We travelled inland through the heartland of Hawke’s Bay knowing that a large house was awaiting us to rent. With the hideousness of the previous day (see Part One) still bugging me, I prayed that this place would suit our family’s needs. The scenery was uplifting, though the hills were their usual arid summer colour. It was hard to believe that there had been torrential rain and flooding a week or so back in nearby Napier. But this region bore no apparent scars.
We had long thought of finding a holiday place in Hawkes Bay big enough to take all our extended family. And as I knew how hard it was to find accommodation in that area in the summer, we booked through bookabach agency a year earlier. When the time came, we were very sorry that our family in Melbourne weren’t able to come because of Covid restrictions, but the New Zealand bunch were still keen on the holiday, making us a total of eight. We were travelling by car from Auckland, Wellington, Whanganui, Palmerston North (all in the North Island), and from Dunedin in the South. We were to be staying at Haumoana, right near the beach; a favourite surfing spot for the children when they were teenagers. But that was not the only reason we chose this spot: it was also close to bike trails, great produce, and wineries – and the house could sleep up to eleven. We couldn’t wait to get there.
I’ve long been a fan of dance, learning ballet as a child, possessing a dancer’s heart, but little natural ability. However, the desire to dance never left me, and as a thirty-something adult I returned to ballet. I began to feel my body move with more agility and learnt how to use it. Yeah! Around the same time, I noticed flamenco dance classes advertised and joined up. I came to love the dance with passion. Having a guitarist certainly helped the atmosphere, as we learned to arch our backs and move to the specific beats for hands and feet. I so enjoyed the sound of the dance and the stamping of feet. It was another twenty years before I visited Spain, and while in Madrid I got to see my first ‘authentic’ performance, taking place in Corral de la Morería, a cafe famous for its flamenco shows. I have continued to love the dance, the callers, the guitar and its passion. I have often idly wondered whether I might have some Spanish blood.
It’s not like me to miss a week posting something on art or travel, but I have been ‘out of sorts’ for want of a better word to describe my sporadic exhaustion and brain fog. However, this morning I returned from my walk with a blog idea! I hope you’ll join me as I sift through the travel notes I jotted down when visiting Granada, in May last year.
Thursday 9th May. The bus trip from Cordova was great, the landscape fairly repetitive in the main – rows of olive trees mostly, the soil clay-coloured and arid looking – but what a surprise as we neared our destination, to see the high snow-capped mountains of Sierra Nevada, a majestic backdrop to this Andalusian city and the fabulous green belt of trees.
One action always precipitates another, and in this case offered me the subject of my next post. My husband was straightening a long bowed shelf in the pantry and began lifting down the vases and other crockery which often get thrust into those seldom-used spaces. He set down a large yellow jug on the bench, which I quickly scooped up and popped in my studio. I would sketch this jug and tell the story of it crossing the globe in my back-pack, following my first visit to Europe, oh, so long a go. Even before the days of cellphones and the internet!
This time last year, Kerry and I were in the United Kingdom, catching up with several old colleagues and friends not knowing when we would get the chance to visit again. Little did we know then just how special that trip was to become, with Covid 19 stopping us all in our tracks. One of our stops was Yorkshire, to stay with Wendy and Robin. I’d never been before, and like all regions new to me, I couldn’t wait to get out and explore.
This time last year I was in Edinburgh, many months before Corona virus had hit the world stage. It was my first visit, and I had been strangely unaware I would be among thousands of others who had ambushed the city for the Fringe Festival. I was thankful that our friends Mick and Anne only lived a thirty minute walk from the centre, in a lovely, quiet, suburban neighbourhood. We strolled into town past handsome stone buildings on either side; a cobbled street in between – so different from the wooden architecture and asphalt roads I am used to in my New Zealand surroundings.
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Me in front of the Len Lye Centre
On our last afternoon in New Plymouth, we re-visited the Len Lye Centre, which sits within the Govett-Brewster Gallery building on Queen Street, to see the extra exhibits which weren’t on display the day we first went. We had hoped to also look inside the Govett-Brewster gallery, but it remained closed, preparing for re-opening once the Covid levels had lifted. The Len Lye Centre is as famous for its architecture as it is for the artist it is named after; innovative and fascinating in so many ways. Continue reading
With our lockdown almost over, Kerry and I got busy organising the trip to New Plymouth we had planned months before we’d heard the word Covid. Now were were in level 2, the government was urging Kiwis to travel within their own country; to help kick-start our local tourism industry, which had suffered with the border restrictions to overseas visitors. New Plymouth is within the Taranaki province (the Naki to Kiwis) and has many attractions. The most famous being its superb mountain; a mountain I’d only spotted from a distant road, or when I’d flown over the cone capturing a terrific birds eye view in a photo. Meaning always to go and walk around the foothills – sometime. That time had arrived! Continue reading
The Great Wall of China
Last week our tutor suggested we might sketch a wonder of the world as our weekly image for the group FB page. I immediately thought of The Great Wall of China. But heck, my visit there was back in 1997. A photograph. I knew there were one or two taken of me that hot day with the migraine and having to rest every few steps as we walked along that magnificent structure. They weren’t online, as all our photos are these days, so I raced off to ask my husband to help locate them. Oh my gosh. What a man. There all the photographs were from that year, in his study cupboard, the prints sandwiched neatly between their pertinent negatives. I was in awe. Let’s not mention my filing techniques here. Continue reading
ARTISTRY 