  We've had huge winds and big storms and hail and...not that we feel any shaking up here in Northland, we are the least shaky part of the country, but there are constant shakes in Christchurch and there have also been a couple in the North Island recently and then the Kermadec Trench.  THATput Civil Defence on alert, but we made it though with minor tidal surges.  Whew!

Meanwhile...

Omapere Volunteer Fire Brigade

I've been up to Hokianga to visit the Omapere Volunteer Fire Brigade where we have a new, and female, chief Fire Officer, Mere Morunga.

And further south, about half an hour's drive from Waipu, there was a momentous opening of a new tourist and cultural project.

Paa site at Te Hana Te Ao Marama Maori Cultural Village

Te Hana Kapa Haka Group is fab!

Friends and I attended the opening of Te Hana Te Ao Marama, a new Maori cultural village, built as a replica of a 17th century village.  It will be a fabulous place to visit.  The building of it has been a major task with minimal funding and the project is being run by CEO Linda Clapham who I used to work for in Auckland. She is an architect and we worked together with landscaping as our commonality.  There is more to that story, but another time.

17th Century Maori Village, crafted by hand.

Madrid meets Hokianga

 My Godson Kahu from Rawene in the Hokianga up even farther north in the Far North of New Zealand,  is GORGEOUS, even when grimacing.  He is very clever and verbal and not yet even 2!  He met some of my friends from Madrid when he and his mum and Auntie Hebe visited recently...read on!

Madrid has featured overwhelmingly in my now - ending summer. My last guests from Madrid called in again and met my Hokianga whanau (extended family) and we had a terrific evening.  Chico and Jose slept in their van - their home away from home  in which they are living/travelling over the next 7 months while they tour NZ.  The house was full up with Karen in her bedroom (she's renting in the house now), Hebe (Jessie's sister who managed to avoid the camera) on the window seat and my comadre Jessie and her son (my Godson) Kahu downstairs.

We sang and danced and enjoyed the beautiful evening. Chico and Jose have a band (are a band) in Madrid... not as famous as 2 Sexy Chico's sister, Bebe, but hey, maybe more fun?  I haven't met Bebe, but Chico and Jose would be hard to beat for fun and I'm hoping to spend my birthday NEXT year with them in Madrid!

Meanwhile I love this time of year when these Aloes bloom and attract silver eyes, tui and fantails.

Ciao for now... it's a work day!

Sweet Sunday Ukulele Jam was awesome!

We had a great time at Y-Not Restaurant in Waipu last weekend when 17 plus ukulele players got together for a jam!  I organised the event, the Flaming Ukes of Waipu started it off. young Alex Gordon did a couple of solos and then we had the jamming fun and sweet desserts!

We also had friends Andre Labonte on clarinet, Janeen Soederling on keyboard, Bob McNeely on bass guitar and a mystery man on harmonica... he said he was only learning, and he joined us for a singsong on La Bamba!

That's our teacher Bob McNeely, an extremely talented musician... sitting between two of his young students...9 year old Alex Gordon on his left and 11 year-old Ruben Grant on his right. (That's Peter & Alice Grant's son. Peter is Knox's brother for those of you in the know). Alice is above and to the left of this text, and I don't know some of the others in the pictures. 

I've already had a phone call from someone who found out too late and wants to know when the next one is.  HOORAY!  It was just so much fun standing and playing and rocking out like a real muso in a band!

Priscilla Queen of the Desert in Waipu

What a fun ladies' night we had and our own Queen of the Desert, Robyn Dobbs was visiting us from Karratha in the Pilbara Region of Western Australia where she is working as a nurse and her husband, Pete, as a mechanic. Boy, the stories she can tell of stabbings in the wild west of Aussie!

Marilyn Henneker, (far left) my long standing belly dancing chum from 20 years or so ago - when I lived in Auckland - was here too and with some of the Flaming Ukuleles of Waipu (Maggie's at the back), we dressed up for the ladies' night. To my left, I'm in purple, is Karen Cullen soon to be my flatmate.

There were others there, not dressed up, but we all joined in the fun for the modest but tasty three course meal and Abba!

Romance and Women's Literature

What a great weekend I had at the last Kara School of Romance Writing Workshop.  Tutors Daphne De Jong and Robyn Kingston (who writes as Robyn Donald) have published many titles each - Daphne in many genres (a fabulous writer who can create gut wrenching scenarios) and Robyn - 84 delicious Romance novels - Mills & Boone sorts.  Have you read any?

I have a story in mind as my first novel and I've begun it... now will I finish it? The support of the other writers in the workshop (2 from Australia and 2 others from NZ) and Daphne's and Robyn's encouragement make me think it is a worthwhile endeavour!

 Meanwhile, I've been waiting YEARS for my first white King Protea, and here it is! Stunning, eh? My first plant never prospered, then died, so I tried again with a second and to my great pleasure, the white ones have been opening for months outside my bathroom window.

Below the white is the King Protea with normal colouration (coloration in America).  They are huge - big as a baby's head anyway.

So now I've got to go as I've been asked to speak to the Waipu Lion's Club tonight, about growing up on the US/Mexican border and I've got to do some research plus make up a slide show. oooh, I can feel butterflies - I haven't done much public speaking for a while.

Property easier to manage with helpers

The weather has been fantastic and its planting time... with Jorge's help, and now Erina from Sweden, lots has been happening.  Erina is 21 and has been working and travelling three years since she left high school. She's come to NZ after living in Aberdeen, Scotland and Amsterdam, then  travelling through Australia, India and Nepal, with friends. She is a vegetarian and we've been having yummy meals and its nostalgic for me to recall being 21 and a vegetarian, so I've shared with her recipes I have from back then plus got her baking bread.  Her first focaccia was fab!

Yesterday we moved some dahlias and created a planting bed for salad greens up near the house.

Today's feature in the Northern Advocate will be a story I wrote about Freddy Wilkinson who grew up in Waipu in the late 1930s, studied horticulture and floristry and went off to England 49 years ago where he began working as a gardener with the Constance Spry Flower School.  Google her, she was very cool, and Fred, though he arrived two years after Constance died, is still with the organisation and does flowers for royalty, amongst other things. He did flowers for Lancaster House for Prince William and Kate's wedding (that's where dignitaries had dinner the night before and were collected to be taken to the wedding) and for Di and Prince Charles's wedding, for Princess Anne and Mark Philips and for the Queen's residence. He has met the Queen many times and thinks she is a marvellous and very hard working woman.

Today I get to cover the unveiling of a commemorative monument for the HMS Puriri, which was sunk by a Japanese mine  planted during World War II, the only ship sunk with loss of lives in NZ waters. It was hushed during the war and family members started agitating recently through David Wistrand, a Waipu friend and VP of the local Returned Servicemen's Association (RSA). I helped them get some press and letters went to the NZ Navy and now, 70 years to the day the ship sunk, Chief of Navy, Rear Admiral Tony Parr will unveil the monument at Ocean Beach.

Then I'm off north to Okaihau for the retirement of their Chief Fire Officer Colin Thomas, after 34 years as CFO and more in the Brigade. This picture is Colin Thomas, a kind and dedicated man!

So.. got to go, will post more pictures next time. Ciao