Summer

We had such craptastic weather over Christmas that the arrival of summer at long last doesn't seem quite real!

We (and half of Auckland) took advantage of the holiday today for Auckland Anniversary to head out to Muriwai Beach. First the beach at Maori Bay (next to Muriwai)







Then up onto the headland to see the Gannet colony there...



 
...and finished with an icecream - not photographed as I kept my iPhone well away from melty icecream!

Today Mat found a page out of a diary that Hazel must have started, abandoned and then discarded that says (translation to follow): Rily rily tierd!!! Today. In desprit ned of pony tile. Wishing it was yastoday. [Really really tired today! In desperate need of pony tail*. Wishing it was yesterday.] Where did she learn to sound like Bridget Jones?


*chewy little gummy My Little Pony snack. She is allowed to have one a day.

Bye Bye Holidays

It's Saturday, it's cold and rainy, and my parents and brother and sister-in-law have departed to drive around the North Island in a camper van, and to New York, respectively and the house seems super-quiet, except for Hazel and her friend Chloe playing My Little Ponies in the living room. Thank goodness for other only children who are equally bored on rainy days!

In between the beach and now I had a little adventure up on Mt. Tongariro in the middle of the north island. The Tongariro Crossing is a famous day tramp up and over a volcano (when it's not erupting) and it's also where they filmed the Mordor sequences of Lord of the Rings (a little known fact about me is that I'm a huge LOTR nerd). Classed as "challenging" I think I'd personally say it should be classed "if you are unfit and have bad knees just stay home" but hey, I did it when I was 12 so why not at 43? Haaaaahahahahahaha! Ahem. So yeah, it's been 3 days and my upper thighs have finally unclamped enough to let me walk normally and I don't shriek with pain every time I stand up and start walking. At one point going down the 50 million stairs at the end I actually stopped and had to work very hard not to cry with the pain in my knees and sheer exhaustion, but oh boy the adrenaline when you finish! The weather was pretty crappy and we didn't even glimpse Ngaruhoe or the main peak of Tongariro, though I knew they were up there in the clouds - but we got some exceptionally atmospheric views of ragged clouds and a blasted landscape so I guess it's amazing in all weather.

I'm currently planning a few projects to get started on, who knows if I'll get any time to sew with summer holidays for another month!

In the meantime here's some Tongariro crossing photos (google it if you want fine-weather photos, it's pretty freaking spectacular):

Looking down over and across lava flows (can you see those itty bitty people on the trail down below?)




Across the floor of the Southern Crater


Descending from the Red Crater on Tongariro, the crater is on the right.




We couldn't see the red crater for cloud but even the rocks along the side were pretty cool


Emerald Lake at the bottom of that slope


Looking back to the Red Crater, you can see the trail going up the ridge towards the right, it skirts along the side of the crater.


Some guys taking a photo break - and being photogenic in turn.




Looking out over Lake Rotoaira to Lake Taupo in the distance. Taupo is a caldera formed by the largest volcanic explosion/erruption ever. And it will explode again at some point, some time. Wooo.


Water drops on tussock grass

Summery stuff

Spent a lovely lovely morning out at Muriwai with Hazel's friend Suzie and her family (also Canadians). I'm beginning to appreciate that beaches are best enjoyed with friends, especially other kids. It adds an extra sparkle to everything - the water is more fun, the rock pools are more fun, the sand is more fun. Spot the surfer out there in the waves, they were like seals, bobbing about in the surf, dozens and dozens of them.

I took the chance to snap off a (slightly late) addition to my growing portfolio of 52 Fridays self-portraits. Sure I look slightly feral squinting into the sun (where were my sunglasses?) but you can't beat that backdrop. Tamer beaches might be a bit better for the kiddies, but the wildness of the West Coast black sand beaches are glorious.

I finally got around to photographing my first foray into serious knit sewing. It's a dress from McCall's 5423. It's not perfect but it's definitely wearable and I'm really enjoying it. Sorry for the appalling first photograph, I didn't realise how dark and grainy it was until I came to run it through Photoshop.

It's a very light knit, a bolt end from Marc Jacobs according to the tag, and it's quite lovely. I don't think it was stretchy enough for the pattern though, which is why the gathering rides up a bit in the middle there - it's less obvious when I don't wear the sash. Can anyone tell me what 'cross-wise stretch' is for knits? I swear, I've googled the term and no-one explains it in a way that makes sense to me! I think this is where I went wrong estimating whether the fabric was stretchy enough. The pattern itself was very easy to follow and came together nicely which was such a relief! I love the sleeves, they're really effective and very simple - just a band sewn on but they look like set-in sleeves.

Can you see my Amy Butler 'French Wallpaper' dressing gown on the bed behind me? It's so garish and full-on but I love it! I feel all louche as I trail around the house in it martini in hand. I made a nightie from this orange fabric awhile ago that is fairly marginal in wearability (needs to be reworked asap!) but the orange looks fabulous with the dressing gown.

I decided that the next project would be from Twinkle Sews so I got the CD out and had a look (after removing the small slip of paper that Hazel had posted into the slot that was resulting in awful noises when I put in CDs. Thank goodness it wasn't broken! Anyways, I discovered that if you're in a country that uses A4 standard size paper rather than the US letter size you need to be able to open them in Illustrator and change the paper size. Big minus for it right there, because if you don't have that option then you are stuck with trying to print a pattern sized for Letter on paper that is about a cm narrower - screw up your pattern sizing much? On top of that it'll take 64 - yes 64 - pages to print it out. At this point I'm somewhat undecided whether to fell a small forest to even get a pattern to look at...

The latest and greatest

I'm really excited about the newest blog on my reading list, Kiwi Mummy Blogs


It's the brainchild of Sarah over at Bobby Robin, and I think it's going to be a great resource for us Kiwis, as well as being an interesting place for youse* foreigners to check out. And I'm totally and completely not saying that just because my link is in the sidebar.




*I actually never talk like that, but I'm trying to sound Kiwi as bro. Of course, if anyone's watched the video from a couple posts ago, you know I will not never ever** sound like a New Zealander. I did, once, when I was 5 and lived here for a year. My dad has a old tape recording of me talking before I was mocked at school in Canada and lost it within 2 days, it's hilarious. Well the accent is, the teasing wasn't.

**Hazel has been watching a LOT of Charlie and Lola lately.

Mini Break

It was a long weekend here (Labour Day today) and at short notice we were invited out to a friend's sister's bach (cabin) on Kawau Island. That's pronounced Cow-ow btw.

We took a ferry over

Leaving Mansion Bay, where there is a real mansion built by Sir George Grey, an eccentric governor of NZ back in the 1800s.

We stayed here


Looked at this view (and out to the bay with the yachts) and ate cheese and crackers by the fire


And did a short walk to some abandoned DOC houses


The weather wasn't the best but a good time was had by all, even if the Wekas were noisy as hell and insisted on coming onto the deck during the night and scaring me; and something growled at me from a bush as I walked past in the night. It made me walk a little faster even though I'm sure it was a possum. The good thing about the NZ bush is that the most dangerous thing you're likely to encounter is another human being, but it still gets dark and spooky!

At the beach

This morning I asked Hazel what she wanted to do on such a glorious sunny morning and she said "go to the beach!" At first I was a bit reluctant because it's about a 3/4 hour drive, but then I thought stuff it! and off we went. We headed to Muriwai Beach on the West Coast which is where we mostly seem to go. First we stopped at Maori Bay because usually it's fun to potter around the big rocks there but the tide was higher than I'd expected so we just stayed up on top and watched the surfers and gannets for a bit


(all photos and video from my phone camera unfortunately!)

and then we walked around to the viewing platform to see what the gannets were up to at their nesting site. They're at the nest-building stage it would seem.



Then we walked down the other side of the promontory to Muriwai proper and braved the big waves washing across the bottom of these stairs much to Hazel's horror once we were actually doing it. It was actually quite safe!



That effectively killed her desire to be at the beach when there was a tide - any kind of tide, low, high, inbetween, clearly a tide was not to be trusted because it makes the sea move! Aieee! , I think she was convinced we were all about to be washed away if it got any higher. Little landlubber! So we went inland for icecreams.







It truly was a beautiful morning. :)

Walking and sewing and writing papers

We went for a great walk up in the Waitakeres on Sunday morning. The weather was only marginally sunny, but it was so wonderful to get out of the suburbs and into the bush. When I only spend time around the neighbourhood or in the city it's easy to forget that New Zealand is a wonderfully different and strange place compared to Canada, and the bush never fails to make me feel both a foreigner and in awe at the same time.



The only problem with wanting to take photos of this amazing place is that it's So. Dark. under the canopy, most of the photos came out blurry or murky. Or both! Perhaps the best way to experience it is to watch Lord of the Rings ;) I have the utmost respect for those professional photographers who can take photos in the deep bush and have them come out! I guess they lug around lighting because seriously, there is no other way. In this one I had to overexpose the sky to get the path to show up. I can't resist the tree ferns and nikau palms against the sky though, like architectural lace.



And a nice stream to walk beside


Hazel had a great time, walked for an hour and a half with no complaining and even a bit of running at the end. Ah to have the energy of a kid! Her main concern was that there might be bears and foxes out there, which we were able to assure her didn't exist here. Here we are at the end of the track, before I collapsed gratefully into the nice warm car. :)



On the home front I'm alternating between working on my talk for the NZAA conference in Wellington on Thursday, and sewing up the Clothkits skirt. It's taking me longer to do the skirt than I anticipated, but it's come together really nicely. The fabric is a lovely heavy yet drapey cotton so I think it'll look fabulous when it's all hemmed up. The talk isn't taking me as long which is worrying me! It's only 20 minutes, but actually that can be harder than doing an hour because you have to edit ferociously.

An Auckland winter

Hazel at the window, originally uploaded by Ansis68.

When the southerly came through on Sunday the temperature dropped, the rain lashed the living room windows, and with the heater on in the living room the condensation appeared almost instantly.

Hazel covered the panes with her name, or in this case, Santa Claus. Oh little girl, you have a long wait ahead of you! Poor thing, with a Canadian for a mother she's so full of ideas of snow at winter that she can't quite get her head around the idea that it never snows here and that it's summer when Santa comes. I'm determined to get her down to the snow this winter though, it's her birthright! It's crazy how much I miss snow. Snow and mountains. Of course I'd probably get my fill of snow in a couple weeks, but I can never get enough of mountains.