Through the embers: Fortnight 1 of the Burns

1.

I wrote 4,266 words over 7 writing days (week one started on a Wednesday; week two started on a Tuesday due to family being down for Waitangi weekend). All of my efforts were spent on two short stories: the bio story I mentioned in my previous post and another story, which I selected from the master list of things to write that I compiled. Let's call this story 'Robinson'.

Both stories are progressing, but I wonder if they aren’t too similar. I might have to write a third story (less arch, less ‘laugh at him, now comfort him’) this month to bring a bit more balance to my output and exorcise one more set of ghosts before I dive back into THE LOCATION SCOUT.

 

2.

I will tire of fire-related puns soon enough.

3. This is where it all happens

Parting shot from last year's fellow
(possibly how I contracted this punning disorder)

My desk, my Mac, my mess

The gravity-forced attrition method of choosing which story to write next.
Helps when you have off-brand Post-its.

My magnolia

At first I thought it was a bible, but it's The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns.
Thanks Victor!

My morning ride

It's always like this...

Except when it's like this (hail from yesterday's weather bomb)

It's official. Come & visit!

4.

One consequence of all this newfound writing time is I need to spend more time finding new (or remembered) music to add to my ‘Working’ playlist. Which is not a chore at all. 

If given the option of not being able to read any more, and not being able to listen to music, I'd choose not reading. Not happily, or lightly, but I would.

5. Further exploits in procrastination

I found myself searching online for a coffee mug. I considered personalising one to commemorate my year in Otago. Like, a picture of Mr Burns from the Simpsons with the caption: ‘Burns Fellow’... something so lame and obvious that I managed to snap myself out of it. 

So I’m still using the dinky little Arcoroc cup I found in the dinky little kitchenette and having to make too many trips to make tea during my day and maybe I will end up ordering something in another moment of weakness.

 

6. You can never step on the same wildlife cruise twice.

Over the long weekend, I took my wife, kids and in-laws on the Monarch Wildlife Cruise, which goes out round Harrington Point at the end of the Otago Peninsula. 

We saw fur seals,a seal lion eating a squid, nesting shags endemic to Otago, Bullers albatross, Southern Royals, a couple other mollymawk species, nellies, terns. No spoonbills or Hectors dolphins like my first trip five years ago. Still a good haul, but nowhere near as much fun as the first time for all manner of reasons.

Giant petrel taking off

Sea lion with black-backed gull

White capped albatross

Compare and contrast with our trip to Tunnel Beach at the end of Jan. No bird or marine mammal sightings of note. When we got down to the beach it was high tide so there was no sand to stand on. My son decided he didn’t like being carried on the way back up, nor did he feel like walking. For the last 500 metres (which is at a 15 degree gradient) I carried him like an inconsolable lamb.

And that trip was fricken great. The kind of day one should be careful not to sully by rushing back again too quickly.

Everyone enjoyed it, honest

7. Research highlight

An article by Catrien Santing on Pope Benedict XIV, who is often held up as a supporter of the enlightenment, but also canonised a bunch of folks who did some science-defying stuff, including my boy San Giuseppe da Copertino.

The article was titled ‘Tirami su’.

I never really thought about whether the name of the dish meant anything (maybe it was a place, or a person), but when I translated it (Pick me up / Lift me up / Raise me up) the phrase made sense for a coffee-soaked dessert and an article about a levitating friar.

Pity I can’t stand coffee, and gag at the sight, smell, mention of tiramisu.

8.

8.1 - I went to an open lecture on Brexit, Trump and the rise of populism. It was interesting. I'm still trying to figure out how contemporary I make THE LOCATION SCOUT. Like, is it Feb 2017 and two non-Italians are driving around Italy talking about the Muslim ban and the precariousness of the Euro? 

*Shrug*

Open lecture

8.2 - I was on a panel with two other writers about the writing process here at the university. It was mostly about how we find the time to write. I've tried a lot of different things, working around different work and family situations.

My current situation, I have to say, is pretty sweet.

Plus Ones / New Office / Yellow pohutukawa

So here we are. A new year, a new outlook on life. Mine is courtesy of the two week old screaming in the next room. I'm now a dab hand at changing nappies and ghosting through life with bloodshot eyes. Going back to work next Monday will be fun. Blogging, writing fiction and such luxuries may be infrequent this year. But hey, I have a daughter. Life is good.

*

*

This is where it all happens, part V 

The new arrival has neccisitated a reshuffle at the Cliff household. My brother moved out of the third bedroom a couple of months ago. Now I've moved my office into his old room and my old office is now the baby's room (for some reason I feel like stabbing people who call it a nursery, not sure why).

So this is what my writing space looks like these days...

I don't have the same view of the hills (and the seagulls going to and from the dump), but the deck's just there. On sunny, calm days I can pretend I'm writing al fresco.

As an added bonus, there's a fridge in the wardrobe which wasn't stocked when I took this photo but I can assure you it is now!

You can perve at my previous working spaces here (Edinburgh I), here (Edinburgh II), here (Houghton Bay) and here (Kingston I).

Nice surprises

We moved into this house in March 2012 and I only discovered that the pohutukawa above our place was a yellow one on 22 December.

It just so happened I was carrying my daughter inside for the first time, so it was rather auspicious.

A couple of days later I noticed the first head on our artichoke.

2012 was a fruitful year. One human baby delivered, one book baby handed to an editor, one house bought, one promotion and the promise of stuffed artichoke in a week or two.


Next steps

Tomorrow I'll post my annual Best Books I Read Last Year post. There's actually four books published in 2012 on the list, and two from 2011, so it's a bit more current than some other year's top tens.

Until tomorrow, you can read my lists for 2011, 2010 and 2008.

And the day after tomorrow I'll post a similar list for music. It'll be the first time I've done this, which says something for my consumption of new (to me) music, compared to the iTunes funk I'd gotten into in recent years. Mostly thanks to Spotify.

Till then, here's a picture of a windmill at Makara, looking north to Mana Island.

Perth: a day to my own devices

The Perth Writers Festival wrapped on Sunday and I didn’t fly out till 9am on Tuesday, meaning I had all of Monday to explore. So I picked up a rental car from Thrifty bright and early and headed for Fremantle.

It was my first time driving in Australia in five years and I was quickly reminded how infuriating an experience it is. I had no map (not only did Thrifty not supply one, they did not stock any for sale), but I figured it couldn’t be too hard to get to Fremantle – just head to the coast for 25kms – then buy a map there. But Australia must have a road sign rationing programme (most of my WA disappointments come when it behaves/looks/feels just like the rest of Australia): I only saw one sign indicating the direction to Fremantle the whole journey, meaning most of the time I was in that uneasy ‘I feel like I’m still heading west’ mode. And when there is a sign to mark a turnoff, it is often on the far corner of the intersection, meaning you can often the sign as you drive past the turnoff.

And don’t get me started on the rigmarole of turning right (made worse because NZ follows suit at the end of the month - grrr).

At least I didn’t have to do any hook turns.

Later on, when I was well north of the city, I was also reminded of the great difference between New Zealand and Australian roads. In New Zealand, the landscape is inescapable. In Australia, it is so often hidden – either deliberately, behind those 3m high slabs that preserve the serenity of the houses over the fence, or the place is just so flat that you can only see the same row of scrubby eucalypts as you drive for miles.

Man, I really seem down on Australia today. Must be all that mid-twenties-spent-in-Queensland misery welling up.

Samuel Plimsoll figurehead

Anyway, I went to Fremantle to check out the port, the shipwreck museum and the maritime museum, as there may be a brief stopover in ‘Freo’ in THE NOVEL. The shipwreck museum was mostly devoted to wrecks of the Dutch East Indies Company, particularly the Batavia, all of which happened well before THE NOVEL’s late Nineteenth Century timeframe. The real highlight was the figurehead from the Samuel Plimsoll, one that I’d seen in books and online, so it was great to stand beneath old Sam and see his unsanded, unvarnished, unpainted underside.

The WA Maritime Museum was a waste of time (and $10). Hardly anything about the age of sail. All flash and no substance.

I then drove north to Yanchep National Park. Cue another grumpy generalisation about Australia (and how NZ kicks its arse): Upon entry into the park, I was reminded how manmade Australian national parks feel. I’d suspected that it was just the ones I went to in SE Queensland, and I’m sure Kakadu and the Bungle Bungles and all those really isolated places are raw and wild and fantastic, but a visitor to Yanchep’s first encounter is with several hectares of landscaped lawns, a restaurant, a gift shop, coin operated BBQs and a lake where (water levels permitting – and they weren’t when I was there) you can take a boat tour. And as in Springbrook and Lamington National Parks, even when got away from the mown grass and Streets Ice Cream flags, I was never far away from the roar of a hidden highway.

Yanchep National Park (seriously)

So it took me a while to get over this flood of animus against Australian National Parks for me to really enjoy Yanchep, but I did in the end and it was all thanks to the animals.

After observing the Western Greys take over the lawns at dusk, I headed to the beach to catch the sunset. As I stood atop the cliffs at Quinn’s Rocks it was difficult to get my head around the fact that you could never see the sun rise over the sea in WA (except at the very bottom and very top), only the sun set. Narrow is often used in a pejorative sense (as in limited, penurious, cramped, ‘narrow-minded’… the Tacoma Narrows Bridge) but one of the great joys of New Zealand is its narrowness: the ability to hold an endurance race from one coast to the other (passing through some amazingly varied country in the process). Of course, it means the weather’s changeable (read: shit), due in part to the narrowness and our mountainous spine. But to never see the sun rise over the sea? Inconceivable.

I then drove down through the Swan Valley (I often have to stop myself from saying/writing Swann’s Way, which a very wanky Freudian slip), a wine producing region to the north of Perth, found a quiet spot and slept in the back of my Hyundai i20. I was awoken after a couple of hours by the sound of galloping hooves. In the faint comingled light of the moon and the nearby conurbation I could make out a white horse running back and forth in its paddock across the road from me. I wondered if maybe it was displaying for my benefit (most likely it was telling me to eff off), but it soon settled down. When I rose after sunrise its head was leaning over the fencepost, eyeing down my car.

I dropped the rental car off at the domestic terminal just after 7am and proceeded to fly home to Wellington via Sydney.

Movies I watched:

Crazy Stupid Love – It has its moments. The last twenty minutes is unbearably Hollywood: everything must collide and then get smoothed out (there’s even a scene where Steve Carrill gives an impromptu address about love and soulmates at his son’s middle school graduation).

Midnight in Paris – Sheesh. Watching a Woody Allen movie these days is like sitting at the table next to a bunch of rich, entitled American Tourists. In the flesh these people are often annoying, but if you get the chance to talk with them, there’s usually a warmth and generosity below the surface that is some small redemption. But in Midnight in Paris, as in Vicky Christina Barcelona (the last Allen movie I saw) and Match Point (the one before that), Americans are irredeemable. I nearly gave up watching after 20 minutes, but then Owen Wilson (who’s sounding more and more like Jack Nicholson these days, don’t you think) met up with Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. The actor who played Hemingway did a good job, but in the end all these writer and artist cameos were just as shallow as Woody’s contemporary characters.

While waiting for my baggage at Wellington Airport, I turned my phone back on and found I had two voicemail messages, both from Thrifty Car Rentals. The first asked if I was going to return my car today. The second was, like, uh, so you never returned your car today, do you want it for a third day?

I’d parked it in a Thrifty parking spot at the airport (my agreed drop-off destination) and handed the keys to a dude in a Thrifty-emblazoned safety vest. ‘That’s fine,’ he’d told me, ‘there’s no need to go into the office. I’ll sort it out.’

These words took on a sinister tone as I replayed them back in NZ. Had a thief come across a Thrifty safety vest and waited for a gullible Kiwi to give him the keys to a car he’d then nick? What’s my liability in such a case? Or had Thrifty’s returns system just had a hiccup? It was 11.30pm NZT and 6.30pm Perth time, so I couldn’t get a hold of anyone to give me some answers. I couldn’t even leave a phone message for anyone from Thrifty anywhere in Australia (the NZ call centre was open and were lovely but their system is quite separate from Australia’s). So I got home, composed a mildly distressed email to Thrifty stating the minutiae of my return (the number of the parking space, the time of my return, a detailed description of the dude I gave the keys that would please any police sketch artist) and went to bed to enjoy a poor night’s sleep.

When I finally got hold of Thrifty in Perth the next day, they said that their system had expected the car to be returned back to Perth CBD, despite the fact I’d laboured this point I’d be returning it to the domestic airport with the person who’d served me (she knew what time my flight was and everything). So in the end the car was found, the charge for the extra day was reversed (though I lost a little money on the exchange rate, as well as the exchange margin my bank charged and the numerous international calls I had to make on my phone to sort it out). Not good enough Thrifty. Not good enough.

Man, I’ve been a total Grinch in this post.

Let me reiterate what I said in previous Perth posts: I had a great time at the writers festival. It would be hard to top my time in Sydney Writers Festival (8 sessions around greater Sydney and the Blue Mountains, all the outreach activities, the awesome writers I met, the free breakfasts and wifi at the hotel, the great weather, and the general buzz around the festival precinct), but Perth would probably come second if I ever made a list (which I won’t).

In one week it’s Wellington’s turn to wow me. I already know I like the city, the roads, the national parks… I even like the festival (I’ve been an audience member at three writers and readers weeks). There’s no way I can be stranded at the airport and I’ve no need to deal with rental car companies. What could possibly go wrong?

Oh yeah, I’m moving house!



Perth Writers Festival – part one

I left Wellington on the afternoon of Wednesday 22 February, flying first to Melbourne and then on to Perth (both flights approx 4 hours).

Movies I watched: 'Moneyball' (decent), 'The Ides of March' (decent) and 'The Adventures of Tintin' (very nearly gave up on it - not the biggest fan of the books but on film the boy detective annoyed the shit out of me).

I arrived in Perth at 8pm (they’re 5 hours behind NZ) and was surprised to find it pitch black outside, then remembered WA does not 'do' daylight savings. It was a close, muggy evening after a scorcher of a day and I worried that the heat and humidity would mar my festival experience. I needn't have, as the temperature for the next five days was mild in comparison, never getting above 28 degrees and without much humidity.

But to experience the festival I first had to leave the airport, which took a while as the driver that was supposed to collect me was nowhere to be found. After a series of phone calls to organisers and drivers, I was picked up two hours after my arrival, by which stage it was 3am NZT and I was keen to check in to the hotel and hit the hay.

On Thursday all the international authors at the festival with the time and inclination to go on a boat trip were taken out the Rottnest Island. Gathered in the hotel lobby, waiting to be walked down to the jetty, I found myself standing opposite Germaine Greer.

'I like your t-shirt' she said.

Several possible responses occurred to me, most too frightening to offer to the author of 'The Female Eunuch', so I just said, 'Thanks.'

Our boat was rather flash and there was plenty of wine and soft drinks to be had on the voyage. It took about an hour to make it down the Swan River to Fremantle and then another hour out to the island.

Bottlenose dolphins, Swan River

I had been looking forward to a spot of birding on the island and seeing some quokka, but the boat anchored about fifty metres offshore and we had to swim/snorkel to land, which ruled out taken bins or cameras. It also meant I washed up on the beach de-sunscreened and shirtless, and could only last twenty minutes on the white hot sand before returning to the water (even then I got a bit sunburnt). I saw a few fish - wrasse, a large kingfish-y fish, sundry tiddlers - but nothing to compare with the snorkelling I did in NZ in December (and certainly not the Great Barrier Reef). But it was still fun.

Rottnest Island from our mooring, Parakeet Bay

The best part about the trip was just hanging out with the other writers who'd all arrived the day before like me. A very civilised way to ease into a festival, I must say.

In the evening, the festival kicked off with Germaine Greer's opening address on eco-feminism, which was delivered in Winthrop Hall at the University of WA. The entire campus is architecturally… forceful, but this grand hall is totally out there: a combination of a Viking mead hall and a Sicilian cathedral, replete with stained glass mandala, baroque marble floors and Aboriginal art on the rafters.

Afterwards, the writers and invited guests gathered outside for the PWF opening party. I was still getting used to the fact that you could hold an event like this outside, with no shelter or backup plan -- knowing I'd be appearing on this same lawn in two nights' time for The Feast of Words... The only gripe about the party was the minimal food. We'd boarded the bus at 5.30 to go to the opening address and it was past ten when we got taken back to town: a few slivers of lamb pide didn't cut it unfortunately. (See also: Stephen Romei's festival wrap for a glimpse of how other writers coped with the food shortage).

Winthrop Hall, UWA

Friday: the festival started in earnest. My first session was 'Short, not so sweet', discussing the short story form with Janette Turner Hospital and Amanda Curtin. Counting on my fingers just now, I think this would have been my eleventh panel discussion in front of an audience since A Man Melting came out, and I think this one would have to have been the most rewarding. 


The session was ably chaired by Georgia Richter, who managed to set the session off on an interesting path early (once we'd all given short readings: I read from 'Copies' for the first time years) and from then on it felt like a real conversation. We discussed the rewards and challenges of the form, the way ideas germinate, how some ideas are best suited to a short story (or a novel or a poem), how we approached the task of pulling stories together into a collection, whether we read other writers when immersed in our own work and how to deal with the agony of influence. There was just the right amount of agreement and divergence and we could have filled another hour, easily. And as an added bonus, the two questions from the audience were good'ns.

[You can read a very thorough account of the session at the Waxings blog...]

We were all on a bit of a high after the session (having all been in ones that never quite reached top gear) and several audience members commented how much they enjoyed it. Ine said it was the best session they'd seen at the festival so far, but that's not saying much seeing how it was only the afternoon of the first full day. But I signed eight or ten books at the signing table, easily the most I've ever done after a single session, which I think is a good barometer (Janette and Amanda were also in high demand).

If only you could catch lightning in a bottle.

Earlier that day I sat in on a session about sex and literature featuring Krissy Kneen, Glen Duncan and Frank Moorhouse. I've read and admired the work of Moorhouse, but the others were new to me. After the first two writers gave readings involving octopus on octopus on human action and werewolf sex, Frank Moorhouse launched into a patchy tirade about the 'creeping gentilism' of all those warnings that come on before TV shows. He also called Glen Duncan 'Duncan' about six times during the session. You could see Glen considering whether to correct him the first few times, then, when he realised the chance had last, seething politely for the rest of the session.

On the van ride back to the hotel I had a great chat with Favel Parrett. We’re both working on books with sections set in the subantarctic, you see. To any writers festival artistic directors out there: once our respective books come out, you can chuck Favel and me on a stage and we’ll easily fill an hour with our passion for albatross and easterlies.

Friday evening I was invited to the dinner that Random House Australia put on for its authors. In the bar prior to going to the restaurant, I was involved in a small intrigue as I pretended to be the Perth-based friend of an author who shall remain nameless.

Here’s the backstory: Author X had recently switched publishers, but his tlast three books - the books he was promoting at the fest, had all been released by his old publisher. To their credit they were still supporting him and invited him to their dinner, but he was booked to go out with a friend that night and declined. The friend, however, came down crook and cancelled and in the course of drinking at the hotel bar Author X had been convinced to go to dinner with his new publishers. The only problem was that to get to the cabs waiting to take him to the restaurant, he had to pass through the lobby, and waiting in the lobby were a bunch of publicists and authors from his old publisher. I told him no one here knew what I looked like and I could pose as his Perth friend, allowing him to pass through the lobby without suspicion. It all went to plan until we go in the cab but had to wait for a third author to fill it.  Meanwhile Author X was ducking his head down and muttering, 'quickly, quickly'.

Anyway, my publisher’s dinner was fun. I spent most of my time talking to Perth-based writer Sara Foster (who'd also been on the boat to Rottnest) and Nick Earls. I think I read one of Nick's books when I lived in Brisbane, but the details were sketchy - sometimes it almost better to have not read any books at all. Anyway, Nick and Sara were lovely and the time flew by.

I had Saturday to myself until the evening so I went for a walk around the city. My first impression of Perth was that it was a fairly typical Australian metropolis: flat, straddling a river, chocka with hideous 70s beige pebbledash monoliths. 

And for a long time on my walk I felt that Perth's architecture was actually a new low, so hideous, so perfunctory, so leaden. But gradually the quirkiness of its older buildings emerged and I realised the whole place was batshit crazy. The UWA campus was not an aberration or a folly, but a natural extension of the craziness.

In the afternoon I headed out to the festival and caught the outdoor poetry reading featuring David Brooks (who chaired my session in the Blue Mountains at Sydney Writers Fest last May), Canadian Michael Crummey, Aussie Cate Kennedy and Ireland's Dennis O'Driscoull. All poets were fantastic in their own ways.

I then went to a session about building bigger works from smaller pieces featuring Julienne van Loon, Favel Parrett and my pal Frank Moorhouse. Again, the session was a bit disjointed (at one stage Frank's phone started ringing) but it was still worthwhile.

And then it was time for the Feast of Words... But you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow.

Short poems / Krypton Factor / Neurogenesis

Short Poems

2012 is the year of the London Olympics. It is also the Alan Turing Year and the year the world might end.

But I’m calling it the Year of the Short Poem. I’m not sure why. I just wanna post some short (six or less lines) poems in my blog posts this year.

So here’s #1 (it's by me, by the way):

Youth
Children play on the floor.
The mothers are beautiful.
We negotiate the years, barbeque by barbeque.

To the Burnham Army Base! (and don’t forget your tracksuit)

There’s was a minor internet kerfuffle earlier this week over a pamphlet from an indeterminate date in which John Key appears to diss New Zealand writers, which is all the more baffling as the pamphlet is supposed to spruik a NZ literature walk. Here’s the full statement (source: Listener Online).

I have always believed we should enhance the literary skills of our young people and while our literary heroes may never challenge the glory and respect given to our All Blacks, we still need role models to inspire us.

This Literary Heritage Trail celebrates writers, poets and playwrights who have contributed to this young country’s cultural and historical life.

I hope you will take the opportunity to be part of this journey.

- Hon. John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Erm. Okay.

It’s probably true that for the majority of the population an average all black will be held in higher esteem than a great writer. But why bring up the All Blacks at all, John (or whoever in the PM’s office wrote his statement)?

Without presuming to being a literary hero, the statement does tempt me to organise a team of writers together to challenge the All Blacks to a Krypton Factor-style battle of brains and brawn.

Does anyone have Dougal Stevenson’s phone number?


Ghastly ghastly grows the purple blight

Around this time last year I wrote a column in the Dom Post about my hatred of agapanthus. I was pleased, therefore, to see this article online today (any discussion about the evil, ugly, insipid plant is helpful) but dismayed that the early poll results weren’t heavily in favour of banning it.

Maybe if an All Black spoke out against agapanthus??


Double Jeopardy

Something I missed while travelling: A Man Melting has the unusual privilege of being on the Sunday Star Times’ 2010 and 2011 lists of best books. The original December 4 2011 article not available online but the list features on Chch City Libraries’ website.

Here's what the article had to say about AMM: "The year's most outstanding debut. Assured stories from a young writer who knows how to vary his style to suit his subject: ranges from comedy to the really dour."

Kinda shows how small a splash AMM made in 2010, eh? The same can probably be said for 2011, but it’s hard to see how it can make it three years in a row in 2012… maybe an expanded third edition??

Caged monkey, sad monkey. Free monkey, happy monkey.

My current audiobook is Proust was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer. It looks at how famous writers and artists anticipated scientific discoveries, such as Whitman’s belief that emotions belonged both to the mind and body.

The connections between artist and science seems a bit tangiential at times, but the discussion of the science of umami (the fifth taste) or neurogenesis is facinating.

On the topic of neurogenesis, Lehrer describes how for a long time science held that the number of neurons in a primate’s brain was capped from infancy. But eventually experiemental science could demonstrate that our neurons could indeed divide and thus create new neurons. Part of the problem was that the lab tests used captive monkeys, and it has since been proven that captivity is bad for creating new neurons (neurogenesis). If you take the monkeys out of their cages, make them search for their food and give them a variety of toys, suddenly the brain starts bubbling with new neurons.

It has also been shown, so Lehrer informs me, that some anti-depressants stimulate neurongenesis and it is believed that new neurons rather than increased serotonin* could be what is making patients happy.

Combining these two findings suggests that the secret to happiness is a varied and challenging environment that’ll stimulate neurogenesis. Which provides a neurological explanation for why travel can make us happy. It can also explain why certain subjects (e.g. me) become maudlin when stuck in an office with little to do (or doing little despite a number of things they could be doing).

Now, if only summer will arrive properly, I’ll commence my neurogenesis routine!

__
*I originally spelt this 'ceratonin' -- one of the drawbacks of audiobooks is you aren't told/reminded how to spell technical words.


The year of the first person

I have two shortish (but not short-short) poems in Turbine 2011, which came out while I was roadtripping.  And no, I’m not trying to start a new vogue for first person bio notes, this is just what I sent along with my initial submission (as in: “Hey, here are some poems and here’s a bit about me”). I never got asked for a proper bio note or got a chance to review this one, but I’m happy to let it stand.

Maybe 2012 can also be the year of the first person?  Or does that sound too Biblical?

Looking for the next best thing

Blue Friday

I got up early this morning to go blue penguin spotting at Tarakena Bay. Turns out it's light already at 5.30am.  I'm still not sure about the local blue penguins nesting cycle, but I think I'll have to be there by 5am if I'm to spot one ambling down the beach to go fishing.

It was a beaut morning anyway and I went up the Poito Track, passed Poito Pa and Rangitatau Pa, though both were destroyed by raiding Northern iwi in 1819-20 and no obvious traces remain.

I suspect one of the pa sites is now this flat area covered with wild fennel and the woody stalks and umbels of last year's flowers.

Looking south from Palmer Head to the Cook Strait

Looking east.

Ataturk memorial (left) and Baring Head (right)

Low Self Estima*


M. and I bought a '92 Toyota Estima van on the weekend. A bit early in life for a people mover, granted, but we intend to sell it again after the summer. Will be great to tour the North Island in while on our double honeymoon with our German friends. Even better when we're joined by two more friends for the Northland leg.

Excitement.

I just wish this wedding thing was over with...


*I stole this joke from a Facebook friend.




Some fennel facts gleaned from Wikipedia

The town of Marathon, which gave its name to the long distance run, means 'The place of fennel.'

Prometheus used a fennel stalk to steal fire from the gods.

The type of bulb-like fennel you buy from Moore Wilsons and slice up for salads is the inflated leaf base of Florence Fennel or finocchio. (Something Wikipedia won't tell you: Finocchio is also Northern Italian slang for a homosexual - not sure about the link between the two).

Fennel was once one of the three main herbs used in the production of absinthe (the others being grande wormwood and green anise).



Antlered antics

Tomorrow is my stag do. I don't know what we're doing because my brother/flat mate/best man (same person) won't tell me. We need to be at the Porirua Train Station at 10am and a change of clothes would be a good idea.

Hmm.

Hopefully it's more fun that the other pre-wedding activities that have been keeping me from writing this past week: making a slideshow, doing the music, finding a reading for my step-sister to read at the ceremony, writing the vows (or thinking about it deeply, or thinking about thinking about it), sorting out where people will sit, re-arranging the table settings, picking up my wedding ring, filling out forms for the wedding licence, re-re-arranging the tables.


Wild South

Though progress on THE NOVEL's wordcount has been non-existent since I sent what I had to my editor to have a read (still no word back), I have had two great research moments in recent weeks.

The first was finally getting around to reading Phillip McCutchan's Tall Ships, which I bought at the Downtown City Mission's annual second hand book sale over two years ago. Since then, I've read over a dozen books about sailing ships and left McCutchan's languishing on the shelf. Sigh. I could have saved myself so much time leafing through books that weren't quite right.

Tall Ships has lots of pictures and includes chapters on tea clippers, the 'Australian route', and the Roaring Forties.

Better late than never I guess.

The second hallelujah moment came on Volume One of the Wild South series on DVD. The very first episode, first broadcast in 1980, is called 'The Island of Strange Noises' and focuses on Antipodes Island (one of NZ's subantarctic islands). Half an hour of squawking and close-ups of light-mantled sooty albatross: not as good as being there but the next best thing.

Via polarconservation.org

Addendum at the eleventh hour

My gran always used to ring me up on days like today and ask me what the date was. I remember a lot of calls in 1991, the year of the palindromes...

After I posted the above I was reading through a friend's poetry manuscript and I looked down, noticed the time and date, then noticed the page I was reading.  Had to screenshot it.