Newtown

Newtown reminds me of the multi-ethnic villages that make up much of Greater London. Apart, of course, from the architecture which is reminiscent of the American West. And Newtown is a phenomenon. There is stiff competition amongst retailers who sell anything an Asian or Pacific Island ex-pat could yearn for – from Indian slippers to Samoan shirts. There are places to eat or grab coffee and a really good kebab place – Café Laz. There are shops selling discount bottom of the range goods and a few up-market clothes and gift shops. There is a great Halal butcher, two fishmongers and two food warehouses. There are also jewellers, charity shops, discount stores and places where you can buy second hand furniture, plus two bookshops (one second hand, one medical). Some of the shops have an old fashioned feel to them – such as Lorraine's ladies wear, a mecca for thermals, cotton nighties and the like. There is also a wide range of services - library, post office, banks, accountants, internet cafes, barbers and many etceteras. Oh and the most meticulously tidy supermarket shelves I have ever seen can be found in the local branch of New World supermarket. Yes, all the above survives alongside a supermarket!

And this bustling township – not small by NZ standards – is just a couple of kilometres from the main city centre.

I think there are three things that account for it’s success - as providing local shopping for the surrounding community cannot possibly account for the amount of money that changes hands here.
One factor is the hospital, which sits where it has been for 130 years, five minutes walk down the road. Lots of hospital staff must be spending part of their pay packet here every week. And of course a never ending stream of patients and relatives (many from out of town) buying not only “Hospital Cards and Flowers” but all kinds of casual purchases. There are three pharmacies which are kept busy filling the prescriptions of discharged patients. But the hospital alone cannot account for the existence of this vibrant little township, which even in the present time has very little vacant retail space.
There is also the ethnic food dimension which may be significant. If you want Halal meat, bulk spices or taro (a starchy root vegetable which is a staple for many Pacific islanders) you would come across the city to shop here.
For the rest of the picture, I think we must look to the strength of the small business sector in NZ - a land packed with small businesses of all kinds. Over a quarter of New Zealanders work in firms with less than five “employees”. And we must conclude that New Zealanders patronise these small businesses in a big way. It is also a land which lacks the very powerful chains that characterise Europe and America. It is a long way from nearly every where, and it is just not worth the effort for a multinational to come here and set out their stall. Thus the field is left clear for local initiative.

Where to walk the dog in a Southerly?

At this time of year the wind chill factor finds its way through the walls. Wake up and pluck up courage to emerge from the covers. Dive into fleece trousers, woolly socks and zip a fleece over the night clothes and make the first tea of the day. The dog is circling as soon as he smells toast – a food pest and a walk pest – either would do. But outside there is an icy southerly buffeting the bushes and the met office recommends four layers of clothing. Which means it must be cold. (It’s a subjective 2 deg in the wind they reckon). So where to walk the dog without freezing?
My recommendation is to head for the wind turbine – which might seems a strange choice given it’s exposed position. The trick is to park at the bottom of the wind turbine track and take the sheltered path to the right, rather than the wind turbine vehicle track. Climb to the Karori fence and then – this is important – turn right downhill, not up towards the turbine.
As you climb the initial section of the walk you might want to keep your dog on the lead if he has tendencies to chase rabbits down near-vertical slopes.
As you walk downhill along the biosecurity fence (designed to keep out pests, right down to baby mice) you have splendid views across the inner harbour and city centre. There are also tree ferns as tall and lush as anywhere in Wellington. And most importantly you are really well sheltered from that Southerly and can feel the warmth of any sunshine. The dog notices the occasional stirring on the other side of the fence – could it be a kiwi? The only thing to watch out for is that there is a mountain bike track running to your right. So if you don’t want your dog mown down by a kamikaze downhill biker, keep him with you on the walking track. But on this chilly weekday morning we don’t see a soul. Ah the fair weather dog walkers of Wellington don’t know what they are missing.

Security breach

At 10.30 this morning there is an almighty outbreak of savage barking. One of those “I’ll rip your throat out if I can but get at you!” barks. Peering over the dog’s animated shoulders, through the window I can see the offending intruder. A decrepit looking hedgehog. (My rule of thumb with hedgehogs that are blundering around in broad daylight on a freezing cold day with their eyes looking gluey is that they are heading very shortly for that compost heap in the sky and that rescue missions are inappropriate. And what are they doing here anyway…?)
I decide that hedgehog and dog are not an ideal combination. (That E.H. Shephard drawing of Tigger after he had tasted thistles and hastily decided that Tiggers didn’t like them comes to mind. Dog has the stripey coat needed to play Tigger in the panto.)
Dog by now desperate to make a kill. (I jest not – he killed a rat the other day.) It’s an open plan house and he is charging around baying hysterically and looking for an escape route. He then appears before me, as in the photo, with what looks like the kind of collar that is used when dogs have ear or head wounds. I do double take and realise that he has not transcended space/time and been to the vet in the last 5 seconds – he has rammed his head through the ancient cat flap on the back door and dismantled it with his neck muscles. An interesting look don’t we think?

Anzac and Ataturk

This is the touching inscription at the foot of the Ataturk Memorial. (click on the pic to make it bigger) It overlooks a rocky headland, where waves crash onto jagged rocks from opposing directions.
One of moving things about the memorial is its lack of religious symbolism or political bias. There is no attempt to give meaning to the tragedy via a traditional value system. Although of course there is a subtext here which expresses the values of secularism – the words being from the famous founder of a secular state. How unlike the memorials all over Normandy where only the allied dead of WW2 are remembered, without even a passing nod to the bravery or losses of the German troops.
A few days after NZ celebrated Anzac Day, we shed some private tears here, for the waste of all those lives. Anzac day is a public holiday and is fervently celebrated with dawn parades and services. Dawn, because that is when, on the 25th April, 1915, the troops were sent into at what is now known as Anzac Cove in Turkey, in the Gallipoli fiasco. In NZ, every village has a war memorial where groups of locals gather to commemorate the dead of both wars, but of that event in particular.
The national identity is strangely entwined with this anniversary. They needed to make sense of something utterly senseless and wasteful. All over the country, sons of farming families, much loved and no doubt much needed on the farms, were recruited and over 2500 never returned. There were also nearly 5,000 NZ wounded. So the waste and suffering was recast as heroism. And on the bedrock of that heroism was founded a sense of national pride. And maybe a sense of toughness, endurance, and injustice at the hands of the British, thus giving a sense of separateness to a budding nation.
Some commentators suggest that Waitangi day, which commemorates the Treaty (1840) which ended an ongoing state of war with the Maori, and gave them citizenship of the British Empire, would be a more appropriate Number One National Day. This seems to be mainly a Maori celebration. But with the centennial of the outbreak of WW1 only 5 years away there is undoubtedly something admirable about the determination to keep remembering.

A load of bull

Living in Wellington, it is easy to forget that this is a predominantly agricultural country in which the dairy and meat industries are the prime earners of export dollars. Easy to forget that there are no EU subsidies for New Zealand. And that its status as a “first world” nation, indeed its existence as a nation, relies on sheep and on cows. But we get occasional reminders. Today the Dominion Post business section had a large feature on bulls. Several pages on artificial insemination and the selection of sires. Including, I kid you not, an advertisement which appeared to show (it was photo-shopped – unless it was a very big syringe indeed) a hypodermic needle penetrating a bulls scrotum. You don’t get that kind of thing in the local paper back home. (And for anyone suffering under the fond illusion that this is how those gold plated sperm are extracted – let me assure you – the actual process is far less clinical.)
I was reminded of a diverting newspaper account of a local agricultural festival in a rural area, north of here. There were sheepdog trials and the like. Man-and-his-dog races. And a race – for humans, not their dogs – which involved completing the course with a bulls testicle (uncooked) in your teeth.

Wellington Houses

The one-off approach to building houses in NZ is easy to see as a quirky and endearing. But winter is setting in and I can see the fly in the ointment
Most houses are fairly flimsy affairs with little or no insulation of any kind. Estate agents seem obsessed with something called “flow” – as in “indoor-outdoor flow”, a phrase frequently seen on their blurbs. I think this means that the kitchen and living areas are open plan and that you can wander straight out into your barbecue area. Oh, and as it is perpetual summer let’s have a nice high ceiling. This would be fine if it was perpetual summer. However when the temperature drops to 5 deg C and there is a Southerly gale creating an impressive wind chill, you may realise you are living in a building that has the thermal retention of a paper bag. And no central heating.
Of course the priority for building regulations in this area has been earthquake resistance and I have no doubt that in an earthquake, having a thin walled timber framed house collapse on you is infinitely to be preferred to a load of breeze blocks and bricks. And most recently built houses are insulated.
In the picture you can see a typical Wellington single storey villa, in colonial style with one of those characteristic corrugated roofs. Nice Cabbage Trees in the garden and lots of electricity wires outside because it is on a bus route.
You can also see a picture of this house. Sorry, this well appointed shed with integral conservatory and great view. I am wearing a lot of clothes, indoors.

Kiwis and Tuis

The iconic NZ bird and informal mascot of the nation is of course the Kiwi. Such that the locals are more than happy to be called Kiwis rather than the long winded “New Zealander”. And “kiwi” often works much better as an adjective of course. However outside zoos, most human Kiwis are unlikely to ever see a kiwi, due to their shy, nocturnal habits and threatened status. Incidentally there are several breeds of kiwi – varying in size between a hen and a turkey! When the Maoris landed and found the place full of not only kiwis but the even larger flightless moas, it must have been like Christmas dinner every day for a couple of centuries. If the moas are anything like most local birds they would have had no fear of danger and would have carried on browsing until surprised by a spear.
But the nomination for second place in the most popular bird stakes must be the Tui.
Tuis are like starlings in drag. They are just slightly larger than a starling, with a similar profile, and with dark, shiny iridescent feathers. Around their necks is a tasteful wispy white collar and under their chins, what looks like a rather fluffy white bow tie.
They feed mainly on nectar and fruit, depending on the season and are a common sight in the suburbs and parks of lovely green Wellington. The Tui has a long proboscis like tongue which enables it to probe down and access the rich feed of nectar that these flowers provide. There is a well known breed of NZ beer named after them, which tends to increase their "brand recognition".
But it is in the vocal department that the tui excels. It’s not so much a song, as a distinctive riff, comprising an extensive range of squeaks, trills, creaks, caws, quacks, hoots, “ow”s and any other sound they can imitate and hence add to their repertoire.
And if there happens to be an alpha tui sitting on the tree outside your door, as there was the other day, you can see that it is not just a case of: take up a wide stance, open your beak and let rip. It is much more of a performance than that, with lots of mannered head movements. Like a very expressive tenor in the opera, intent on communicating the full range of emotions to the back row of the circle. I suspect the point of this is to display the bow tie to best effect, to potential mates and local rivals, as it bobbles about in a highly visible and slightly comical manner like a couple of animated pompoms.
In the picture is a tui we saw feeding on a wild rata flower in South Island. Sadly these beautiful flowers result from buds which are a most delectable food to the accursed possum. This was in one of only two areas where we saw them in bloom.