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...

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!

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.

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...

(This would explain why I keep on having to refill the bath!)

(The poor silver-eyes didn't get a look-in!)

Easter Weekend DIY

We've had fun this Easter weekend - we had a couple of house projects planned for the extra days off. Slightly stymied by the fact that in NZ, trading laws mean that shops (barring supermarkets, corner shops and pharmacies) are not allowed to open on a Good Friday. A fact that we didn't know before we set out looking for an open DIY store! Fortunately, our local DIY place was open on Saturday and Sunday ready for us to spend our hard earned cash...

Our first project was building a vege patch for me. I wasn't planning to do this before Spring, but having started reading a gardening blog on Stuff, where the author suggested that I get it in before Winter started and planted a green manure crop to dig in for Spring, I decided to stop procrastinating and get on with it.

So, starting from the back garden:

I dug out four by six foot from the grass and broke up the clods:



We spent a bit of time in the timber section of our DIY store with a very friendly man who helped us pick the right types of boards and cut them for us. The boards were ready cut so that they would slot together meaning that we only needed to nail the corners, and didn't have to spend time balancing (and dropping) the boards on top of each other.

Once the box was put together, I started filling it; beginning with a layer of cardboard and newspaper to try to keep the weeds down as much as possible. Then I added a layer of dead leaves (the magnolia and oak trees have to be good for something!), some compost from the bin (less than I'd hoped - I only managed to get a couple of forkfuls of properly composted food. But at least I took the opportunity to turn the compost over), some grass cuttings (yay - I mowed the lawn, too...), and finally a couple of bags of shop bought compost (plus three more after this photo was taken)


I also had a lovely surprise whilst I was digging - I was listening to a very happy bird singing away above my head, thinking it was our Tui, when I looked up and saw that it was a Bellbird - fantastic to have (at least) one of those in the vicinity, too.

Meanwhile, we were also busy inside. One of the rooms in the house was a very bright green, both walls and ceilings:


(White envelope to show the true colour - the camera was having fun with the block colours)

We played around with various tester colours, and picked a just off-white for the ceiling and an ice-blue for the walls (we weren't sure whether the green would show through so wanted to pick something that would at the very least tone down the green). The long weekend helped us here - we had enough time to paint the two coats each on the ceiling and the walls with gaps between for shopping, building the vege box and visiting a friend.






We're very pleased with the final results - for our first go at decorating, it went really smoothly (only one minor panic where a spot of paint missed the protective plastic - fortunately, the paint rag was handy and it didn't stain. Next time, we're buying a larger dust sheet - we just couldn't find one this time...) We kept the top border in green to slightly tone down the coolness of the blue, and the dark blue curtains (which I took the opportunity to wash whilst they were down...) really help to set it all off.

Added to the DIY, I also cooked a roast chicken and a quiche - definitely feeling the domestic goddess!

One more flower for the gardening aficionados to identify - this was a dead root up until a couple of weeks ago - I've not the foggiest what it is!

Indian Summer

It has been a gorgous March - we may have had a bit of rain during some of the weeks (not so much of a bother when one is stuck in the office), but the weekends have been stunning. Blue skies, slight breeze and warm sun have meant that I've spent a lot of time outside in the garden, mainly making sure I keep on top of the weeds, who have also enjoyed the autumn weather (four bucket loads into the compost today...)

I've also been busy with the publicity for the next orchestra concert (5th and 6th May - Upper Hutt on the 5th and Lower Hutt on the 6th). It's a big concert, so we need to get a big audience! We've now had a run through with the pianist, which was stunning - it helped so much to understand what is going on whilst I'm bumbling away in the bass register!

Hockey season has already started - I'm now in the first team (along with six others from the seconds), which is a little bit nerve wracking, but we won our first friendly match as a team this week. We'll see how the season goes...

Garden...

Yes, I know it has been over a month since I last posted; life has been incredibly busy, and (work-wise), just a little bit stressful (two major projects with drop-deadlines in the same week, on top of my day job...). I've not been sitting down at the computer so much on a general basis, as evenings where we don't have our usual social activities have been spent playing with my new toy.

Just before Christmas, the orchestra acquired a bassoon, and spent a month or so using contacts to try to find someone who could play the instrument, didn't have one of their own, and, far more importantly, wanted to come along on a Monday evening and play for us. Unfortunately, there was no-one in the neighbourhood who wanted to join, even with the lure of a bassoon, and so I volunteered. There were slightly selfish reasons on my part; I am one of four oboes in the orchestra, one of whom is ex-professional, so the chances of having anything 'stand-out' in the near future are slim (and, to be honest, the tone that our lead oboe gets from his instrument is just stunning, and there would be no reason for him *not* to have the solos); four oboes is a huge amount for the size of our orchestra anyway (we are not a quiet instrument at the best of times, and four of us does tend to rather unbalance the woodwind section); and, when I was 11 and choosing my instrument, I had originally wanted to play the bassoon, but circumstances meant that I ended up with the oboe instead. Not that I am unhappy about my choice, far from it, but the chance to have a go at the instrument I'd always wanted to play was too much to pass up! So, I have been putting in long hours learning a new set of fingering (fortunately, I can already read bass clef), ready to play Rachmaninov's third piano concerto and a concert version of Cavalleria Rusticana. So - hopefully, I've not bitten off more than I can chew; I've got till May to get it right!

I've also had to spend (oh, the pressure!) a lot of time pottering in the garden. Summer is definitely on its way out now; the days are getting shorter, and the temperature is starting to noticeably drop. But the garden has thrown up a lot of surprises; every time I've gone outside, there seems to be a new set of flowers there, and I'm being very careful not to dig up very much until I know exactly what is already planted (whether deliberate or not). But I am starting to get a picture now of how I'd like the finished garden to look; it's going to take quite a few years to get to that position.

EDIT - Thank you to everyone who has emailed me or posted with answers to the anonymous flowers below - I have updated to show the identified ones :-)

This is the back of the house; there are trees along the back fence, including a magnolia, what I am assured is a young kauri and a kowhai. I am really looking forward to seeing the kowhai in Spring; our neighbour over the fence has said that the bright yellow flowers attracts at least six Tui every year. I'm planning on putting our main vege patch here, too, as a raised bed.

This is looking along the side of the house. There are flower beds all along the fence, and the tree in the background was covered in bright red flowers when we first moved in (I'm still not sure what type of tree it is, either - I've not been able to find it by searching online).

A profusion of the flowers which have surprised me over the summer. I'm aware that people would probably classify all of these to be weeds, but they are far too pretty to pull up!

Dahlias

These bright pink flowers are stunning. The individual blooms don't seem to last for more than a few days, but they keep on flowering.

This is our decking, which gets a huge amount of sunshine. I'm planning on seeing if I can train some grape vines up a trellis against the wall.

This will be the flower-patch. At the moment, it is mainly weeds, and those stunning orange flowers. There's a rhododendron bush, plus a couple of others that I can't name, and I'm still mulling over what else to add. My lemon tree already has its home there.

Crocosmia / Montbretia
A close up of the orange flowers. Again, I know that these are technically weeds (you can see them all along the road embankments at the moment, too), but they are simply gorgeous, and they are attracting the bumble-bees to the garden, which makes them alright in my book!

A different type of Dahlia
Another flower which completely surprised me - the bush that it is growing from really didn't seem like anything much!

The front garden. There are little shrubs planted by the previous owners on the other side of the fence, as well as an agapanthus and a flax (again, more Tuis when it is flowering), so I'm hoping that we'll be able to build up a bit more of a hedge around the fence; good for the birds, and will give a bit more privacy in years to come.

Pineapple Lily
This is an interesting plant - again, completely unprepossessing, then it suddenly sprouted these flowers and actually became quite pinky/purple for a short while!

One of the unknown bushes - it briefly flowered with these very delicate yellow and white blooms.

Japanese Anemone
These are all round the garden, particularly up against the house. Again, they are probably weeds, but very pretty!

Bears Breeches / Acanthus
These, too, are all along the back fence. I already know that I'm going to need to take a lot of these out, as they really are taking over.

So - a brief tour round the garden at least; the inside of the house is a bit messy, so photos of that will have to wait! If anyone is able to identify any of the plants from my photos, please let me know - it's one of the areas where my Google-fu has let me down; there are just too many pictures of flowers on the internet, and as I don't know whether any of them are NZ native or not, I can't even narrow the search that way!