Compliments of the season to you!

Christmas!
It was magnificent!
Gareth and I visited four houses each with their very own ham.

Here I am

Oh one day I will get into this regular blogging thing. There is just too much to do that I never quite get around to finding the words to write it all down.

Anyway here is November in a nutshell - cats, fireworks, art, flowers, friends, horses.

Chips & Whetstones

Oh woops! I was so busy making the art I forgot to tell you all about the show. 



But let me tell you, putting this show together was a delight in every way. Art making has never been so stress free and dreamy. My dear friend Annie Matchsticks and I worked on this installation together, hand-in-hand, tea for two, mornings and afternoons, chatting and collecting, dreaming and drawing.

 


 
These are the words we used that made it happen...

pioneer, whittling, crochet, sheets, candles, twigs, homesteaders, the softening, wild west, petticoats, can-can skirts, delicious, dusty, shavings, camp ovens, boots scrapin, we're ok corral, haybales, whiskey, swing door, primus, beans, tooling, heirloom, turret, crepe paper, pancakes, champagne breakfast, scaffolding, climbing, road to california, steps to the altar, lattices...





 As well as the large, quilt-like extravaganza draped over my grandmother's washing line, we installed a garden gate, golden couch, a tree stump - alive with moss, and a tv playing some carefully edited youtube videos of whittling and Azalea Trail Maids.





And to top off this unashamedly swoony work, instead of the usual gallery opening in Christchurch - evening, black, booze and cigarettes - we wanted to soften it all up and create new conversations, add a bit of whimsy to the poor old town. So on the stormiest of saturday mornings we held a breakfast with sangria, tea, coffee and pancakes. Gareth flipped 144 of them.

Thank you Dog Park for having us, it was a blast.

Magical pals

A part-time magician and a talented babe, wowing some children.

daydream

This is Frankie sitting in front of our clematis.
Sometimes, just sometimes, I want to dye her with beetroot juice and recreate this:

Tim Walker

Oh my, so many things.

Well well well, I have some things to share.
The last month has been busy. Ridiculously so, but full of the most wonderful things. I have travelled to Auckland and Wellington, had an exhibition and gone all swoony at the knees in Christchurch...

One day Gareth and I were driving on the Port Hills as I was feeling all caught up, and wanted some wind in my ears. There we spied a jolly hill bathed in sunlight with a little cloud sitting on its peak.



What fun to sit in a cloud! So up we trambled, right to the top



We took deep breaths of cloud, we threw our arms around in the cloud, and then Gareth asked me to marry him. Hurrah! What fun!



Surprisingly, these two photos were taken before the romance began, just imagine how jubilant we looked afterwards.

So yes, we are going to have a wedding. A real one with lots of fun.

 

oh there is art about

Yes siree, there is some good art around this town at the moment.
A few weeks ago I went to a show at NG Gallery by local artist Scott Flanagan and I thought it was wonderful.
Do You Remember Me Like I Do?



A tumbling waterfall and a meticulously woven wishing well made from VHS tape



Books filled by various artists from around the country with scratchings, drawings, paintings, greyhounds - artistic everythings.  





I am no art writer, so if you want to read more about this exhibition and other shows in Christchurch I highly recommend visiting the website EyeContact.


And here is a habitual flower photo, instagrammed to hide it's out-of-focusness.

flowers for grandmothers

old adventures

To break up the flowery posts (I have another already lurking in 'drafts') I thought I would put up some photos from our trip to Japan that I hadn't quite got around to posting yet.

These were taken at Yamadera, which we had already visited a couple of times before in spring and autumn. But it is so stunning we had to take Linda and Kim there, and now you can see it in summer!





The old man was a toy/traditional craft maker and utterly charming. Gareth bought one of the darumas (next to the old telephone) and he is now sitting next to our tv, with his hairy pot belly beauty on display.




Coin tree.



Soba feast.



This post box is near the temple right at the top of the mountain among the monks' vegetable garden.
Lemme tell ya, it's picturesque.

First bouquet of the season for a friend with a crook tummy.
It's a bit wee, but it's pretty mighty.  


Oh yeah, and here is a cute cat napping in the spare/craft room.

Eating Belgium biscuits in the Botanical Gardens and lurking in the foliage.

I think the 500,000+ Daffodil bulbs will be spectacular in about a weeks time. Go, go!

Fun fact for you, between 1864 and 1930 the Daffodil Lawn used to be inhabited by crazy exotic animals like silk worms, opossums, monkeys, a Californian bear, a lemur, goats, deer, and even a tortoise. Now it's just inhabited by babies and small children having their photos taken in the blooms.

spring fever

Wow, oh my..... all I care about is gardening.


I planted a million bulbs in autumn and I am now being rewarded. They are all popping up and causing quite a flutter. Only the daffs and crocuses (or croci if you will) have bloomed, but waaaaaah the rest are on their way!


The vege patch is laden with celery, broccoli, cabbage, one feeble cauliflower, silverbeet, spinach, beetroot, pak choi and the never ceasing mint.



The herby bit has rosemary, thyme and recently sown rocket, basil, coriander and sorrel. Neither Gareth nor I know sorrel very well but it sounds like a marvelous thing.


And the flowers! Primulas, anemones, pansies, marigolds, sweet-peas and a sneaky helibore seedling I stole from my grandma's house (popped it in the ground and it fluped around for a week, but now it's bobbing around like a lamb).
 


Here is my gardening tip for the internet - bung it in some soil, give it some water and whisper sweet nothings to it.

Neighbourhood Flower Watch

Walking to work today I spied this lovely tree, or bush, or is it a hedgey shrub?
I snapped these pics with the ubiquitous instagram.
(I'm a bit tentative with instagram, not quite sure of it yet, but gosh it is handy)





After some internet searching I've decided it's a japonica, also known as a flowering quince.
If anybody out there can confirm or deny this I would be most pleased.
I think my squashy, murky garden could benefit from one.

Osaka sniff

Stopping to smell the plastic subway flowers.
Stopping to smell real flowers that looked like wild little flames. I want my garden aflame with these!