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Sunday, January 24 2016
I was mowing the lawn with my ancient push mower. "That's the way to do it", a guy walking down the street yelled. "How old is that mower?" "Older than I am", I yelled back. (I am 46, for the record).
It probably is too. I got it not long after we first moved to Christchurch, so maybe 4 years ago? I bought it from a funny little shop full of second hand mowers and other garden machinery which has since closed. The proprietor was gruff and swore freely.
I haven't sharpened it since, but it is running fine. I just got around to oiling it for the first time a few weeks ago. Our current place is about 750 square metres, and the previous one was even bigger. Not bad for a decades old hand mower.
I had owned a push mower before, but it was bullshit compared to the one I own now. Modern hand mowers are half plastic and the metal bits are thin cheap steel and they're good for nothing. My current one has solid iron wheels, in fact every part except for the wooden roller is iron.
In a flat city like Christchurch push mowers have a lot to recommend them. They cut more cleanly than rotary mowers. They provide incidental exercise. They have no running costs. And they are quiet. I spoke to three different people on the street while I was mowing the verge. You can't do that with a petrol mower. So while it is not exactly a convivial tool in the Illich sense, it does allow me to work with independent efficiency and participate in the community.
I paid $60 for this one. Keep an eye out, and you too can enjoy the simple pleasures of human power.
Responses: No comments Tags: happiness ⋅ gardening ⋅ technology ⋅ ivan illich ⋅ eutrapalia
Saturday, January 02 2016
A few weeks ago I spent some time in Vancouver visiting my sister's family, with a couple of side trips to Seattle, and I got back on December the 10th.
I spent a lot of time hanging out with my sister, which was great:
Even after years in Canada, my sister is still under the delusion that squirrels are our cute furry friends, and to be honest, so am I:
It was early winter in North America, and the Pacific Northwest was wet and cold in the manner of Christchurch midwinter.
To return to a Christchurch on the cusp of summer, already beginning the long slow glide to summer holidays, was really something.
I realised that I felt quite differently about my return to Christchurch this time around than I did in June 2014, when I came back from a similar trip to Canada. In 2014, I had just been in Vancouver and Montreal, two very different cities, but both with a strong civic culture, sense of self, and solid infrastructure. Christchurch was a wasteland. I drove home from my first day back at work along Bealey Avenue, cursing the rutted road, and my heart sank at the empty sections and demolition sites and the absence of any sign of human life.
This time was different. Of course the weather must have been part of it; I am definitely sadder on grey days. But there is more cause for optimism and more signs of life now. Not just cranes and construction sites. Lots of completed projects and new places to go and a definite spring in the step of many people I know. Anyone who knows me knows there is much I would have done differently if I were in charge around here, but things are happening nonetheless.
And so it was I found myself saying on Twitter: to be honest, I'm feeling the best about Christchurch I have since I got here. And I am. May 2016 justify this.
Responses: No comments Tags: christchurch ⋅ rebuild ⋅ happiness
Saturday, November 14 2015
A recent Colliers report made it clear that investing in more CBD office space made no financial sense. Buildings under construction now would probably be "all that is needed for a long time," he said.
Leasing of office space was steady but slowing, "and with other property coming on stream across the river to the west an oversupply of office space is looming," he said.
An over-supply of fix ups to pre-earthquake buildings would make curtail further development and hit suburban office space rents and vacancy levels.
There was still 30 hectares of vacant commercial land in the city available but plans for it were unknown, McDonagh said.
(from a recent Press story)
One of my pet hobby horses about the officially planned Christchurch rebuild is that it never provided for the kind of cheap and cheerful, low-rent district which is generally where all the cool shit in a city starts. Those buildings were among the worst affected in the quakes, and so if you want somewhere for your design studio, ethnic restaurant, second-hand bookshop, gallery, coffee roastery, whatever, there is no place for it in the shiny "world class" centre envisaged by the city's current masters. The closest we have is the Restart mall, which is actually fairly expensive to be in, nearly closed in 2014, and is limited to a small area and a narrow range of activities.
However, it occurs to me that the failure to populate the former CBD may have gone so far that actually, the master plan will inadvertently provide a low-rent area after all. Sooner or later, the Crown and private owners will settle for a low return on their land and buildings over nothing at all, and then the green shoots of real urban life can appear and colonise the waste.
Responses: No comments Tags: christchurch ⋅ rebuild ⋅ urbanism
Sunday, October 18 2015
I can't remember exactly when, but it must have been the summer of 2005-2006 when Dad drove up from Hamilton to visit us in Auckland.
He had lugged a small fig tree in the car with him. "You can plant this when you buy a house", he said. We were already talking about buying houses, but I was anxious about prices. My ex had wangled Hannah into Cornwall Park school, and we couldn't afford to buy anywhere within walking distance, which was a thing I thought was very important. If we'd bought that place in Onehunga I guess I'd be retired now.
The fig tree had quite a history. My grandparents lived for many years on New Windsor Road in Avondale, since the 1940s I think 1920s, and they had a Dalmatian neighbour with a very fine fig tree. My nana had admired it and he gave her a cutting. He had smuggled the original tree from Yugoslavia as a cutting hidden in his waistcoat. (I have just that one sentence to go on, so whether the trip was by sea or air, how the cutting was kept alive, and where it was taken, all remain a mystery).
When my grandparents were in a serious car accident in 1977 -- or was it 1976? -- my grandfather died at the scene, and my nana hung on for a couple of years, but never left hospital. Dad and his brothers and sisters wound up the estate, sold the old house, and Dad took a cutting of the tree and grew on some descendant trees in Hamilton. In time, Mum and Dad moved house, and some cuttings went with them. And this tree in a pot Dad gave us was a scion of one this second round of Hamilton trees.
The fruit of these trees is unlike the usual Brown Turkey figs you get here. They are small, and pale yellow-green, and intensely sweet, with red flesh.
That tree in a pot moved from Auckland to Wellington with us. From Wellington to Christchurch. From Bishopdale to Spreydon, when we at last bought a house in February. About two months ago, I finally stuck it in the ground. It has survived drying out, strong winds, and general neglect, even produced the odd fig or two, but now it can put down roots.
Responses: No comments Tags: figs ⋅ plants ⋅ gardening ⋅ happiness ⋅ christchurch
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