those wind wands

Hi there



I've noticed over the last few years that quite a few cities both here in New Zealand and, also, overseas, have wind wands, even though sometimes they've been called different names.  The one in New Plymouth is The Wind Wand, the one in Wellington is The Zephrometer.  They're classed as sculptures.  They are very high, point to the heavens, and they sway from side to side according to the powerfulness of the wind.  Once or twice I have actually seen our wand all but horizontal.  Wellington is notoriously known as 'Windy Wellington'.

Our wand is in Kilbirnie which is the suburb between me in Miramar and Hataitai beach where I swim with my friend J.

Lightening struck our wind wand a week or so ago.  The top few metres got hit directly, burnt and split.  See above picture.

I hope the wand gets ressurected.  The artist is overseas at the moment but he will reassess the situation next month.

I love the delicious feeling of bravery I get when I drive under the wind wand.  I have often thought it could crash down on top of me in a really terrific wind storm.  I never once visualised lightening.  It's sad to see it tied down horizontally nowadays (see below photo).

Hataitai Beach is about 400 metres behind the wind wand in the bottom photo.

Swims:

J and I have now done our 5 minimum swims for August, at Hataitai Beach. - August is the coldest month of our winter and it has been tough to get in those five swims.  It has been especially cold the last three times.  My toes have been like blocks of ice for hours afterwards.

 

Those Passport photos ... again

Hi there

 This time I'm writing about someone else's passport photo.

I was in line at a suburban  NZ PostShop.  All I wanted to do was post a parcel but the line was very (very) long.  Of course there were only two tellers, one of whom was tasked to take a passport photo for a young woman of about twenty.  All of us in line had nothing better to occupy our time, so we watched the goings-on.

A long narrow white screen slowly rolled down from the ceiling.  Hey, neat.  Does new technology know no boundaries?

"Stand in front of the screen please?

The young woman obeyed.  This attractive customer looked as if she had never had a bad photograph taken of her in her  life.

"A bit more to the right?" sing-songed the teller.

The young woman shuffled over to the side.

"Maybe back to the left, just a bit?

Duly noted, and done.

"Could you raise your head?  Not that high.  Down a bit.  Could you pin your stray hair back?"

The young woman changed position to fish in her topknot for a hairpin.  The orders - an even longer list than before - rat-tatt-tatted out all over again.  Finally ...

"Step back please - "

Snap!  The camera clicked.  It clicked again.

The young woman peered over the counter as far as the restrictive security panel would allow her to look into the computer screen.  Oh dear, something was wrong.  .  NZ PostShop woman tut-tutted.  "I'll try again.  Back to the wall please.""

The rigmorale rolled out once more.  More rejected photos.  And then a third attempt-

Step forward please.  No, back!   No, forward-"

A guy behind me in line muttered, "Now raise your leg-"

"-wave your arm," another person chortled.

"Do the hokey-pokey," called out someone else.

The young woman and the teller peered at the photos.  Apparently, they were not going to be good enough for the passport people.  The red-faced customer exited the PostShop having been told to try the chemist around the corner.

Poor woman.  I've been there, I've done that.  But, thank goodness, not in public.

Here's the main street in Kilbirnie, Wellington. 

Lost in the Museum

Hi there

I went to a book launch last night.  It was an anthology of fantasy short stories, entitled "Lost in the Museum" and was (sub)edited by my friend A.J. Ponder.  The editor is actually Tui Merriweather, who actually doesn't really exist but is one of the characters in this story! 

The action is set in Te Papa Tongarewa (Our Place), the Museum of New Zealand, here in Wellington.  It's quite a fun book.  Peter Jackson's Big Baby film prop (that is now at Te Papa) has a whole story to itself, courtesy of award-winning writer, Tim Jones. 

Phillip Mann who is an Arthur C Clarke award nominee for this year has a story in "Lost in the Museum", as, too, does Lyn McConchie, a novelist with over 30 books. 

The book will shortly be for sale at The Children's Bookshop in Kilbirnie (it would range from Young Adult readers  to, I guess, 100 year olds).  The book was funded, in part, by a grant from Creative Communities, Wellington City Council.  It can also be reserved at Wellington Libraries.

Below are three of the writers whose stories are in the anthology.  Left to right:  Jenny Hammond, A.J. Ponder, Lilian Hetet.,

Below, signing session with writers and readers

Signs and colds

Hi there

Sometimes we come across funny signs.  I was passing the organic store in Kilbirnie the other day and there was a whiteboard outside the shop that read "cultured vegies". 

Before such vegies are released out onto the market are they given elocution and deportment lessons, perhaps?  Wheel-barrowed around museums and art galleries?  Maybe taught the right cutlery to use for the right dinner course, rather like Julia Roberts was taught table layouts in "Pretty Woman"?  though I guess even the most cultured vegetable would find it hard to nail a Richard Gere ... unless it was in the kitchen, then the vegie might stand a chance of being loved, cultured or not.

A long time ago I had a children's play in the New Zealand School Journal entitled "The Monster Sale".  I'd seen sales labelled as such for years and I'd always wondered what would happen if a shop was really selling monsters.

Some names of places are just sheer awful.  There's a restaurant in Kilbirnie called "Smell & Smile".   Why?

***

Oh, I've got a cold.  Actually, "a cold" doesn't sound dramatic enough for what I have.  The word 'virus' is incredibly popular; maybe I'll adopt that.  I remember snobby Margot in "The Good Life" or was it the same actress in "To the Manor Born" who became absolutely horrified when  told she had a "common" cold.   Like this lady I, too,  do not want to have a cold that is considered 'common'.

I've had my flu vaccination so it can't be the 'flu' that I have but, oh-my-goodness, I've hardly been able to talk for five days.  Bob-who-lives-up-the-road-and-around-the-corner has already told me that because of the silence from me, he can now hear overhead planes and birds.  What cheek!

I feel awful that J and I can't go swimming because of my catching The Plague.  I hope she'll forgive me.

Those bleepin' security bleeps in shop doorways....yet again!

Hi there

Yesterday was Thursday.  Thursdays are when the Farmers Department Store usually have their sales. 

As I entered the store, there was a bleeeep...   Three of us were simultaneously crossing the threshhold which meant we all walked between the security poles.

 Of course, the Farmers' security lady swooped on me.  I'd actually made it into the lingerie department before, puffing like a steam engine, she caught up with me.  Oh goodie, my physicality must be improving.  Power walking, now that my plantar fasciitis was getting better, was truly paying off.

Frustrated, I threw my bag into the security lady's  hands.  "Take it!"

"I'll just see about deactivating this," the security lady said.  And disappeared.  Off to South America, who knew?  If so, she wouldn't get far with what was in my bag... an umbrella,and  a wallet that contained three bank cards inaccessible to anyone without a pin, and approximately $20 from my money-box;  good luck, girl with that.  The weight of all those 10 cent and 20 cent pieces in my shoulderbag had already given me backache getting from Miramar to Kilbirnie.

I fingered through some camisoles as I waited for her return. Oh,  I'm a sucker for camisoles.  I reckon that camisoles are often prettier than normal shoe-string strap summer tops -

She was back within three minutes.  "Here you are.  Everything's good."

Not with me, it wasn't.  I stomped out of the store.  Curse you, Farmers, for being one of my favourite clothes shops.  I'd love to say I'm never going to darken your bleepin' door again, but, sigh, I just can't see that happening ...  however, I will be jolly cross.

Embarrassing moment for the Sitcom Queen (me!)

Hi there

I know that we all have embarrassing moments, but I seem to have them more frequently than other people.  My friends reckon I have most of them (plus injuries) when I'm away on holiday but the other day I proved that embarrassing incidents can happen just as easily to me at home, as on holiday.

I was in Countdown Supermarket in Kilbirnie.  A young guy walked toward me with something strapped to his chest.  I peered closer.  Oh, yes, I think it was a baby, in a little hold-all, but this was hard to make out because the guy was so big and the hold-all so tiny.  I opened my mouth to say something, to coo over the baby, if indeed it was a baby.  This is what came out of my mouth:

"Oh, what's that tiny thing you've got below there?"

(Pause..... whilst my four readers snigger, then collapse in fits of giggles)

Okay, okay, foot-in-mouth time, most extraordinary.  But I still didn't click onto the deeper meaning of my words.  How naive am I?

For a split second, the guy actually looked lower down than the cute little baby nestled against his chest.  I was still happily old-person smiling away.

It was a one week old girl, so the guy hurriedly explained to me.

And we went our merry ways.  It wasn't till about an hour later, I realised my giant faux pas.  J, my swimming buddy,  later said to me - she was all but rolling on the floor in hysterics - that the guy would no doubt by now - it was 6 pm in the evening - be at the pub regaling the tale to his mates as probably he would be doing hundreds more times in the future.  Oh what a laugh-in everybody would have.

Thanks, J.  So great at confidence-building....

Those bleepin' bleeps!

Hi there
If there's one thing that makes me get  1)  embarrassed;   and 2) so angry I'm spitting tacks,  it's when I walk between  a store's anti-theft bleepers ... and they bleep loud enough, and long enough to wake the dead, and everybody in the store turns and stares.

The first time it happened I walked into a Rebel store with a Kathmandu purchase under my arm.  Bleeeeep!

"It happens all the time with Kathmandu goods," said the Rebel sales guy.  "They always forget to anti-bleep the bleepin' machine". 

I made another purchase at Kathmandu a few weeks later - and my purchase again bleeped  as I was entering a store.  Next it happened with a Warehouse shoulder bag .

I bought a Donna Karen bag at an outlet store in Las Vegas.   I was mortified when security staff came running after me everywhere I went in Lower Hutt's Westfield Mall.  I vowed never to take that bag out again.  And I haven't.  Sorry, Donna.

Today, I walked between the bleepers at Countdown Supermarket in Kilbirnie. The bleeps were unrelenting.  I slammed my bag down on the counter, furiously emptied my pockets, and before the assistant had even got halfway across the floor to deal with me, I had screeched out a string of  naughty words which roughly translated into decent language came across as, "Oh, for the love of little bunnies!"

"It's alright.  It's okay.  It doesn't matter," the assistant stuttered.  Obviously I'd scared the hell out of the woman.

Talk about feeling like a thief.   I yearned to throw every piece of clothing off me, just to prove I didn't have umpteen gold bars from Michael Hill hidden in my knickers.

I stomped over the road into the bleeping foyer of Farmers Department Store  "Yesterday, I bought this hoodie that I'm wearing," I hollered.  "Take the bleepity-bleep-bleep bleeper off it." 

Turned out it wasn't the hoodie. 

This morning I'd run out of a print cartridge for my printer.  I'd grabbed the old empty packet to take that down to the store with me to show the assistant what I was after.  The empty packet was the cause of the bleeps at both Countdown and Farmers.  Would you believe it?

 Thanks, Farmers, for narrowing the culprit down with your bleeper gun.  But bleepity-bleepity-bleep-bleep to all you annoying  shops that don't anti-bleep your customers' purchases...

xxx

Oh, here's a nice soothing photo of Coco, my Wednesday dog.

third swim for June at Hataitai Beach! Yippee

Hi there
J and I had made a pact that there would be no swimming today after our gym circuit.  But, oh,, the weather was so lovely, and the sea was flat and clear.  So, we burrowed in our respective car boots ('trunk' if you're American), came up with ratty old lightweight bathing suits, and took the plunge.

After my swim and, as usual, I went to Countdown Supermarket in Kilbirnie.  I swear the store had the cold air conditioning going in their fresh fruit section as well as their chiller section.   There was a truly cold blast as I walked through the automatic doors.  I was in my knee-length lightweight gym pants, a heavy jacket I'd located in the boot, and ditto a woolly hat and mittens.  I must have looked a sight.

This afternoon I went for a walk around Miramar.  I went past the (Peter Jackson) studio - see below - where they are currently filming The Hobbit Part II.   All the hive of activity is good for Miramar.