Reflections on Glass

The day steadily gets hotter. I get a call from Kirk to meet on site. He produces the bracing plan for the garage. Oops. Wrong. There's no provision for coving which the garage has on both sides. I ring Kelly. Not in. I ring the structural engineers who are puzzled. Later I'm cc'ed into correspondence. One way or another the bracing needs to fit the consented plans and the council wants to see the new plan.
My mission today is to organise. Teaching-wise I have to get sorted for kids on Friday. It's much the same every year: wait and see who comes through the door. That's the advantage of experience. And I have to sort the lead lights out. I phone NK to ask how far down the transoms are situated in the bay windows, and the dining room ones. Kirk has pointed out they need to be out of the line of sight. I drop in to Trinity to check the pane that needs trimming to fit the walk in wardrobe. Feeling reasonably optimistic I've got this under control, Nicky and I head to the beach for a swim. Then we head to my place and get the tape measure out.
Bombshell. This isn't going to work. To get the bigger lead lights into the living room bay the transom would need to drop into line of sight. Even the dining room, with the smaller panes from my old room, are pushing it. We look at the bedroom bay. Same same. For this height the transom needs to be 1980 above the floor. No way. My stress levels go up. I've sweated blood to get these windows into the right spaces. The trouble is, the spaces are too small. Shit. I realise the bigger panes were never intended for bay windows. They were decorative wall windows. Double shit. I'm going to have to change most of the recycled lead lights at the last minute. Rearranging them in my head, I drive home trying to convince myself it's all going to be work out. That the creative process often produces something you'd never imagined. Plans are meant to be changed. But designs are more complicated.

Perrin and Rowe deco taps- eye-wateringly expensive

Meetings

Second early rise in a row. One meeting after another. The Coronavirus, member of a family of viruses causing respiratory illnesses in humans, is causing concern. I would be more worried aboutebola, nevertheless, Corona is in the media and schools need to have a policy. The principal is looking stressed.
We have to do lots of planning and paperwork to teach, and I realise how much day to day organising we do. Lessons don't just magic themselves up. Nor courses, especially senior ones with assessment. I fall back on past years. No point reinventing the wheel.
Back to my other job, the house, and I have a half hour talk to Brad at NK Windows. I put the receiver down thinking I've nearly sorted the lead light puzzle;  acid test, checking it with Nicki and a tape measure. I visit the site. There's cardboard box on the ground that wasn't there yesterday.
After a swim I go to an exhibition opening at the Physics Room. It spotlights the vulnerability of migrants and refugees: Chinese miners, Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish-Iranian journalist held on Manus Island for four years. His body is emaciated, his face haunted. His fate, representative of 1000's of displaced people around the world. People very few seem to care about. People wanting to find a safe place to start a new life.
I drop in on Nicki before book club.
My day has been moving, talking, doing and I fall asleep listening to book chat. I left home at 7:30 and I'm exhausted. The book I'm reading is War and Peace. I got halfway through in 1986 whilst working as a chalet girl with my high school friend, Lynley, hosting Hooray Henrys from Knightsbridge in a chalet near Merivale. The chalet was in a small hamlet and our French neighbours wintered their cows and goats in their basements. Our guests, fresh off the plane from London, freaked out. It smelled and they couldn't see city lights or people walking about. It was rural, not to mention French. Anyway, I returned War and Peace to a friend I had borrowed it from. Since then I've been meaning to finish it. This year seemed to fit. An epic soap opera for the epic soap opera of my life. Easy reading but long. Like the rebuild.

Buskers at the Arts Centre

No Friend But The Mountains

First Day of School

New routine. Feels hectic. Leave my phone at home. Blessing in disguise. Meetings at work with loud chat. Meet Kirk on site to measure window openings and discuss which ones can be changed. Building not happening today. Shuffling paper at school. Squeezing my brain into a very different space. Not succeeding. Visit Trinity Glass to discuss ideal openings for double glazed size. Lots of notes. A headache. It's hot. Swim. Home late. Try to tidy but give up. Boxes within boxes. Collapse.

Year of the Rat

It's Chinese new year; we're going from the year of the pig to the year of the rat. I'm nearly 60, and a metallic rat, as was Shakespeare. Legend has it that when the Emperor wanted to start the zodiac he called animals to be in it. The rat was first there. Although she was a lowly animal, the Emperor rewarded her initiative and gave her first place. Rats are supposedly shrewd and sociable. As one, I can spot another. Twelve years ago, a Chinese boarder in my house told me we are supposed to wear red during the year for luck. Hopefully rat fortune will prevail while I finish my house.
I drive up to Leithfield to look for party paraphenalia. I'm having a combined 60th with three Convergence friends, John, Will and Clive, and as I'm the decoration queen, I need to live up to decoration expectations. I literally have stuff everywhere so locating party stuff is a stab in the dark. On top of that, a well established habit of leaving things behind is getting worse. I'm constantly toting a day's worth of stuff in numerous bags and throwing things in the Suzuki when I leave Cashmere. Although most of what I leave behind comes back, retrieving it is a hassle and disconcerting. Owning too much is a modern western malaise. We talk constantly about decluttering and minimising. Fewer possessions for clearer minds. My current lifestyle adds constant movement. I'm dreaming of order, sitting still, a quieter mind. In my mind's eye I picture myself sitting in a rocking chair sipping a pinot noir on the verandah. Today I've settle for a cup of tea in the car.

Last Saturday of the summer hols

Time to take a deep breath because once the school year starts, we're on a treadmill. I don't know what's worse, thinking about it or going through the staffroom door on the first day. There's always a loud buzz of chat as we all catch up on summer. gossip. Today, I'm taking stock of what I need to do on the house because that will be my second job this year. I like to organise ahead of time. Sadly, a colleague lost her father this week. Several of us car pool to his funeral to support her. We've been working together so long, 22 years for me, we're like family. The service is in a relative's home and feels more personal than a funeral home. Not sure why the place we hold funerals in is called a home. Maybe because it's the last resting place for the deceased, or because it mitigates against the institutional, industrial process of modern death.
It's a hot afternoon and we're in the garden. Bagpipes begin and end the service lending solemnity, dignity and a sense of Celtic mournfulness. People tell stories of a man who was a bit of a rascal with a twinkle in his eye. Who cared about others and who was cared about in return. There are cups of tea, sandwiches and a generous Glenmorangie which nearly puts me to sleep.
I go for a sea swim to wake up and on the way home pick up a deco second hand table. I've had a deco vision in my head for this rebuild, probably started with the definitely deco fan lead lights in the old house. I call on Nicki. Our lives are houses at the moment. We talk building and sip sauvignon. Sound fun? Not sure.

Leadlight Armaggedon

I've sweated blood over the lead lights. The starting point was the five fan Californian bungalow style windows in the old house. Two in the living room had been covered over and replaced by wall lights. I uncovered and framed them in 2011. These are going in the dining room and the living room bay windows. Realising I needed a set for the second bay window, I went to the Pump Hous demo yard. As luck would have it, I found a set, different design but same measurements. Then I spent hours with Nicki working out where and how they would fit. I also found a round leadlight. Nicki and I scratched our heads over that puzzle. Being difficult to double glaze, it needed to be in an interior wall. Then there was the 120 cm semi-circle which was too big to go anywhere. In the end I sold it. And the two panes with bright blue glass, one of which got cracked when Kahu threw an impromptu party while I was out of town and he was supposed to be staying with his sister. In a stroke of genuis, Kay from Trinity Glass is fitting them together in the laundry door.
All in all, it's been a slog. Today, with Kay still on holiday, I head to Trinity to see how they are going. The windows need to be taken out of their frames, cleaned and double glazed before being sent to NK Windows for PVC framing. Trinity are happy to see me as NK have sent through finished glass dimensions and the Kate Sheppherd inspired ensuite window they are designing has been halved width wise. I spend an hour on the phone to NK, Kirk and Kelly trying to sort this debacle. All the leadlights, which look smaller out of the frames, have to be cut down 2cm on each side. That would make them tiny. The fanlights which I love the shape of, and going to lose the edges of their fans. Kirk says no problem making the dining and ensuite windows wider, NK say they can drop the transom to keep the length in the bay windows. Trinity are relieved but have cut the top off one window already. Only one and I ask them to wait a week till Kay gets back.
I leave with a headache and some unanswered questions. Then I lock myself out of Chris's house and have to climb in through the kitchen window. It's a narrow opening and I get my top half in then have to push. The frame is aluminium and sharp. It's agony pushing my thigh muscles through and over the edge. I take stock in the sea at Taylor's Mistake.

Epic Tile Search

I'm planning to tile the entry, laundry, bathroom and ensuite. Then there's the tiles for the kitchen splash back and optional wall tiles in the laundry and bathrooms. It's mind boggling. There's so much choice- porcelain, neolith, marble and other stones, ceramic...and manufactured all over the world in different styles. Polished, honed, leather, hand painted, traditional, tesselated, small format, and larger sheets. It's hot in the car as my air con doesn't work and I get lost trying to find some places, even with Google Maps. I end up on Mandeville Street where there are a few shops together. I browse in one I haven't been to and am leaving when I spot a display with exactly what I've had in mind for the entry. Yesterday I found some highly polished, highly gorgeous, highly priced Italian tiles but Nicki brought me back with, "They're not going to work with a wood floor. You need matte." Reality check. These are Winckelman and will be eye-wateringly expensive to buy and install but, as a permanent feature, worth it. I've heard the post build catch cry, we were going to get...but didn't because of the cost, many times. I'm willing to suck this up and not eat for two months.
Maybe we have too many choices, a simpler life would be less stressful. It takes time to sift through so much information; it's foreign territory. Having chosen to build, however, I now have to immerse myself in this world of aesthetics or lose the opportunity to create a home I'm going to love. With my Taurus ascendant which grounds me in house and garden. It's somewhat predetermined.
By the time I get to Thursday drinks in the Kaiser bar, I'm exhausted. The bar decor features a tile fetish with a tiled look lino in the bar, and bright blue tiles in the loo. Sorry guys, you missed the Winckleman opportunity. Go visit the Tannery.

Old friends, lights and kitchens

I have an early tea with Kritara who has stored my round window and looked after one of my paintings. She's currently homeless and house sitting. Considering next moves and maybe going home to Germany for a while. Although I'm officially homeless, I can watch my new home rise from the ground. Kritara, on the other hand, has some big decisions to make about security; where to put down roots first of all. Back in the car there's a story on the radio about the extreme plight of Syrian refugees on a Greek island. Babies in the refugee camps who don't smile or register emotion. I encountered a refugee camp in the desert of Southern Yemen in the 1990's and was struck by how wind swept, bare and forlorn it was. The car I was travelling in had stopped at a tea house for a break and a young man from the camp came engaged my boyfriend and I in conversation. He had nothing and spoke about getting out of the camp. I could do little but gave him some clothing. The people in the camp were political refugees from Ethiopia and had nothing. Today a young New Zealand woman is making an appeal on the radio for tents, starting with those left behind at music festivals. She is palpably upset by what she experienced at the camp in Greece. We have so much we carelessly discard, they are living in abject misery. How different our worlds are.
I meet an old university friend I was bridesmaid for in Australia years ago. She lives in Taree, east New South Wales, and the bush fires came worryingly close. We visit the building site then chat over lunch. The years slip away.
My next meeting is at Lighthouse, a fabulous lighting store where I bought lights while waiting for the house design. Today I'm welcomed as an old friend by Finlay and Alan, and sit down to discuss lighting details. Pre-wiring is next. Hmmmm.
Evening and I have another kitchen session with Nicki. We're scrolling through internet options for a kitchen bench top. Just as I'm about to give up, a piece of Avocatus draws simultaneous ah's. It's Quartzite from Brazil, has green and black shading with white shapes which look like flying seagulls suggesting movement and freedom. This is it. Yawning, I drive home to feed the cat in the dark, hoping to see him. I call and call but the garden is still and quiet.

Lighthouse on Moorhouse

Cherry Love

Beginning note- I accidentally touched something on the computer and the photos are not uploading. Back to IT when school starts. In the meantime, I'll press on... getting behind when doing day to day recording is not an option.
I need to distribute the cherries and I also need to find a slab of stone for the kitchen island. Nicki has green in mind and that suits me. The choice is overwhelming, except in green. But the slabs are magnificent. There's colour and movement, it's like looking into flowing water. I look round another warehouse but nothing leaps out at me. With this, as with other choices I have to make, you have to do some leg work to find out what you are looking for. To get your eye in so to speak. You find out what you don't want and go from there. I photograph the slabs and myself, for the record.
I'm exhausted when I drop in on Karen with cherries. She's thrilled. Karen was one of my first drop in friends when I returned from London to live in Christchurch in 1997. We catch up over a cuppa. Ruth's watching tennis but is equally stoked with a dose of cherry love. Ruth's the only surviving sister of my mother and living in a rest home. But a posh one.
I feed the cat on the way to an art exhibition then go to Sherry's new house for dinner. She's proud as punch of hew new home; it's a positive step on the long journey home. The house is 1930's, old style with an established garden and a glorious red door. After 25 years in London Sherry is unpacking boxes and finds treasures she's stored from the age of 18. Surprising what we keep.

Still searching for a slab

The Home Front

I sit down in the morning to look at the big picture. What is coming up next? Who do I need to call? What questions do I need to ask? Building a house is like a giant jig saw puzzle. When I get to overload I head across the road with some cherries and apricots for Chris's mum and dad. They are very excited to get them and Chris's mum tells me when she eats an apricot that it reminds her of her childhood because the family had an apricot tree.
I meet Kirk at the house and we talk about the verandah posts. The wrong size were delivered, phew, and the builders can put detailing on them as part of the finishing. NK Windows arrive to check the measurements for the doors and windows. And a few other details, like surrounds. Before I leave I check out Dan and Shelley's new house over the road. I've got a way to go. Meanwhile I do some verandah post research, thinking I'll get some custom made so they've got traditional detailing. At Hardie Thomson I get a wake up call. Due to the thickness the posts will have to be glued and I need to come up with a specific design. I drive around Merivale to take some pics. Hmmm. I also see why Kirk says my corbels need sanding. At the beach, while I'm swimming, I decide the most practical solution for the posts is Plan A. Kirk sorts it.
I drop off fruit to Robyn who's cooked dinner for me. She taught at Dunstan High in Alex years ago so has done lots of stone fruit eating. Central gets in your blood one way or another.

NK Windows checking opening measurements

Heading Home

Changeover day... again. I head back to Christchurch, relieved to be on hand to sort out the rebuild. There's the kitchen to design, taps to think about, spouting to co-ordinate, flooring to buy, windows to finalise. But it's going to be sad leaving Lionel acceler. His ageing is accelerating and this time he is talking less,  gradually withdrawing from the world.
It takes a day to pack up, drive and unpack. When Kahu's around we inevitably argue.There's stuff to pack in the car, mostly mine, and I have to sort out food and leave the house as it was when we arrived. And I always leave something behind. The sun is scorching as I load the Suzuki. I'm taking clothes and framed pictures I have stored here, as well as luscious Central Otago fruit: apricots, cherries, nectarines and peaches. Not to mention another case of olive oil. I call in to see Stephen in the cherry orchard at Cromwell. He's picking fruit to export for Chinese New Year and gives me two wine cases of seconds, as well as some to deliver to a mate on the way. Lynette's dug up a clump of garlic chives and these permeate the inside of the car. It smells like a soup kitchen.
The drive feels slow and I'm happy when the silhouette of the Port Hills comes into view. First stop, North Beach to cool off in the sea. I surprise some German backpackers cooking dinner in the car park with an offer of fruit. "Jesus!" is the reaction when they see my bulging wine boxes. They're very happy to vary their diet of pasta and brocolli with tasty, juicy, fresh fruit. They remind me of Felix and Johanna who stayed with me two summers ago while waiting for Christmas parcels. Felix is the son of a friend I made while looking after a youth hostel in Alaska in the summer of 1992. Olaf arrived and we did a tramping trip up a nearby glacier then stayed in touch. We exchange Christmas letters every year and, when Felix and Johanna turned up, they felt like family. So nice to get to know the next generation of travellers.
When I visit the house and clear the mail box there's a Christmas letter with pressed flowers from Johanna. Serendipity. The site is altered by scaffolding. We're moving on. I check the verandah posts. They are too short, very plain  and very square. This gives me a restless night's sleep. The stress of decisions which could be costly makes me toss and turn. The neighbours update me on the cat- food gone but no sighting. I give them a shoe box of fruit. I haven't seen Pierre since before Christmas. I may have to sleep overnight.

Max and Gus swimming in the orchard dam

Orchard loo