Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Autumn and Spring [#24]

A local Wellington character -

Harmonica man with his pet rat (fast asleep), Courtney Place, Wellington.

There's quite a few. Characters I mean, not rats, well there's probably quite a few rats too, come to think of it. I'll try and photograph them for my blog.

Anyway, after a recent trip to Australia (see earlier posting), I found myself back on a plane as I headed back to Britain for my brother's wedding and my first trip back there after I emigrated to New Zealand in April 2006. I had the usual frantic last few weeks at work trying to finish my projects as best I could, but all you can do is do your best. I'd booked my flights 5 months previously because my trip coincided with the Rugby World Cup in France and obviously flights were almost filled with excited Kiwi fans looking to travel across to the world to witness the All Blacks' certain victory at the World Cup. But maybe their confidence was infact misplaced complacency (losing at such an early stage has been taken very badly here - I don't wear my England rugby shirt out in town because I feel like I'm going to get beaten up!)
So I flew via Sydney to Seoul for a one night stopover which was included in the cost of the flight. Bonus. I'd have liked to stretch it a couple of days but time was limited. Seoul was sticky, incredibly hazy and a bit of a technophiles paradise. The Koreans obviously love their gadgets. The roads were peppered with all sorts of flashing lights - roadworks were signalled with red flashing lights from what seemed like 10 km in advance, buses and lorries had every edge lined with safety lights and vehicles would drive with their hazard lamps on if they were driving at more than 10kmh below the speed limit! This seemed a massive contrast to other southeast Asian countries where the 'largest vehicle takes right of way' rule prevails. But the most surprising gadget was the toilet in my room.

Generally I don't tend to photograph toilets, but this is quite a special one!

This space age article had a comprehensive control panel with multiple controls such as seat temperature (surely no-one should have to suffer the indignity of sitting down on an unheated seat - haha, the very idea is preposterous!), there were settings for b-day control, an economy mode - whatever that may be, a directional jet of warm water which was a bit of a sensation, and a hot air dryer! All from the comfort of the seat. Another couple of thoughtful features were the telephone next to the throne - I don't know about you, but when I'm having a good strain the last thing I want to do is dial up one of my mates to have a good chat about it. Oh, and next to the phone was an 'Emergency' button; obviously a catastrophic systems failure on one of these babies would necessitate a crack team of highly skilled toilet engineers and recovery operatives to extract you from such a nasty situation. Anyway, I managed to drag myself away from the toilet long enough to explore a bit of Seoul with a couple of other stopoverers - Juliet and Laurence who I got chatting with. We had a nice time.

Juiliet, Laurence and me.

The following day we got back on the plane and flew non-stop to England. It was obviously great to be back in Britain and I flew straight to Edinburgh with my parents for my brother's wedding. This was a highly enjoyable affair and since most of my family was there, it proved a great reunion.
My brother, Steve and Heather did all of the organisation for their wedding. It took place at Edinburgh Zoo which turned out to be an excellent location. I'd love to say that the wedding resembled a scene from the Jungle Book with chimps playing the trombone etc but infact that didn't happen. However, I did take a few photos and if you look very carefully in the background of this one you might be able to see a couple of the animals.


More of my photos from my exciting trip can be seen on my Picasa web album at: http://picasaweb.google.com/colossusnz/

My wedding present was a piece of driftwood! It took ages to find the right piece - when you know what you want, nothing else will do. So, yeah, I wanted to paint a couple of geckos just finding each other. (I just don't do conventional wedding presents).

After my brother's wedding I flew back down south then my parents kindly gave me a lift over to an old potato barn in the Cotswolds. This was where my friends Rob and Sue were to be married. There weren't actually any potatoes in the barn at the time, and I don't want to mislead you; it was in actual fact a classy and very salubrious affair. It was a great chance to catch up with some great people from Exmouth in Devon and friends from Perth, Western Australia who I've had the pleasure to share some crazy capers with in the past.

Rob and Sue - congratulations.

Being back in Britain was very enjoyable for me because I indulged in my usual Autumn past-time of grazing the hedgerows for free edibles. Blackberries, apples, elderberries, hazelnuts - all were plentiful as late September in England is a bountiful time for all kinds of fruit and nuts. This is the time of year I would usually make wine, cider or jam.

Wild hazlenuts growing in England. I enjoyed some
hedgerow grazing while doing a watercolour painting.

I also had the great pleasure of joining my old hedge-laying group in Berkshire. I always would love those times we spent together either coppicing or hedge-laying so I was careful to arrange in advance a session with them. My friends Cathy and Carl very kindly let me stay for a few days in Wokingham and so I had the chance to meet up with dozens of friends (literally - I think I saw 25) in a short space of time.


But soon my three weeks was up and I flew back to New Zealand. I didn't have a stopover in Seoul on the way back unfortunately. I left on Tuesday night and arrived in Wellington on Friday morning though! I did have about 11 hours in Sydney waiting for my connection so I went into the city and had a happy but blearily jet-lagged wander round. I went to the fish market and ate some delicious sashimi. I got chatting to a couple of friendly students who kindly ignored my appearance which was less than agreeable considering I had been sitting on a plane or at airports for the last 30 hours. They told me their names but I'm sorry, I forgot. I was a bit of a mess.


I don't have many photos of myself on my blog for the simple reason that it's so difficult to find competent people to take one! Surely it should be something of a basic skill that everyone in a developed world (where cameras aren't exactly mysterious new inventions) should be able to actually take a picture. Let's face it, you don't need to be an expert - all you need to do is 1/ Point the camera in the right direction 2/ hold it still for a few moments and 3/ press the shutter. In my experience, asking a total stranger to undertake such a phenomenally complex procedure usually ends in abject, pitiful, embarrassing failure. Hence - most of the photos of me - are taken by me!
But maybe it's a blessing that I don't have many photos of myself. It certainly is for my readers anyway.

So I'd left the autumn of England and arrived back in the spring of New Zealand. Which in my mind seemed kind of fitting. Within a few days of my brother's wedding was my parents' own anniversary. Their ruby wedding anniversary! Imagine that? - Forty years! They may be in the autumn of their married life together but they deserve at least another 40 years together! and it was then fitting to celebrate the wedding of my brother who obviously is just enjoying the spring of his married life with Heather. Congratulations to you all.


posted by col @ 9:03 pm

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