TYPIST-IN-CHARGE, Episode 19,

Hi there

1     Typist-in-Charge, Education Department Head Office, First Floor Government Buildings, Wellington.  1974-1978

 

above: Government Buildings, Lambton Quay, Wellington

I had put in for a higher-graded typist-in-charge position, this time at Customs Head Office, and it may as well have been the moon for all I knew about what one did at Customs.  But it would be a break-through for typists, as opposed to the superior reign that shorthand-typists had in the in-charge typing area at this time.  Shorthand-typists-in-charge rarely did shorthand.  They supervised.  So it always felt unfair that only shorthanders could apply for higher jobs.  But imagine my surprise when I spotted an in-charge position in the Public Service Official Circular that didn't have the word 'shorthand' in front of it.  It was exactly one level up from my present grade. 

Right back when I was a teenager of about sixteen, terrible at typing, but with a kind caring mentor boss - Mrs Rowley - I was stationed in room 305 typing pool at Government Buildings   I'd been listening to Mrs Rowley and Miss McNeil who was the Supervising Typist of all education typists, talking about overseas trips.  I gestured to Miss McNeil and said enviously, "I want to be just like you."  I had meant travelling the world -

Mrs Rowley giggled, "She wants to be the Supervising Typist.  Hahaha..."

And everyone at that typing room morning tea giggled.

It was the only time I felt sad about what my idol had said, and that everyone in room 305 thought I wanted to aspire to the dizzying heights of Miss McNeil's job.  To them all, I was so obviously scatty-Lorraine who loved rock'n'roll and movies, couldn't do maths, talked a lot, and was pretty crap at typing. According to the sniggers, there would be no way I could ever take on Miss McNeil's position.

Um...

Well...

First, I had got the Senior Typist job at the Curriculum Development Unit.  Then I got the Typist-in-Charge job at Health Regional Office.  This was followed by my present position as one of three typists-in-charge at Education Head Office...

But now...?  Now, I'd got the Customs Typist-in-Charge job!  Another grade closer to that supervising typist position at Education that I had set my sights on; I was so  determined to work my way through the ranks to get up to it, to prove I wasn't that highly hopeless typist everyone had once thought I was.

It was sad to leave Education.  I walked the long wide Government Buildings  corridors the day I left, memories bouncing around in my head:

There were two enclosed staircases, one at each end of the building, north and south.  I must have run up and down those stairs thousands of times, delivering work to officers on the various floors.  Maybe the staircases were enclosed because of a danger to stair-climbers falling over the bannisters?  

Sometimes I would take the easy way between levels and rattle around in the old 'cage' lift at the south end of the building.  I had once seen a gangster movie where the guys in a cage lift had been machine-gunned between the bars as the lift descended.  I never once rode this lift without thinking of that movie.

 Above: stock photo.  During a later building upgrade the staircases had been freed of their enclosures. You can now see the surroundings.

I walked into typing room 305 where I started out as a junior typist. Everyone now had electric typewriters, and some, the IBM golfball.  

 I remembered the day of the Wahine storm, 10 April 1968, when the winds reached a scary 230 km per hour as the ship Wahine sank in Wellington Harbour. We typists in room 305 had looked out the typing room windows to see a petrified business woman clinging for dear life to the wind-blown tree at the foot of the inside road leading up to Parliament Buildings.  

above:  Inter-island ferry, Wahine, sinking. Stock photo

I stood in Room 305, above the exact place we "girls" from the 1960s had stashed a time capsule.  The floor had been sloping so workmen had come in to install a new floor.  Before the new floor was added we tossed a plastic bag full of memorabilia in the gap under where the new boards would be fitted.  There was the day's newspaper, that year's coin, and a few words from each of us, listing our most interesting points.  I said "Lorraine loves Elvis", another typist said she was "Tall Pat", another "Frances is an indoor bowls fanatic"...

Room 305 still had the same mirror on the wall that I had used 15 years before.  I thought back to the time when one of our typists had found a foreign language on the back of the 30 or so hand-written pages she was working from. None of us could figure out the words...  until .... 

"Hey look - " Pam was holding a page up to the mirror.  

The words had been in mirror writing.  The writer had been using the backs of the papers for his long departmental draft. How the handwriting got to be in mirror vision we had no idea.  Perhaps the Gestetner duplicating machine was somehow responsible?

Holding page after page up to our mirror we saw that it was work-in-progress of a novel.  So, the guy in Buildings Division was a closet novelist?  A romantic-thriller one?  Who'd-a-thunk?  And... who'd also have thunk that he was having an affair with one of the typists.  Well, me.  I knew.  But I had been sworn to secrecy by the pair.

The same went for the typist who was having an affair with one of the married directors.  It was all supposed to be so super-secret-squirrel, though most of the typists knew about it.

And that reminded me of the time I was walking along the ground floor corridor and politely talking to a director as we made our way out of the building. Single-lady Marta, another typist, waved to us as she passed.

The director acknowledged Marta as she scurried away.  He turned to me.  "I can't understand why you aren't married?" he said.  "I mean.... you're pretty.  Marta is ugly."

Whaaaaaaaaat!!!!!????  

I never said anything.  Much to the regret of future-me.  Typists had definitely been tamed....

2     Typist-in-Charge, Customs Department Head Office, PSIS Building, Whitmore St, Wellington 1978

 

above photo, 2025:  PSIS (Public Service Investment Society) Building where I worked from 1978.  It now has a new name.

My first day at Customs -  I was now in charge of 12 typists.  Wow.  As well as my two Trades Certification Board Typing certificates (A and B), I had arrived with my fully-recognised Trades Certification Board SHORTHAND-TYPING certificate grade I.  It had only been for taking down 80 words per minute but this didn't deflate me one iota.  I had taught myself over the past year, using old TCB shorthand exam papers and I had passed this bloody exam on my second attempt.  'Nuff said.  Now I could apply for every Shorthand-Typist-in-Charge job that came up.  Heck, I could even put in for an overseas embassy post.  I was in raptures.

Side-paragraph:  Within a few months of passing my shorthand exam, the tight hold of shorthanders in the government was loosened drastically.  Typists didnt want to learn shorthand anymore and the dictators of shorthand were (politely) informed  that they wouldn't be wasting two people's time if they dictated into a dictaphone.   Dozens (hundreds? millions?) of times officers had taken phone calls, made phone calls, greeted visitors, burrowed in a drawer, wrote memos, lost trains of thought, left for the loo ... whilst the poor shorthander sat patiently, writing pad on the corner of the desk, pencil poised, worrying about the urgent job she was in the middle of doing back in the pool.  And practically every time the boss did receive or make a phone call, that man  would grandly proclaim into the receiver, "I'm just dictating a ministerial to my shorthand-typist, you know...?". Or scrub the word 'shorthand-typist' and substitute 'girl'; the two were interchangeable .

I was led into the typing room at Customs by my Director Admin.  A dozen faces looked up at me.  I would be stationed in the room with them.  And wonder-of-wonders, at interview I had been told that I wouldn't be typing.  I would only be checking the typists' work when they finished it.  

Hooray, I was in seventh heaven...

... until my boss left the room.  Mavis turned to me.  "We don't want you," she said.  "We want Edith-"  She indicated a woman sitting to my side.

Huh?  

Edith, it turned out, had been understudying in the typist-in-charge job until I arrived.  She had been at Customs for five years.  She was three grades beneath me. She was a Senior Typist as opposed to my last two in-charge positions.   People in those days in the government never skipped grades.  By working upwards, an appointee had a good background behind her (or him).

"We understand you do have a background in the government," said Mavis, whilst Edith was silent, "but we know Edith, and she knows this department, and no hard feelings but we want you to go someplace else...."

*****

.

Mid-winter swim, Hataitai Beach, 23 June 2024, 2pm

 Hi there

Bottom photo:  It was drizzling a couple of minutes before the swimmers entered the water but the rain stopped as we stepped into the sea.  The water was as flat as a mill pond.

 Top photo: taken just after the swim.  A sunbeam pierced through the dark clouds to illuminate  an over-the-water shed at the end of the bay. Note the shed's reflection in the water.

 Probably about 40 people attended....

TYPIST-IN-CHARGE, Episode 17

 Hi there

TYPIST-IN-CHARGE, Education Department Head Office, Ground Floor and 1st floor typing rooms, Government Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand, 1974-1978 

The 1st floor typing work was different to work we had completed for officers on the ground floor.  This time there was a lot of typing re overseas teachers coming to New Zealand.  My readers may remember that there were not enough teachers at Wellington East Girls' College the year I sat School Certificate so I couldn't sit the three subjects that I was good at, and I was given the choice of sitting Art, or not sitting at all.  Well, it was the same during my time in the 1st floor typing room: New Zealand teachers were thin on the ground so the department had a recruitment drive for overseas teachers, especially those from Britain. Applicants were offered free travel to NZ, and a job at most any school the govt felt like sending them to.  We typed a lot of contracts telling such teachers that if they skipped out on the job, their surety (usually mum and dad or, sometimes even grandma) would be forced by the government to pay all fees associated with the move.  Bankruptcy much, I often wondered.

above: my typewriter rubber (if you're American, it's an eraser).  In the 70s, Mrs Rowley allowed typists to use Snopake paint on some things (but still no corrections allowed on the typing of mail from the Minister of Education.

If the collation part of the department's sole Gestetner duplicating machine was out of action, or there was a queue to use it, a typing pool would get a call from an officer to help with urgent collating.  Lining both sides of every corridor in Government Buildings were white-painted cupboards about chest-high.  If an officer needed 100 copies of 15 sheets of already typed and duplicated pages, the pages were lined up in order of pages 1-15 on top of the corridor cabinets. We 'girls' would traverse down the row picking up each page in order.  At line end we would staple our 15 pages together, then go back to the beginning again and gather up another 15 pages.  And another 15.  And so on.  Well, it was a change from typing..

School Publications Division was finally ordered to move into Government Buildings, much to the distress of the School Pubs workers.   They took up residence in the annex.  Prior to their arrival , they'd been a very free-wheeling crowd, not caring much about departmental rules (see an earlier TIC blog).  They brought their own typists with them.

NZ Playwright Roger Hall worked in School Pubs.  Rumour had it that the room number of the Stores Division in his most famous comedic play "Glide Time" (about a govt dept stores division) was the same as Stores Division's room number at Govt Bldgs;  I never did get around to checking up on that.

One morning in 1977, we were all working hard in the pool.

The door was flung open.  A man stood there in a rather theatrical pose.  Think of Doc Brown in the "Back to the Future" movies and you'll have a pretty good idea who this guy looked and acted like. 

All typing stopped.  We stared open-mouthed at the entrance.

"Which one of you delightful ladies is Lorraine?"  He waved the department's most recent staff newsletter in a grandiose gesture to the front of him, as if conducting an orchestra.

"Um...  Me?"  Why was I indecisive about my own name?

It turned out that he was the senior editor of the New Zealand School Journal, working out of School Publications.

He tapped at the newsletter.  "You write plays?   It says here that you wrote a 6-part radio sitcom series for Radio New Zealand?"

I nodded.

"Well, I want you to write for us.  Read some School Journals, familiarise yourself with the style of writing and here's my card - send me something.  It's good pay."

And  ... he left the room in a swirl, and a slam of the door.

We typists just sat there, staring at each other.

"What - What just happened...?"  I couldn't get my head around this guy and his request for me to write for something as great as the School Journal.  The School Journal went to every child at every school, in every class, in the whole country.  Each Journal contained stories, plays, non-fiction, and poems.  There were many journals per year, catering for different age groups.

No-nonsense Maureen said, "You'll take up the offer of course...."

"Well, I will have to try and write something.  And study the market.  And -  And -"

Newbie Helen squealed.  Oooh, you can do it!"  She sounded positive.  I wished I were as positive.

But...  Somehow I did write something.  That night, actually.  In 25 minutes .  And my first play for The New Zealand School Journal, "Elephant in the Garden", saw print in 1977.

l

above:  "Elephant in the Garden" (open above) was my first printed work for the School Journal. It was published in 1977.  And my last SJ writing - "Nothing Ever Happens", a poem printed in 2013 - is on the right.  You can see from the pile of School Journals that, wow, after "Elephant in the Garden" I had many Journal acceptances.  I was so blessed.

TYPIST-IN-CHARGE, Episode 11

Hi there

It was 1969.  I was Senior Typist (Display) at the Curriculum Development Unit of the Department of Education in Hobson Street, Thorndon,Wellington, Yippee, at last, I had my foot on the first rung of the typing graded position ladder.    

At the CDU, I typed all the yearly booklets, pamphlets, reports, exams that were needed for the secondary schools' syllabus.  

And I got a spanking new Selectric golfball typewriter, the only one in the department.  Scored!

above: not quite the model I worked on but this machine is showing a good view of the 'golfball'.

above: similar to the machine I had.

Please imagine a small metal ball with every alphabet letter and number that's on a general typing keyboard crammed around this ball.  The ball is clipped onto a fork in the basket of the typewriter.  And - bingo! - when a typist types, the ball rotates up into the air, fights its way through the inky ribbon, and miraculously finds the right letter/number to put on the page.

I could prise out this general golfball, and in its place slot in different  golfballs containing umlats, italics, symbols, or macrons.  There were other golfballs too, full of mathematical figures, foreign languages, fractions, and  scientific equations.  Frequently I used a golfball for just the one key strike.

The Maori language, full of macrons, was difficult to type on a golfball machine because every time I came to a letter that required a macron above it, I would have to change golfballs.  

And I wonder if anybody realises how many upside down question marks there are in a Spanish-language exam paper?  

My record for the highest amount of golfball changes in one line was seventeen.  I got blisters on my index finger.

The Curriculum Development Unit was in two separate buildings, a one minute walk away from each other.  At morning and afternoon tea time, the officers from the other building trekked over to my building, no 32.  Obviously it was to partake of Mrs Fraser's piping hot and freshly made scones, cakes, biscuits, and savouries.  I don't know how she fitted in time to type.  Um.   Well ...   She didn't much.

above: 1969.  In my memory this building was numbered 28 Hobson Street (corner of Hobson Crescent)

above: the building as it is now.  It seems to have a different street number from no. 28, the building I knew.  Actually, the only thing I truly recognise is the entrance arch.  At present, it's an apartment block. 

above: side view, 32 Hobson Street where I worked for the CDU.  (yes, yes I know I've shown you this building a couple of times before but, sigh, needs must...).  Photo taken from 'the other end' of Hobson Crescent.

above: modern day view. It's a house and nowadays is numbered 33 Hobson Street. ??

I would shoot between the two buildings quite a bit to ask a question about my typing (translation: when I couldn't read the writing).  I adored the old-fashioned architecture and layout that was inside no. 28 (?), with its beautiful wood-look, and all the nooks and crannys of the work spaces.  We had the entire building.

The directors at the Curriculum Development Unit weren't a bad crowd, except for the one who kept his hand on my mini-skirted thigh as I drove him to the railway station one evening.  

I never reported it ...  

I was too scared to rock the boat.

*** One of my four readers has told me that after  the CDU  building was the Curriculum Development Unit, it became a hostel.  And she stayed there!  Wow, great information...

TYPIST-IN-CHARGE, episode 8

 Typist-in-Charge, Episode 8, Typing Room 206, Government Buildings, Wellington, NZ, 

I was  concentrating on the typing of a ministerial.  No rub-outs allowed for anything the Minister of Education had to sign (grrrhh, so many retypes).  Ministerials were always 1+9, which meant one original page and 9 carbon copies.  Most of the +9 had individual minutes (messages) to departmental officers typed on them, and the solitary rather carbon-ed out last page had to have everybody's minutes typed there.  On any letterhead job, and via the stencil key, the typist's initials were hidden in the departmental monogram so that an officer knew, through the carbon copies, who to return a job to for amendments.

above:  A true used typing artefact:  one of my actual government-issued rubbers (tee-hee, that's an 'eraser', if you're from the United State). 

 Since most of  Room 305 pool had split to go downstairs to the utmost middle/front of the building, Room 206, and new typists had been added, I had decided to be a good little typist, proof-read my work, and not have as many mistakes.  Or at least show as many mistakes.  Mrs Rowley acknowledged me as the best rubber-outerer of the entire two floors.

There was however one huge typist mistake that I am still berating myself over.  Know this please, gentle reader, that to type four accurate foolscap pages an hour was considered the average.  It had taken me several days to type 68 stencils.  My desk was crammed with stuff (a govt poster on the hallway wall proclaimed "Don't have a mesk!", ie a messy desk) and so I tidily set all my stencils in a stencil box on top of my waste-paper basket.  And ... forgot to retrieve them at day's end.

That evening they were whisked away by the cleaners.  Sometimes we arrived at work to find mice in the bins.  The cleaners were reluctant to empty the bins of mice, so it was up to us to call on Mr Ivers in Records to retrieve the rodents and drown them in the gentlemen's toilets.  How I do wish, as well as mice, the cleaners had been turned off by my typed stencils.

Here I was, without my typing...

And ...  I never typed so hard in my life to get those stencils re-done by the original end-of-that-afternoon deadline.  I swear my fingers turned stubby.  I worked through lunch-hour and tea-breaks, and didn't natter to anyone, severely doubting I would finish in time.  But I did do it, finishing 68 stencils with 7 minutes to spare before sign-off  time at 4.35 pm.  There were a few mistakes that came back to me the next day, but most of the alterations were because the officer had changed his mind about whole paragraphs which meant that some pages had to be done again to re-figure the entire job (elongating or shrinking margins, less or more words per line, lowering or raising top or bottom lines or where the page number sat on the page) ...

...  Francie called out, "Hey, who's got the Bijou Gothic - ?"  She needed the small print typewriter for a 10 page job that consisted of many columns to fit sideways on a foolscap page.

Mrs Rowley said, "The Bijou Gothic is up in 305."  She pointed to a corner of the room.  "Trolley's over there."

Francie wrangled the trolley out of the room and over to the lift ... 

I wasn't sent relieving so much nowadays.  But there had been a bit of a blip when I decreed I wanted to stay at School Publications in Willis Street, never to return to the pool.  I liked working at School Pubs, from where they edited The School Journal.  There was one other typist.  And the editors were fun.  Poet James K Baxter had worked there; whenever he'd got in a row with his wife, he'd slept in the old house's bathtub. One editor, regardless of chastisements over public servants not being allowed to take part in protest marches, was not only a marcher, but usually helped carry the banner in the very front marching row.  Another one, wanting a late morning lie-in, put on his vacuum cleaner to simulate the background noise of printing presses.  He rang into the department and shouted he'd be in later because he was at the Government Printer. 

But I missed 'the girls' and the pool.  I'd come straight from school and knew nothing else but a typing pool environment.  With a bit of a sigh, Mrs Rowley welcomed me back.

We had carted down, from Room 305, the pool's bunch of Christmas decorations.  Mrs Rowley allowed us time to put them up in this much bigger room.  Racing out to McKenzies chain store on Lambton Quay, we bought more crepe paper, and twisted it into garlands and hangings.  Mrs Rowley was so nice, she let new typists outside to see openings of Parliament, royal passers-through, Prime Minister's  funeral.

All Education typists and secretaries, both inside Govt Bldgs and in any of the outlying areas, were invited to the annual typists' Christmas morning tea -  

Franci is in the foreground.  She'd let someone else use her brand-new camera to take these slides!  Val is behind Franci.  

Typist-in-Charge, episode 7

 TYPIST-IN-CHARGE

Episode 7

Typing Room 305, Government Buildings, Wellington, NZ, 1960's

It was a rite of passage in Typing Room 305...  21st birthdays were a big thing.  So were marriages, Christmas, farewells, and going away to Australia for a 2 week holiday (such an adventure for me!).

Today was the day I was celebrating my 21st.  I was relieving at Stores Division in Thorndon.  But the office sent a car for me and I was feted like a queen at a special morning tea.  They'd even invited my mother.

The 'girls' chipped in with food from home, and there was a 21st birthday cake.  The cake probably came from the Art Craft Cake Kitchen which was up the road, opposite Parliament Buildings;  all our  sponge cakes and sausage rolls  came from there.

I was presented with a lovely jewellery box which I still have to this day.

above:  that's my mum behind me

above:  room 305.  We shoved two typists' desks together.

above from right:  Miss Hopkins, Mrs Parr

above: from right front: Sheila, Val.    Val had her 21st three months before me and she received two beautiful vases.

 

PS: I was burrowing away in an old suitcase and I found the above slides (slides? huh?) that Francie, typist, had taken of my 21st birthday.  Wow, was I ever so young?

"Let's Go" - New Zealand tv pop show, early 1960's

Hi there

Way back in the 1960's, my friend and I were absolutely pop music fans.  We knew all the music played weekly on radio's Lever Hit Parade (all 7 songs plus a 'suggeston').  

Television was new to New Zealand, and we had our own tv series - "Let's Go  - with NZ singers.  My friend and I managed, after a lot of sly wrangling, to secure entry tickets for the show which ran from Wellington.

The audience's job was to stand around the individual podium singers and bop along to the music.  My mum pointed out to me that the entire time I was standing beside singer Herma Keil, I was mouthing the words with him.  I was mortified by this.  It wasn't cool at all.

above: ticket to get in to the  NZ tv show "Let's Go"

TYPIST IN CHARGE, episode 3

Hi there

Here's episode 3 of 'Typist in Charge', my typing years' bio that I'm supposed to write for you once a month but seem to be a bit neglectful over the timeline -

***

Mrs Parr sloshed into Typing Room 305, Education Department Head Office, Government Buildings, Wellington.  She looked like a drowned rat.  Her linen coat and once-smart figure-hugging dress clung around her like a bunch of wet washing.  Her peepy-toe shoes leaked droplets of water.  Her rainhat - one of those finger-length strips of plastic that miraculously unfolded into a bonnet that did up in a bow under the chin - was draped wetly across her forehead, dyed blonde curls snaked in the wet down to her nose.  She clutched a short tightly-rolled umbrella, the fold-up style that had only recently hit the market;  yes, the early 1960's was such a 'with-it' era.

"I hate-hate-hate fold-up umbrellas!"  Mrs Parr, near to retirement and this icon of well-known stability, actually stamped her feet.  Mrs Rowley, our Typist-in-Charge, tsk-tsked heavily as she noted the muddy footprints on the lino. Thank goodness footprints would wipe off, unlike the threepenny-piece sized gouges everywhere on the floor where the typists had walked in stiletto heels.

Elspeth and Evaline nodded solemnly, obviously glad they hadn't gone to town in the rain for their lunch.  Francie rushed to help Mrs Parr pull off her soaked-through coat.

Mariana, our whiz at anything mechanical, muttered that these new-style umbrellas were hopeless as nobody could open them.

"Except Lorraine..."  Mrs Rowley acknowledged me.  And trying my best to look humble I gave a demonstration on the proper and efficient way to open a folding umbrella without a half-closed canopy collapsing on one's head.  Or, as seemed to be the case with Mrs Parr,  how to work the catch to even open the darn contraption.  Trumphantly, I ended my demo without ripping my finger.  I was heartily applauded.

Yes, we 'girls' helped each other in many ways. I helped them in jobs like opening umbrellas, and the other typists helped me when I couldn't understand an officer's bad writing, spelling, or adding up.  As well, they enlightened me in The Ways of The World.  One evening about half a dozen of us younger typists went out for a meal.  The typists who were enlightened in The Ways of The World started talking about the four letter word.

Amy, a new typist, and she was a Salvation Army girl to boot, looked across at me in puzzlement.  I shrugged.  "What's a four letter word?" I asked.  I was 16 and prior to this conversation had truly thought I was conversant with The Ways of The World.

"Mmmm..."  Mariana's forehead creased as she was thinking.  Finally:  "It rhymes with 'duck'."

Nope.  Neither Amy nor I had a clue.  (...and back to the present for a moment:  in the supermarket the other day, I heard an under five-year-old spouting the word that, indeed, rhymes with 'duck'.  No-one batted an eyelid.)

One thing that the typists couldn't help me with was my typing.  I wasn't very good at it.  I just didn't have the patience to check my work.  If there was a long job, maybe twenty or more foolscap pages, I  could ask another typist to silently scan my finished typing whilst I read out loud to her from the writer's manuscript.  And yet, still, Mrs Rowley insisted that I hand all my finished typing to her for re-checking.  Much of it came back for retypes.  How did the woman put up with me?  Beats me.

***

Below: an exact google image of a 1960's rainhat

below.  A google image of an Imperial 66 typewriter from my era.

City flowers

Hi there

It's so nice to get a sweet pretty place right-smack-dab in the middle of Wellington city.  It's only a small little garden, and it's between a couple of pedestrian crossings, with shops all round, but how great to spot prettiness where you least expect it.  Thanks, Wellington City Council.

Earthquake After-shocks

Hi there

Sat. NZ time

When Christchurch kept getting earthquake after-shocks for years following the big one in the South Island,  and the city residents got all stoic and casual about it all, I was gob-smacked.  How could people carry on normal living whilst being faced daily with after-shock followed by after-shock.  I'd never be able to do it.

But you know what?  I am doing it.  As i write this, there have been over 2000 after-shocks since last Monday.  Lots I haven't felt, lots I have.

I haven't sheltered under the table in several days.  Last night I was sprawled out on the sofa playing a word game on my Kindle when I felt a tremor.   I was almost at a winning score, so I played on.

There was a second tremor.  But I was nearly game-triumphant.  I kept going to the end.

On Thursday I went to the movies.  Only a couple of tremors disturbed my immersion in J K Rowling 's wizarding world.

I don't think I've suddenly developed a bravado I never knew I had;  it's  just the way my life has become.  But I must not get too casual.  I must school myself to think that the next tremor could continue on to be The Big One.  My emergency bag is by the front door, I sleep with a torch beside me ...

12 hours later

Hi there

The main after-shocks and quakes went on for two and a half more hours after the big quake. And little trembles are still going on. As I'm typing this I've felt two tremors. The country got a tsunami warning as well.

I could hear the tsunami sirens blaring right across Wellington Harbour warning people living near water to get to higher land.  In the end, the tsunami was about 3 metres high.

The centre of the biggest quake was just after midnight and centred around Kaikoura in the South Island.  I've never known quakes to be all over New Zealand.  Usually it's just one region.  Geonet New Zealand (our earthquake people) have listed hundreds of little quakes and after-shocks since midnight.   Lots of highways through both islands are blocked off.  Some towns are impossible to get into.  Landslides, road slips.  Wellington CBD all but closed today while buildings are being checked for damage.  No trains, no buses, no schools open. First day of graduate exams cancelled. The inter-island ferries could not get into their respective wharves (Wellington, Picton) because of damage, and the boats are sitting in their respective harbours.
No damage at my place, thank heavens.  Lots of things falling.
Www.stuff.co.nz
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My Favourite Bus Shelter

Hi there

There is a lot of legal artwork going on around public areas in Wellington.  On walls.  Wellington City Council electricity boxes.  Fences. Bus shelters...

Above is my favourite Wellington bus shelter.  I so love bright colours.  This shelter is on the Miramar No 2 bus route, at the corner of Elizabeth and Brougham Streets.  I so wish I could paint, or draw, or even doodle.  I don't have one art bone in my body but, of course, I have been practising drawing cubes in case I get asked to produce one by those doctors who might one day be assessing me for Shady Pines (see earlier blog). 

Sister Act - The Musical. In Wellington

Hi there

I saw "Sister Act - the musical".  I loved every minute of it.  Such a happy show and with such wonderful rhyming lyrics.  It's a very Broadway musical.  The songs are all reminiscent of the disco era.

There was one song "When I find My Baby" that was hilarious.  It's sung by the Mr Big baddie and starts off sounding sweet and ends up with him and his henchmen dancing and singing like The Temptations.  The song morphs into how when he catches Deloris who saw him commit murder, he's going to shoot her, stab her, disembowel her, kill her (!!), and all done as if he was Lionel Ritchie singing a love song.

I do love musicals. And I thought the Wellington singers performed fabulously.  Dare I say it, better than in the below overseas clip?

Rainbow Flag for Florida

I was stunned when I heard the news about the killings in Florida.  I cried when I saw on televsion all the candle-lit vigils in different countries.

The Eiffel Tower went rainbow-coloured.  So, too, did Auckland's Skytower, and our very own Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington.

Driving around the coast today, I approached the Greta Point Cafe.  Outside the cafe, and flying proudly, was a rainbow flag. 

The people of Florida will see the Eiffel Tower lit up and maybe read about our Skytower and Michael fowler Centre, and all those other big buildings around the world going multi-coloured in recognition of the sadness fallen upon the LGBT community.   And now here is a small cafe on the Wellington coast,  a little cafe that isn't even the tiniest of blips on the world stage, a cafe that's  many thousands of kms away from the United States, flying the rainbow flag in solidarity with Florida.

Sometimes it's the smaller actions that tug at the heartstrings....

  




  

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.

 

The swimmer in the thong

Hi there
I wonder if I have fooled you with the heading?

Today, J and I went for a swim at Hataitai Beach, Wellington, New Zealand.  Our fifth swim for the month.  We've had such terrible weather for the last couple of weeks.

When we arrived at the beach, the guy we call Thong Man was in the water.  He has been coming to the beach for a fair number of years now.  Summer, winter, he swims in just a  .... yes, you've guessed it ..... thong.  Or is it a g-string? - I never know the difference.  Anyway, with this gentleman, there's virtually nothing covering his bottom and a very small pouch at his front. 

He must be about 80 years old.

Today he insisted on talking to us about the weather as he got out of the water  and plodded up the stairs.  We were heading down the stairs.  Honest, we didn't know where to look!

On the one hand we admire his bravery swimming in the cold winter in such skimpy attire.  On the other hand we wish he'd swim in board shorts.  Heck, we'd even accept Speedos.  Better yet, how about a neck-to-toe diving suit....

Hataitai Beach. 

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. 

Stone Street Studios, Miramar

Hi there

I was rambling past the Stone Street Studios in Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand today and it got me wondering when Peter Jackson was going to actually start "The Dam Busters".  I know a heck of a lot of back-room activity has gone on with it already.  I think the actual filming was due to start some time back but then, because of Hollywood machinations,  Jackson had to step in to direct "The Hobbit".

I was talking to a Weta Cave guy a few years' back and he said that Peter Jackson was waiting for the dam busters book to be re-edited .  Apparently, with the lift of a declaration of secrecy time limit rule, there is  now new information that can be incorporated into the book, followed by the movie.

Of course, all the Avatar stuff is being done, too.  And I see that director James Cameron has bought more land in the Wairarapa.  He and his family are staying there indefinitely.

Here's the Stone Street Studio.  You can see the green screen.  I took the photo today, looking into the sun.  Sorry it looks hazy.

I was also intrigued by the parking notices in Stone Street that are on the studio wall -

One notice says 'public parking at all times' with one half of the arrow going to the right.
The next notice - just about 15 parking spaces away as the tourist trudges in a straight line - has an arrow going to the left and says 'private parking only'.  So, who's actually allowed to park in those spaces between the arrows?   Private studio people?  The public?  A mix of both?  Obviously Orcs can park anywhere.

It's me who's first-time effort it was with the  red blobbing out in the pic above.  I'm sure the studio would have done it more elegantly.

PS:  J and I got in our second swim for July today at Hataitai Beach.

vampires in Wellington, New Zealand

Hi there

I was so impressed with the New Zealand vampire mockumentary "What we Do in The Shadows' that I thought I'd google vampires, see if there were any others living in Wellington.

There's an Amazon Kindle e-book with free computer sampling called "Kiwi Vampire".  The vamp in question actually does live in Wellington.  There are a lot of places to  recognise.  You can google 'Amazon Kindle Kiwi Vampire' to read the first few chapters of  the the book free on your computer.  The actual book is, I think, a dollar.  There's a free Kindle computer app if you want to get the whole book.



I went for  a lovely walk in the sun yesterday.  Halfway up the Maupuia hill (behind Miramar) I had to take my jacket off because it was so warm.  T-shirted walkers that I passed were grinning, full of the joys of life and happily shouting "hello" to strangers.  Fine weather does this to people.

Here are a couple of pictures that I took from the hill suburb of Maupuia,  looking down on Miramar.  If you 'hit' the top picture you can see more clearly over to the far right what looks like a huge water tank and a square block building behind it - this is Peter Jackson's film studio.

What we do in The Shadows - vampire movie and Q & A Session

Hi there



Last night I went to the Roxy 'Theatre in Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand, to see the new mockumentary film by Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement, in which they star, direct, produce.  What we do in the Shadows.   A vampire story with old-fashioned vampires, but set in modern Wellington.  There was a Question and Answer session afterwards.

The film was done on a shoestring with the producers having to find make-do props and, as they said, they even used their own teacups in a scene.

Jermaine started off pre-movie by reading a letter from the New Zealand Documentary Board (!). 
Both he and Taika kept getting muddled up with the word 'documentary' ... documentarian ... documentarying ... documentarialisation ...  All completely deadpan.

The letter said that the Board would like to see a documentary on vampires and enclosed for reference were the vampire movies "Blade 1" and "Blade 3".  The DVD of Blade 2 was out on loan.

The movie was good.  I loved seeing all the Wellington landmarks.  I've always thought I would probably end up in The Rita Angus Rest Home (nicknamed 'Colditz' by its inhabitants) in Kilbirnie when I grow even older but now after seeing a vampire perv into the windows at night, I'm not too sure about any future plans to end up there.

So many vampire myths were delived into.  Our vampire flatmates tried to go clubbing at night and couldn't get into any of the clubs because they were never invited into them by the doormen.  The yearly big event, the supernatural masquerade ,was held in the Mt Victoria Bowling Club  (it was so hilarious to see the bowling club leader board on the wall).

Even werewolves weren't forgotten.  Rhys Darby and his scruffy scratching uncouth pals were marvellous.  And I loved the vampire minion, a married mum who desperately wanted to be 'turned', but instead had ended up  mowing the flatmates' lawn, cleaning their house, and ironing their shirts.  She complained that they couldn't wear shirts like ordinary guys, oh no, they had to wear blouses, and with frills no less.

The Q and A session:  the interviewer asked Taika and Jermaine what they had done at Park Road Post Production.  The answer was a short crisp, "Post-production."

Taika told the audience that the editing was exhausting.  He and Jermaine had taken turns, month by month.  He would go away after his month, come back, look at the work and declare it really bad, then discover  it was his own work and not Jermaine's.

A question from the audience asked about the film becoming a tv series.  The reply from the producers was that Australia were interested and also a couple of American companies.

Last night was a fund-raiser for Taika's daughter's kohanga reo (pre-school).  The little girl was there and she was such a cutie and so quiet and polite.  She ran up to Daddy and he cuddled her lovingly on his lap.   Ahhhhhhhhh......