last spring, within weeks of each other, I found out a close family member had cancer and was facing a daunting treatment regime and then my oldest and most beloved friend died very suddenly. If that wasn’t hard enough, he left me all of his possessions so I had to fly to Auckland to organise, sort and pack up his house.
It has been a very difficult time.
I decided I would take a break from updating here for the rest of last year, then that turned into the summer, then I thought maybe I’ll do an update at Easter...and now it’s mid-May.
Thanks to a wee bit of time, various healing modalities, some therapy and a lot of crying…I am just now beginning to feel a little less sad and overwhelmed and ready to be world-facing again.
Life is complicated and hard and raw and intense and beautiful.
So…Hello! It feels nice to be here saying hi again.
I think that’s all I can say about the last six months for now.
(Me and my dear friend in 1998. We have been friends since we were 14 and no one ‘got me’ like he did. I’ve lost so much shared history and quirky friend-intimacy things with his passing.)
This time it is a volume of poetry, The Bruise Palette. It is a almost entirely Manawatū production: the writing, the cover art, the design, the publisher, the book trailer film maker, the advance praise artists are all from Palmerston North. We would have gotten it printed here also if we could but we don’t have a local printery so it is going to be printed a little South of here in the Wairarapa.
Me & some friends made a short and sweet book-trailer for it:
Here is the cover; the painting is by my friend Kirsty Porter.
We’re doing a couple of weeks of pre-orders to see if we can get the book into the top 20 Nielsen bestseller list for the week of publication (because it doesn’t have much chance after that. Poetry doesn’t much populate bestseller lists.) It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work…it’s just fun to have a go…like betting on a horse.
There’s much to say about this book and life and everything! but given it’s been a while…I’ll sign off here.
(If you pre-order a book, you’re an absolute gem and I send you air-kisses and warmest wishes.)
(Above: I pity the birds in these ongoing spring storms and winds…losing so many eggs and babies. I found this little blue egg on the footpath.)
I hope everyone got through the strange stormy weather this week. We rushed about taking down bird feeders and moving tall outdoor plants. Our only damage was that our garden water feature fell over and smashed.
Here’s this week’s digest:
A sweet little song by a band that usually makes edgier music: ‘Mr Broccoli’ by Tall Dwarfs
I saw Chris Knox perform several time in the 1990’s. His performances were always electric, captivating. He was very eccentric, unpredictable and the mood swung from hilarity to venom and back in a dizzying fashion.
When I used to DJ on student radio I loved playing this short, sweet and jangly song at the end of my show. I still love it.
I love Joy Harjo’s work. She always cuts through the frills and fluff and gets to the roots of life. I believe in the power of a good kitchen table and this poem speaks to that power.
Perhaps the world ends here
by Joy Harjo
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
(Above: not our kitchen but the kitchenette of a sweet little cottage in the Hawke’s Bay where I taught a creative writing class once.)
Affordable Art: realistic mushroom magnets
I am very taken with these sweet and realistic-looking mushroom magnets that look as if they are growing out of your fridge door. They are just $22 each which isn’t bad for something handmade and something which would give you a little smile on a daily basis.
Although the iconic red Animita Muscaria toadstools are cool…I think I like this little brown cluster the best. I often see ones like these in my garden.
Recently, I stumbled over this sad and beautiful documentary about the ‘hidden’ art of Pat Porter. An artist who painted every day, made thousands of paintings, believed in her work and yet, never showed her work during her lifetime.
The work is stunning. Her family are lovely. It’s a beautiful watch.
It raised all sorts of questions in me about what art is and who it is for and what it means to make and make and make and never share (beyond your family.)
It seems to me Pat was happiest making, happiest in the flow of her work. How utterly inspiring.
You can see peeks of her post-humous exhibition here:
Her son is the writer Charlie Porter. I’ve read both his artist’s clothing book and his Bloomsbury clothing book. His sensibilities make a lot of sense after watching these clips about his mother’s work.
A summer recipe I’m dreaming about making: Croatian Sour Cherry Strudel
I’ve been watching episodes of Tasmanian farmer and chef Mathew Evan’s show ‘Gourmet Farmer’ on YouTube. It’s the perfect relaxing viewing for someone like me who likes local food stories, vegetable gardening and preserving, etc. There’s even some foraging!
(Above: I have no cherry photographs to share…but here are the (non-fruiting) cherry trees in the park near to where I live. They do this each September.)
Croation strudel is made with filo pastry rather than the heavier pastries of Germanic strudels. Apparently, the trick to getting it sweet and light is a sprinkle of sugar and a brush of light oil (instead of butter) between the pastry layers.
I have no idea where I will source fresh sour or Morello cherries…but even if I have to make one with sweet cherries…I plan to make a version of this for Christmas Day. I’m excited.
(Yes, I said the ‘C’ word. Sorry.)
*
Here’s one of my wild and weedy bouquets. Each Friday I try to clear the table of all of the random stuff it accumulates over the week, give it a wipe and polish and pick a bouquet from the garden so we begin the weekend with at least one little spot of calm and beauty.
I hope there are both of those things in abundance in your weekend, friend. Thanks for reading. x
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how we were eating a lot of silverbeet in an effort to keep up with the spring bolts of the plant.
This has continued, I’ve discovered that if you snip off the ‘bolt’ stem…the thick stem growing up the centre that is beginning the process of sending the plant to seed…sometimes the plant will do another flush of leaves so I’ve delayed having to remove the plants entirely. (While our local spring continues to be more like winter…with ground temperatures too low for summer meditteranean plants like tomatoes and zucchini…there’s no urgency to make space.)
If you’re not a permaculture practitioner, ‘Capture and Store’ is one of the main permaculture principles. The idea being…it isn’t enough to grow things (or create energy)…an important piece of the equation is to honour the garden by capturing the harvest and, if possible, storing some for later on.
Occasionally, I like to write articles about the ways our permaculture family ‘captures and stores’ around our small, urban property. As food and energy prices rocket, I imagine these skills will ripple out beyond permaculture to become more important for households.
Yesterday, my son Willoughby and I spent around an hour and a half processing the silverbeet, celery and flat leaf parsley plants which had begun to bolt.
The celery stalks went into dinner and the fridge. The celery greens and flat leaf parsley bolt-stems we chopped up and put into our dehydrator. I will put them and some NZ sea salt through our electric spice grinder to make a herb salt which is great for adding to soups and stews.
We picked a huge amount of silverbeet. Approximately the equivalent of five of those plastic-wrapped bunches you can buy at supermarket.
Here’s how we processed it to become freeflow bunches of chopped silverbeet, similar to the way spinach comes frozen at the supermarket.
We harvested the ‘bolt’ stems. I cut off the leaves with a pair of kitchen scissors into a large bow of water and gave it a wash.
We then chopped it.
Next step was a quick blanch in a shallow pan of boiling water. Just long enough that it wilts and goes bright green.
Then I strained it and pushed as much water out as I could with a wooden spoon (obviously it is too hot to touch with bare hands at this stage. I left it sitting in the strainer to cool.
Once it had cooled enough to handle, I formed it into balls. (Think about the amount you’d like to add to a soup or stew.) The trick to a tasty end result is to squeeze and squeeze it getting out as much of the liquid as you can. Silverbeet seems to retain a lot of liquid so keep squeezing…think of it as a workout for your hands!
After that, place the fistfuls on a biscuit tray and put into the freezer.
Once they are frozen, remove from the freezer, put into a ziploc bag or plastic container and put back into the freezer and there you go, you have one meal amounts of pre-prepared silverbeet ready to add to your cooking.
You might ask why we’d bother doing this when silverbeet grows all year round in most of New Zealand’s climate? I suppose a big motivator is frugality, but also, I find I use more silverbeet if it is prepared this way. I also loathe waste and, because I know the effort I’ve put into growing the food, I prefer to have it travel through the kitchen rather than go straight from garden bed to the compost heap.
Silverbeet is so nutritious! I think it needs a PR campaign. In NZ we tend to take if for granted or spurn it because it’s so ubiquitous in our vegetable gardens. Forget about overpriced supermarket spinach….eat your silverbeet!
If I’ve inspired you to make more of your silverbeet, here are two excellent links with multiple tasty-looking silverbeet recipes.
One of my favourite ways to eat A LOT of silverbeet at once is to make an Indian Saag Aloo, using silverbeet instead of spinach. Delicious and so greeeeeeen.
If you have a signature silverbeet dish…please share it with me.
Hello. I know it’s Friday but instead of a ‘Slow-Small Media for the Weekend’ I want to share something else today.
I’ve had a challenging couple of weeks so my usual ‘lovely things detection service’ have been a bit on hiatus.
I hope to find my sea-legs and return to usual services next Friday but for now…
…almost a month ago I turned 53. Not a very special age. Not very young but not very old either. Not a ‘big zero’ birthday. Just a middle-aged-woman kind of birthday.
F and I went off-grid for two nights to a beautiful bush hut for a dip into nature and quiet. Trickling streams and ruru calls at night. It was lovely.
My birthday fell on a Saturday this year and the sun came out for the day after weeks of very stormy and cold spring weather. The sun felt like such a big birthday present that day.
Fraser went off for a walk and I poured a huge cup of tea and opened up my journal. I love using lists as a way into writing in my journal so I decided to set myself the (gentle) challenge of writing 53 thoughts for my birthday. At the outset, I didn’t have any sense of what might come…I just wrote quickly – hoping to get to 53 before Fraser returned.
(Above: the hut had a kaitiaki with paua shell eyes.)
I’ve decided to share the birthday list with you …not because it is especially edifying writing but because it is a snapshot of how wobbly and tender 53 feels; maybe it will be of some solace to you if you’re feeling wobbly and tender, too?
Some of it will probably read like naff pop-psychology or hippy aphorisms. What can I say? Those things are inside me and it’s what poured out on the day. At the time of writing it was just from me to me.
(I’m copying this from my journal. As I transcribe, I may ‘redact’ a few if they feel too specifically personal or mention my family)
53 Birthday Thoughts
Despite my challenges I am so grateful for my life.
There is beauty to be found in each day. The task is to find it and attend to it.
*redacted*
*redacted*
I forgive myself. I was doing the best at the time…or at least I was surviving.
I forgive people who have hurt my heart. Not all friendships/associations are meant to last …people come and go. People are mysterious. I am mysterious. I have disappointed people. People have disappointed me. It is the way of things. Let go…..let go…. let go…
Love is the bridge…even if long, slow and not resolved in this lifetime.
I read somewhere about midlife, ‘Get better or get bitter.’ I want to get better.
(Above: my unglamorous, sticking-plastered hand touching moss in the forest on that trip.)
14. In a similar vein, if at midlife you have ‘ripened on the vine’ and you choose to become wine (sweet) or vinegar (sour).
I choose wine.
15. ‘It will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.’
-John Lennon
16. I tied a red thread around my wrist in August to remind me to stay awake to my life. It’s still there… although now faded and looking a bit manky.
(oh my gosh 53 things is so many)
17. Is there any sweeter experience than sitting still enough that a bird swoops past you, low and swift, and you can feel the fan of air from it’s wing’s beating? (The swallows nesting in the porch here just did that to me.)
18. The 1990s (most of my twenties) feels a long time ago now. It didn’t used to.
19. I just found a dried and beautiful cicada wing.
20. The love in this hut is tangible. The energy of the family who built it having lots of good times over lots of years. (est. 1988)
21. My soundtrack right now is rushing water, magpies and tui.
22. We decided to bring just enough food so all weekend we are eating foil-wrapped potatoes cooked in ashes with lots of butter and salt.
(Above: birthday breakfast at the hut)
23. Happiness can be so simple if we let it.
Simplicity = happiness.
24. The satisfaction of elemental sensations: food in belly, sun on face, fireside gazing, hot coffee, good pillow, the sound of a river.
+ Sitting still long enough to let it soak in.
25. We (humans) could have this every day but we love to complicate things.
26. No internet = more time with mind = space to let thoughts meander and unfurl.
27. When I feel dissatisfied with life, remember today.
(Above: hut kitchen. Simple and good.)
28. Being content is a decision…is active…
29. Oh the neurotic, writerly, artist’s need to record things, capture, analyse, grasp at experience. (All the photographs I’ve taken. This list.)
30. Eels nearby. This afternoon’s adventure.
31. An almond-finger for birthday cake.
32. Scottish oat cakes and tangy cheddar.
33. Lagavulin whisky.
34. We resisted the inclination to overpack and over-cater and that has increased my enjoyment of the weekend so much. (Chosen) scarcity can increase appreciation.
35. That sounded a bit ascetic but it doesn’t feel in the least ascetic.
36. F is walking up a very steep hill with his still-mending leg. Courage. Determination.
37. The warmth of companionable silence.
38. In every way, I have to fight my constant urge to add more.
39. Evolution, devolution, evolution…
(home stretch)
40. We went off-grid for my 50th also. I can feel how much I’ve changed since then. Just a few years…but big such big years.
41. Delayed gratification: I left my little pile of birthday gifts at home on the kitchen table to open on Sunday night.
42. In my experience, time is a spiral.
(Above: hut bathroom. (Yes, of course we did!))
43. The vulnerability of birthdays. The vulnerability of spring.
44. When all you want is less – what does that look like?
45. Being okay with the things I thought I might do that I probably won’t do.
46. Being okay with how it all transpired.
47. Being okay with my own particular closet-skeletons.
Understanding that everyone has them and it would be very unwise to ever wish for anyone else’s life but my own.
48. Knowing that you neverknow what people are coping with, carrying, surviving or healing from.
49. Knowing that sometimes people who appear incredibly fortunate from the outside can sometimes be tortured by their own minds…a personal hell…
50. Knowing that this is why it is unwise to envy.
51. Knowing that gratitude is a kind of super-power that can help with almost any problem.
52. Knowing that choosing love is, more often than not, the right choice.
53. Knowing mostly how little I know…& this is the nature of life’s ongoing mystery and the way to peace.
Hello there! There’s a lot of tea-related content this week so let’s begin with this dreamy whole-peony tea I drank last week. A friend gave me a peony tea-ball for Christmas and I decided it was time to treat myself…
I will try really hard not to talk about the weather this week except to say it continues to be frigid and I lit the fire again this morning.
F and I have been focusing on making our tiny backyard a little slice of urban green refuge for the summer. I bought the above park bench off a local father and son team who make them to fund the son’s activities so it felt lovely to both have a solid new garden seat and support a young entrepreneur.
Then (anti-thesis of keeping it local) we went to Bunnings just to buy boring useful things and impulse-bought a birdbath. Our old birdbath was a rusting early C20th cream can with a large terracotta plate on it. Here is our new one. It seemed a pretty good price given they often go for multiple hundreds and I love the colour.
We aren’t big spenders at all so both of these impulsive purchases make for big news around here.
We have a lot of tui in our backyard and I’ve been enjoying watching them with their spring ‘crazies’: swooping, diving, mating, scrapping on the wing. It’s been all go.
Here’s some things which caught my eye recently:
A tasty way to use up any bolting silverbeet
Lots of my silverbeet is threatening to bolt so we’ve been eating more silverbeet than usual lately. It’s not the tastiest just sautéed on it’s own but I’ve been resolutely serving it in this simple way because I loathe waste and also, it’s good for us.
Eating it like this I’m taken back to my childhood where boiled silverbeet was a common side to our meat+three veg dinners.
Go Eco says: ‘This t-shirt has been inspired by our smallest and quietest endemic pepeketua – the Archey’s Frog. These tiny, nocturnal creatures are among the world’s oldest surviving frog species, with their lineage dating back over 200 million years! They are critically endangered, but still facing threats from mining interests – highlighting the importance of fighting for all creatures – Big and Small.’
Does a t-shirt count as art? Of course it does! It’s art that you wear on the billboard of your chest.
Song: Ruti ‘If I Could Choose It Would Be You’
This is a memorising song by a fresh young artist.
The song begins subtly and sounds like it will be another pleasant enough guitar-based folk song but at around 1min 20 seconds she changes pitch and starts to sing very high and it elevates the song so much and becomes so very sweet and transporting. Plus I’m a sucker for songs in 3/4 time.
I reckon it’s bound to become a classic love song.
Sam’s work is always wry and sad and complex and nuanced.
In this poem, a woman accidentally uses a naff contemporary catchphrase, ‘lean in’, and then two friends lean in to leaning in…
‘They were huddled at a small uncomplicated table They were literally leaning in Oh god, she said
Lean in! he said, let’s just lean in Let’s go ahead & lean in & then keep on leaning in, he continued, til we’re all completely prone’
He wrote this ‘coping poem’ back in 2022 but I feel like we need it more than ever right now. It’s sad and funny and makes me also want to lie down too.
A watch: Where have all the Bob Ross paintings gone?
Have you ever encountered the phenomena of Bob Ross? the afro-haired TV art teacher with the soothing voice and oddly compelling, if slightly generic, creative process?
Friends of ours used to put Bob Ross on the tv to calm their children down during the 4pm-6pm ‘twilight zone’. His calm voice and soothing vibe of his art lessons used to bring the dinner time crazies down a notch or two.
Bob Ross died back in 1995 but is more popular than ever…possibly because we all need more slow-moving and calming things to watch. He was also very funny (but only ever in a wholesome way.) Was he art any good? I don’t think so. To me it looks like the kind of thing I stroll past in op shops all the time…but the phenomena of Bob Ross is not really about the art.
Here’s an amusing short film (10mins) by the New York Times addressing the questions ‘Where are all the Bob Ross paintings’?
In the process, we get a glimpse at what happens at bobross.com and while they do sell ‘Bob Ross’ art supplies…what mainly happens is a lot of very wholesome fan support. Trust me, this is worth your attention even if you never heard of Bob Ross before today:
Random Things I Love: Community Hall Teapots
I have a bit of a ‘thing’ for community hall tea pots and crockery. Any community hall I go into I always go to the kitchen and have a nosey at their tea making apparatus. I especially love the gigantic ones that are so big they need two handles.
I bring it up because next week I am doing an author talk in a little hall and I’m sharing foraged and home made herbal tea and …I have to take my own teapots! Whaaat? I hope this isn’t the beginning of the end of giant community hall tea pots!
Here’s some photographs I have taken in community hall kitchens over the years:
(Above: in case you ever wondered how much a catering sized teapot cost > now you know. I found this pic when looking for hall teapot photos I’d taken over the years. I can’t remember if I was actually toying with buying one (why though?) or if I was just delighted to spot one in a kitchen shop.)
An excellent read: An existential guide to making friends
(Above: we used to have a blackboard on a door in the kitchen. The door is now gone which means the blackboard is also gone but I stand by this message.)
It’s warm, spirited writing and made me remember how friendly the world can be…with the right attitude.
I especially loved this:
‘Let the phone be a bridge, not a house.
DM to schedule the walk. Send the photo of the dog. Do not live inside the thread like a tapeworm. The group chat is a mulch heap: throw scraps in, grow pumpkins out here.’
It’s long…do read the whole thing… the ending is especially poignant with thoughts about friendship endings.
The best thing I found at the op-shop this year
Finally, while I’m riffing on tea pots, last month I found this tiny teapot at the opshop for $1.
It’s made from a gum nut, has an acorn top for a lid, a copper wire handle and spot and a verdigris copper heart on it. It’s way more darling in real life but here’s a not great photograph:
Whoever made it: I love you.
Until next time, do your best and each day, be sure to have some rest.
(Above: a freshly foraged brew: plantain and kawakawa.)
Happy weekending!
You did it! You made it through another week. Take a moment to congratulate yourself.
That’s a big achievement, atm, and if you were here with me I would bring you a nice hot cup of tea and pat you appreciatively on the shoulder. Well done.
Let’s digest…
A cleansing, sweet and delicious carrot soup recipe
(Above: not actually the carrots I used for my soup but some baby carrots I grew and then served as a snack a while ago. I was proud of the ‘Frenchie’ way I’d pared them so took a photo.)
It might sound very simple but the result is delicious. The flavour combination is unique and feels very nourishing and pleasing to the palate. The cashew nuts give the soup real creaminess without the heaviness of dairy cream. It’s a soup I revisit every spring.
A wonderfully community-minded chap having fun in his own yard
If only more people were so generous, so creative, so playful…imagine the cities we could have!
The Arabs used to say, When a stranger appears at your door, feed him for three days before asking who he is, where he’s come from, where he’s headed. That way, he’ll have strength enough to answer. Or, by then you’ll be such good friends you don’t care.
Let’s go back to that. Rice? Pine nuts? Here, take the red brocade pillow. My child will serve water to your horse.
No, I was not busy when you came! I was not preparing to be busy. That’s the armor everyone put on to pretend they had a purpose in the world.
I refuse to be claimed. Your plate is waiting. We will snip fresh mint into your tea.
Song for the week: ‘Forever is a Charm’ by Princess Chelsea
A seductive, gentle, music-box-like song by New Zealand Indie-pop darling, Princess Chelsea. So sweet!
Nikki discusses the myth of closure and how messy endings can be.
She says: ‘People want a neat bow tied around messy endings: the final conversation, the goodbye ritual, the explanation that makes it all make sense. Closure is sold to us like it’s a finish line you can sprint across, complete with balloons, confetti, and a medal that says Congratulations, you’re over it now!‘
Do you have ambiguous/strange endings of relationships or situationships that still haunt you?
I know I do. Most of the time it’s okay but then in the wee hours of the morning when I occasionally have insomnia…that’s when those old, confusing, painful endings rise up and loop around my brain…so I really appreciated this gentle reframe about the fantasy of closure and some suggestions about other ways to integrate old grief.
I also heard on a podcast in recent weeks that most adults change their friends approximately every seven years (!) I don’t know if it’s true but it’s a comforting thought if you’ve lost some connections along the way.
Watch: Soothing nonsense
Last week I found at the op-shop one of my best finds EVER but I will have to show you next week because I haven’t had time to take a decent photograph of it yet.
In the meantime, as a bit of a clue, here’s half an hour of soothing nonsense: a sweet mother and daughter team faff about first foraging acorns together and then making a miniature tea set from the acorns. With gentle music and not much happening…this little clip could be the perfect thing to lull you into an afternoon nap…
I hope something there ‘amuse your bouche’, so to speak. (Forgive me, that makes no sense.)
I’m not sure what this weekend holds. Last weekend was full (all good stuff) so I’m intentionally leaving this weekend blank so it can fill itself as we go.
Until next time, may the sun shine on your face this week,
(Above: a spiderweb in sunlight, September 20 2025, Ōtaki Gorge.)
Last Saturday I turned 53. The above photograph was taken on my birthday. The sun came out!
It’s been a crappy spring (weatherwise) so the sun felt like such a gift.
I sat on the porch of the place I was staying and tried to read in the warmth…but the sun felt like such rich medicine I couldn’t hold my attention on my book and just kept closing my eyes and facing the sun like some kind of warmth-starved Tuatara.
We were travelling light so my birthday cake was a supermarket almond finger (one of my faves) with a birthday candle and some dandelion petals:
Article: A frugal and lighthearted person talks about simple living for financial freedom
I always read The Spinoff’s ‘Cost of Being’ series where people talk about their finances because I find it so fascinating. The way we approach money reveals so much about prorities, values and life circumstances.
I immediately sent it to Fraser and said ‘this could be us!’…not so much her particular circumstances…but more her attitude. A little bit broke (compared to many) but with a resilient, light-hearted, resourceful attitude.
This bit sounded very much like our household:
Typical weekly food costs
Groceries: I have no idea but it’s not much. A lot of my work involves food rescue and making community kai, so I’m always taking food home. I also grow most of my veges, and have excellent fossicking and scrounging skills!
A lively read and helped refresh my own commitment to simple living.
Affordable Art: ‘Resist’ by Bread and Puppet Theatre, Vermont, USA
(Above: nothing says ‘resist!’ like weeds which will grow in cracks in the concrete. Image borrowed from Bread and Puppet Press.)
I love dandelions. I love resistance. I love the work of the Bread and Puppet Theatre. I love this postcard and it comes in at a mere $6.00
(& Possibly once you add postage it would be close to $50 NZD, the cut off price for ‘affordable art’…)
A long and fascinating delve into the luddite movement
Speaking of voluntary simplicity, my pen-friend and Wizard of Wellington, Rosie Whinray, published a long, well-researched, fascinating and fun article about the Luddites:‘Summoning Ned Lud’.
It’s not just about the Luddites, of course, it’s about time and labour and music and materiality and injustice and autonomy and so much more.
Make yourself a POT of tea and sit and read this. It will take more than one cup of tea because it has various links to music and interviews on YouTube and no doubt you’ll want to savour them all.
Video> ‘Life is never still’: an inspiring 92-year-old artist and writer shows us all how to live
From the description:
‘His vibrant paintings burst with dramatic light and dark, playing with colour and drawing upon his Caribbean heritage. He powerfully captures the energy of Trinidadian carnival culture, folklore, and the cathartic power that the celebration holds.
Join us for an intimate look inside his studio, writing shed, and kitchen, and experience his unique creative process that blends painting, poetry, cooking – and most importantly – love. Learn why mistakes are essential, why stepping away can spark inspiration, and how collecting objects can fuel new ideas.’
He’s an absolute joy! You won’t regret spending 12 minutes watching his cruise through his day.
That’s it for the week’s digest. This weekend I am hoping the weather will permit gardening. I have letters to write, mending to attend to, a new stack of library books to hang out with.
My nettle patch is coming back to life so I’ve been making simple nettle soups and will make it again this weekend.
I also bought a bottle of vodka so I can make some lemonbalm tincture with the new season’s lemonbalm; it always feels at most potent in spring to me…the leaves bright green and shiny. Lemonbalm is good for stress and anxiety, is known for being a ‘gladdening’ herb. (Now there’s a sweet old-fashioned word.) Read more about it here.
I hope there are ‘gladdening’ things in your weekend.
Thanks for being here and sharing the things that I caught in my net this week.
(Above: Me (on left) and Carly Thomas cracking each other up at her 11 October 2024 book launch at the Palmerston North City Library.)
Almost a year ago, I interviewed writer Carly Thomas live as part of her book launch event at the Palmerston North City Library. I don’t recall the specifics of the conversation but I do remember there was a lot of laughter. Carly is very funny. Also, very self-deprecating.
I kept insisting she was courageous, intrepid, fearless and she kept batting such suggestions away. She’s a very humble person. In winter, I invited her to be my second slow interviewee. These interviews take place via email exchanges in an unhurried way. The first one was with writer Iona Winter.
I wanted to check in with Carly a year out from the publication of ‘The Last Muster’: A nostalgic journey into New Zealand’s High Country.’
H: Congratulations on the publication of your book! & Thanks for inviting me to help you launch it. That was a great night.
Can you tell me a bit about your (very impressive) research trips for this book… you did a kind of ‘action research’ where you joined the mustering gangs. I reckon that was so brave!
C: The launch was so neat and you were a big part of that so a massive thanks to you, Helen. It all seems like a long time ago.
Writing a book is a funny old thing, it is all consuming and then it is done. It feels like you have been out at sea, in the thick of storms and intense sunshine and then you come ashore and the tide comes in and it goes out and all is calm. That sounds depressing but it’s not, it’s just there’s a lull, a pause, and then an in-between afterwards.
I knew straight away that I would go and work alongside the people I was writing about. I started ringing and emailing high country stations that I had already had contact with through previous writing gigs. It took a few calls before I figured out how to communicate what exactly it was that I was doing. It became apparent that I needed to head south for the Autumn weaning musters quickly and so I got straight into getting down there.
I’d read up a bit on each station I was going to, but not in depth, that would come later. I like to go into things a bit naive. I figure that asking stupid questions is better than assuming you already know, so I did a lot of that. I learnt as I went, was given ideas on where to go next and in that semi-informed/ follow-my-nose style I got passed onto musters.
I didn’t have a big planned out map of things, I really just took whatever next turn presented itself. I started down in Glenorchy at Greenstone Station and was well and truly thrown in the deep end on a four day muster with a motley crew of shepherds. After that the ball was rolling – I’d finish a muster, chuck my muddy saddle and gear in the car and head to the next one. Word got out about what I was doing and it got easier to get on the musters. I was learning skills as I went and got more handy as I went.
My tools for capturing everything were my phone recorder/ camera/ notes, my big Sony camera (not at all fancy) and my memory for conversations. People would say great stuff, as I was riding along trying to keep a bunch of unruly cattle in line, and I would have to remember it until I could do a voice memo of what they said. It was full on and it took my ADHD multitasking superpowers to a new level.
I’d do dumps of writing notes when I could, when I had a day or two in between musters, but not a lot of writing happened till I got home. There was a lot of writing in my head on long car journeys. I would try to hold onto each station’s colours, tone, sound, smell, taste and hum. When I did get to sit down, those were the first words to go down, then I got to the long and arduous job of transcribing.
Research came last, which I guess is a bit round-the-other-way from what some writers do. As I was travelling about I would try to go to local libraries to find historical tales of the area and old mustering yarns. I also collected a pretty big haul of old New Zealand mustering books from the many secondhand bookshops and op-shops I visited on my travels. Once back home I trawled through online archives and libraries to collect up old stories and facts. I went down massive rabbit holes.
One particular moment of connection was when I was trying to find the history of a particular homestead that had been abandoned on a station. I was coming up against dead ends and in frustration I called a tiny community library opened once a week by volunteers. As I was on the phone to the woman in charge that day who was telling me “just the person I should talk to was…..”, she paused and then said, “you won’t believe this, but she just walked in the door”.
The particular 90-something-year-old who was the missing link to the information I really needed was put onto the phone. It was magic. She told me things that were not written anywhere and could have been lost if she hadn’t stepped in right then. I just love that sort of thing and there really is something special about these encounters.
The whole book writing process was a combination of high adventure, a saddle-sore body, sleep deprivation, many kilometres on my little nana car’s clock and wondering where I would land next and spending hours researching in drafty libraries or sitting on my couch with a cat, a cup of tea and books piled high around me. I am a contrary soul and I enjoy both of those things equally.
H: Writing a book is so different from having a book published, isn’t it?
Yes, it really is and I think the main thing for me, this being my first experience of working with a big publisher, was knowing this project was bigger than me. I had to trust my publisher and editor and I took the opportunity to just say “yes” and be more open than I have ever been. It wasn’t just my book, it had many people involved, the most important part being all the people I encountered on the journey, who trusted me with their stories and way of life. It’s a responsibility to take care, while also telling it like it is.
And then it’s done, the final proof is FINAL and the printers crank into gear. And then you have to let it go, into the open, out into the world, into the hands of others.
The tide goes out, I take the dog for a walk, I look at the hills with new eyes and I wonder, ‘what’s next?’.
H: What did you learn about the horse mustering community over the course of writing the book? Did anything surprise you?
Every station was different but a few things were always the same. They love their horses and will always have them in their front paddock no matter what. They are people who choose horses over machinery to get the stock work done and that made them a certain kind of person. Horses may be a slower way of doing things, in some respects, but they are a quieter and kinder way to work stock. Stations that use horses tend to care about their animals, enjoy a slower, older way and there’s also a romance to it all as well.
The way you see things on a horse, the chats along the way possible without the roar of a bike and the relationship you have with your horse. So yeah, they were a certain type, often a little quirky and more often very stubborn about their way of life. And they all knew each other, the connections ran very deep.
I was sometimes surprised by their openness in having me along. Their honesty and their passion to really help me to understand what it all means to them. Sure, there were plenty of tight lipped cowboys, but I also experienced real moments of truth and authenticity.
(Above: writer Carly Thomas on horseback.)
H: Do you want to share a favourite moment from your travels with us?
That’s got to be on Pitt Island on a day off from mustering the cattle and doing yard work. Me and the two kids from the family I was staying with went for a windy adventure with them leading the way. They proudly showed me the very steep cliff drop-off where they weren’t supposed to go, the quick (and very scary!) way down to the beach and the wharf and the old shearing shed retired back when wool prices dropped to pretty much nothing.
I was told the names of birds and horses and paddocks and we arrived back hungry, windswept and grinning. Brilliant day!
H: What have you been reading lately? Can you recommend a few recent reads?
Oh so many good books lately! I have discovered a New Zealand author, Fiona Sussman and now her book Addressed to Gretais a favourite. The main character Greta is one of those memorable ones that you fall in love with.
I have also become a little obsessed with Elif Shafak, a Turkish writer who wrote There are rivers in the sky. It’s an epic story told over different decades and cultures. A must-read I’d say.
(Above: last Sunday the wind briefly stopped and the sun came out and so I dressed the picnic table outside for an ‘al fresco’ meal. It was lovely for about an hour and then the chilly spring weather returned. I’m glad I grabbed the moment, though.)
Hey! How was your week?
Sometimes when I am describing to a friend the futility of resisting what is happening in life, I say: ‘Anyway, there’s no point resisting it. It’d be like trying to punch the wind.’
This week, though, I really did feel like trying to punch the wind!
The spring winds here are chilly, mercurial, and strong. Despite my continued attempts to reframe them: they’re ‘cleansing’; they’re ‘blowing out our cobwebs’; ‘they herald the advent of summer’… I landed on Thursday feeling fed up and cranky about the weather. (So pointless.)
There’s just so much I want to do in the garden but I don’t last long out there in these strong spring winds…maybe twenty minutes?
However, I have potted up my first tomatoes. And I bought some leek seedlings which will be ready for next autumn/winter if I plant them in September. I used to plant leeks in January to be ready for winter…but the last few years I’ve been planting them earlier and earlier. This may be the earliest, however.
Have you managed to start some spring planting yet?
Here’s some things I’ve been enjoying lately:
Dramatic (and philosophical) fire cooking with a charismatic Argentinian chef
This documentary about Argentinian chef contains multitudes. He’s famous for cooking with open fire and there’s plenty of inspiration for that in the film (he cooks a lot of meat…so if you’re vegetarian, take care) but there’s also slow-living philosophy, visible mending and nature appreciation.
He’s quite the charismatic, zen dude and I enjoyed this immersion into his life.
Song for the Week: ‘Under the Sun’ by Mia Doi Todd
Mia’s voice is high and sweet. The lyrics are dreamy. Discovering this song this week was a great antidote to being cranky about things I can’t change, like weather, politics and certain life circumstances. The song has a healing flowing feeling.
A tomato poem: ‘In My Next Life Let Me Be a Tomato’ by Natasha Rao
Because I’m dreaming into summer produce, especially tomatoes, I went looking for a tomato poem. There’s lots to love in this poem but I particularly love this line:
‘I want to be unabashed, audacious, to gobble
space, to blush deeper each day in the sun, knowing
I’ll end up in an eager mouth.’
In my next life let me be a Tomato
lusting and unafraid. In this bipedal incarnation
I have always been scared of my own ripening,
mother standing outside the fitting room door.
I only become bright after Bloody Mary’s, only whole
in New Jersey summers where beefsteaks, like baubles,
sag in the yard, where we pass down heirlooms
in thin paper envelopes and I tend barefoot to a garden
that snakes with desire, unashamed to coil and spread.
Cherry Falls, Brandywine, Sweet Aperitif, I kneel
with a spool, staking and tying, checking each morning
after last night’s thunderstorm only to find more
sprawl, the tomatoes have no fear of wind and water,
they gain power from the lightning, while I, in this version
of life, retreat in bed to wither. In this life, rabbits
are afraid of my clumsy gait. In the next, let them come
willingly to nibble my lowest limbs, my outstretched
arm always offering something sweet. I want to return
from reincarnation’s spin covered in dirt and
buds. I want to be unabashed, audacious, to gobble
space, to blush deeper each day in the sun, knowing
I’ll end up in an eager mouth. An overly ripe tomato
will begin sprouting, so excited it is for more life,
so intent to be part of this world, trellising wildly.
For every time in this life I have thought of dying, let me
yield that much fruit in my next, skeleton drooping
under the weight of my own vivacity as I spread to take
more of this air, this fencepost, this forgiving light.
Affordable Art: Kereru @ Whanganui River
I’ve broken my self-imposed budget for affordable art this week. This beautiful print by Rob Barrington is $95 so almost twice the affordable art budget of $50. Forgive me. I love it so much I had to share it with you.
I live an hour’s drive from Whanganui, know the landscape well and love this depiction of the river, coast and ‘my’ mountain, Taranaki in the background. It has a vintage NZ school journal feel about it that I love, too. My folks gave me a little money for my birthday and I’m pondering this print as a contender for what I spend it on.
(Above: Kereru @ Whanganui River by Rob Barrington. Image borrowed from Kina.)
A meditation I wrote for processing and integrating ‘recent events’
Back in 2020, I wrote and recorded a meditation to offer solace for how unsettling and scary the pandemic was.
I didn’t specifically mention the pandemic in the meditation. I just referred to it as ‘recent events’. This good decision to be a bit vague has meant this meditation is perennial …because there are continual ‘recent events’ for us to cope with. My hope was that a listener might feel a little more calm, less scattered and ‘put back together’ after listening.
(And for my northern hemisphere readers…you can hear the short flat vowels of my very NZ accent!)
Recipe: Twenty Minute Tahini Biscuits
I made these biscuits this week. They are good for if you have someone coming over and you need something to serve quickly. I served some to my friend Kushla and she said they tasted like chewy halva.
They are quick to make (twenty minutes from go to woah) They have just three ingredients and are gluten-free.
Twenty Minute Tahini Biscuits
Mix:
one cup unhulled tahini
one cup powdered jaggery (Indian unrefined sugar)
one egg
It will make a stiff paste.
Roll into small balls. (Approximate a teaspoon full.) Put on a greased biscuit sheet.
Bake at 190 C for 9 minutes. (Keep an eye on them. They cook quickly and burn easily.)
Put on a cooling rack. Enjoy!
*
It’s my birthday this weekend and Fraser and I are going off-grid for two nights to a hut in the bush with outdoor cooking (hence watching the aforementioned fire-cooking documentary!) and an outdoor bath.
The description of the place says there are eels to feed, glowworms to visit and the bridge across the nearby stream is a giant log. I feel confident we’ll have a great time.
(Above: a tiny posy of small flowers from the garden: forget-me-not, pansies, calendula, & marigold.) )
Hello!
Another week of our lives has passed since the last time you were here…indulging me by reading my collected nonsense.
How was your week? Did you have time to look at the sky for a while? Read a good book? Wear something that makes you feel excellent and utterly yourself? Did you drink enough cups of tea?
If not, make yourself one now and settle in for some slow-small media imbibing…
The joy of simple well-made things
I write this from beside our fire. It’s stormy outside and today’s high is 12 degrees. The fire is just over a year old. We had it put in when our 1980s gas fire was condemned by the gas inspector. He recommended a heat pump. We did this instead and have not regretted the decision for even a second.
(Above: our little fire with the morning sun on her.)
When I was in Taupō last weekend, I upgraded our poker to a lovely hand made one from a metalsmith at the local Sunday morning market. I took a photo of him brandishing the poker at the market because he was a lovely chap and I am a nerd for the provenance of handmade things:
(Above: The maker of our new poker. He didn’t make the hooks on display but he did make the poker.)
Speaking of woodstoves, last week I stumbled on the YouTube account of Homewood Stoves, another NZ-made wood fire business – this time based near Whangarei.
Their videos are full of wholesome and homey videos featuring their beautiful homes, gorgeous kids and lovely kitchen…it’s peak #cottagecore content but in a NZ context. Very soothing viewing for a rattled nervous system. Which leads me to today’s recipe…
How to start a ginger bug for homemade ginger beer
Also on the Homewood Stoves channel, this aesthetically-pleasing and slow method video has really inspired me to brew up some ginger beer this summer.
This is a very helpful and nicely made video.
& I have kitchen-envy! >>
Poetry: A bit of Mary Oliver balm for another hard news week
On Thursday, I had a really long work day and was ‘head down, bum up’ all day so didn’t catch any news. When I finally knocked off, Fraser mentioned it had been a big news day in terms of global events and laid it all out for me. (I won’t rake it over here because it’s not Slow-Small-Media suitable… ) but again I was struck how, in these turbulent times, you can be offline just for a day and then plug back in and find the world has been through the wringer again…in new and newly-awful ways.
To that end, I feel this week we need one of the big guns of solace poetry…so here’s an excerpt from Mary Oliver’s ‘In Blackwater Woods’ (read the whole poem here):
Here she is on love and the necessity of detachment as part of that love:
‘To live in this world
you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it
against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.’
A song for the week: ‘So Free’ by Lūka, & Mose
I appreciate every season…however, at this stage of late winter/crappy spring, I can’t help but begin to yearn for summer.
This newish song by Lūka & Mose gives me that spacious and bright summer-road-trip feeling…even on this stormy day.
Affordable Art : the Tea Frog you probably don’t need at all but might make you smile
Oh, hi:
(Above: image borrowed from the IkoIko website.)
Look, I know nobody needs this ridiculous object…but how much fun, hey? )(+ Who ever went into IkoIko looking for something they needed?)
This little guy is $33 so he falls well within the affordable art budget of $50.
Is it ‘art’ though? I imagine you asking… I’d argue it makes having a cup of tea more artful…and so yes, he qualifies.
A short list of ‘sacred gifts’, from Alex Klingenberg
Returning to the topic of regulating the nervous system after feeling rattled by the noise of the world… this short article by Alex Klingenberg invites us to consider what we have to give in this moment, what our ‘sacred gifts’ are.
I particularly like this excerpt. As I read the list below, I think about how I can bring these qualities into my relationships, my family, my friendships.
Does my being in my presence leave people a little uplifted? I hope so.
Sacred Gifts of Being:
Presence – showing up fully to the moment.
Attention – the act of noticing, listening, and honoring.
Wonder – the childlike awe that keeps the world alive.
Stillness – the capacity to rest, pause, and make space.
Resilience – carrying light through difficulty.
Gratitude – choosing to see abundance and say thank you.
The article is gentle and thoughtful; I felt a little steadier after reading it.
(Hat tip for this link to Thousand Shades of Gray who also does a regular digest which I really enjoy and find a lot of good reads from.)
An artist who embraced the slow art of sewing after an illness
Speaking of gratitude and presence, this is a lovely watch. Louise Watson had to give up her teaching career after illness. Now, she lives more slowly and has begun and nature-based art practice as part of her new, slowed-down life:
& That’s a wrap for this week’s sharing.
This weekend I’ve been invited to a friend’s house for the inaugural paella in her new (from the op shop) paella pan; I’m going to be sharing early birthday cake with some fellow September-birthday friends and I’m going to a Sika Sound Journey as he’s passing through town. This will be my fifth time going to a Sika journey. I’ve been twice at yoga/kirtan camps and twice here in my home town. It’s always worth it. Transporting!
Sika often starts his journeys with the repeated phrase:
‘you are leaving time…you are leaving time…you are leaving time…’
I hope you can find some moments of presence, attention, wonder, stillness, resilience and gratitude this weekend and also maybe ‘leavetime‘ for a little bit.
Helen Lehndorf 