The Things I Wish I'd Done ... before the power cut

Just in, from an intrepid hike across the yard, through torrential rain, to the chook-house, I clumped back in, wearing someone else’s, too big, Red Band gumboots and felt inspired to blow the dust off my blog, and write something down.

A couple of months ago, I discovered a song titled, ‘The Things I Wish I'd Done’, by Keywest.

I loved it, for the story it told, about a real man, met on a bus. The band took the song back to him, once it was done.

And how does this link to my wishes?

At 3am, I woke to the realisation the power was out.

Friends keep describing this home we’ve lived in, for more than a year now, as remote. We love it. It’s a river valley; the mighty Aorere River valley, and the valley’s sides are flanked by the most glorious mountains.

It’s only 25 minutes to the nearest small town, and a most beautiful selection of beaches. 45 minutes to the biggest town in this bay, and about 2.5 hours to the closest small city, by car.

There’s an airline, Golden Bay Air, and they get us over Cook Strait to Wellington, and two different ferry services that run from Picton, through Marlborough Sounds, across the strait and, again, to Wellington. Cook Strait is the watery section of State Highway One, the highway that runs the length of New Zealand

We have Fulton Hogan and Sollys trucking companies, bringing freight in and out but more than that, putting the Bay back together after the big rains. We’re fortunate that they operate, with ease, in the region. And it’s just another day in the office, when it comes to hauling load over the Takaka Hill .

We have cheese-makers, trained in the French cheese-making world. Kervella Cheese has made leaving all my European cheeses behind, bearable. And Kokalito, offer organic fruit and vegetables from their market stall. We’re also fortunate to have Golden Bay Organics, and our Fresh Choice supermarket, both keeping supplied with almost all we might need when it comes to organic products.

It took me quite a while to find Home, after returning to New Zealand … years really. But here I am, just over a year into living in this ‘wild’ place, and loving it.

However, this morning and those things I wish I’d done, prior to the power cut.

I wished I had gone to bed with all my devices fully-charged. But I have real books, if my beloved Kindle is low, so this was survivable. I have a fully-charged battery charger, so my phone was going to be okay, as long as the power cut didn’t go on forever.

I wished I had showered before bed because, once the power goes out, so does our easy tap-access water supply. What can I say, I was lazy.

I wished I had cooked my meat, I’m eating a lot of it at the moment. It would have been better cooked, and thrown in the fridge, so I only needed to warm it on the fire top today, rather than starting from scratch. Using the fire to cook is perfect but last time the wetback on the fire, heated our hot water to boiling point, with no easy way of dealing with it at that point, besides letting the fire go out.

Note to self: disconnect from the water-heating if the fire is required. Hopefully, we will live and we learn.

And then there was the wish I had thought to fill a thermos with hot water, in the mostly unlikely event of a power cut. We have a coffee plunger, if there is no other way of making a coffee.

You see, we were on a weather warning, despite this being one of those corners of New Zealand that can receive 5 meters of rain in a year. 150-200mm’s was the ‘warning’, and I should have paid a little more attention. As I sit here, writing this, it’s sounding like it might be true. The rain is heavy..

I listed all those regrets, and then …the power was back, at 6am. I’m usually up around 5am … no longer a night owl, I’m whatever the creature is that wakes ‘that’ early, even in the heart of winter. Anyway, it turns out that the power providers here are either superhuman or very resilient, courageous and gifted. I cannot imagine going out in the weather we’re having, to fix faults.

I blew out the candles, turned on the coffee machine and made an espresso. I found the new favourite breakfast, the Organic Farm sausages, & started them cooking them, along with my eggs. I got the porridge made too; boiled the kettle and filled the thermos.

And then I showered. It was the best shower ever, as I was suspecting this power cut could go on all day, based on the ferocity of the rain. I’m clean again, saved from my lazy ways.

I love this life. You stay close enough to Nature, that a power cut isn’t the end of the world. There are only those small regrets. I would have been fine.

Home, New Zealand

It’s been a while since I posted here … but it’s been busy.

I guess, since returning to New Zealand, there’s been a bit of a quest … to find a place where it feels good to be, every single day.

And here it is, home since awhile.

A view from this home, in one kind of weather.

Happy Birthday - to a very special man

3 years ago, I spent the evening with a friend, quietly keeping him company on his birthday, taking turns to share our favourite music with one another, while drinking red wine.

His wife, of many years, had died after a long battle with cancer. And although time had past, he was exhausted, body and soul because that isn’t something you recover from easily.

We met in The Church, a quietly gnarly Fiordland pub, where deer and sheep farmers, truck drivers and all kinds of other Kiwi blokes meet in the evenings, wearing their Swanndri shirts and Red Bands, to talk of the weather, their farms and the rugby. To drink beer. It was the best pub in the tiny village called Manapouri, so I had made it my local too.

He stood out, as a gentle man. We talked for a while, and ran into each other occasionally, as we lived not too far from each other, and our friendship continued to grow. Helen, my flatmate, and I organised a party with everyone but slowly Ken and I started spending more time together.

He had an old black staffie/labrador dog called Chief, I had Helen’s dog and we would occasionally meet up, out wandering the bush tracks and Lake Manapouri’s edge with the dogs, and share those quiet birdsong bush tracks, and chat.

Eventually he invited me on a road-trip, just for the day. We were friends, who enjoyed the same music, he was developing his taste for red wine - inspired his sister’s enjoyment of it, and he loved wandering too.

I was delighted. That first trip was a lovely slow exploration of roads in the south of the South Island.

Within a few months we were road-tripping seriously. I don’t really remember the dates and, because he’s not a creature of social media, I found my prolific posting and sharing of my life, slowed down quite a lot too. I was caught in the moment, with my friend and his dog, in that wild west corner of New Zealand, never expecting all that we have now.

3 years later, and it’s his birthday again, and here I still am … still protective of his privacy because what a wonder that level of anonymity is, in this crazy old world.

It was his notion, as a very young man, that he might enjoy a hippie kind of life, that saw us move 700+kms to our beautiful bay, located on the north coast of New Zealand. It was all about him having the courage to leave all that was familiar and see if he could carve out a new life, not imagining it would become so full of good music, jamming and friends. And while we never forget the life he lived before, he is living again.

This post is all about wanting to write a small post of gratitude, to this man who has become my love, my teacher and that person who nags me when I don’t take care of myself.

He has lured me into the land of eating only organic foods. He maintains a prolific garden, that is small but mighty. He has introduced me to, and turned me into, a woman who loves wild meat like venison and pork … and if you didn’t know it already, there is nothing in the world that is better that Back Steaks off a wild venison. Nothing.

And then there’s the exquisitely edible fish I didn’t know existed … Gurnard, Rig, Kahawai, Grey Mullet, to name just a few. So now I’m fishing too. Give me another year, and I believe I’ll be hunting … but only for food because he’s taught me the pleasure that comes from fending for myself.

We’re disappointed when one beats the other to light the fire in the mornings but really, he’s the supreme champion of fire-lighting.

We both love dogs (we have a second dog now), empty beaches, bush tracks, the mountain views from the deck, and all that Golden Bay offers. And friends …

Thank you, mister. I do appreciate you.

These Days ... the Golden Bay Days.

This morning, I woke at 5am … a new normal, possibly inspired by being in bed early. A response, perhaps, due to incredibly early morning starts at my job but there’s also the fact that we’re beginning the long slow journey away from the shortest day. Long nights, that are cold … that inspire me to make my first task of the day breathing life back into the fire that we bank to last through the night.

Below, here are some photographs that give you a sense of this north coast of the South Island, life … in winter.

Another departure from all those other lives I’ve lived, is making a wee loaf of bread before the sun comes up.

A dear friend, called Jeanie, gifted me the simplest of bread recipes. One I will share here for you, if you have a love of white bread … a love that should surely be hidden in these days of sourdough and grain breads :-)

450ml warm water, 1 teaspoon of honey (or sugar) dissolved into the water.

2 teaspoons of yeast (I use Bakels Instant Active Dried Yeast), sprinkled over top of the warm water and honey mix. Do not stir, Leave for 15 minutes until frothy. (mine only goes a little frothy)

450g white (or wholemeal flour - I use organic), 1 tsp salt, mixed into the flour.

After 15 minutes, stir wet mix into dry. Stir for 5 minutes, until mixture starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl.

Grease bread tin and warm it slightly, then pour dough mixture into the tin. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise for 30 minutes, or so.

Bake 30 minutes at 180 celsius

It’s ready when it sounds hollow after you tip it out and tap the bottom (this step has never really happened for me but I like the bread I get at 30 minutes.)

I use all organic products, bar the yeast (and it may be anyway) but my body handles digesting this wickedly good bread better than any bread I have eaten.

There’s almost always a pot of porridge, there on the stove top, waiting for my bloke when he wakes up. And the local supermarket keeps me in Italian Lavazza Oro coffee, for the first of my morning espresso.

And most mornings, I end up with 2 dogs, one snoring noisily, there at my feet close to the fire while I read and prepare myself for the day ahead.

It’s not the worst life I’ve lived.

I still have the old-fashioned red armchair I bought, back in those days when I was living with Dad, not long after returning from Italy. It’s mentioned, and photographed, at the end of this very long post about learning to live with Dad’s Dementia.

I have 5 days off from work this week. It’s feels like a dream, and has allowed me to reach this point where I can write a little on my blog.

Each time I have moved countries, moved towns, moved houses, there is that period of readjustment … moving in, finding small routines that make the days easier, while leaving space for impulses. And I enjoy my part-time job but miss dreaming-time.

My photography exhibition, titled A Gasp of Delight, closes at the Dangerous Kitchen Cafe, this weekend. It has felt so good to quietly step back into my photography - a passion largely put aside after I returned to New Zealand, while navigating the lives of so many, unable to find the peace of mind, and sense of playfulness, good photography requires.

The exhibition has done well, both in a sales sense but also in some kind of unfurling of self. Let’s see where that takes me this time round.

But enough. I’ll end with a small Ciao, from down here, in The Bay.

An Art Project ... by Kylie Sinkovich and I, Nelson, New Zealand

Kylie Sinkovich and I worked on this art project together.

We’re rapt with how it all worked out.

You can view it online, here at Containment/Uncontained Bollard Exhibition.

Here’s how it looks, in Nelson, New Zealand.

A Memory, from Beloved Genovese Life ...

Some mornings, here in Italy, it feels like I am living in an enormous mansion … that my apartment is merely one of the many rooms located in that solid mass of building that is my Genovese home.

I doze for a while, in the mornings, windows open/shutters closed, waking again and again ... to the sound of voices passing by, down in the narrow medieval alleyway. I am woken by conversations, by greetings shouted …by bursts of laughter, dogs barking, children calling. Metal roller doors being rolled up, as if thrown by a giant hand intent on making the most noise possible.

I imagine the people who belong to the voices. Italians, living their routine, stopping for coffee … friends who meet everyday, on their way.

The progress of my days are measured by the rise and fall of the noise, down there on Via Ravecca … coffee cups clattering, saucers rattling, cutlery clinking ... then a slow easing into the quiet of mid-afternoon, before a crescendo that becomes a solid hum, as those same morning friends settle into aperitivo after work.

I make up stories, at my desk in the Italian kitchen … stories of lives long lived in one place. Of generations.

I am quietly envious.

I feel like an orphan.

Sometimes, I am startled awake by a wild and angry voice in the early hours of a morning, or a suitcase rolling over the massive paving stones.

Suddenly the cafe's metal security door is rolled up, 6am … clattering and rattling directly below my bedroom.

One lunch time, I watched an old man lean out from his window across the alley, to shake his tablecloth clean of crumbs. We smiled at one another

Sitting here, writing and editing photographs … I hear a small 3-wheeled truck manuvoring its way along the narrow caruggi. Scooters zip through. People are passing by constantly. University students, carrying their heavy porfolios, businessmen in blue suits, the old men and women, the shoppers, the mothers with their babies.

I leave my windows open, pretending I am a part of this beautiful living tapestry.

The conversations … I have learned 'va bene' via that open window. And I practice my 'ciao' by repeating it whenever I hear it.

So often.

What do I love about Genova?

What has pulled me back here, since 2008 …?

What fuels the passion I feel for this little-known, often over-looked Italian city?

I love the secretive alleyways, known as caruggi by the Genovese.

I love the hills that surround the city. And the Ligurian Sea that caresses its feet.

The colourful buildings. It is a city that glows apricot, pale yellow, terrocotta, green or blue metal shutter. The ruined buildings still inhabited, and not as ruined as they first seem, to my New Zealand eyes ….... eyes unaccustomed to ancient.

And then there's the Genovese light.

It transforms the ordinary, the ugy, the beautiful too.

It transforms everything it touches.

One evening, I glanced up and saw the wall across the alley changed. The ordinary, slightly dull yellow surface, was singing gold in the evening light.

Perhaps it is this promise of transformation. Both of the city, as the light moves across it, and of me …

When I am there, I walk often, drinking in the light and sights via my camera.

I lose weight, I grow strong.

Somehow, this Genovese life strips everything away, and leaves me reliant on my senses … and my camera, translating all I see, all that makes me curious, into images.

The centro storico, the old city, comes alive, like a creature … a 2,000 year old creature,who has a heartbeat and a soul. She allows me to walk her streets with impunity.

Camera in hand, I feel like a child of hers … I feel safe.

Zena, an ancient name she also wears with pride. She is a shapeshifting city. A living breathing city. She has a pulse. She whispers to me, every single day I am there.

Sometimes, I feel the weight of centuries pressing down on me. It is a simple thing to feel ghosts walking with me, around me, caught in other times perhaps or, more simply, still present, just slightly out of focus.

But most of all, there is this comforting feeling that things have been like this forever … that the streets carry the imprints, visible or not, of the millions of feet that have walked here.

Tracks have been worn, habits and customs formed, and generations born here … since forever.