We had some friends to stay for a week recently; it's the first time we've seen them for three years, and it was wonderful to be able to show off the country we've adopted, both locally, and also on a road trip up the country to Rotorua. Whilst the weather wasn't as sunny as I'd hoped (it's always nice to see the country in the sun and under blue skies), but we weren't washed out as badly as it could have been given that we are coming out of winter.
We took our friends to see the various tourist attractions, both natural (including getting within a few paces of seals at the Red Rocks colony, who hadn't read the signs saying that seals and humans had to be 20m apart, and insisted on sleeping across the path!), free (we love going round Te Papa - there is something new every time we go; this time, there was an exhibition on Maori cloaks which was fascinating), and paid (both a Maori cultural evening, and Wai O Tapu, which we went round when my parents were here, and was equally good for a second viewing).
A question which gets asked a lot when going round tourist attractions (as well as by people who hear our accents) is "Where do you come from?", and this is a question which has recently given me a lot of pause for thought. Whilst I'm very happy to say that I come from England originally, I now find that I have to qualify it by saying that I live in New Zealand (or near Wellington, or Upper Hutt, depending on who is asking and how well they know the region).
The question was compounded when I was asked to fill out a survey on behalf of a PhD student investigating the way that immigrants settle into New Zealand, particularly (gauging from the questions) looking at the way that culture and values affect how easily people settle and integrate. I feel very lucky in that we've not had to learn a new language to come here, and there has not been a huge culture shift in terms of values or behaviours, but the survey did give me a lot to think about in terms of where my "home" identity lies.
Settling in hasn't really been a huge problem for us (see most of the rest of the blog for examples...), but it does mean that I feel a certain tearing of loyalties when asked where I come from. This particularly came to the front during the Olympics, when the NZ women's hockey team, the Black Sticks were in the Bronze medal playoff against the UK. I wasn't able to watch the match (nasty timezone difference!), but if I had, the question of who to cheer for would not have been an easy one to answer. In the end, the match wasn't particularly a good one, compared to how well the Black Sticks had played for the rest of the tournament, and England won deservedly, but I found that I was disappointed that the Black Sticks didn't get their medal after doing so well against the best in the world in previous matches. England is where I come from originally, but New Zealand is where I come from now.
The word "home" also has similar conflicts; does it mean the house we have bought, where we are paying our mortgage, and where I'm enjoying pottering in the garden (my back is not speaking to me today...), or does it mean where my family and UK friends live? It depends on context, but it raises mixed pictures and emotions when the word gets mentioned.
I suspect that the conflicting loyalties around home and where I come from will remain for a long while to come; the longer we are here and the more we settle, the easier it becomes to say that New Zealand is home, but I think also the larger the emotional split will become when I think about everyone and everything we have left behind.
Sunday, 2 September 2012
Monday, 13 August 2012
The inevitability of nature
There have been a few reminders over the last couple of weeks of the face of nature, and how, despite all of man's technological power, nature will win out in the end.
New Zealand has had not one, but three volcanic eruptions. The first was White Island, a highly active volcano off of the coast of Whakatane
Then Mount Tongariro, which hasn't erupted since 1897, in the middle of the North Island
And then a 25,000 raft of pumice was discovered by the navy off of the coast, leading them to suspect that Mount Monowai, an underwater volcano between New Zealand and Fiji had erupted.
All maps courtesy of Google.
Christchurch, still recovering from the earthquake, has now been hit by flooding caused by a lot of heavy rain on already sodden ground.
Man can try to shape the earth as much as he pleases, to try to bind the world to his will, but inevitably, we are brushed aside by the natural forces which control us all.
In the garden, Spring is arriving, and we have snowdrops.
New Zealand has had not one, but three volcanic eruptions. The first was White Island, a highly active volcano off of the coast of Whakatane
Then Mount Tongariro, which hasn't erupted since 1897, in the middle of the North Island
And then a 25,000 raft of pumice was discovered by the navy off of the coast, leading them to suspect that Mount Monowai, an underwater volcano between New Zealand and Fiji had erupted.
All maps courtesy of Google.
Christchurch, still recovering from the earthquake, has now been hit by flooding caused by a lot of heavy rain on already sodden ground.
Man can try to shape the earth as much as he pleases, to try to bind the world to his will, but inevitably, we are brushed aside by the natural forces which control us all.
In the garden, Spring is arriving, and we have snowdrops.
Wednesday, 1 August 2012
Whoops!
I hadn't realised that it had been a month since I last posted - apologies! Life has, as always, been very busy. I sat the second and third exams for my professional qualification on the same day (I don't recommend taking six hours of exam in one day - my brain was absolutely fried the next day!), and have now had the results from the exam I sat in May (I passed, so am 20% of the way to the overall qualification).
Hockey has had ups and downs - we're sitting at fifth in the table, so have to work hard to make sure we are in the top four by the end of the season.
Otherwise life continues apace; we have friends coming to stay in mid August, so I'm hoping that the winter weather has started to warm by then, as it has been a tad chilly over the last few weeks; we've had some glorious days, followed by frost, and we're feeling the lack of insulation in our house. We have definite plans for double glazing for next year!
Hockey has had ups and downs - we're sitting at fifth in the table, so have to work hard to make sure we are in the top four by the end of the season.
Otherwise life continues apace; we have friends coming to stay in mid August, so I'm hoping that the winter weather has started to warm by then, as it has been a tad chilly over the last few weeks; we've had some glorious days, followed by frost, and we're feeling the lack of insulation in our house. We have definite plans for double glazing for next year!
Sunday, 1 July 2012
Another busy week...
Wow - I'm not sure where this week, and indeed this month has gone. How have we gotten to be over half way through the year?
It's been manic at work - end of financial year and a drastically reduced team has meant that I've been running very hard just to stand still. Hopefully things will be a little calmer this week coming.
We've started rehearsals for the annual orchestra workshop - Beethoven's 9th. I am really excited by this - not only because it's a piece that I adore, but because we get to be tutored by members of the NZ symphony orchestra - I'm looking forward to getting some expert advice on the bassoon.
Hockey has been a little better this week - I've played twice, once for the firsts (a 2 all draw) and once for the seconds (a 2-0 win). I'm feeling just a little bit sore now, though - my back didn't appreciate me throwing myself onto the turf quite so much!
I had a go at the garden last weekend - took out the bears breeches
to make way for my peas and beans in the spring; I wanted to sow in some mustard seed as green manure. I think I've won the first battle, but there's a long way before the war is won - the roots that were coming out were at times as wide as my wrist! There's already another bears breeches plant coming through, but it was too wet this weekend (both on and off the hockey pitch) to get back out and have another go. We shall see how this fight goes...
It's been manic at work - end of financial year and a drastically reduced team has meant that I've been running very hard just to stand still. Hopefully things will be a little calmer this week coming.
We've started rehearsals for the annual orchestra workshop - Beethoven's 9th. I am really excited by this - not only because it's a piece that I adore, but because we get to be tutored by members of the NZ symphony orchestra - I'm looking forward to getting some expert advice on the bassoon.
Hockey has been a little better this week - I've played twice, once for the firsts (a 2 all draw) and once for the seconds (a 2-0 win). I'm feeling just a little bit sore now, though - my back didn't appreciate me throwing myself onto the turf quite so much!
I had a go at the garden last weekend - took out the bears breeches
Sunday, 24 June 2012
A Geek goes Poing!
Well, I was intending this week's post to either be about the NatCon of the beginning of the month, or Matariki, the Maori New Year, which has just happened.
However, last night, we went to see Sir Ian McKellan doing a one man show. He is doing a whole series of them around New Zealand to raise money for the Isaac Royal Theatre in Christchurch, which was badly damaged in the earthquakes and aftershocks, and needs a lot of restoration to return it to its former glory. Whilst the vital repairs are covered by the theatre's insurance, they are reliant on fundraising for the remainder. So, when we heard that Sir I. was doing a one man show in Wellington, and particularly for such a good cause, I didn't even have to stop to think before buying the tickets.
So, we rocked up to the Opera House on a very blustery night (the car door was whipped out of my hand when I got out - fortunately, there were no traffic for it to hit!), and took our seats about 20 minutes early. As the auditorium started to fill up, we were looking round for friends that we knew were going to be there, and I was keeping an eye out for anyone else I know - the joy of being so socially and work-active in Wellington means that I do have a tendency to bump into friend or colleagues in the most unlikely of places. A couple of gentlemen a few seats in front of us caught my eye - I was fairly certain that I knew them, but just couldn't put my finger on it. Until Martin Freeman walked up in a long brown coat and flat cap and greeted them. Then I realised that they were two other members of the Hobbit cast. The geek inside of me started to bounce a little bit - I'm not in Wellington enough to have been able to do much cast-spotting, so was a little excited that a few of them had decided to come and support their colleague in his show.
Then Sir Peter Jackson took his seat. And Billy Connolly. And James Nesbit. And Aiden Turner (who sat two rows in front of us). By this point, we realised that most of the Hobbit cast still remaining in Wellington were sitting only a few rows away, and my inner geek was trying very hard not to start going "squee" out loud!
The show started with Sir I. doing a (from memory) reading of the Balrog scene from Lord of the Rings, complete with Glamdring (Gandalf's sword). It was a fantastic opening, and the evening just got better. He invited questions from the audience, leading to reminiscences which ranged from how he felt about someone else playing Magneto, to appearing on Ricky Gervais' "Extras", taking in how and why he came out as being gay at the age of 49, and what happened when he went to Buckingham Palace for his knightood. The first half ended with him performing a pair of Gerard Manley Hopkins poems, The Leaden Echo and The Golden Echo.
GMH is a poet that I had to study at school, and absolutely hated him when I had to read his work, but have grown to admire more now that exam results do not depend upon me being able to rip the words apart! Sir I. was able to show the richness of the work with the multiple layers of meaning and the musicality of the rhythm and repeating words far better than I was ever able to appreciate at school.
The second half of the show was all about Shakespeare. Between the audience, we were able to name all of Shakespeare's plays, and Sir I. spoke on about half of them, including reminiscences of when he was in them, and also performing roles for us, including both Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, Hamlet and Sir Thomas More (not one of Shakespeare's official plays, but one which Shakespeare helped to write).
Finally, he invited the members of the Hobbit cast who were in the audience to come up on stage and collect buckets for more Theatre donations, and audience members to come up and join them all for a bit of staging of live Shakespeare (the "Dead French Soldiers" bit from Henry V)
We ended up the evening joining the queue/crowd to get Sir I's. autograph and a photo taken with him (for an additional donation, of course) - we didn't stay around to meet the Hobbit cast as a number of other friends who were in the audience did, as it was already late, and the crowd was getting a bit much for me. But most definitely a poingtastic evening - I love living in Wellington!
However, last night, we went to see Sir Ian McKellan doing a one man show. He is doing a whole series of them around New Zealand to raise money for the Isaac Royal Theatre in Christchurch, which was badly damaged in the earthquakes and aftershocks, and needs a lot of restoration to return it to its former glory. Whilst the vital repairs are covered by the theatre's insurance, they are reliant on fundraising for the remainder. So, when we heard that Sir I. was doing a one man show in Wellington, and particularly for such a good cause, I didn't even have to stop to think before buying the tickets.
So, we rocked up to the Opera House on a very blustery night (the car door was whipped out of my hand when I got out - fortunately, there were no traffic for it to hit!), and took our seats about 20 minutes early. As the auditorium started to fill up, we were looking round for friends that we knew were going to be there, and I was keeping an eye out for anyone else I know - the joy of being so socially and work-active in Wellington means that I do have a tendency to bump into friend or colleagues in the most unlikely of places. A couple of gentlemen a few seats in front of us caught my eye - I was fairly certain that I knew them, but just couldn't put my finger on it. Until Martin Freeman walked up in a long brown coat and flat cap and greeted them. Then I realised that they were two other members of the Hobbit cast. The geek inside of me started to bounce a little bit - I'm not in Wellington enough to have been able to do much cast-spotting, so was a little excited that a few of them had decided to come and support their colleague in his show.
Then Sir Peter Jackson took his seat. And Billy Connolly. And James Nesbit. And Aiden Turner (who sat two rows in front of us). By this point, we realised that most of the Hobbit cast still remaining in Wellington were sitting only a few rows away, and my inner geek was trying very hard not to start going "squee" out loud!
The show started with Sir I. doing a (from memory) reading of the Balrog scene from Lord of the Rings, complete with Glamdring (Gandalf's sword). It was a fantastic opening, and the evening just got better. He invited questions from the audience, leading to reminiscences which ranged from how he felt about someone else playing Magneto, to appearing on Ricky Gervais' "Extras", taking in how and why he came out as being gay at the age of 49, and what happened when he went to Buckingham Palace for his knightood. The first half ended with him performing a pair of Gerard Manley Hopkins poems, The Leaden Echo and The Golden Echo.
GMH is a poet that I had to study at school, and absolutely hated him when I had to read his work, but have grown to admire more now that exam results do not depend upon me being able to rip the words apart! Sir I. was able to show the richness of the work with the multiple layers of meaning and the musicality of the rhythm and repeating words far better than I was ever able to appreciate at school.
The second half of the show was all about Shakespeare. Between the audience, we were able to name all of Shakespeare's plays, and Sir I. spoke on about half of them, including reminiscences of when he was in them, and also performing roles for us, including both Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, Hamlet and Sir Thomas More (not one of Shakespeare's official plays, but one which Shakespeare helped to write).
Finally, he invited the members of the Hobbit cast who were in the audience to come up on stage and collect buckets for more Theatre donations, and audience members to come up and join them all for a bit of staging of live Shakespeare (the "Dead French Soldiers" bit from Henry V)
We ended up the evening joining the queue/crowd to get Sir I's. autograph and a photo taken with him (for an additional donation, of course) - we didn't stay around to meet the Hobbit cast as a number of other friends who were in the audience did, as it was already late, and the crowd was getting a bit much for me. But most definitely a poingtastic evening - I love living in Wellington!
Friday, 1 June 2012
I know, I know...
It has pretty much been a month since I last posted. A month which has been full of incident, mainly work based (and therefore not bloggable about...); suffice it to say that I've been flat tack, and have also sat my first professional exam - the first module out of five which will get my Level 4 of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply. Level 7 will get me my MCIPS which will allow me letters after my name (besides my BA, which I don't really use...) - it's going to be a long road, but will be well worth it in the end. At least, that's what I'm going to keep on telling myself as I trudge through the text books and practice papers! Two more exams in July and two in November will see me through (as long as I pass them all, that is...).
The garden is looking a little bit shabby as winter is setting in, and I have less time to potter during daylight hours (leaving for work and returning in the dark means far less weeding time...), though there are still a few blooms on the rosebush, and the birds are loving our berry filled bushes. We have a large collection of silver-eyes and thrushes who are eating their fill every time I look out of the window; I love having a garden which attracts so many birds! We've had our first significant frosts of the season (bye-bye dahlias...), as well as the first significant (an hour and a half) train delay because the tracks, overhead power lines and train were frozen. Must not grumble that winter happens every year, because by all accounts, even for where we are living now (which is in a cooler area than our rented place), this is pretty cold. The vege box now has a good growing of mustard, which I'll dig in when it gets tall enough (the books all say 50cm, so it has a way to go as yet); I've already started planning what I'm going to put in there (it slightly changes every time I see another cookery show!), and am really looking forward to getting going in the Spring.
The orchestra is nearly at its next concert, On Wings of Song, whilst we are still listening to the recordings of the last! We're performing with a choir called Cantala, who are also led by our conductor - they are a school choir who have won awards in the national school choir competition (The Big Sing), and who are also competing in a competition in Vienna; as part of their European Tour, they are also performing at St Pauls Cathedral and Notre Dame, so anyone in the vicinity, please do go and support them - they are really very good. I am still enjoying playing the bassoon - the pieces we are playing this concert (main ones for the orchestra are Finlandia and Rossini's Boutique Fantasque) really let me get at the bottom notes, which weren't really used in the last one, and there is something really satisfying about hitting a really deep bass note - it really seems to connect the body to the instrument in a way that you don't get with the high ones...
I've been a bit quiet on blogging about hockey this season - we haven't been doing very well! We've gone down a grade, and also lost our first match of the lower grade (though I feel I played a lot better than I did in the higher one, and we only lost by one goal, rather than by 7...). We have to fight our way back up into the higher grade, but I think that we can do it as we all get together better as a team; we have been hindered slightly by the fact that so many of us have come up from the seconds to play in the firsts - the different team dynamics have made more of a difference than I think people had realised.
We're off up to Auckland this weekend for Unconventional, the national science fiction convention. I'm very excited, because the guest of honour is Trudy Canavan, a writer I very much admire, and she is running a writer's workshop. I might have happened to be first in the queue when that one got announced! Full report will (possibly!) be posted after the weekend.
The garden is looking a little bit shabby as winter is setting in, and I have less time to potter during daylight hours (leaving for work and returning in the dark means far less weeding time...), though there are still a few blooms on the rosebush, and the birds are loving our berry filled bushes. We have a large collection of silver-eyes and thrushes who are eating their fill every time I look out of the window; I love having a garden which attracts so many birds! We've had our first significant frosts of the season (bye-bye dahlias...), as well as the first significant (an hour and a half) train delay because the tracks, overhead power lines and train were frozen. Must not grumble that winter happens every year, because by all accounts, even for where we are living now (which is in a cooler area than our rented place), this is pretty cold. The vege box now has a good growing of mustard, which I'll dig in when it gets tall enough (the books all say 50cm, so it has a way to go as yet); I've already started planning what I'm going to put in there (it slightly changes every time I see another cookery show!), and am really looking forward to getting going in the Spring.
The orchestra is nearly at its next concert, On Wings of Song, whilst we are still listening to the recordings of the last! We're performing with a choir called Cantala, who are also led by our conductor - they are a school choir who have won awards in the national school choir competition (The Big Sing), and who are also competing in a competition in Vienna; as part of their European Tour, they are also performing at St Pauls Cathedral and Notre Dame, so anyone in the vicinity, please do go and support them - they are really very good. I am still enjoying playing the bassoon - the pieces we are playing this concert (main ones for the orchestra are Finlandia and Rossini's Boutique Fantasque) really let me get at the bottom notes, which weren't really used in the last one, and there is something really satisfying about hitting a really deep bass note - it really seems to connect the body to the instrument in a way that you don't get with the high ones...
I've been a bit quiet on blogging about hockey this season - we haven't been doing very well! We've gone down a grade, and also lost our first match of the lower grade (though I feel I played a lot better than I did in the higher one, and we only lost by one goal, rather than by 7...). We have to fight our way back up into the higher grade, but I think that we can do it as we all get together better as a team; we have been hindered slightly by the fact that so many of us have come up from the seconds to play in the firsts - the different team dynamics have made more of a difference than I think people had realised.
We're off up to Auckland this weekend for Unconventional, the national science fiction convention. I'm very excited, because the guest of honour is Trudy Canavan, a writer I very much admire, and she is running a writer's workshop. I might have happened to be first in the queue when that one got announced! Full report will (possibly!) be posted after the weekend.
Sunday, 6 May 2012
Concert
This picture was sent to me by our conductor - sadly, I can't find it online to give the photographer credit, but it's a great shot. Definitely not how I feel about playing my new instrument!
We had our double performance of Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto and Cavalleria Rusticana over this weekend, playing to a sell out theatre in Upper Hutt, and having to put out more chairs in the school hall in Lower Hutt. We were helped considerably in this by the large amount of publicity we got; not only did we get in both our local papers, but the Wellington based national paper, the Dominion Post, gave us a plug, and Melanie Lina, the piano soloist gave such a good interview on Upbeat (link here) that she was picked to be on the Best of Upbeat (three interviews chosen out of the fifteen done over the course of the week), so we got a double plug, including the Saturday morning.
It was such fun to do - there were obviously bits which we could have done better (I don't think I've ever done a concert where I've been 100% happy with my performance), but overall, the audience was happy, and we enjoyed ourselves. Which really is the main thing! I don't know how our conductor managed to hold his arms up for the whole thing (40 minutes for the concert, then just over an hour for the Opera)...
The bassoon went really well - I didn't fluff too many of my solos, came in (most of the time) in the right place, and am still really enjoying playing it. I just feel so lucky to have been given this chance of trying something new, and that everyone had confidence in me to let me go with it. On to the next concert - in just over a month, we are doing a dual concert with our conductor's award winning school choir, Cantala, who are about to head on their European Tour.
In other news, holy cow, it's May! I'm still not sure where the year has gone. The hockey season is well underway - we're just finishing up the pre-season round robins before the league proper starts. We've not done fantastically - as of last week, had lost two and won one - I'm still waiting to hear how the team did today (as I was playing bassoon at push back...). But, we are a new team, with half of us coming up from the seconds into the firsts, and we are still learning how we all play together, and where people will be at any point in the game. It will be interesting to see how the season progresses.
I've not had much of a chance to get out into the garden over the last few weeks - bassoon, hockey, sci-fi and work (including studying for work related qualifications) have rather taken over... However, we had a day off at the end of April (Anzac Day; the NZ equivalent of Remembrance Sunday), and I got to sit and watch the bird table (part of the house warming present from John's family). One of the blackbirds was having great fun...
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