Busy Friday

End of another week and the pace picks up as the year winds down. I visit Dianne from Kenneally Timber where the Tasmanian Blackwood is. She's something of an expert and shows me a range of products. There's a relief map of Aotearoa made of wood and I'm surprised by how little flat land these islands have. The Canterbury Plains seem to be an anomaly. The fault lines which have caused so much trouble are not obvious but the Alpine Fault at the juncture of the Indo-Australian/Pacific plates, is. It runs for 480 km, almost the entire length of New Zealand, and has caused the uplift of the Southern Alps over the last 12 million years. We're waiting for another big one, or, as seems more likely, a continuation of a series of smaller ones. Apparently we're in a period of high activity.
I touch base with Kirk to check on roofing. I need to finalise a colour. Back at 22 College Ave, it's quiet.
In the evening Behrouz Boochani is talking to John Campbell. He wrote the book, No Friend But The Mountains, on a mobile phone using WhatsApp and smuggled it out of Manus Island as thousands of PDF files. His eyes are haunting and I'm struck by the impact of his dehumanisation at the hands of a cruel and callous system.

Dianne the expert

Hot, hot and hotter

The forecast for today is the late 20's but the mercury soars well beyond that. By mid morning it's too hot. The Kimi Ora unit are doing a car wash fund raiser and cool down by splashing each other. My car goes in dirty and comes out sparkling. The inside is a tip- I've moved so much of my stuff and a lot of plants from the garden with it that the inside is a disgrace. Vacuuming is on the 'get around to it' list but not today.
We have staff PD at Ara, a tertiary option for our students, and I drag myself around feeling knocked out by the heat. Back at 22 College Ave, it's quiet but across the road it's all go There's a team paving the driveway under the sweltering afternoon sun. Shelley and Dan are nearly finished their rebuild and getting ready to move in. The pavers are having a rest admiring their asphalt and the youngest is sitting in a wheelbarrow directing operations and bemusedly agrees to a photo in situ. His mates tell me he owns the business. I believe them, sort of, but after a laugh they come clean.
I pick up the finished corbels on the way home. They're curvy in the right places. It's still stifling so I throw my new boogie board in the car for my first swim of the summer, accompanied by my mate Robyn. She's moving too and exhausted after a day hauling her stuff around. The sea at Tayor's Mistake is fresh and, as always on the first swim, it takes my breath away.  It takes half an hour to restore my oxygen levels. It's been a big day. Robyn and I settle down for a glass of red.

72 Corbels Led The Big Parade

The New and the Reviving

I drop in before school and take Winnie to have a look. It's 7:30 and the drainage team are surfacing. One is on site to start work. Their job today is to tidy up and wash the slab clean. After school I drop in to feed the cat and do some watering. The water table is high and there is water about one metre down. The well established plants are generally OK during summer, but I want to make sure the ones I have moved and the new ones stay alive. It's too late, though, for the passion fruit. It didn't survive the frosts, even though I covered it religiously. I've tried once before and will try again, but the winters are too cold. As yet.

Newly planted Japanese Maple

Perished Passionfruit

Wisteria from the pergola that was- a survivor

Old and Crusty

I bike to the house at 10 and find Rene sorting out the electric cable with the drainage diggers. Then Glen arrives and we mull over the electrical connection. It is going to take six weeks and I am lucky it will be done before Christmas. So far it has taken Orion three weeks to do the paperwork. Sometimes life is a mystery.
The drainage team is working well and seems to be happily occupied digging. There's lengths of pipes going in all directions. Another mystery. These men are expert at what they do, just like I know my job, so I thank them and ask to take some pictures. No problem. I leave them to the CCC inspector and am somewhat bemused by the slogan on the council car: "Get the go ahead...."   A third mystery.
After school I bike back to find the neighbour, Grant, on the street having a chat. Perfect opportunity to ask him to throw his grass clippings over the fence and boost my compost. I haven't got much lawn to mow and the compost pile will go to rack and ruin. Grant's more than happy to help out. Right now. Not only that but he brings over his lawn mower to tidy up my back section. Good neighbours.....priceless. The drain layers have left the section tidy; the pipes are laid and the trenches filled. I head home to cook dinner for my flatmates and a couple of friends. Good friends....one of life's treasures.

Old clay pipes

More Digging

I get to the slab after school and meet two year old Amelia. There's been unexpected activity- a flurry of digging- and Amelia, who loves diggers, is entranced. Ditches with pipes now go around the house. I organise for an electric cable to be put in the ditch along the south side and find the drainage contractors are expecting to do it so I text cell numbers to relevant people. House building needs co-ordination and Chinese whispers could really muck things up. There's a new pile of wood and pipe off cuts but the pile of polystyrene off cuts is gone. Now you see them, now you don't. A game of piles.
I go to pick up the corbels, all 70 of them, and decide their shape needs revision. This will require tact and I need some advice. After a union meeting I head to Nicki's for a cup of tea. We look at one of the corbels and exchange house building news. Nicki's picked up a sample of Tasmanian Blackwood grown in Southland. It's lustrous with hues of mid and darker brown. I like it immediately. Some decisions are easier than others.

Rhythmic Sunday

It's a beautiful day. Sharyn and I go to the drum festival at Manaia, Little River. We sit under big trees beside flowing water. Perfect. I feed Pierre and water the newly planted trees at my place then stuff myself at a street BBQ.

Slow Saturday

I stay the night in Robyn's, Lew's partner's, studio and in the morning photograph her with her artwork- harakeke weaving. Strong shapes from a strong woman.
Mid afternoon I arrive at my garden to dig and tidy. There's high cloud and the air has a pink hue again- Australia is still burning.  I dig up lumps of liquefaction. On February 22nd I biked through water from the top of the street and slipped and slithered in knee deep water over liquefaction, up the driveway. Wet liquefaction is treacherous.
There was water pouring out from under the house, it continued for nine hours, flooding the back yard. We didn't have any water in the house so had to wade outside to go to the loo. Meanwhile liquefaction was bubbling up under the house. It sat there till early 2014 when EQC did repairs, and made for cold winters.
The contractor's removal strategy was to send university students under the house with small shovel, spades and buckets. They dug out two small truckloads but there was still some there when the house was demolished and it's been spread around. Supposed to be good for the garden.

Lumps of liquefaction

Friday

The concrete is drying out. I pick a large bunch of flowers in the morning and feed the cat in the afternoon. Dinner is at the house Llew Summers designed and built. He died recently but his spirit lives on in his sculptures, which are scattered round the garden. When I was designing my house I asked Llew for advice. He patiently explained how details make a difference, and pointed out examples of features to add. He also suggested I sell my house, add it to the insurance payout, and buy instead of build. He wasn't the only one to tell me this and I thought about it often enough. But the project is a once in a life time opportunity and I couldn't walk away.
Although building is hard work, moving would be harder. 22 College Ave is the first house I have owned after a very peripatetic back packing life. I like living here.
Llew has been one of many to give me advice. It's all been useful as it has enabled me to think things through So thanks for your help Llew, it will make a difference. And thanks for the precious gift of your art.

Concrete is a great leveller

I drive past at 9:15 and the boys are having a break waiting for the truck to catch up. It looks as if the concrete pouring is half done. When I return in the late afternoon the concrete feels hard to touch. A piece of pipe dug up when the Toby box was moved is sitting on the grass- it's munted.

Snap, Crackle. Pop

There's a thunder storm mid afternoon. It's cold and water pours from the sky. I go to the Warehouse to look for a boogie board. Swimming starts on December 1st. Meanwhile the storm spends itself. I drive to College Ave and tidy up more of the garden. The plants are shooting up and blooming, so are the weeds. About 7pm there's a crackling sound- the wet polystyrene sounds like rice bubbles with milk poured over them.